My Birthday!

So the joke is that February is birthday month and I have to admit that we did a lot of celebrating me this month! First we went to Napa the weekend before my birthday to celebrate with Jed and Kathy. We went out to eat at my favorite Mexican restaurant, Don Pericos. Then we went shopping at the outlet mall and just had a great time hanging out. Then my mom came to spend my birthday with me and we went to the outlet mall by us and shopped like crazy! How fun was that?! We also shopped all week while she was here and just did all the things that I love! We went out to dinner at Panera and then of course we went to Coldstone for my favorite Mint mint chocolate chocolate chip ice-cream. It was so much fun. My mom and I also made these cute bags while she was here.



I love how these bags turned out! They were so easy and fun to make. I go the pattern here
So while I was taking these pictures for my blog, a little cutie crept in front of the camera and said "cheese".


Too cute!

Brett asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I told him I wanted a Wii. So on my birthday, we headed out in search of one. We went to all these stores and couldn't find one anywhere. Who knew that it was still so difficult to get your hands on one of these. Brett went in to Gamestop and found out that they were expecting a shipment this week and that basically you just had to call everyday to see if they had them. So on Wed. I called and found out that they had just received a shipment, but the guy wouldn't tell me how many they had or hold one for me. He said "all I can tell you is good luck!". So I had just dropped my mom off at the airport and I cruised as fast as I could to Gamestop in hopes of getting my hands on one of those little babies. When I got there, there was a lady in front of me who had just bought one and 2 other people in line ahead of me. I was so nervous that I wasn't going to get one, but luckily the other 2 in front of me were just buying games, so I lucked out and I got one! Yeah! It is so much fun! We have played it everyday since bringing it home! I love bowling! Here are some pics of us enjoying my birthday present.

Got cereal?

You know that it's going to be a good day when this is the first of many messes that your 19 month old makes......


The fun would not be complete without stomping and crushing the cereal!

Happy Valentines Day!

It has been a fun day! The day started with heart pancakes. Then for the boys lunches I packed them each a heart shaped peanut butter sandwich and put a special Valentine in there from Mom. The boys had a lot of fun at school with the Valentine festivities of the day. They both came home with their little decorated bags of valentines and had a lot of fun looking at each valentine and seeing who it was from. Then tonight Erik had Karate, so Brett took Erik and Cameron and left me home with Austin to prepare our special Valentines dinner. This worked out perfectly, because the boys had no idea that I was planning anything special. While they were gone, I made a heart shaped pizza (with Austin crying at my legs) and set the table complete with red plates, flowers and candles. Then I put on one of my favorite CD's (Jim Brickman Disney Songbook). When I heard the boys coming in, I hurried and lit the candles. When they came in the kitchen their eyes lit up! Erik said "Wow, it looks great in here! Did you do this by yourself Mom?" Cameron said "It's kind of dark in here." Erik loved the dinner and thanked me for making it for him. The boys really seemed to appreciate my efforts tonight, which of course made it totally worth it for me. We had a great evening and here are some pics of our special Valentines dinner.


(*Austin is not in the picture...because I'm holding him of course! What a little stinker that boy is.)


Cute Cameron signing his Valentines for Kindergarten.

Day off...

The boys had a day off from school on Monday, so Brett took the day off as well! We had such a fun day. First we all walked to the grocery store for donuts and chocolate milk for breakfast, then later in the day we took the boys miniature golfing! This was so much fun. We have never done this with the kids and they loved it. Even Austin got in on the fun. Would you believe that it was 70 degrees here....in Feb.?!!

New look...

My blog got a makeover! What do you think? Now if only I could get a makeover! HA! HA!


So, I have wanted to learn how to quilt for quite awhile now and I came across this quilted table runner and I thought that this would be a great starting project for me. Check out the simply hearts table runner here.
You can get this and lots of other cute patterns for FREE at this fun website I am warning you though, this site has so many cute ideas, you could spend hours there! Make sure you sign up to receive their newsletter for more freebies. Enjoy! I will post pictures if and when I finish my project. After all, I still need to finish my tote bag!

CHOCOLATE!!!

Last night for Young Women's, the Beehives got together and we dipped marshmallows and pretzels and cookies into chocolate! They were so much fun to make and so easy not to mention delicious. The mint oreos were my absolute favorite! I made some for Brett and the boys and they were a big hit! We are going to attempt to do this with our cub-scouts next week. Should be interesting with five 9 year old boys and our 3 boys as well.

Anyway, this is so easy. Just melt down some chocolate (we used milk and white chocolate), then we dipped marshmallows, oreos and pretzel sticks into the melted chocolate. Then place them on waxed paper to set up. To decorate them, you can either sprinkle some fun valentines sprinkles on them or you can take a fork and drizzle chocolate over them for a fun design. This would be a fun activity for Family Home Evening. Make the chocolates as a family, and then go deliver them to your friends (doorbell ditch style) in the neighborhood. The kids could also make a couple extra for their teachers. I made a few extra bags for the ladies that I visit teach. Who wouldn't want this yummy snack!



Try dipping strawberries,graham crackers or shortbread cookies.

Photography by Cameron

Cameron got a little digital camera for Christmas (thank you Grandma) and he loves taking pictures of anything and everything. It is only a 1 megapixel camera, but it actually does a pretty good job. Here are some examples of his work.

This is a picture that he took of Erik tonight reading scriptures

The other night Erik was reading a book about robots and he saw a picture of these cute little robots and the boys decided that they could make their own from plastic eggs and clay. Here is what they came up with

Just a few random shots.




GOOD JOB CAMERON!

PJ's

I finally finished the boys Christmas PJ's....I know I'm a little late, but hey, at least they are finished. This year I let each boy choose his own fabric for his pajama pants. It is so fun to see what they each chose, because it truly reflects their interests and personality. Erik chose robots which of course he loves and he is always creating robots with his Legos. Cameron chose Star Wars Yoda pants and of course he is our Star Wars boy. He loves playing Lego Star Wars on the Xbox and one of his favorite things to do is to have battles with his light saber. Austin had a little help from his family with the selection of his fabric and we all decided that he would like the puppy pants. Austin loves dogs. Whenever he sees one, he yells "Dog!" and of course he makes the dog sound "woo woo", so we thought these were appropriate for him. I finished these up last night and the boys wore them immediately and today they came home from school and immediately changed into them. Austin won't let me take his off. So, I am thrilled that the boys love them so much!



I also made this tag blanket for Austin, with the hopes that he would become attached to it to make bedtime a little easier. But, so far, it has spent a lot of time on the floor. I did manage however to get this cute picture of him with the blanket.

By the way, Austin calls this his "banket" and as I was taking these pictures of the boys, I told them I was going to post these on my blog and Austin said "Bog" What a smart boy he is! (If I do say so myself)