Sunday, May 31, 2009

Sari's First Gymkhana

Sari started horseback riding lessons at the end of last year and she has been doing really well. They have competitions called Gymkhana usually about once a month but since Sari started they have all been on Sundays so we haven't participated. Finally, they have moved to Saturdays so yesterday was Sari's first Gymkhana. She was a little nervous to say the least, especially because we had never even been to one so we had no clue what to expect. It was a bit overwhelming. Once we got there though and kind of figured out what was going on it wasn't all that bad. Sari did great and managed to make it through all 3 of her events. Sari's instructor had coached her several times on the fact that for Sari it wasn't about her time, but simply that she get out there and perform the event correctly and keep control of her horse. Her teacher at the end of the night complimented her several times on her control of her horse and her performance. She received ribbons for participating in her class. Overall it was a great evening, although tiring. Sari learned the importance of repetition in her riding lessons and has a renewed desire to get to her lessons and work hard!




Saturday, May 30, 2009

Ashlie's Dance Pictures

We recently took pictures for Ashlie's dance recital coming up in June. I'll post more pictures of the actual recital. She loves the green ballet dress. When she tried it on for pictures she told me, "Mom, I feel just like a real princess, I feel beautiful!"


Jazz



Tap


Ballet

Monday, May 25, 2009

Cake Blog

Hey Everyone -

I have recently been taking a few more orders for cakes/cupcakes and I've had a lot of people asking to see my previous cakes. I have pictures, they are just a little bit of everywhere. So, with some prompting from friends, decided to make a blog all about my cakes/cupcakes etc. So, my new blog for my cakes can be found at www.letsbakesomecake.blogspot.com. I'm really excited! Go look at it and tell me what you think, either here or there :)

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Sari's Open House

In our area there is a camp that all 6th graders get to go to for one week. It is called Scicon which stands for Science and Conservation. It is sort of like an outdoors school where they get to learn a lot about science and, yep you guessed it, conservation. Sari's class went there a couple of weeks ago and it happened to land on the same week as Open House. So Sari's Open House was postponed until this week. I will post more later on Sari's Scicon adventures. It also just so happened that the night her open house was rescheduled for was Sari's first temple trip with her church youth group. So Sari went to church, Craig & Tyler went to baseball, and Ashlie & I headed off to Sari's Open House. It was very fun and Sari's teacher, Mrs. Hofer, helped us out quite a bit. She had made a scavenger hunt for everyone so that helped us know what we should be looking for in the room. Here are a few of things we were able to see.



This is Sari's Scicon journal. Each day they had to spend time writing in it about the trails/hikes they went on and some of the things they learned. Her favorite was the Quartz Trail where she was able to find a piece of quartz and bring it back. Sorry the picture is sideways.

This is from their studies on the Greek. They were able to make Greek masks. I remember the day she made this in school because they smeared vaseline all over her face and so when she came home her face was all greasy :)

This is the reading counts chart. After reading a book they have to take a short quiz on it to confirm they actually read it and understood it. Depending on the length of the book and the difficulty each book is awarded a point value. For her reading grade, she had to earn a minimum of 20 points a month. So for example, Sari read Twilight and took the quiz which was worth 25 points. However, there are some books which are only worth 1 or 2 points. It just depends on the difficulty level of the book. Sari is definitely taking after her dad and his love for reading. You can only pass a quiz one time per book and after that the computer won't allow you to earn any more points for that specific book. Sari's teacher kept track of their reading counts points by putting stars on the chart. Sari's stars filled the entire chart and Mrs. Hofer said that if the chart was long enough to fit all of Sari's stars it would have to be about 2 feet longer. Sari ended with about 750 reading counts points and read over 3.5 million words this school year. And that was just in the books she read the first time. As many of you know, Sari is a lover of the Twilight series and has read the entire series about 9 times since Christmas :) If we actually counted every word she has read this school year I'm sure she would be closer to the 10 million mark :)


This is Sari's name written in the greek alphabet. Can you tell which one is hers?

We had lots of fun looking at all of the different things Sari has done throughout the year. Her teacher also had a slideshow going of the students and said that at the end of the school year she will give each person a disk with all of the pictures on it. After we get the disk I will post more about Sari's trip to Scicon.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Cupcake Boxes

I'm getting ready to do a wedding cake in a couple of weeks for a lady who wants the "cake" out of cupcakes with just one small cake on the top! So, my original thought was to use nesting boxes turned upside on each other to stack up. However, my theory didn't work out so well once I realized that there would be no ledge for the cupcakes to sit on. So, after much thought (and talking to Dad) I decided to make my own boxes out of plywood. So my dad helped me and several hours later we had some very nice stacking plywood boxes :) I sanded the boxes and painted them but for the wedding I need to cover them with scrapbook paper to make them "pretty". So, I needed to do a trial run on the boxes to find out the best way to attach this paper. So I threw a party :) I invited some friends over and I made lots of yummy cupcakes and I tried out my new boxes. I learned that Mod Podge will work but I need to be cleaner on my cuts on the paper and go slower to work out the bubbles. Here are some pictures of the finished project! Let me know what you think and any suggestions you have, wedding is in 2 weeks :)












This is a picture of the whole thing.










For the topper I made "cakepops". They are supposed to look like little flowers. It's a new idea I tried out. Definitely a work in progress. I'm not making those for anyone, that was just for fun :)











And of course if it is a cupcake box I have to make cupcakes :) I made four different kinds: peanut butter cookie, limeade, oreo cookie, and berry delight! Very yummy :)

Tyler at the Firestation!

Tyler's preschool went on a field trip to the firestation. They had been learning about safety so it was really fun to get to go learn more about fire safety. We got to go all through the firehouse and they also showed us all about their fire engine. Tyler got to be the helper during our discussion on fire safety. He was just a little nervous. In the picture he is pretending to hold a stick and roast marshmallows when his sweatshirt catches on fire. So then we learned that you "Stop, Drop, and Roll, and Cover your face"!































Ashlie's Open House

Last night was open house for Ashlie! She was kind of sad because Sari was at Scicon (an outdoor school of science 6th graders go to for 5 days), Craig had to work and then had his final for class, so it was just Tyler, Ashlie, and I! So off we went with camera in hand to document all of her hard work.

This is a picture of Ashlie standing in front of her 3d shapes.












This is a picture of Ashlie's Ravioli's.













Ashlie wrote a poem/story about herself!












Here is her story :)











More school work!












Tyler posing in front of Ashlie's school work :)












Ashlie had to do a report/project on an endangered species. She chose the jaguar.












Ashlie's watch!




Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Sari's Music Festival

I'm an awful mom and I forgot the camera at home :( Doesn't that irritate you when you do silly things like that? So Sari had her music festival last night. She's been working on it for several weeks during music class in school. Evidently our school district is one out of only a small handful of districts in the state of CA that do a music festival for the primary grades each year. This was Sari's third year and she sure had fun. They did a small portion of probably about 20 different songs from the 90's complete with dance moves and singing. Along with all of the singing and dancing the elementary school band played and the junior high band played as well as the choir from the junior high. Sari's group was the only group of the night to get a standing ovation and they deserved it! The best part was the kids were smiling and laughing the whole performance!!! You could tell they were having sooo much fun! Good job Sari!!!

T-Ball

Tyler is playing T-Ball!!! I guess I still didn't have enough on my plate so I decided it would be fun to sign Tyler up for T-ball! Actually, it's kind of silly but ever since I found out I was pregnant with Tyler and that he was a boy I have been waiting for him to play sports. The girls have never really been that into baseball or football. Ash played baseball one year but that was it. So I've been excited for Tyler to start doing it. So, we made it to T-ball. He isn't entirely sure about playing yet. He seems to have a good time. The hardest part though is the fact that we discovered he is left handed. It took me almost 2 weeks to find the right size glove for him. I was beginning to think he was the only left handed 3 year old that ever wanted to play baseball. So, now we have the glove and we are set. We bought a little tee for home so that we can practice his batting. He does just about as well as every other 3 year old out there. There games are so funny. Usually, after they bat and they are supposed to be running to first base, they run after their ball instead. I just roll laughing at how cute they all are. There is a lot of parent participation at this age. We go out on the field with him every inning and tell him what to do. He's starting to really catch on now though, when they hit the ball, run fast and get it. The very first ball of the first inning of the first game of the season, the kids all dog piled trying to get to the ball and the bottom kid came up with a bloody nose. I thought this was a no-contact sport??? So Tyler has been having lots of fun. He gets kind of irritated with his hat though because it messes up his spiky hair. Who does that remind you of???



















Track Season

So Ashlie decided she wanted to go out for the track team!!! I guess she thought I had too much spare time :) I'm glad she wants to do all of these different activities. I like that she enjoys being active and learning new things. At this point I'm letting her do most of the things she wants, I think that by letting her try out a few different things she'll be able to pick one or two things that she enjoys the most and then we can just focus on those. At least that is what I'm hoping for :) So for about the past 6 weeks she's been practicing and she's had two meets so far. She has competed in the 400 meter dash, the 1600 meter, and the long jump. She has had a great time and this has really made her push herself further than she thought she could go. The first time she ran the 1600 she came in last place. She was very tired and by the end she thought she was going to die, she was crying as she crossed the finish line! We told her how proud of her we were and what a good job she did! As we watched the next group of kids (5th & 6th graders) run the 1600 meter we realized that about 1/4 of the kids quit the race on their 3rd time around. They never even finished it. So we really tried to reinforce that even though she came in last she finished it and that was important! So her second track meet she competed in the 1600 again. At the end of this race she still thought she was going to die, she still came across the finish line crying, but this time she wasn't last!!! She was next to last :) She still has one more track meet to go this Friday night. It was supposed to be last week but we got rained out. So, one more chance to see what she has in her :) I don't know if she is going to go out for track next year :)