New Beginnings

Last night was my first big activity since being called to Young Women's. We were doing it around the theme "What Heaven Sees in You" along with the "Parable of the Princesses" by Jenny Phillips. I was asked to come up w/ a dessert that went along w/ the princess theme. Well, I'm not that creative and google didn't help me much this time. I did find a picture of a cake that was princess themed w/o looking too childish. Since my mom does excellent cakes and could offer her advice and answer numerous questions, I thought I'd go ahead and try the cake. I also made cupcakes in the value colors and made some white chocolate mints with San Diego temple molds I had from my wedding. Here is how everything turned out.

I would have probably turned the cake so that the ruffled edge looked more straight, but there was a spot of frosting that cracked and slid down on the drive over that I had to fix in the back. It patched up OK, but not as smooth as the rest, so it stayed in the back.
Here is a close up of the mints. I think you can see the temples if you click on the picture to enlarge it.

A couple of the other leaders were in charge of decorations and did a FABULOUS job! They borrowed Maddy's baptism and blessing dresses and Ally's blessing dress for this display. My blessing dresses are the back two. Didn't it turn out so cute?! This display went along with the song that all the leaders sang, "What Heaven Sees in You". It makes me cry almost every time I sing it, so it was hard to sing it front of everyone. Especially since when I looked out, many of the girls and moms were crying too! Fortunately a couple of the leaders have excellent voices and could carry those of us who don't sing as well and were getting choked up. Click here if you'd like to hear the song. It's really touching.
The leaders in charge of decorations took "dress up" type pictures of all the girls. They edited them to be black and white w/ just the pink flower in color. They turned out sooooooo cute and really showed the girls fun personalities.

Here is a picture of my Mia Maids starting to act out their part of the Parable of the Princess story. I didn't get any shots further on because my batteries were low and wouldn't do more w/ the low lighting. The Mia Maids are the biggest group of girls - 12 girls!

It was such a great night. We had 24 out of 27 young women there. I haven't been in Young Women's very long, but it's amazing how quickly you fall in love with the girls. As they were all standing in front singing "Daughter of a King" I got all choked up and couldn't believe how much I loved each of them already. They really are such a special group of girls and I'm so lucky to get to work with them!

Maddy helped me with the cake by lending me one of her tiaras. Here are my 2 sweet princesses playing with her other tiaras before I left. They are pretty special too - Daughters of a King! I love them more than words could ever say!

The rest of the party

After dinner (Bryson chose waffles, eggs, bacon and sausage), it was time for presents.

Jacob got him a bunch of Pokemon figures. (I think Jacob is as excited to play w/ them as Bryson is.)

Maddy got him a cool thing that shoots 3 cars and 3 planes at the same time when you punch down the launcher.
Bryson was too busy checking out the sunglasses from Grandma and Grandpa to look at the camera. I think this is a "thumbs up" sign. Thanks for the shirt too!
He also love the dinosaur. He's pretty scary when walking, chomping, and moving the fan-like cheek things.
Grandma got him a Nerf gun, or as Bryson calls it, a "Nerth" gun. He loves trying to get them to stick to things.Grandma also got him this stylin' shirt and shorts.

Mom and Dad got him this Pokemon mountain to use w/ all his new Pokemon figures. It even oozes slime like a volcano.

The thing he was most looking forward to was GUM!

Our family rule is that you can't chew gum until you are 5. All the kids totally looked forward to it! We could probably just have given him gum and he would have been thrilled! Simple pleasures!

Bryson is into zebras right now and wanted a zebra cake. Travis's first comment was, "Why do they always want cakes w/ black frosting!" Well, the only zebra plates that we could find had a blue and white zebra, so he decided he'd rather have his cake look like the plate. Whew! Blue frosting is a lot easier than black! I think it turned out pretty good and Bryson was thrilled.

Make a wish! He is being really careful not to tell us what he wished for until it comes true. Let's hope he didn't wish for something crazy and get disappointed!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRYSON!

We hope you had a great time and thanks for sharing all the fun w/us!

Bump in the celebration

As we were getting ready to leave the primary ice cream party, Bryson was climbing back out of the van and tripped over a bag. He fell out the door, landing on his head in the parking lot. He instantly had a HUGE goose egg which unfortunately was also full of gravel and dirt. Travis scooped him up and hurried him into the bathroom to wash it out. Travis tried to keep him from seeing himself in the mirror, but Bryson wanted to see and turned around to look in the mirror. Then the crying got REALLY LOUD. Through his sobs he said, "Now everyone is going to laugh at me!". We told him no one would laugh, but would probably feel bad for him (and everyone has). He had a few other scrapes and pretty big cut on his hand. We told him he had to have a bath to get everything clean. He was afraid it would hurt (and so were we) so we let him have a "birthday bath" in our new airtub. Once he got in and realized that it didn't sting, he really had fun. He LOVED having the water so high, LOVED the bubbles and LOVED doing silly things with the soap bubbles after he was washed. Here are some pictures of the fun and his huge goose egg.

Looks like a fun bath fixed everything. Whew - crisis averted, birthday saved, and luckily he didn't have a concussion!

Bryson's birthday fun - part 1

Happy 5th Birthday Bryson!

In our family we do friends parties on even birthdays and have a special family day on odd birthdays. This year Bryson chose to go bowling. He was a little disappointed during the first game that he doesn't bowl for real as well as he bowls on the Wii.

He had more success using the ramp (with dad's help aiming).
It surprised me how well Jacob did considering that his ball bounced off the bumpers several times. I couldn't believe how often he hit right were he wanted to. In fact, he won the 2nd game. Travis bowled the last frame between his legs to give Jacob more of a shot at winning and ended up w/ 2 gutter balls. Way to beat us all, Jacob!
Maddy's arm probably got tired since she would swing her ball back and forth several times before she actually bowled it.
Here is Travis's between the legs shot. Too bad he couldn't quite keep the ball straight. Jacob didn't mind though. ;-)

Ally was our little cheerleader! She's saying, "YAY"!

The kids also had a good time in the arcade. Bryson did really good at skee-ball.

Jacob enjoyed the skee-ball as well. He couldn't do quite as well as Bryson. Hey, you can't win everything, right?! Notice Maddy's huge handful of tickets. She dropped her token into one of those games where you try to land it in the truck beds. Hers landed in the truck bed and dumped the truck over, so she got 250 tickets! She was ecstatic and kind enough to share w/ her brothers so they could all get better prizes.

Bryson had fun bowling and then we had to hurry off to a primary activity. They were having an Articles of Faith Ice cream party. Just more fun to celebrate his birthday!

Life in the wild

Over winter break we went to a wildlife preserve. It was a beautiful day and the kids had a great time. Here are a few of the fun things we saw.

The kids get so excited to see the animals up close!

The day started getting pretty warm and that nap looked pretty good to me too!

Is this not the FATTEST prairie dog that you've ever seen?! They were pretty cute though!

This otter kept swimming in a circle and pushing off of the glass right in front of the kids. They laughed and said that it was giving them five !

Travis took this picture of us by the big horn sheep exhibit. They were down too low to get a shot with real sheep, so we settled for the statue. :)

As we were leaving, one of the rangers was showing off this parrot and answering questions. This shot shows how he can crack open a peanut to eat it. The amazing thing was that it used it's tongue and beak to peal off the skin of the nut as well as the shell. We were pretty impressed.

Now it's time to go. Maddy and Travis were the only smart ones in short sleeves, so the rest of us were getting pretty warm and Ally was definitely ready for a nap. We had a fun time though!

Maddy and the bee

Maddy just participated in her school's spelling bee. She already got 2nd place in her class spelling bee, so she got to be 1 out of 18 kids to be in the school spelling bee. She was a little nervous and wanted to do her best, but at the same hoped she wouldn't win so that she didn't have to go on to the district spelling bee. That was a bit intimidating.

She did really well! About half the kids got out on their first word, but she spelled "topical" correctly. She got out on her 2nd word "talc" because she thought they said "talic". Oh well. She got 5th place and we were all pretty proud of that, especially since she was up against 5th and 6th graders as well as other 4th graders. She was also relieved that she won't have to go on to the district spelling bee. That would be a bit stressful for her.

Here she is spelling her 1st word.
I didn't realize that the kids would be facing the other direction, so I took this picture afterword so that we could actually see her face.

Way to go Maddy!

The things kids say ...

I was changing Ally's diaper this afternoon getting her ready for her nap and she started singing, "Shake, shake, shake, ... shake your boowie". It totally made me laugh, which in turn made her laugh and want to keep singing it. We were both cracking up! Who knew a diaper change could be so entertaining?! The things they pick up from their siblings. Hilarious!

This picture is Ally enjoying the bubble machine that Santa brought her. It totally cracks her up! She is pretty fun!