Cakes

I made this doll cake for a friend's granddaughter's birthday.  I thought it turned out pretty cute.

With all the baking and decorating I've been doing...I did something a little special for John's birthday.  I "made" him a Krispy Kreme doughnut cake.  This one was tough.  It was a nice mellow birthday for me, hope he enjoyed it though.  :o)

Family Pictures

We took a little trip to Utah for Thanksgiving.  While visiting John's sister, Katianne, she took a gazillion pictures of our family.  It was so fun and Kati did an amazing job.  We had like 50 great shots.  These are just a couple of my favorites.

Oh, our cute kids.

Oh, my handsome husband.

Halloween 2012

Halloween was a couple of months ago, but I couldn't pass up posting these cute pics of our kiddos.  Grandma took all the kiddos to a pumpkin patch to choose their very own pumpkin.  It was fun and a special thing to do with Grandma.

 Liam was pretty disgusted by the whole gutting of the pumpkin thing....which totally surprised us.  But, he got past it and had a good time.

Kamryn had no problem getting her pumpkin done.  All the kids designed their own faces and I have to say that I loved Kamryn's soooo much.  It's possibly the sweetest jack-o-lantern that I've ever seen.  She had a little help with the cutting of course.

Brody designed and cut his face all by himself.  I thought he did an awesome job....and already snacking on halloween candy in this pic. 

Teagan ended up choosing a dragon stencil to try this year.  He worked really hard and long on his pumpkin and I think it turned out great.  (Don't we have good looking kids?!?!?)

John is being shy...but I think the flames turned out pretty neat.

And well, I kinda went off course a bit and carved a wacky flower instead of a face.

Our little jack-o-lantern family.

Kamryn was also able to carve a pumpkin at preschool.  This is a pic of Kamryn's and Gage's (Kam's friend) jack-o-lanterns, all lit up.

Halloween night.  We had Liam as a dinosaur, Kamryn as a princes, Sophie as a lady bug, Ryan as an Indian, James (a friend from church) as Super Raccoon, Brody as a gold ninja, Teagan as a red ninja, and Avery as a pirate.  Pretty fun group and we collected so much candy, we ended up dumping it in the bottom of the stroller.

Kamryn's #4 Birthday!

Oh this girl.  She is the cutest thing....and I can't believe she is already 4!  Of course, her birthday was 3 months ago and I'm just trying to get caught up on our blog....but I still can't believe she's 4!  I love having her sweet little happy spirit in our lives.  She asked for a "butterfly princess" cake....and this is what I came up with.  I was pretty happy with it and she LOVED it...which is why I spend hours doing these crazy cakes for my kiddos.

And it was delicious.  And Teagan is an odd child.

Daddy was in charge of birthday gifts this year and I think he did an excellent job of making Ms. Kams happy.

These are the cupcakes that I made to take into Kamryn's preschool class.  I love living in a small town where they don't have the rule of "only store bought" treats allowed.

The Birthday Girl in her new dress and shoes from Papa Nick and Lola.  Oh this girl.

End of Summer Randoms

 I know these are a little out of order...but here they are anyway.  This was a beautiful, harvest summer night.  The picture does not do this brilliant sun justice.

 I can't remember what these guys were working on, but I thought it was sweet or nostalgic or something seeing them there laying in the sun on their lunch break, just outside our window.

 We took a day to hit Silverwood before school started.  Teagan was great and so responsible.  So fun to watch this growing kiddo.

 Liam was so brave and did every ride that he could.  Brody gave his mama a scare on the very first ride we took...Timber Terror, which is an old wood and rail roller coaster.  He met the height restriction, but apparently he was just too skinny for the seat belt to hold him in securely because a couple seconds into the ride the belt was up by his armpits and he was falling out!!!  He screamed with that terrible, frightened cry and I just grabbed his arm as fast as I could and told him that I wouldn't let go.  I about lost it when we finally stopped.  It may have been the scariest moment in mine and Brody's life.  Hate those heartsick scared out of your pants moments, especially when it involves your child.

 Brody and Kamryn also ended up not feeling well this day at Silverwood, but with a little tylenol, they were able to enjoy a little time here and there.

 Right before school started we were able to watch the Threshing Bee at the fairgrounds.  My mom did the food for the Plowing Bee and the Threshing Bee and I helped her.  Since we were out there, John brought the kids out to watch the action.  They had a whole bunch of old tractors and combines on display and the kids loved them.

 We were also able to take a hay ride out into the field to observe the harvest a little more up close.  Nancy, Ryan, Avery, and Sophie joined us.  It was pretty cool.

 We really do have the sweetest kiddos.  I'm glad we're able to do these fun things together as a family.

This was some hard work.  Our farmers work hard these days as well....but holy cow, the hours and physical labor put into farming way back when.....tough job.

2012 School Pics

Teagan - 8 yrs - 3rd grade

Brody - 5 yrs - Kindergarten

Kamryn - 3 yrs - Preschool

Teagan's class pic - 2nd & 3rd grade

Brody's class pic - Kindergarten & 1st grade  (Brody's smile makes me laugh!)

Kamryn's class pic - Preschool  ("Say Cheese!"  Sheesh....where are all the smiles?!?!)

Do we have the cutest kids or what?!?!  I might just have to send Brody's class pic in to some network or something.....that little tiny kid with the hugest smile-----more people need to see it!  Ha!

Beds, Beads, Big Boy, and Baseball

John built Teagan a new bed, so we had a bit of musical beds going on.  Kamryn is the only one who stayed in her original bed.  Teagan loves his new loft bed over Kamryn's bed.

Liam is now in a big boy bed and couldn't be happier.

And Brody is now a top bunk kid!!!

Liam came and told me he had a "ball" in his nose.  Luckily I was able to get it out without too much trouble.  It was a bit scary for him....but obviously not scary enough, because 2 days later he stuck another bead up his nose.

This big boy can tie his own tie!  I was amazed when he came out of his room the 2nd week of wearing his new tie.  Pretty smart kiddo.

I can't believe I forgot to post pictures of Teagan's baseball team!  This photo is missing a couple players, but whatcha gonna do.  And for some reason I don't have a picture of Brody's t-ball team.  Dangit!

Summer Randoms

How Brody does summer lunch.

This just makes me giggle.

Liam 'steamrolling' his brothers and cousins.

Teagan was sweet to think about me and made me a Lego flower.  Such a good boy.

Mom and Larry's birthdays are only a day apart, so we celebrated them together.  I made a German chocolate cake with a chocolatey twist.  The layers were made with chocolate cake and brownies.  Mmmmm.  I also made a yummy chocolate butter cream frosting and my first attempt at making the coconut pecan frosting.  I thought it turned out yummy.  I also added some toasted coconuts and pecans and mini chocolate chips to the top....my favorite part of the cake. 

This girl used to pose for every picture taken.

It's getting harder to capture a still picture of her.

She thinks she's so funny.

I guess that'll work.

This week we had a couple bad crashes.  Teagan accidentally dropped Liam on his face on a tree trunk.  He bit through the front of his lip, had a bloody nose, tore the fleshy part above his top two teeth, and  scraped up his chin.  We even had to pick pieces of bark out of his lip.  The next day, we were at the city pool and Kamryn was going to go down the slide, but changed her mind and started heading down the stairs.  She ended up falling down the stairs and face planted on the concrete.  I thought her neck/back would have been hurt from the way she landed...but apparently she is very flexible.  She had a big red goose egg on her forehead, scraped upper lip and nose, bloody nose, swollen nose, and scraped up fingers.  Teagan also crashed on his bike this week.  No cuts, but several bruises.  Hopefully Brody can steer clear of injuries.  Although, a couple days ago, Kamryn pushed him into the city pool without his floaties on and the lifeguard had to jump in after him.  He was ok, but Kamryn was in big trouble. *sigh*  Just a couple weeks of summer left.

We've been doing an outdoor movie night every Friday evening in town.  It's been really fun and the kids look forward to it each week.

This was the crowd last night.  It's hard to see, but I bet we had 50 or so people.

Liam...ready for the show to begin.