Friday, October 30, 2009

Halloween at School and Pumpkin Carving


Today we celebrated Halloween at school. Fun class parties!


















Hazel, Madison and Montana.


















McKenna and her 2 BFFs at school got to carve pumpkins in class today.


















Maddie and I at her class party.


















Montana and Emily.























Christy... Room Mom, Planner of All Things Good, and BFF Extraordinaire.

Then, for some unknown crazy reason, I had 7 girls at my house for 3 hours! then.....

 .... we carved some awesome pumpkins tonight! Well.... Greg and the girls did, I just took pictures ;) That's a daddy tradition. :)














Look at that crazy look he has in his eyes as he weilds that knife...













Again, the knife appears....

















Tana went traditional on her pumpkin.

















McKenna went for stars.













Madison, my creative child, decided that her pumpkin should be a baby pig pumpkin. A first if you ask me. :)


















A fun (and long) day! Tomorrow we shall trick or treat! :)

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Halloween Cookies and the Fall Festival

Not necessarily in that order...

Cookies...

My latest kitchen adventure this week, since cake class is over, was Halloween Cookies. Let me just say that I will not be doing this again next Halloween unless I contract some kind of amnesiac condition (which, sadly, has been known to happen). This took farrr longer than I had remembered it taking. Then I thought, "Oh yeah, that's what I say every Christmas when I make my Christmas Cookies!"













Whatcha think?

This was the first time I've done them at Halloween. And the first time that I used a piping bag and cake decorating tip on them, which I am actually pretty pleased with! Made it easier and more accurate I think.


Fall Festival....

We took the girls to our church's annual Fall Festival and they had a blast. Rock Climbing Wall, Bungee Jump (Montana smiled as wide as I've ever seen her the entire time she was on this!), Inflatable Slide, Pony Rides, lots of candy and friends! A good time was had by all!













Saturday, October 24, 2009

Birthdays, Disneyland and Fruit Loops

I can hardly believe that my baby is 6!

We took advantage of the free ticket Disneyland offers on your birthday and headed to the Happiest Place on Earth! Montana, Emily (one her BFF's) and me. We managed to go on 7 rides in 4 hours. Not too bad! We probably could have gotten 1 more in if Montana hadn't lost her brand new digital camera (that she'd now had for a total of about 3 hours) somewhere along the way and didn't have to back track to try to find it. (No luck :( But Daddy came to the rescue and ran to Walmart to replace it before we got home!). Lucky for me it was only a $20 camera! But we did manage to make it onto Small World, Tea Cups (barf), Dumbo (again, more spinning?), Pirates of the Carribean, Thunder Mountain (a first for Montana, they were brave 6 year olds!) Splash Mountain (a new ride for both of the girls, and quite scary. I won't lie, there were tears), and we managed to squeeze in Buzz Light Year before heading to Down Town Disney for Build a Bear!


Aunt Laura treated Montana to her pick of bears and an outfit of her choice and also treated Emily and Hazel (Montana's other BFF!) to an animal as well. Sooo sweet!! I threw in a couple of shirts so that they wouldn't leave naked (the animals that is, not the girls), and wha-la, 3 very happy friends with 3 brand new cuddly friends!!



For dinner, I let Tana know that she could have anything she wanted. Her first choice, Lobster. Hmmm, you have to wait until you're 10 for that I said. Her response, "OK, then I want Fruit Loops!". I did ask her again several times that week just to be sure but she stuck with it. So the Birthday Girl got her wish and had a big bowl of Fruit Loops for dinner! Lucky me! :) And of course, some yummy Hello Kitty cake for dessert. :)

A successful 6th birthday for sure. Hanging with her two BFF's, lots of fun presents, Build A Bear, Disneyland, and Fruit Loops!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

No More 5 Year Olds :(

Welll friends, today is the very last day EVER that I will be the Momma of a 5 year old! Unless God does something weird and miraculous (which I am superlyduper hoping He does NOT!). My baby, Montana, is turning 6 tommorrow! Exciting and actually sad at the same time! Don't get me wrong, I am sooo loving the fact that she can dress herself (she is INSISTENT on picking out her own clothes each morning, and I'm OK with that even when they are clothes that I may not choose myself, EXCEPT on picture day. It WAS a struggle, but I did win that one. :) ), and that she can bathe herself, pick up afterself (on occassion), sorta kinda do her homework on her own and even tie her own shoes (in a round about sort of way).... :) .....

But remember how Tana is on this kick lately where she wants to watch home videos allll the time? Well, that's when I get sad and missing my sweet little baby girl :( I almost forget that she had that little raspy voice and her long hair and runny nose (she had allergies for her entire 1st year!... thanks for the genes Daddy!... thank God she outgrew them!)....
Soo tommorrow is her special day and we are celebrating it at Disneyland! The Happiest Place on Earth (especially when its NOT Gay Day!.. woo hoo).... :) .... Can you say "yay for free pass on your bday"?. And it sooo happens that one of her BFF's also happens to have a pass and so they are both getting to ditch school to go to visit Mickey and Donald! (Pictures to follow tomorrow).... She did inform me that now that she is 6, she will not only be going on the Tea Cups and Dumbo, but also the Matterhorn! We shall see. :) Who knows, maybe I can even talk her into the Tower of Terror... hee hee.

Now, here is the cake that I made her... remember, the cake classes that I've been attending? Believe it or not I have since had TWO, yes.... hard to belive... TWO wedding cake requests... shocking and VERY SCARY..... I pretty much told them that if they were into clowns and rainbows that I was game! :) .... But Tana had something else in mind... wellll, first she wanted HER face on the cake. Once I told her that I hadn't quite gotten to that class yet, she settled for Hello Kitty. :) So, here goes friends....

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Clown Cake and Army Guy

I got to decorate my 2nd cake for the Wilton Cake Class yesterday. Didn't come out quite as good as I would like, but I think its better than last weeks. I'm having fun. :)


Army Guy.... well, my nephew Jacob :) Home on leave from Afghanistan for a couple of weeks... Just thought I'd post some pictures from our visit.



We didn't get very creative on our poses did we? lol. But look, he actually smiled for his momma! (my sis) :)

And being silly here with his sister Brianna.
And not so silly in this picture! (sorry its so grainy). Jacob is a Medic and has earned a Medic Combat Medal! We are VERY PROUD!!!

Friday, October 9, 2009

Cake Decorating Class

I'm taking my first Wilton Cake Decorating Class at Michaels right now. :) Very fun. 1st week was pretty informational and letting us know what tools we need to buy for the course and what we'll be covering. So my $22 4 week course is now costing what??? Ok, but moving on....

We decorated our first cake of the course today! It was fun! Here it is for your viewing pleasure. OK, try not to laugh. This was my first try. I will get better I promise. But I think its pretty OK for my 1st. And BTW, I did not pick out the Rainbow, just so ya know. :) It was in the book and it was either that or a character cake, and I'm not so much into those either. Apparantly there are 'things' said about what rainbows mean, but I lay no claim to any of them. It's just a cake OK! lol

And since Jacob, my nephew, is here on leave from Afghanistan (yayyyyy!!!), we are getting together tommorrow to see him and so I'm bringing him this beautiful cake as a token of my love and affection ;). I figured he would just LOVE the rainbow! :) Oh well, he has a great sense of humor so at least he will get a laugh out of it (though he did tell me that he doesn't swing that way).
I'll be sure to post a picture of next week's cake too... clowns! Seriously?! Another favorite of mine! NOT!!! FYI... I will never, unless there is some random unforseen reason like an act of God (or one of my children is seriously delerious and BEGS me to, though that is highly doubtful), make a cake with a rainbow OR clowns (of any kind), unless that is the order of business due to a class! OH.... unless of course someone PAYS me to! Then of course that's an entirely DIFFERENT STORY... :)
BTW.... this is what the cake is actually SUPPOSED to look like (at least according to the picture in our course book). :) Not ALL that different. ;) Close enough. lol

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Happy Birthday To Me!

So I celebrated my almost 40th birthday (OK, 38, but who's counting right?) last Sunday. The orginal plan was to go to Disneyland and spend a few hours since I got a FREE ticket on my birthday. However, since we are cheapskates, Greg's annual pass that we purchased a week before when it was McKenna's birthday, doesn't allow for Sunday visits to the park. Sooo, a no go because as enticing as it sounds to visit the Happiest Place on Earth on a Sunday alllll by myself, I just couldn't quite pull it off. BESIDES.... I had forgotten allll about GAY DAY. Yep, you heard me right ladies and gentlemen. It was annual Gay Day (or weekend) 2009 at the Happiest Place on Earth. I'm not sure if the goal there is to be politically correct, or just create a mockery of individualism or what. But let me just tell you that even spending a few hours on the outskirts of Disney in Downtown Disney for lunch and people watching was some entertaining and scary stuff. I left my children at home (Thanks Laura!). I was glad. If I had felt that I could have gotten away with it, I would have taken some pictures to post for you. But alas, I do have SOME level of public manners in tact.

I did, however, get to sleep in and enjoy a homemade breakfast of my favorite, Banana Walnut Pancakes thanks to Greg and the girls, as well as some very yummy Fried Chicken for dinner (again GO GREG!), my favorite! And of course mashed potatoes, and cake too! Some roses from my garden (that Greg planted for me in February for Valentines Day) and some very sweet homemade cards and gifts from the girls and some scrapping stuff. :) My favorite. Very fun!



































These sweet cards and 'coupons' are my very favorite things to get from my kiddos. :) They even painted little things for me and found various little items that belonged to them and wrapped them up for me for presents. So sweet!
There was also an impromptu bout of entertainment on behalf of Madison at the dinner table that I'd like to share. But if you see her walking down the street, please don't embarrass the poor girl by asking for her autograph. She would be mortified if she knew that I posted this. :) But its way too cute and funny not too. hee hee.


OK... and finally... I got this super yummy recipe from Christy for Mini Pumpkin Cheesecakes! And let me tell you, they reallllly are YUMMY!! Sooo, I'm in TJ Maxx and I find, of all things, a mini pumpkin cheesecake pan in the shape of... yep, you guessed it... Pumpkins! Very cute! makes 12! Which of course is fabulous because that is exactly what the recipe makes... 12! So I went to work and it turns out that I can indeed follow a recipe! Yay me! They came out not only super delicous, but very cute as well! A big hit for sure! :)


You can't really see the pumpkin shape in this picture but they are still cute.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Flies are Evil!

Seriously, they are! I have no idea why God decided to create them. Surely there is no good purpose for them except maybe frog food and honestly I'm thinking maybe God could have picked a DIFFERENT kind of food for frogs. Really.

(Oh, you know what else is completely useless??? Lice! I don't know why I just thought of that really, just an odd revelation. I digress. Back to flies)....

We drove out to Ontario today to watch my nephew play football. It was very fun watching him play (though they did lose unfortunately), BUT ..... I cannot possibly convey to you just how MANY flies there were!!! It was just WRONG!!

If I had taken a picture of it, it might look something like this ..... TIMES 1000!!!
You think I'm exaggerating, but sadly, I am not.

I know GROSS!! But just imagine, if you will, this multiplied by 1000, and they are EVERYWHERE. You can't get away from them. They were even in my sister in laws purse for crying out loud!! What in the world are they after in her purse??

You might be asking WHY this partiular area of Ontario has soooo many flies.... welll, let me SHOW you....

The football field was a stone's throw away from COWS!!! So not only did we enjoy a festival of flies, but it was accompanied by the unmistakable odor of POOP.

And the best part of it all is that I used to live about 5 miles from there and used to deal with that EVERY FREAKIN DAY when we first moved there!! Though I will say, that my neighborhood has many, many less flies now that most of the dairys are gone. BUT I think I've seen maybe 3 flies since I've moved to Yorba Linda and it NEVER smells like cow poop! Ever! So that my friends, is a happy thing!
Oh, and you know what else?? Flies POOP!! Bet ya never thought of that before have you? Well I know that everything poops, but have you actually ever seen fly poop??? Welll, I HAVE! And let me tell you, it is not a pretty thing. Little black "dots" alllll over everything. Nice huh?

I DO NOT miss flies. I hate them. They are evil.