Just Keep Swimming

My friend Angie threw a double party this Saturday for her son's first birthday and her husband's graduation. I was very flattered that she trusted me to make all the cakes for the event. The birthday part of the party was Finding Nemo themed, so we decided to make a Nemo cake. This was my first character cake and the first one that required a lot of carving. It was fun to get more experience.



Since it was a first birthday, it was necessary to have a small cake for the birthday boy to devour.



The graduate also got a cake. This one was fun to make too. It's a bit whimsical and just plain fun.



I know what you're thinking, and you are right, that's a lot of cake! I think they will be eating cake three times a day for the next week. Thanks Ang for letting me be a part of these huge milestones for your family.

Easter Excitement

In my family, we do Easter Egg Hunts a little differently. Instead of the children being the only ones who get to participate, we have a hunt for all the adults. This year, my parents hid clues in Easter Pez dispensers and divided everyone into teams. As you collected a Pez, your team had a change at guessing the mystery word. The winning team received the treasure chest full of goodies. It was lots of fun.

Now don't think the children get cheated, they get a good head start while all the adults wait. My Aunt Dee was so nice to take Sadie around and pick up eggs and candy. Sadie loved the eggs in the shapes of animals, good idea Mom.



After the hunt, everyone was surprised to find out that my niece and my cousin's son had gotten into a baby powder fight in the bathroom. Before anyone walked in the bathroom, you couldn't tell that the rug is blue and the carpet is gray. Everything was covered in the white powder, including the two little darlings. The sad, and kind of funny, thing was that the powder got into the ventilation system and would dust my Mother's entire house every time the furnace kicked on. Children are wonderful!



One of Sadie's favorite things to do when we visit Grandma and Grandpa Forbush is to look at all the animals. We spent a lot of time out petting the horses. Actually, we spent a lot of time getting sneezed and slobbered on by the horses. Sadie still loved it!



She also got to see her two cousins, which is always fun. We really wish we loved closer so we could see them more.



There are a lot of girls in my family. We decided to get a picture of all the girls (minus Amanda) that were there for the hunt. Poor Talon, the only boy in the "girl picture."



This weekend was a very busy one. In addition to our early Easter celebration, we also celebrated my Mom's birthday. My gift to her was Pez themed, including a new Pez shirt. Here is my Mom displaying her Pez addiction.



Since we were welcoming Spring this weekend, my Mom's birthday cake was covered in hand-made flowers and a basket weave on the side. It was a fun cake to make. Although, I made way too many flowers and now have a large container full of them in my pantry.



What a fun weekend! Thanks to all that made it possible.

Tim Tam Slam

This past Friday we had game night at our place. In addition to having lots of fun playing games, we also enjoyed playing with our food! The Demings introduced us to the Tim Tam Slam. You take an Australian cookie (Tim Tam), bite two opposing corners off, use it like a straw to suck up hot chocolate, and then eat it as fast as you can once the hot chocolate touches your tongue. If you're not fast enough, the cookie falls into your drink.

Here's Darwin giving us the demo.



Alex picked it right up.



Megan looks like pro, with a slight angle.



Kiara warned us she might drop her Tim Tam in the hot chocolate.



This was not new for Brian. He knew exactly what to do.



Ruachel tried, but didn't pick it up right away.



Round two is a little better.



Thank you Bollards and Demings for a great game night. We should do it again soon!

PiGtAiLs!!!

Sadie's hair is finally long enough for pigtails. I was so excited that I immediately went to Wal-Mart and bought her all sorts of ties and clips. Maybe now people will stop asking if she's a boy or a girl (even though I already dress her in pink and purple).



So adorable!

Cake, Cake and More Cake!

For those of you who don't know, I have been taking cake decorating classes to learn how to make lots of yummy cakes. It has been so much fun! I'm in the process of making my mother's birthday cake, which has a basket weave around the side and lots of hand made flowers (pansies, apple blossoms, daffodils, primroses, daisies, violets, mums, rose buds, etc.). Pictures of that cake to come.

However, I do have pictures of Alex's birthday cake and the cake I made for my Aunt VeeAnn's wedding (Valentine's theme).



Speaking of VeeAnn's wedding, I just wanted to tell her congratulations! Mark seems like a really great guy. It was fun to go to Monroe and spend so much time with family. Love you all.



Sadie Update:

Sadie is quite the talker. She jabbers all day long, usually making animal sounds. Some of the animals she imitates are elephants, monkeys, gorillas, lions, alligators, birds, bees, bears, horses, cats, dogs, fish, sheep, pigs, snakes, giraffes, bunnies, and others that I can't remember right now. I know that seems like a lot of animals and it would be impossible for a 14 month old to know all of the sounds they make, but she does!!! For many of the animals, she also has a motion to accompany the sound. For instance, she raises one arm for the trunk as she blows the elephant sound. She scratches for a monkey, makes the chomping motion for the alligator, and puckers her lips for a fish. Sadie loves animals. I took her to BYU's Bean Museum (taxidermy animals) and she had an ear to ear grin the entire time.

In addition to animal sounds, Sadie has learned many other useful words like teddy, mil (milk), dooc (juice), nanas (bananas), teess (cheese), ball, nie nie (night night), mama, dada, baby, tan tou (thank you), tinky pee eww (stinky/dirty diaper), mo (more/food usually), sesus (Jesus), aah ooo (uh ooh), hi (with her princess wave), bye-bye (usually when pointing to cars), and of course, no no no no! It's amazing to me how many words she understands already, even if she can't say them all yet. If I ask her to go get the dragon, a book, or a teddy bear, she does just that! Little children are so smart.

My new favorite game to play with Sadie is hide-and-seek. If I cover my eyes and count, she hides. She's funny to watch because she'll hide somewhere that allows her to still see you, but she can easily cover her head when you look her direction. If she covers her eyes, that means no one can see her, right? Sadie is really good at not making a sound until you find her. This worries me a little. I can only imagine how much fun it would be to look for her at Wal-Mart as she is hiding inside a clothes rack. Oh the joys to come.