Two years apart

On the way to school today I instructed the boys to hurry out after choir because I had to drop them both off at scouts at two different places. Landon said, "Daniel and I will never be in the same scout group, will we?.....Well, until Young Mens." I told him that even then, they would always be in different quorums. Since they share a birthday and are exactly 2 years apart, they won't even overlap. I said, "When you are a teacher, Daniel will be a deacon and when you're a priest, Daniel will be a teacher. And if your missions overlap at all you guys could go like four years without seeing each other!"

There were a few seconds of silence and Daniel piped up, "I could live with that."

Kate, Cake and Hearts

This is a bit of a copy from Heidi's blog, but I loved her heart bouquet idea so I had to make one of my own. Instead of floral foam, I just used red hots in an old vase I already had. I had so much fun with the cute paper that I ended up making these little blocks also. I just modpodged all the paper on some wood blocks that I got at Robert's for $1. I usually don't like Valentines decorations, but this one makes me happy!

One of the kids friends told them about "Cake Boss" and we've all had a bit of an obsession with it. We have the first 2 seasons on Netflix and the kids love it. Seriously, I didn't even know what fondant was until I picked out my wedding cake and my kids are all like, buttercream, fondant, modeling chocolate fools. Emma and I experimented with Marshmallow fondant the other night and this is what we came up with. We made a HUGE mess and learned lots along the way about what works and what doesn't. It turned out pretty good and it tasted excellent! Please remember that a six year old did most of the design and cut-out and placement of everything. My cake would have looked much better. Not really.
Just had to throw in this little picture of my Katers. She is so cute! It's hard to tell, but she was holding 3 pink purses and had to take them to the store. She has been sick this week and up ALL. NIGHT. LONG. She sure is a joy, in spite of the sleepless nights she provides us with.

Way to go, Grace

Today was one of those crazy, and I mean crazy, run around days. Kids going in all directions! And Kate refused (trust me, we tried!) to take a nap! I was picking Landon up from his first band practice at the school and was sure that he would'nt be able to tell which white mini van was ours in the darkening night. So I hopped out of my car and walked as quick as I could ( it was freezing and I didn't have my coat on) to the entrance. I came to the gutter where all the other vehicles were lined up waiting for kids and saw that it was full of a lot of slush, so I decided to jump over it. It was more of a leap, really. The minute my foot hit the other side, I realized I had jumped right onto a patch of ice and both feet went flying out from under me. I did a beautiful opera kind of singing scream and landed hard on my elbow and tushy! It was pretty awesome. If it didn't hurt so bad I for sure would have laughed right then and there, but the fact is, there were like 50 other parents and students that probably saw me fall. I did feel stupid. But it is pretty funny. I just took some ibuprofen and think I'll go soak in a nice, hot bath.

My most undocumented December yet

December is always oh so busy and we seem to have many things that we are running to and from. I usually try to capture most things on camera, but this year I think I must have just been lazy about it. I did snap a few shots here and there, but I didn't even have my camera on Christmas because it was hiding somewhere. So here are the few pictures I did manage to take this month. And here we go into January (blah!) and so begins dance and choir and band and basketball and piano and scouts and whew! and I'm already looking forward to warmer weather! Here are some other highlights that were not captured by the camera.

- Kate escaping from me during the final song of a Voice Male concert. I was searching the back of the concert hall for her when I heard Richard say in his microphone, during the song, "She's up here, Jenny." And Kate was running across the front row right by the stage. "That's my daughter, and here comes my wife." I had to really run to catch that little stinker. It made for a fun ending to Lion Sleeps Tonight because the words became, "she got away, she got away.......we de de de de de de de de, my daughter got away." Yeah, totally planned.

- The Hague family Christmas party where the kids got crazy amounts of balloon creatures thanks to Uncle Joe and Richard showed off his skills as a balloon wrangler. If you ever need to get helium balloons down from the ceiling of a church gym, he's your man!

- The awesome dance party we had at our house after putting on our Christmas Eve jammies and before watching a movie. We had to get our wiggles out and we all had so much fun! I love watching my kids dance!

- The Huffs boys and McAllister boys having a great time at Laser Tag and Landon whooping on all of them- even Richard and John. Boy, I bet thats tough for a grown man to handle!

- All the amazing food that has tasted so amazing and has made me feel like crap. For this reason, I welcome January and eating normal again!

- Driving to Sandy on the night of the terrible snow storm. It took me 2 hours to get from Lehi to Sandy!

- Singing with the band at a wedding that the piano player couldn't make it to because of the storm. I was able to fill in on the piano when I wasn't singing. This was a first for me, as I don't read charts and I don't improvise. I can to anything if I have music in front of me, but I managed to get the hang of it and was proud of myself for doing a decent job!

- Christmas parties with both of our families and enjoying spending time with them all.

- Kate waking up on Christmas morning and looking at all the presents and saying, "Santa Claus came to town!!!"

- Christmas Eve brunch at Dave's and going with everyone to see Tangled....loved it!

- Landon, Daniel and Emma snowshoeing into the cabin. It's not a sissy trail and even Emma did amazing and didn't whine or complain!

- New Years Eve at Lori and Troy's and driving back in -16 degrees! That's right, negative 16!!

We celebrated East coast at 10:00 but didn't leave until 11:30. All the kids eventually fell asleep in the car and Kate was the last one still up at 12:45!!!

Kate on Santa's lap- she loved Santa this year!

Sweet Emma

This is where Daniel informed me that he told Santa he wanted a red Nerf sword. This was the first time I'd heard about it and with only a few days before Christmas I found one after searching 2 Walmarts and 2 Targets. Thank you, Toys R Us!

The kids were totally into collecting rubber duckies after Voice Male concerts this year. They had 162 at one point. Most of them have been donated to other homes now.

Look at the crazy amount of snow in Fairview!