Mawwiage. And wuv. Twue wuv.

Here comes the new couple! My baby brother got married yesterday.
It was a very full, very fun day (although also very tiring with 2 little ones who are not used to being shuttled from party to party, photograph session to photograph session, church to church.)
But it was awesome being together as a family
and seeing so many friends and extended family throughout the day.

We missed my dad terribly, but know that he was with us in spirit throughout the day. He would have loved the new addition to the family.
And besides the bride, I think my kids were the most beautiful there--Bean was eating the whole thing up--she LOVED her "wedding dress" and the bride's princess dress and couldn't get enough of the pictures at the reception.
She even made friends with the other "flower girl" and spent most of the evening following her around.Bugaboo, on the other hand, had enough by the evening festivities and refused to be in any of the bridal shots unless Daddy was holding him. Guess you can't expect much more from an almost-17-month old who took 2 naps in the car that day and was approaching bedtime before the party even started.Even though I'm glad we don't have a wedding every weekend, it was a fun day. Gotta love family!

First Talk

I can't believe I forgot to post this yesterday. Our little Bean gave her first talk in Primary at church yesterday. She was so excited for this and has been practicing at home for a couple weeks. It was only 4 lines long, and in typical 3-year-old fashion, she put her mouth on the microphone, so I doubt anyone understood a single word, but at least we had props so the kids got to look at a picture of Jesus for a minute.

I'm glad that she is so enthusiastic about public speaking--definately gets that from her dad, not me!

Happy Easter!

Just a few pictures of our day. Hope you had a beautiful Easter Sunday!

The End of Lent

My daytime computer hiatus is over. I'll be honest--I've cheated a bit this last week. With all the sickness and sitting around watching TV going on in our house, I needed a tiny bit of socialization. But for the most part, I've been pretty strict about keeping the computer off until after kiddo bedtime for 40 days.

All in all, this has been a great experience. I'm not sure I accomplished quite as much as I thought I would, although I should have a very full craft post coming up soon with all of the scrapbooking I've been doing lately. I did take more naps, which I desperately needed. I definately made more of an effort to socialize with people when illness didn't get in the way and have finally reached the point where I'm actually going to miss some things and people when we move. But most important, it just seemed to change the general tone in our home--I wasn't as annoyed with the kids for "interrupting" me while I was trying to do things on the computer. They weren't bored and begging me to get up and play with them. And we did come up with some fun things to do (it really helped the last couple weeks when the weather got nice and we could play outside).

All of you who mentioned that you should try it--DO IT! Seriously. I'm not going to be so strict about it now--I like to check my email in the morning (and there were a couple times when plans changed and I showed up early to things because I hadn't checked my email) and I would like to be able to print out bits for my craft projects during the day since I've been pretty wiped out by evening lately--but I don't ever want to go back to having the computer on all day long. We've all just been so much happier.

Spring Cookies--Updated

My friend Sarah has been on a cookie and cake decorating spree and her Easter cookies were so gorgeous, I couldn't stop thinking about them, so Bean and I decided to have a little cookie party today.

She lost interest after we cut out the second cookie and didn't reappear until dessert time to eat a cookie, but I had fun doing these. And I've gained even more respect for Sarah's decorating skills because that icing is not easy to work with!

The yellow base icing is marshmellow fondant. It needs to be cool and fairly stiff before you can roll it out, but then its pretty easy to just cut with the same cookie cutter and put it on the cookie when they are hot so it kind of melts into the cookie (well, that's the idea, but some of mine are still pretty loose.)

The pink and blue cookies are done with Toba Garrett's Glace Icing--this is the one I had a hard time getting to a good consistancy, but it is nice when it spreads out and dries smooth how its supposed to. I had a lot of icing flooding past the "dam" I'd piped around each cookie and pouring over my plate, and then, trying to compensate, I made it too thick and it wouldn't spread out once I piped the middle on. Then I decorated them with Royal icing, although I'm not sure why you couldn't just do more of the glace once the first layer is hard. The Royal icing gets really hard when it dries which makes it good for decorating, but not so fun to eat (and it doesn't taste as good as the glace), so I definately wouldn't do the whole cookie that way.

Better Late than Never

With all the sickness, we didn't get to have our Irish feast of corned beef, cabbage and potatoes on Monday. And actually, I'm the only one who is feeling pretty good even today, but since I'd already bought the meat, I had to cook it before it went bad, so tonight was designated as our substitute St. Patrick's Day.

Neither kid ate much at all, but they aren't really eating these days so I wasn't surprised (poor Bean has lost about 10% of her body weight). I thought it tasted great.

I was a little sad that the first day of spring came and went without much notice from us today. I used to go hiking or do something to recognize the day, and this year I'd actually wanted to have a little Spring party for Bean and a couple friends, but maybe we'll have to do it a couple weeks in because life has just been too crazy (and the sickness hasn't helped). But we did get a spring rain shower to start the day and then gorgeous weather to end it, so it felt pretty "springy".

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

This pretty much sums up our week. Bugaboo has not wanted to be set down all week, unless its in his bed to sleep--he's actually asked to go to bed.

And Bean set up Bear's sick bed--notice the throw up bowl on his nightstand.

Bunch of Sickies

Luckily, its just the kids, so Daddy-o and I are in some kind of shape to keep things going around here. And boy has that been a chore. I've done 3 full loads of vomit covered laundry in the last 24 hours, and that doesn't include our normal loads of diapers and clothing.

Poor Bugaboo had a really long night Friday, and then a little revisitation last night. And Bean has had a fever and been coughing--pretty standard symptoms for her. Oh, and what looks like the start of pink-eye, but it hasn't gotten worse overnight, so we'll at least be able to wait until urgent care opens in the morning--so much cheaper than an ER visit (and do you go to the ER for pink-eye? I just don't know when I'm overreacting or when I'm being a careless mom). I just hope that none of the kids we were in contact with on Thurs and Friday come down with this.

Daddy-o really stepped up this weekend as well. Besides keeping the kids occupied all day Friday while I was playing baker, he also sat up with Bugaboo that whole night so I could try to get a little sleep before my crazy Saturday morning, and then took care of two sick kids while I ran and went to a bridal shower (where the cake was a big hit!). I am so grateful that I have such an awesome husband.

My run yesterday was actually the Rex Lee 5K--honoring cancer fighters and victims. I ran in my dad's name, and was happy with my finish. My goals were to not walk at all (although I think I could walk faster on the hills than I run) and to finish under 35 mintues--I wasn't sure about the second one after the broken sleep I'd gotten the night before, but I made it and ended up coming in at 33:21--a little faster than my normal daily run, so not bad. Now, to put that in perspective, as I was leaving, they began announcing the winners--and the second place 10K runner had the same time as me, LOL! I've never been a fast runner.

Ace of Cakes

OK, so maybe this isn't quite an "ace" and I certainly have a LOT to learn to make cakes that would pass Duff Goldman's standards, but I was pretty impressed with how this turned out. (Just don't look too close--I'm not quite at professional status yet;) ).

This is by far the most complicated cake I've done. I've never done a stacked cake before and I've never used fondant for anything but flat decorations on a cake, so I had my work cut out for me. And I spent a lot of time (read: several hours each evening all week as well as the entire day today--thank goodness for no Friday classes for Daddy-o) on this--brainstorming ideas, learning techniques and then making two fillings, frosting, 2 types of cakes and assembling the whole thing. And there were a few moments today that I was afraid I'd be heading to Costco on my way to the bridal shower to pick up a substitute cake, but in the end, I think it turned out ok. And the guest of honor was worthy of the challenge. I'm just hoping she likes it :)

The Towel (rated PG-13)

LOL--I had to get pictures of this because watching a toddler try to hold up their towel is just too funny.

I Swear, She Dresses Herself

I think if I was a little more fashionable myself, I wouldn't be so worried about people thinking that I dressed her when we're out. But sometimes I worry that they will take one look at me, and then see her, and think, "Wow, that poor little girl is going to need to find another woman to take her shopping when she's older 'cause her mom is really clueless."

And yes, it may be partly true, but I blame a lot of my outfits on being on a budget that doesn't cover a whole new wardrobe in this post-pregnancy size that I can't seem to get rid of.

Missed the Memo

This morning, we were struggling a little to get the kids out the door for church, so we arrived 5 minutes late. As we peaked in the chapel doors to see if there was an empty bench, a woman sitting on the couch in the foyer asked, "You forgot about daylight savings, too?" We were actually 1 hour and 5 minutes late--so sacrament meeting was pretty much over.

Neither Daddy-o or I have EVER done that. We knew it was early this year--I thought next week--and we've actually been looking forward to it for weeks. All those 5:30 and 6 a.m. wake-ups turn into more respectable 6:30 and 7 a.m.'s for a little while, at least. But seriously, I haven't heard anything about today being daylight savings. Seems like they usually talk about it on the news and in the paper, and actually, they usually remind us at church the week before. But even though I watched some news this weekend (highly unusual activity for me--I count on Daddy-o to keep me filled in on any major news and prefer to ignore the rest so its mostly depressing anyway), I didn't hear any reminders about the "spring forward".

How bad of me is it to admit that I enjoyed having only 2 hours of church rather than 3? It was especially nice since it was my week to be Bugaboo free the 3rd hour (for those of you who aren't Mormon, our nursery doesn't start until they turn 18 months, so, as you can imagine, those last few months of trying to keep an active toddler busy for 3 hours is pretty impossible and we trade off who gets to take him to class with them that hour.)

No Nap Girl

I took this picture more for her scrapbook, but since I haven't posted anything for a few days, here she is:

My girl who has pretty much refused to nap for the last year + except those very rare occasions that she cries hard enough that she falls asleep by accident. She may be exhausted and cozy with pillows and blankets on our bed, but she will stare at the TV, zoned out to the world, rather than take a nap.

I wish someone would put me in my bed each afternoon for an hour. (Although I've been finding the couch quite comfortable lately--one benefit of no computer during the day is that I sit down to read most afternoons for my break and it usually turns into a nap if Bean doesn't come out for a channel change or potty break).