These cute cup cakes were brought to us from Nikki Jensen, a friend of mine, I thought that they were the cutest cup cakes that I had ever seen so I decided to make some of my own. The house was sticky for days, my hands were sore from squeezing out the frosting to make the hair, and my kids wanted Cookie Monster, Oscar the grouch, and Elmo which meant that I had to make several colors of frosting. The looks of these cup cakes when they are complete out weighs the work, I would not make these delicious treats for a big event, but to enjoy at home was just great.

Happy Valentines Day

Although my husband may not think that I love him I want to express that I do.
When Jake comes home from a long day at work he is still willing to help me with kids and listen to how hectic my day went. When I fall short by not having the house clean, or dinner ready Jake is ready to finish the dishes and order a pizza. When I am at my breaking point and just need a moment of silence Jake is willing to take the kids out so that I can catch my breathe. When I think money is tight Jake is willing to work overtime so that I am able to stay home a little longer with our boys Carter and Ethan. When I feel that we are sinking Jake throws out the life preserver. And when I am sick he brings me all the little things that help ease my pain.
On the other hand
When Jake is sick, I think stop being such a baby. When Jake works over time, I get angry because it may interfere with plans I have made. I am angry when he leaves his clothes all over the bedroom. And when I come home to a messy house I think that he has been watching tv all day. When Jake is ornery I don't think that he should be permitted to be so. And when he wants to go play basketball I ask that he takes the kids with him.
I have allowed some trials that we have gone through, make me bitter. I have become like a porcupine; surrounding my self with intangible needles, making it hard for my own spouse to love me.
Despite my shortcomings Jake puts up with me, and I love him for it. Every once in a while I learn something that allows me to remove one of the porcupine quails. I had no intention of celebrating Valentines, Jake still took the time to think about me days before. He brought me a refreshing bouquet of flowers along with some other goodies. He has not been feeling good, and has had some unfortunate events occur this past month, yet he still has me on the for front of his mind.
Thank you babe, I love you!

New Year, New discoveries! Ethan has an allergy to penuts. This was shortly after he had touched his finger in Peanutbutter, wiped it off, and then touched his eye. Crazy
Most of the time Ethan is very happy, especially when he gets to see his best buddy and cousin Talan.

Merry Christmas Everyone

Our BasKeTBalL outfit, from top to bottom.
Grandma and Grandpa opening their presents.
Not sure what they are doing, the christmas salute?
Breakfast was ready but the chairs where empty. Dan, Kim, and Dylan are in Maryland, and Ben and his family are still at home opening presents.
Carter is still wondering how Santa got into our house.

Christmas

Don't forget the Jammies. Never did get all of us in the picture, better luck next year
Oh YeaH! Ethan knew Santa had come because he was asking for a baseball bat, and he got it. This picture just turned out better.
Christmas Eve, dinner at the church was awsome. The kids had a blast
Going to see santa, Ethan thought he was much cooler from a distance.
Posing for Christmas cards turned out to be a fashion show for Jake and the boys, I was at work and when I got home the clothes where all off hangers.

STill catCHing Up, Happy Thanksgiving

Turkey, Turkey, and don't forget the cranberry sauce! Waiting for the dinner is the hardest part. Carter thinks that his turkey dance will bring it here quicker. Ethan, Talan, and Aalyiah are happy to be eating first; these three make up the kid table, all the other kids felt that they should be at the adult table.

Happy Halloween, Our Dad hates to dress up so he is not in the picture
The Festivities begin; we start the halloween season with cookies and costumes.
Ethan was Buzz Lightyear almost everyday, Carter held out for Halloween and he was a Tiger.
We could not miss the photo shoot at Gardner Village with my cute pumpkins.

Happy 6th Birthday Carter, back in July we had a dance party requested by Carter. He loves to dance hip hop style, so we had a dance off at the party, it was groovy. He wanted a guitar cake and his favorite song to play "Apple Bottom Jeans". He surely has the moves, we hope to enroll him in a hip hop class this year.

The year is OVER!

Happy New Year!
Time to make new resolutions, I have one in mind; that is to blog more.
I loved looking back and seeing what 2009 brought, and I can't wait to see how 2010 will be.

It's been a while

Carter started Kindergarten this year, he was so excited. He even had to wear the new jacket in the 90 degree weather. He would really like to go all day, but has a great time the time that he is there.

Happy 3rd Birthday to Ethan. He has grown up so fast this last year. Or just developed an Attitude. He is our All Star, can never stay clean, and has a way of making us smile. We love you Ethan!

Happy Birthday to me! I turned 30 and still have not celebrated my birthday. I will soon be planning a girls night out for anyone who wants to celebrate being old with me.

One of the hikes that some of our family did together was the hike passed Silver lake; this is a 3 mile hike and the top got a little rocky. I was amazed to see Ethan and Talan dragging up the hill with Jake pushing them along. THEY MADE IT! They are only 2 and 3 years old. Good Job boys.

So my excuse for not blogging much is because of my summer online classes. I was always on the computer so I refused to be on longer to blog. Sorry friends, but Hello to those who have visited.

This tin girl was made by me, she is for sale, any bids? This was my summer art final.

Matt, Carter, and Dani also finished the hike. We had a blast at the Twin Lakes. This really is a beautiful lake, it was hard to resist jumping in.

So news from the summer; Computer still not letting me change the Valentine background, Help! Birthdays are still coming, Back to school, Dan my brother and his familiy moved to Maryland, Carter started kindergarten, made someone a lucky winner of a $20 dollar bill in the Smiths parking lot, thought we got a good deal on books until we got to class and were informed of the new eddition, and so on......

Computer Drama

Crazy week
1. Computer gets major virus; Dan my genious brother is fixing it

2.One day we are out enjoying the sun and the next we are inside sipping hot cocoa.

3. I have no motivation to go to the store and buy the neccessay item T.P. I will just borrow from the neighbor

4. Ethan is putting 3 to 4 word sentences together. Today was mom, stuck, kite, tree. interpretation Mom got the kite stuck in the tree. yes I did!

5. Allergies are so annoying

Crazy but fun I think!

Tag Tag Tag!

The Honest Scrap Award
Here I go to fulfill my tag duty, thanks to Heather!

The Honest Scrap Award is an award given to those who will reveal 10 things that are honest traits you possess.
Pass on the tag to 7 other bloggers, in my case, all of the very special people that read my blog, there are not quiet 7.

1. I can be racist at times, and that is as much detail on that one!
2. I love going to the gym, when I get the chance.
3. I'm mean to Jake, so he says! OK, I am
4. I don't plan ahead for anything, I should, but I'm always stuck with
free time that could be used for something productive.
5. I'm a clean freak, I wish my house could look like Martha's everyday
6. I'm a cheap skate, I find spending lavishly gives me heartburn
7. I don't really know what I want to be when I grow up
8. I love to go to school, I'll probably go forever
9. I love doing hair, but not my own
10. I don't mind having cartoons on all day, "House" is the only thing I watch on TV

what more can you do than watch tv

I can not figure out how to entertain my kids during the day. I feel like it takes half the day to get up, eat breakfast, shower, ..... Before you know it its time for lunch. So besides watching tv, what more is there to do? My boys find toys to entertain themselves, but what do the real mothers do for their children during the day? You know the ones that have their children playing a musical instrument by 5 years of age, and can read the Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner by age 12. Besides cook and clean what do moms do all day? I can't even come up with ideas for dinner, family night, or cheap activities. My brain is officially fried. Help!!!!!!

A little bit crazy

Has this ever happened to you? I did not realize this until 7:00 at night. Nobody said anything, so maybe I'll have to do it again.

This is an effect of 1:00 church; 4:00 pm naps.

Our family has appeared to become really confused.

Back to School

Really after 9 years of being out of school I decide to go back. Oh yeah everything is coming back to me; late nights doing homework, math problems that mean nothing to me, primping and dressing up like you are the queen of the day. The later did not happen today, or will ever. I went to school after cooking chicken noodle soup, do you know what you smell like after cooking? not good !!!!what is the function of a linear equation? does this really make any sense? However I am so glad to be back being married, the stress of who is cute and does he think I'm cute is now behind me. I am excited to be in a learning environment, and it is a little bit of a break from daily chores. Its wierd to wake up, go to school, and suddenly doing 100 math problems are a priority. Yes even a priority over making sure that my dishes are done before I go to bed. Oh how things are changing. I may need some prozac to get me through. I can tell that I am the old one in class because the majority of the students are really concerned about their cell phones, it seems to be a necessity when waiting to get into class. like if they did not have a cell phone to text on they would not know what to do in the black abyss of the time you arrive until the time that the teacher arrives and opens the door of the class room. I am so glad to be turning 30 this year, I have run out of patients for immaturity.

Oh Yeah!

Ethan does the funniest, what we call crazy eyes! the camera is not fast enough to show.

Carter lost his first tooth yesterday. thanks to Braeden passing him the football. Out came the tooth, great way to remove a tooth!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

Is anyone else sad to see the holiday season come to a jolting hault?

having the spirit of the holidays every day with so much hustle and bustle, lots enjoyment, and then all of a sudden it's like you jump into a new time zone watching reruns of ER. Just a little Depressing.

So thinking of my goals this year, I really want to laugh more. I can be a real uptight, OCD, ronchy person sometimes, so this year I want to LAUGH!

So the only way I know how to do this is watch a good comedy. Anyone have any suggestions let me know.

Christmas Fun

Sledding, Oh yeah, we had a blast and cant wait for more snow and sun shine.

Making cookies, these turned out so fun and cute!

Festival of trees.

Christmas Day!

Manger scene.

Its sad to see christmas go, I'm having the after holiday blaaaah's.

Carter the Photographer

This is like most of the pictures he took, can you quess what this is? These are grandmas favorite pj pants, picture taken under cover!

Good One, this one was also not posed for

We enjoyed Thanksgiving, I want leftover turkey to go with my yummy cranberry sauce.

Thank you Carter for getting us on camera, I'll post other of his fine work later.

So I want to write about the experience I had on Black Friday, but it would take to long and would not be nearly as funny as in person . All I can say is I have devised a plan for next year. I only got 2 items on my list, out of 5 . next year I'm going for all. Anyone care to join me?

Update on my talk: went well, jake and I took up the whole time. did you know the whole month the topic was temples. so we had the same lesson in priesthood and relief society. had I known prior I wouldn't have used the Joseph Smith manual for the majority of my talk.

Sunday

Today I really was humbled during our lesson in Relief Society. It was on Knowledge, I have always loved learning but for some reason have taken a long sabbatical, from school as well as serious scripture study. I felt really incompetent and felt a shock to the self esteem. And to top it off Jake and I were asked to speak in church next Sunday, even worse the topic being temple worthiness. We have not been to the temple in years, For the first time I felt like I need to ask for another topic, or say we were not competent enough to speak in church. However I'm going to learn from this day. I went home and started to read the recent conference reports in the Ensign, what a relief. I read the most appropriate talk given by Elder Neil L. Andersen page 13 titled "You Know Enough". There is always room for more learning but we all know the most important truth and that is that we are all children of God. I will be relying a lot on outside resources for my talk, and have a stronger idea of what my new years resolutions will be. Comment if you have any really good temple stories or books that I can refer to.
This week I have really been thinking of my children and their interests. Carter's favorite song is "Apple bottom jeans" if you don't know this song I have it on my play list. He does a great dance with it and he has great moves. Ethan is loving the Backyardigans, especially Pablo. We watch the same episode over and over, speaking of dance moves I'm learning quiet a few off of this cartoon. I will demonstrate later. Isn't it fun being a kid! Also I can not seem to keep apples in my house, my kids eat them up so fast. Its probably the only healthy thing they actually ask for.