Mother/Daughter T-party

We made muffins and cut out these dresses, except for the middle part as we just folded them in half and stuck a toothpick in the middle, and glued them shut. Then everyone knew what kind of muffin they were taking before everyone started touching all of them, smelling them and then putting them back ;)

Google Doc found here.

Each T-word had a teapot with flowers and the T-word:

This was a note card put by the teapot flowing flowers into a cup - picture below with the 3 white dresses:

Google Doc found here.

Each girl got to take home a white napkin dress, they loved them!

Google Doc found here.

I wrote a song to 'I'm a little Tea Pot'. Words on the hankie dresses found on the Google Doc here.

My body is a temple, there's no doubt

Spotless and pure, inside and out

Worldly temptations have no clout

Choosing the right helps me stay on route!

I have a testimony, that is true

The gospel of Christ was taught by you

Thank you for showing me God's clear view

I felt good as my faith simply grew.

These were our Talent jars - each girl had one with their name on them and listed their talents to display.

You can see the walls that displayed 2 of the 4 stations:

Happy Morning

Some of the girls in my class came over this morning, we ate blueberry muffins & peaches while we made a birthday card for a girl that doesn't come to Primary. We also made a 'miss you' card for a girl in our class who is moving.

Livi & Rylee below:

Maggie, Kenzie & Rachel Ann below:

We made chocolate cakes with chocolate frosting to give with the cards:

Happy Anniversary!

I did a theme of lemonade because Jonathan loves lemons - this is the homemade card I made:

Pucker Up........for kisses of course!

I made lemonade cupcakes with lemon rind and lemonade concentrate in the cake mix and in the frosting for Jonathan to share at work - like most work places, they seem to demolish all food, especially homemade items:

We went to the Barking Frog restaurant for dinner - it's tasty and elegant! I really like the Metropolitan Grill in Seattle and the Ocean Aire in Seattle and Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Bellevue too.

http://www.willowslodge.com/culinary-barkingfrog.php

A Finch Died =(

This is the 2nd female Goldenfinch (the males are bright yellow) that has flown into our kitchen window and died! It is a very sad thing. I keep thinking of that Windex commercial about the crows laughing when the guy runs into the sliding glass door - but he is only surprised - not dead! I waited and watched this Finch to see if its chest was moving - hoping it was only stunned - but not so. It's such a pretty bird and they are plentiful around our yard, but I don't want them to keep dying =( It's the Washington State Bird.

Squirrel

Yup, pretty exciting I know! The chipmunks that visit our yard are way cuter, but also way faster - can never capture them on film fast enough =(

Epiphany

Whenever you bring someone a homemade treat and give it to them on one of your dishes, they bring the dish back to you clean – but do you still rewash it anyway? I do. What if they give the dish back to you with treats on it – do you devour them?

Our friend Rylee and her dad brought us brownies, we are giving their plate back with rice krispy treats!

Canning Peaches

I canned RED GLOBE peaches for 6 hours (2 boxes) with my friend Christina today - they're really sweet fresh, so I'm excited to taste them canned (update - we eat them constantly - we're going to run out soon, they're incredibly YUMMY!):

Tip for next time: wear gloves while peeling the skin off peaches as your fingernails and cuticles will look like you just stained a fence - it's awful!

http://www.pickyourown.org/peachescanning.htm

Uncle Craig & Aunt Kristin's BBQ

It's Colten (wish I had had a bubble wand like this when I was a kid):

About to wrestle and Brady was looking straight into the camera:

Pegging each other with playground balls:

Taking each other down:

Andrew about to be taken down?

Finally got both the boys in one photo, smiling - rather goofy poses - but then again, that's them:

Cayden (planning his next move?)

I'm not sure if Kaylee felt left out or was just enjoying NOT being teased by the boys:

Running straight into the camera, obviously too close - that's why his head is cut off. What I'm going for though is Andrew smiling:

This was the only photo I could get of Jackson - he was having a blast and didn't sit still for a minute:

We never did get Nat in a picture - she was doing her own thing ;)
Colten puts up a great smile - cutie!

The moon was awesome looking tonight:

Stacy's kids all thought the photo below was the best shot, they're funny:

uhhhhh, that'd be Aunt Cheri determined to take a photo while riding in the car! I'm sure at photo contests, the winning photos judged by children would be completely different than those of adults =)

Baptism & Sealing gifts

I took a Take 5 candy bar and used it for an LDS baptism gift. It says 'Gabe made covenants with Heavenly Father at baptism':
T - take upon his name
A - always remember him
K - keep the commandments
E - endure to the end
5 - serve others (I used the 5 for an S)

This candy bar worked out perfectly!

I found a neat print online of Jesus being baptized and printed it out, framed it and added a little Word Art - top says 'I'm trying to be like Jesus, I'm following in his ways' from the Primary Song.

Below is a Sealing gift I made. I took a photo of the Seattle Temple and gave it an 'effect' in a drawing application, added personal information and also added a white object each family might wear and placed it in a silver shadow box:

The baby symbol is a bow tie, the dad's is a hankie, the sister's is 2 gem bobby pins, the brother has a flower rose made from ribbon and the mom has dangling earrings.

Happy Birthday Andrew

My nephew, Andrew, is 4 today. I called to wish him a Happy Birthday and he immediately asked when he could come stay with me and then just wanted to talk with Uncle Jonathan. I barely got in a happy birthday wish....and in the background of him running away, an 'I love you too'!


We let him open his gift 2 weekends ago when we were visiting - we got him cargo pants and a shirt - he seemed to like it - I didn't ask him if he would have rather have had a toy =) He really liked the candy on top of the gift!!

The wrapper was still on when he was making this face!

Cya Later Nat

We scrunched and curled Nat's hair, she's going to spend some days with Grandma now:

Nat helped me box up all the craft stuff that was now in our dining room from the flood - so she earned some $ to spend on a new pair of jeans. We went shopping at Ross (love that store!).

Nat picked out these:

Nat had $10 leftover, so we found this cute dress on clearance for $6.99:

And Nat spent the remaining $3 on 2 headbands, this is the brown one, the other is black:

I bought Nat a new pillow:

Nat says it has great support!

Nat made Grandma a friendship bracelet:

Cinnamon Rolls

For Activity Days today in the area of Developing Talents, we made Cinnamon Rolls from scratch and homemade Maple Frosting - yummo!

We also made Friendship Bracelets while we waited for the rolls to rise and bake.

This is Natalie's bracelet - the girls all made their own bracelets following some complex instructions - great job!

Nat's visiting

I highlighted Nat's hair, then a few hours later she told me her mom said that she had to wait to get her hair colored until she was older.......uhhhhh, is Auntie Cheri in trouble now? Nat assured me that her mom meant an all over color and Nat just has 'streaks' of blonde in her hair.

I weaved a hair-tie into Nat's hair - cute!

I painted Nat's nails French manicure with orange polish, the big toes have tiny little yellow flowers on them:

Happy Birthday Jonathan

08/08/08 - cool date =)
it's a theme birthday this year - happy 37th!
this is the card I made Jonathan this year - it's a backpack:

Jonathan would have qualified in the Olympics for backpacking if only they would have held the event ;)
http://en.beijing2008.cn/
this is what the note says:

http://www.myoan.net/backpacking/jargon.html
this is the cake I made - it's a giant S'MORE:

the marshmallow frosting went....ummmm, everywhere, but it was still tasty! =) it was a graham cracker cake and super yummy chocolate frosting too.

this is the gift he got - it's a nalgene water bottle, backpacking stove, pot and dish and fuel from REI.