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!

Three Blue Stitches

Envelope contains a lock of hair that had to be cut to do the stitches, luckily no shaving had to be done!

Pretty blue stitches. (So they can see them to remove them later.)

Well, we've had a fun afternoon. As we suspected all along, Payton is the first in our family to get stitches! He was walking from chair to chair (our tall kitchen chairs.) I told him to stop, which of course he didn't, and then he slipped and fell, cracking open the back of his head. It bled pretty good, but I was able to get it stopped pretty quickly. But it started to ooze a bit later, and when I inspected it closer, well, it wasn't closing up. I called our Dr. and asked if they do stitches in the office, hoping to avoid a long wait in the ER. Luckily they did and they squeezed him in right after their lunch break. And she took one quick look at it and confirmed that he did need stitches. I have no doubt that if he didn't she would have sent us away; she is a very no nonsense doctor, my favorite kind! Poor Payton though, they had a papoose type thing they strapped him down to. He didn't mind too much and thought it was fun until they poked him with the numbing stuff. He pretty much cried the rest of the time. Until our doctor started singing to him. They were talking about how he was a blue M&M for Halloween, so she changed the "I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weenie" song to "I wish I were a blue M&M." Then he stopped crying and even talked to her a bit. Overall, he was pretty brave. Not sure how he'll react when we take him to get them removed......

Halloween and Kegan's B-day!

So I finally have the pictures from our Halloween Party and Kegan's birthday downloaded and have a few minutes so here they are, just a little late....

Okay, the story with Kegan's cake. Sigh. I had the best of intentions....He has been saying for months that he wants a Wall-E cake. So the week before his birthday I asked him at dinner what kind of cake he wanted. He hemmed and hawwed. So Paul decided to help out. If you read the following conversation you will see the power Paul has over him...

Paul: Hey, how about a cheesecake.
Kegan: Yeah! I love cheesecake.
Paul seeing me cringe: Or what about those lava cakes mom made once. Those would be super yummy.
Kegan: Oh, yeah, that's what I want for my birthday. Wait, what are those again?
Paul: Little chocolate cakes that when you cut them chocolate lava oozes out.
Kegan: Oh, those were so cool. Mom lets do that.
Me aside to Paul: I don't want to make cheesecake or lava cake. He wants a Wall-E cake and I don't think I can do that on a cheesecake and definately not on lava cakes.
Paul: Hey, didn't you want a Wall-E cake? Mom can't do Wall-E on lava cakes.
Kegan: Oh, yes, I want Wall-E. So lets do a Wall-E cake.
Paul: See, you just have to guide him a little.

Conversation dropped. I still didn't know what flavor of cake to make, but at least Paul had managed to change his mind over and over....Then I remembered that I had been reading about Frozen Buttercream Transfers on Cake Central. I thought that if I made a cheesecake I could do one of those with Wall-E in cream cheese icing, and everyone would be happy. So that's what I did. The basic explination of Buttercream transfers are you get a picture and flip it so it is backwards. You put some wax paper over it and trace it and fill it in. Then you freeze the icing picture and flip it over onto the cake, peel off the wax paper, and presto! You have a very detailed picture that is perfectly smooth. Well, apparently this does NOT work with cream cheese icing. I froze it for several hours and it was still gooey. I called Paul and had him buy some dry ice thinking that I could get it to freeze that way. Well, it kind of worked, but I still was unable to peel off the wax paper. So the above pictures still have the paper on them. Its what his cake would have looked like....Instead I took it all off and drizzled it with caramel sauce. Very yummy. Just not Wall-E.

These are the Superman cookies Kegan took for his birthday treats at school. The cutter came from a Valentine's set and is supposed to be a diamond. The kind that goes in a ring. Well one day the kids were playing play dough and were making Superman things with it, and it has NEVER been used as a diamond since. I cut out Marshmallow fondant with the same cutter to go on the cookies and then used cream cheese icing for the red border and S. They were quite yummy, if I do say so myself.

Here is our family as M&M's. We were the hit of the party. Of course Paul was only there for about the last 30 minutes. He was working in Boise that day. So I had all four kids at the ward party by myself. It wasn't too terrible, I just let Kiara and Kegan fend for themselves and I held a very cranky Zander and followed Payton around playing the games. I found out about 20 minutes before Paul got there why Zander was cranky. He had a massive diaper explosion. Diarhea that would not be contained. And of course I didn't bring the diaper bag. So thankfully I had Paul stop at home and grab a diaper so we could change him before the trick or treating. Well, I forgot to request new pants as well, so he has bare legs in this picture. But all's well that ends well!

These are from Halloween night. The wig didn't last, he only wanted it because Paul and Kiara were each wearing one. We didn't get pictures of Kiara and Kegan for some reason, but they were wearing their old costumes, because the M&M's were "too embarassing"-Kiara, and "I look dumb in it" - Kegan. Man they grow up and turn opinionated so quickly!

Cupcakes and Stubborn Ear Infection

Here are the cupcakes I made for our ward Harvest Party Cakewalk. I got the idea from Foodnetwork.com. The frosting is a super yummy peanut butter cream cheese. Pretty good for a powdered sugar icing!


Well, Zander is on his third round of antibiotics for one ear infection. He wasn't even sick or pulling on his ears that I noticed. The only thing was he didn't have a large appetite. So at his 15 month check up they discovered his ear drums were red and not moving at all (they are supposed to flutter like leaves in the wind). So he got a prescription and we went back three weeks later and there was no change. He got a different antibiotic and we went back today (another three weeks later). Well, they are still red and they are moving, but not much. So we have one more try with antibiotics and a decongestant to get them cleared up, otherwise he is going to need tubes to get them drained. If we don't get him better it could lead to permanent hearing loss, and we all know we can't have that! Little toddlers don't listen at all and if he couldn't hear; well, that would be disastrous! But we also really don't want to do tubes, so pray the antibiotic works this time!

Halloween Preview

Fall is here and that means cold weather, corn mazes and costume time! I got out the Halloween box and the kids have been dressing up all day today. We went to the CSI corn maze last night with Bryan and Emily and their girls for FHE. It was really fun and we were actually lost for a little while! It was quite a chore to find hats and mittens and coats for everyone! I also started on our family Halloween costumes today. I am really excited about this.....Our ward has a Harvest Party every year and this year we are doing a family theme for our costumes. Below is a preview. Can you guess what we are going to be?

Kiara
Kegan
Payton
Zander

Still to come....Paul's and mine!

School's Out!

School was out this Thursday and Friday for State Inservice. So Tresh brought her kids to play for the day! It was really fun having them here. After we played for a while we went out to Mom and Dad's and the kids picked their pumpkins from the garden. That has been a tradition for the last few years and the kids love it! I took a few pictures of the kids and thought I'd share.

She is such a sweetie
Jumping around!
Getting another perspective on life....
My little climber - he'll climb ANYTHING!!!
I think these two kept climbing the fence for two reasons....One, to hide from the "boys," and then two, to eat the little plums in these trees!