Veteran's Day Parade

On Veteran's Day Sari was invited by her Riding Instructor to ride in the Veteran's Day Parade. Sari was very excited and a little nervous. This was her very first experience riding in public like that and especially to be in a parade. She did a great job and had a lot of fun. She also came home very tired because the parade was about 3 hours long :)

Wedding Rings & Garbage Disposals

I am a little slow in my blogging these days but I am going to attempt to get us all caught up! Of course my cake blog is completely current :)

The beginning of October I was working on a cake that required fondant (a rolled dough that is frosting). When I am working with my fondant I always take my rings off otherwise I get fondant in all of the little grooves and it is a pain to try to clean. I had taken my ring off and laid it up on the counter. After I was done with the cake I was cleaning up the kitchen. I was standing in front of the sink with the garbage disposal on remembered I hadn't put my ring back on yet. I grabbed my ring and went to put it on my finger, but my hands were all wet and it just slipped right out of my hand and went straight down the disposal! AHHHHH!!!! I screamed and cried, then cried and screamed! I had the disposal turned off within just a couple of seconds. I stuck my hand down the drain and felt around and much to my delight I felt my ring. I pulled it up full of hope and then saw my ring. Despair set in! My ring was a mess! I have 3 bands all sautered together and they were each all bent in different directions. I was missing two of the smaller diamonds and the whole band was all cut up and scratched! Craig was working and I didn't have the heart to call him and tell him. So I sat there just looking at my ring all afternoon, crying!

Luckily when we purchased each of the pieces of my ring we also purchased the lifetime warranty. I read it thoroughly and the only catch I could find was "Under normal wear & tear". I don't think garbage disposals are included under normal wear and tear. Still I had to hope so off I went to the jewelry store. These are pictures of my ring the day I handed it over. Kind of blurry but I think you can still tell how badly the ring was damaged. Everyone working at the jewelry store had to come look at it because they had never seen a ring so badly damaged.



After a couple of false alarms and several phone calls, I was able to pick my ring up almost 3 months later. I was simply amazed! It looked like a brand new ring! I was so sad though because when I went to get it, I put it on and it fell right off my finger, it was too big! So I had to send it back in for another 2 weeks to have it resized!

Alas, I have my ring back and it has hardly left my finger. I was decided though that when I am taking it off I will put it upstairs on my ring holder and not try to put it on over sinks or other areas that could cause damaged! Here are the after pictures :)

Horse Back Riding on the Beach

Sari's riding instructor invited her to go on a camping trip at Pismo Beach where she takes the horses along and they go riding on the beach. As it turned out, the weekend of the camping trip was the same weekend as Tyler's last football game and his awards ceremony. So, Sari and I headed off to the beach by ourselves and left Craig home with Ash and Tyler! We had so much fun!!!

We headed over on Friday morning and once we got there and got all set up Sari got to go out and ride Chester (her favorite horse) out on the beach. Funny thing is, most of the horses love the water. So they actually go out into the water and ride and play on the horses. She had a ton of fun.

The next morning she had to get up early with the rest of the girls and go feed the horses. After we all ate our breakfast all of the riders headed out again to go out on the beach with the horses. From the time they leave camp, saddle the horses, ride to the beach and hang out, ride back to the stables, untack the horses, and make it back to camp it is about a 3-4 hour time frame. So once they got back from their morning ride it was time for lunch and a nap. Everyone pretty much did just that and then got ready for one more Saturday ride. When Sari got back from her 2nd ride we hung out for a bit and ate dinner then headed home about 9 o'clock that night.




We were sad to leave because we were having so much fun! Her riding instructor says its even more fun to go camping in the mountains with the horses. So I guess next trip we'll be heading to the mountains.

Ashlie's Trip To The Dentist

Ashlie is a very funny girl. Poor Sari always to have some issue with something, either dizzy spells, glasses, asthma, cavities, now braces. It's always something! Ashlie just sits by watching as Sari has all of this stuff "done" to her and medicine to take etc. Ashlie has been trying to need glasses for the past couple of years and the eye doc keeps telling her she has basically the most perfect vision you could ever have! She's never had a filling and is hardly ever sick. I think sometimes she fake coughs so we will give her allergy medicine.

About a month ago she started complaining that she had a tooth hurting on the bottom in the back. I took her in to see the dentist and after a complete exam and x-rays we determined that she has some permanent molars growing in that are causing her some pain. Poor kid couldn't even get a filling done! Until yesterday.

When she got up she showed us this spot on her upper gum that was all swollen and nasty looking. So I got her in to see the dentist. Once again, the problem is that she has 3 permanent teeth ready to push through and it is crowding her baby teeth right there. But that wasn't the end of it! One of the baby teeth that was being squished had a cavity in it. They had seen the cavity but since the tooth was getting ready to be pushed out anyways they didn't do a filling. Well, that tooth got infected and the swollen part on her gums was the infection attempting to drain. So, the doctor numbed her up and attempted to pull the offending tooth! Except we learned the hard way that infections don't numb very well :( It was quite the traumatic experience for Ashlie - to have to get her first shot in the mouth and have a tooth pulled and for it to not deaden very well :(




She did survive, although not happily, and we managed to make it home with a cup full of gauze, a tooth in a glittery holder, and a prescription for antibiotics. She laid on the couch most of the day with an ice pack relishing in all of the attention.

Today she is fine. She left a very nice note for the tooth fairy and was excited the tooth fairy left her some money in return and let her keep the glittery tooth holder :)




Translation of Letter:
Dear Tooth Fairy,
I tried to be brave at the dentist. When they pulled my molar out, it hurt so bad that I started to cry. Make sure that you get my note! I still believe in you! By the way, I got the sparkly tooth holder at the dentist. Cute, huh?!

Love,
Ashlie

Tyler Turns 4!!!

So even though I am very behind in blogging, Tyler actually did have a 4th birthday! And he asks us at least every other day or so if he is still 4 :) Tyler decided he wanted his birthday all about Batman. So I made a Batman cake and he got a ton of little Batman toys. He loves them, but within about a week he started asking where his Thomas cake was. We were wondering if he was leaving the trains behind, but as for the last couple of months since his birthday he still very into his trains.

He had a great time on his birthday. We got him a bike with training wheels. He loves to go on bike rides now.

He is such a fun little guy and we are so blessed to have him in our family. He definitely causes lots of messes and mischief but brings even more laughter and smiles. I love watching how his mind works. He loves to figure out how things work, especialy wheels! He can lay on the floor for several minutes just rolling a car or a train back and forth watching the wheels.

As you can see from the pictures he doesn't sit still very often, so for him to be still for any amount of time is quite impressive :)

Does Heavenly Father have a car?

This morning Tyler was sitting beside me and we were just talking about random stuff. Whatever 4 year olds like to talk about. He loves to ask questions and he always follows the answer with "Why?" but it comes out in this okey long drawl sort of way :) So this morning he says, "Mom, I have a question. Does Heavenly Father have a car?" I softly chuckle and respond, "Well, no He doesn't have a car." Before I can respond any further he adds, "Does he have a sleigh?" Little louder chuckle, "Um, well, no He doesn't have a sleigh either" "How about a truck or a motorcycle?" "Well Bud, Heavenly Father doesn't have any kind of car or truck or anything like that. He doesn't need it." "Why?" Oh no, here we go. Lucky for me Ashlie joined in the conversation and got him distracted so off they went to play. Once Tyler starts asking "Why?" it can seriously go on indefinitely! Oh the wonders of a 4 year old mind :)

The Family Proclamation

Each year at church we have an event called Craft Saturday. It is a day where the ladies can all come together and socialize and eat and do crafts. There are several different crafts that we can order and then work on that day or you can bring your own crafts from home to work on. This year we are doing a family book on the Proclamation to the World. If you aren't familiar with the Proclamation to the World you can view it in its entirety at www.lds.org. Basically, it is our beliefs on what a family is. The family book we are making goes through the different sections of the proclamation and allows areas to put pictures that correspond with the different sections. I made mine early to use as a sample. I was so pleased with the way it turned out. Such a testimony of how important the family is.

Funny Little Guy

Tyler is such a normal little boy and sometimes I get frustrated because he can be so ornery, and then I remember that little boys are supposed to be mischievous. Sometimes we just sit back and chuckle at the funny little things that he says and does. For instance this morning he was sitting at the computer and he was trying to load some program and it was taking a really long time. He says to me, "Mom, I think the omputer is frozen. It doesn't like being so ice cold. It gets all freezing and needs a blanket!" So funny, we talk about the computer freezing all the time, I just didn't realize what that sounded like to a little guy :)

His favorite new word is "Why?" He can ask that question endlessly, and I try to give a decent response for the first 50 or so times he asks it to any particular statement, but then, I just get impatient and use the dreaded "Just Because, okay!" I try to be a good mom, but sometimes, "Why?" just gets the best of me!

I love watching him play with his toys. He loves to see how best to destruct things. Whether it is by him taking them apart, sending them down the stairs, driving them off the table, or simply crashing them into each other. And the louder the crash and the more pieces that fly off the better :)

He still loves his trains and plays with them all the time, but they are having some competition with a new love of Tyler's! He has discovered Batman! The trains haven't taken second place yet, but Batman is definitely taking up some of his play time!

1st Day of School

Today was the girls first day back to school after summer vacation. We are all very excited for school to be back in session! Definitely ready for more structure in our lives :) Ashlie started 4th grade and now goes until 3pm everyday. Sari started 7th grade and moved to a different school than the elementary school! That means that for the first time the girls are at different schools. Weird for all of us. Things seemed to go good today for both of them. This is a picture of the girls this morning! I'm not sure what Craig was doing but that is his arm flying through the picture :)

Ashlie Turns 9

Wow! What a fun (and exhausting) time we had celebrating Ashlie's birthday. Several weeks before her birthday, Ashlie had her entire birthday planned. She knew who was being invited, what to eat, where to go, activities to do, decorations to put up, and even what kind of cake to make and ice cream to buy. It made it easy to pull it together last minute but we hadn't taken into account our exhaustion coming into the celebration! It all turned out fine, just very tiring! She had a good birthday and that is what matters! I'm just wondering though, why do they call it a slumber party when there is very little slumbering done???

The celebrating actually began the day before her birthday with the primary children singing happy birthday to her at church. It just so happened that there were 2 other children who shared the exact same birthday with her!

Her birthday fell on a Monday this year. Craig made her scrambled eggs (her request) for breakfast and then the 5 of us headed over to Adventure Park for some birthday fun. We went at lunch time so were able to all eat at the pizza buffet and then we played some games in the arcade area. After that we all went out and rode the bumper boats! It was especially fun because this was Tyler's first time riding the bumper boats. He finally hit the height requirement. Tyler rode with Craig in one boat and then each of us girls had our own. We were the only group on the boats and no one was in line so the attendant let us ride for a really long time. By the time our ride was over we were all pretty wet! Ashlie spent most of her time over by the waterfall, the rest of us spent our time trying to squirt each other! We all had a really fun time.


This is a picture of the kids after the bumper boats!


After Adventure Park we came home and straightened up to get ready for the slumber party. Ashlie had 3 friends over! We had tons of fun! They got to make their own mini pizzas for dinner, decorate their own cupcakes, make chocolates, swim, eat popcorn, watch movies, and play RockBand! At 3 am we had to finally put our foot down and make them go to bed! We're too old for 3 am parties!!! Especially since we realized that Craig had to work the next day :( The next morning Craig got up early for work and made pancakes at Ashlie's request. We had M&M's, whip cream, strawberries, chocolate chips, and sprinkles for the toppings! They all had a great time and were very tired to prove it!

The beginnings of the morning after the 3 am party!


And now they sleep!


There are 4 of them there! Can you count them all?



During the night they played with dolls, played games, played RockBand, and had a hair cutting party with the Barbies!


Breakfast condiments

This is the state of the kitchen table the morning after the slumber party :)


Do we really have to wake up???


This was her cake for the family party! She requested a waterslide cake. On each of the three layers there is a fondant wave all around the top. It didn't turn out as good as I wanted but I guess that is what happens when you are working under the conditions I had :( Oh well, Ash was happy!