Payton and Prayers

Prayer time has become a routine in our family. One of two things happens.

1. Paul: Mom/Kiara/Kegan/I will say prayers tonight.
Payton: NOOOOO!!!! ME say prayers! MY turn!

OR

2. Paul: Payton, its your turn, say prayers please.
Payton: NOOOOO!!!! I say it LAST time.

Seriously those are your only options.... We just can't win.

Hailstorm and other things.

We had a cool and quick hailstorm just now. The hail stones were between 1/4 and 1/2 inch. Zander watched it with me and thought the "balls" were cool. He refused to go outside to look though, even after it was done. Don't blame him, it was very loud for a bit.
It only lasted about one minute. Pretty good coverage for that amount of time, I think.

Zander is officially into the mess making stage. He can open doors, lift toilet seats and climb like there's no tomorrow. Nothing is safe.
Especially when an older brother opens a lotion jar. Not my cheapo lotions mind you. They chose the jar of my expensive stuff. And moisturized my wall. One of my freshly painted walls.... And the piano. Always, ALWAYS choose the scrubable paint!

This was from Kiara's clogging competition in Pocatello. They did great! One team dance got a 1st place and the other a 2nd. Kiara got all 1st places on her five solos. So she has qualified for Nationals in May at Lagoon. Yay!

Her team earned a trophy! The other kids had left already, so these three accepted the trophy. They were super stoked!!!!

They weren't too thrilled with the spider that had taken up residence in their trophy though.....

There's Toothpaste On My Ceiling...

There's toothpaste on my counter,
and in the sink,
and on the bathroom floor.
With four rugrats in the house,
it's not hard to see why.
But....
There's toothpaste on the couch,
and on the chair,
and on the front door.
This too can be explained.
for when the doorbell tolls,
four rugrats race to answer,
toothbrushes in hand.
BUT....
There's toothpaste on my ceiling,
and this remains a mystery.

Happenings

Here is a Dora cake I got to do last week. It was fun and the little girl loved it. Payton wants a Diego cake for his "Happy Birthday Day" now. It's only 5.5 months away.....

It is Clogging Competition Season again. Kiara did very well. She got two 1st places for her team dances and five 2nd places for her solos.

This is from her Freestyle Solo. They have to dance all by themselves. Scary. But she was a pro! Just got to get her more confident so she will smile.

All around solos. They are judged individually, but 4 dance at the same time.

One of her team dances.

Zander in his new big boy bed.

Cakes

Well, its the second week of the second month and I am finally doing my first post of this year. I have good intentions of posting more often, and I have good excuses why I haven't, but I'll spare you.....soon enough my projects will be finished and I'll share, and then you'll know what I've been doing with all my time!


I have done several cakes in the last little bit. Paul and I had our annual cake night where I make us each a cake for our birthdays (they are 5 days apart) and then have a bunch of people over to eat them with us. I forgot to take pictures though. I didn't do any fancy decorating this year, just made them extra yummy and let them speak for themselves.....Paul had yellow cake with browned butter frosting filling and milk chocolate butter cream. I had a pumpkin cake with cranberry butter cream filling and cream cheese icing.....I searched every store for fresh or frozen cranberries and Paul even checked some stores in Boise, but they couldn't be found. So I used some canned cranberry sauce and it tasted just fine, but fresh would have been much better. I have to remember to buy some next Christmas season and freeze my own.

I also got to do the piano cake below. It was fun. Unfortunately Zander put his finger in the cake and broke one of the keys and Payton pulled off a black key. All of this AFTER I let them eat the extras....Sigh, caking with kids around is always an adventure... I was able to reasonably repair it though.... It has my favorite yummy milk chocolate butter cream. I have been having problems with it; if it gets even a little cold it gets too firm and not all silky like it starts out. So I've fiddled a bit with the original recipe and now it is perfect. Tastes just as great, and I didn't have the temperature problem this time.....Yay!!!

Serious Slacker

I have been seriously slacking on the blog thing. But in my defense, Santa's Workshop was going non-stop. I don't have photos of all I made, but I'll give a list. It is quite extensive!

10 pairs pajamas
4 girls dresses
1 hand sculpted doll (not ever doing that again it turned out fine, but I found gorgeous 18 in dolls at Michaels that I much prefer making clothes for.)
11 doll outfits (mostly using up my scraps, which take up a large shelf in my hall closet)
1 car city
12 cuddle wraps (blankets with legs that you can use in the car seat. I got fleece on a great sale and made a bunch to have baby gifts on hand)
1 party dress (which I didn't get to wear to Paul's annual work party, the snow got it canceled. I did wear it to church.)
1 nativity table runner

I think that is it, but phew! that's enough!
I also hemmed a few pairs of pants. Made around 60 chocolate covered oreos, about 40 kisses filled with hazelnut fudge and a huge batch of penuche. Oh, and 30 graham cracker houses for Kiara's class to decorate at her Christmas party. This stuff I worked on until about a week before Christmas and then I spent that whole week cleaning up the house as it was seriously neglected. But we are all back to our normal routine, except now I have some serious playing to do. (see next post!)

I'm in love! I'm in love, and I don't care who knows it!

The object of my affection?

Yep, that's Paul in all his glory....Cute huh!?

The reason for a public announcement of my affection??????

Sew pretty!

Finally, after nearly 10 years of marriage, he got me a new sewing machine!!!! Which is also an embroidery machine! Now the story.....When Paul graduated from BSU (6-ish years ago) we got him a BBQ grill. The deal was that when he graduated from Law School, I would get the graduation present in the form of a new sewing machine. Well, that just didn't happen. We were too poor and I wanted a really good machine. And we didn't have a job yet and baby #3 was going to arrive soon. So technically I've really only been waiting 3.5 years. Paul asked me for a list of things I wanted for Christmas this year, which he never does; he is really good at figuring out great gifts without a list. So I jokingly put my dream sewing machine on the list. Never did I really think he would get it, but he did!!!! I was pretty excited to see it sitting out Christmas morning. But the first time I used it, (I know everyone is now going to know just how nerdy I am, but oh well!) I was almost in tears! I was and am so excited and it is so fun! Oh the fun I will have. Oh the things I will create! In fact I already have created! Payton has been waking up multiple times in the night because he is cold. His fleece blanket that he uses was just too small for him now. So I went and got some fleece to make him one like Kiara and Kegan's. But of course I had to embroider on it! And I figured while I was at it, Zander should get one too. I am also working on our stockings that I made last year. I am re-doing the tops of them so our names are embroidered and not just drawn with a fabric marker. I'll post pictures when I am done with them. I also have plans to do new quilts for the boys room as Zander will soon need to move from his crib. I've had those quilts designed for a while, but now I may have to add embroidery!

And finally I did get a cake in! My cousin adopted his wife's oldest girl and they were sealed last week. Well, it was also the younger sister's birthday that day, so they asked me to make her a cake. So of course I did! The only guidance I had was she wanted chocolate cake and chocolate frosting, so that's what she got! She was pretty excited, I was glad to help make that day special for her too!