When is it time?

Parenting is full of questions. When is it time to __________? is a common one. One I am once again contemplating is "When is it time to end naptime?" For every child it has happened at a different age, but I do have an answer that is universal.... When it takes more than 5 minutes to clean up the mess they made in their room while they were supposed to be sleeping....

For example. If they empty all their drawers and sort their clothes into piles by color, that's a quick clean up. If they convert their bed to a slide (move the mattress half off.) That is a fairly quick clean up. If they found a crayon and very artistically decorated the walls/dresser, that a quick clean up, (if you have a magic eraser, and they are magic). If they line up 100 or so diapers into a train, that's a quick clean up. With these examples you must continue to insist on nap time. For everyone's sanity!!!!

However, anything requiring you to get out your carpet steam cleaner and clean the ENTIRE carpet (a spot clean would be different). Well, perhaps nap time is no longer worth the battle.....

Anniversary Trip

So for our tenth anniversary this year we took a trip. Paul got to ride the STP (Seattle to Portland) bike race. Well, bike ride, I guess for him. I sat in the motel with a stack of books to read and movies to watch on cable. I mostly read. I met him at the finish line. Then the next day we played around Portland. We ate at a really good restaurant called Papa Haydn's. It was yummy. When you walk in they ask if you are there for dinner or dessert. Heh. ;)(I researched it before hand.) We had both. Dinner was good. The menu is one page - double sided - just paper. The DESSERT menu is leather bound and two pages, with an extra page of seasonal specials. Oh HEAVEN!!! Paul got a fallen chocolate soufle and I got something I can't remember the name of, but it was 3 or 4 layers of meringue that had whipped cream and assorted berries in the layers and it was all drizzled with chocolate. I will be trying to replicate that sometime for sure!

100 miles into the ride.

175 mile into the ride

Just before the finish line - 200 miles

THE END of the ride!

The last day before driving home we drove out to the coast in Newport and went to the Aquarium there. It was quite large and they had tons of sea life. I got to pet a shark, sting ray, star fish, anenome and some other stuff. Paul did touch one thing, but it took some coaxing. And reasurring that they had hand sanitzer available. Heh. We then drove up the coast to Tillamook and saw them make (well, package really) cheese. And sample the cheese, fudge and ice cream. I have always love Tillamook ice cream, but WOW it was so much better there. I don't know if its a different recipe or if it was just fresh, but YUMMMM! I got the Caramel Butter Pecan, if you're interested...

Kegan loves all sea life due to Grandpa Thueson and of course Sponge Bob. So we took tons of pictures for him. We had to include the Jellyfish thanks to Sponge Bob...One kid asked his mom is he could bounce on the tops....thanks Finding Nemo!

the shark and sting ray tank

That's pretty much it, but we had a great time and it was good to come home to the kids. They had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Kilie and Uncle Brad and clan. Thanks for all their help!

Arrington Reunion at Bear Lake

We had an extended family reunion at Bear Lake with Paul's family. There were about 60 people and we only missed 1 husband who had to work and 1 mother and newborn baby. We had a ton of fun catching up and playing on the beach. Everyday was a different holiday. We had Halloween and Thanksgiving (complete with the tradition meal) and Christmas. (We had Paul's BBQ pork instead of another turkey/ham dinner.) We made a Christmas video of a Christmas story from one of Paul's ancestors which I had a role in...not my favorite thing being in front of the camera....I much prefer being behind it!

Normally pictures of me do not end up on my blog, but today is an exception I guess....
Bear Lake is famous for its raspberries....which happen to be my favorite berry...so we snuck off one night to get famous raspberry shakes. They were delicious. There were two fast food places across the street from each other. One had Famous Raspberry Shakes and the other had "Famous" Raspberry shakes. We had the Famous ones and some other cousins got the "Famous" ones. The ones with quotation marks were MUCH better. Weird.

We stayed at a HUGE lodge with 15 bedrooms. We got two of them, one with a king size bed and one with two bunk beds. The bunk beds were very tall, I had to stand on my tip toes and raise my arms to get this picture. Sleeping was rare on this trip.

A Halloween pinata instead of trick or treating....

Beach time!

Sleep time!

I wish I had a picture of everyone, but they haven't been sent out yet, so I'll have to share later.

Zander's B-Day

Today is the day I catch up on blogging. So a month + ago was Zander's 2nd birthday. His favorite things at the time were trucks so that is what he got for his cake. A Truck! He was so excited for his " 'ruck cake."

A fun time was had by all.

Couple of Cakes

Urgh! Does anyone else hate how blogger puts your pictures on backwards??? Oh well.. First is the R2D2 cake I did today... Pretty cool, but compared to my inspiration done by a pro, well, not as great....

This was a super hero cake for my nephew's third birthday. I love those boys!

Both cakes featured my favorite cookies and cream buttercream frosting covered in fondant. Cute and delicious, which is my goal with every cake!

Cute Cakes

These are the cakes for my niece's birthday. They were inspired by some cup cakes I saw on Cake Central. (Love that website!) I did three mini cakes instead of cup cakes though. They were super fun to make and pretty easy too. I haven't done fondant for a while. But I found a great new recipe on Cake Central that tastes fantastic!!!! My niece wanted a strawberry cake. I obliged and did a Classic Strawberry Buttercream to go with it. I tinted half the cake batter purple, and swirled it with the pink batter. The cake was pretty inside too!

Hair and Vaseline Don't Mix

Where to start.....Sometime in the last month or so Zander has changed from a kid that would run excitedly to the tub when bath time was mentioned to one who screams in fear and runs away...He also screams bloody murder when having his hair rinsed. I have no idea what happened to cause this change, but I've tried to be extra gentle and reassuring. Until yesterday. My fury at the Vaseline incident may have scarred him for life....

He found a container of Vaseline that I haven't seen or used since he was an infant. And washed my couch cushions with it. And smeared great globs of it in his hair and on his clothes. The clothes are in the trash. So is most of his hair. The cushions have been scrubbed, dried and then turned over. (Thankfully it was the old ugly couch.) Turns out shampoo will not wash the stuff out. The first two photos were taken after scraping as much stuff off as I could and then shampooing twice. I then tried dish soap, thinking, "Hey, this stuff removes baked on grease, it should work on Vaseline." Nope. Tried twice. No improvement. I decided the hair would have to go. So I combed it all up and took the clippers to it. Too greasy. I chopped it mostly off with scissors then went to the tub for more washings. Finally I got it out, but I had to use some Goop Off stuff we had to get paint off the wood floors....(Don't worry, I read the label, and it was safe, I just had to avoid his eyes-which I begrudgedly did.) Then I used the clippers to even the hair out, and then it was back into the tub for one last rinsing. Poor kid, but he got what he deserved!!!! Then I had to scrub the tub of the hair ring caused by the Vaseline now in the water.....sigh.

Love Payton's face in this....although he didn't get the stuff on his clothes or hair, he did help smear the couch and I suspect he opened the jar for Zander.

The new look. Little booger has no right to look so cute!