What is Meggan up to !?!

Meg's team Jayden, Tirsten, Whitney, Meg, Cheyanne, Isabelle, Josh, Mallory, Sam, Jason, Kendalyn, and Coach Smith.

Meggan is an amazing girl! She just completed her first season of soccer and loved every minute of it, well maybe not the ball to the face, but the rest was great! Meggan loves to play with her brother and sisters. She is looking forward to Halloween and her birthday!(look out it's double digits) She is now trying to figure out what she wants to do next, basketball, tumbling, mini-cheer, or piano. Meggan is going to be a vampire for Halloween and she loves doing things with her friends. She loves going to activity days and she has memorized the articles of faith. She has a new bedroom that she so graciously shares with her little sister. They are working on designing the space and Meg wants everything blue and Gracie wants it pink so I think we are settling on periwinkle. We're grateful for Megi and that she is a part of our family.

What is MaKady up too !?!

So i thought I would take a minute and do a post about what each of the kids are up to these days. I thought I would start with MaKady. MaKady is a straight A student. MaKady is a middle school cheer leader and she is loving it! She gets up at 5:00a.m. twice a week to go to practice and cheers at games that are after school so it can make for some pretty long days. They also do pep assemblies for each of the sports and get together to make signs and do all sorts of fun things as a team. MaKady is involved in her class at church. She was just called to be the beehive class secretary. She is getting excited about upcoming Halloween parties and the first dance at school. MaKady is almost as tall as mom and she now has bigger feet, even though she still tries to squeeze into mom's heels. MaKady is taking piano lessons and is a wonderful help around the house. We love you MaKady!

Back to School

We've completed our first week of school and I figured I better get these pictures posted. MaKady is going to the middle school and gets to ride a bus now. Meggan is in the 4th grade which means she's in the upper grade hall. Brock is in 1st grade so he goes to school everyday all day long. And Gracie is starting preschool this week. I can't believe how quickly the summer went by and I'm sure the school year will pass just as quick. They had a wonderful first week! It's the standard mom thought I can't believe how quickly they've grown. It's great to see them progress and I'm grateful we get to be a part of their lives.



a little ps. Brock picked out his own outfit. Of a closet with new clothes in it, he picked his favorite things of summer to wear the first day, can you have too much camo?

Brock is 7.

Brock turned 7 in August and he is the biggest star wars fan I know. So it's a given that his cake is two light sabers. He wanted me to attempt making the millenium falcon like they did on ace of cakes but I don't think this mom is that brave just yet. Brock is an amazing son! He is great with his sisters and loves to play with them as long as they want to do boy stuff, none of that sissy girl stuff for him. He loves to build things, play ball and he love the computer and wii! We love you Brock and hope you have an amazing year being 7.

Family Pictures

We had the opportunity to take some new family photos and here are a few previews. Our friend Mohna took the pictures and you can check out her photography blog on my blog roll under Explore Photography. It was a great night, thanks for the wonderful pictures Mohna!

Marching in the Parade

This is MaKady's first parade as a cheerleader and she had a ball! She gets to do 3 more this summer. I'm sure she'd love to see you all.

The 4th (3rd) of July in Inkom

Inkom chose to celebrate Independence Day on the 3rd of July this year. We had a wonderful time celebrating in our small home town. Tradition is in our family to take a picture before we head off to the parade. The kids who were going to catch candy decided to bring their Halloween buckets and backpacks to stash their goodies in. This was also MaKady's first parade to march in as a cheerleader. I'll try to post a video of that later. The kids are growing up so quickly and it's fun to compare pictures from previous years to see just how much they have grown and we can't let the opportunity pass to get a silly picture in as well.

MaKady's birthday

With youth conference and all the other things going on in MaKady's life we got to celebrate her birthday a little later this year. She wanted a cupcake tower with a giant cupcake on top. Her and her friend Hanna and Meggan, a Gracie made all the little chocolate flowers to decorate the cakes. It was a really fun night decorating.

Pop-eye pancakes

I'm not sure why these are called pop-eye pancakes at our house. My kids love them and these were so amazing they needed a picture. I used to be able to make a single batch and that was enough now we make a double batch and inhale every bite.

Dustin and Brock "date" night

As I mentioned in an earlier post Brock loves to climb. For date night this month Dustin took Brock and they climbed the "I" hill near our home. Brock loved every minute and I'm sure Dustin enjoyed hauling home all the amazing, beautiful, cool rocks they found on the way.

Official Young Woman

MaKady is now an officially a young woman. These are pictures of her first Sunday in young women's and of course we needed a picture of her incredible hair. She is loving everything about youth conference, girls camp and going to mutual. I can't believe how fast she has grown up. I love you Miss MaKady!

Dustin's birthday

I try to learn something new when it comes to making a cake every time I get to make one. This year Dustin didn't want cake and who can blame him, we have 3 birthdays plus fathers day in that week. He got double thick Brownies not quite done so they were still gooey, marshmallows and fudge frosting, with coldstone sweet cream and cookie dough ice cream with homemade hot fudge. I've never done homemade hot fudge and let me tell you it was worth it. It's a fun new thing to add to my cake making skills. So yummy!!! Happy birthday sweetie! I love you!

Baseball 2010

This is the first of many catch up posts. Brock played baseball again this year. He absolutely loves it. You can see when he isn't playing on the field he's busy climbing anything he can find. I love his enthusiasm for life.

A new toy and a new look!

A couple of new things to post about. A couple of weeks ago we got a fun new toy at our home. A flip video camera! We were still using a big old camcorder that didn't transfer to the computer and we had to do quite a few steps to even save it to a video we could watch later. So tada a new way to save those important moments. Hopefully we can add more to our blog. The first video I am going to share is a before of Meggan's hair. She has been trying to grow her bangs out all school year. It was enough to drive a mom crazy. For dance she had to have a french braid with a side pony tail so after her final competition and recital she wanted it cut really short. The second video is her after. She had 10 inches cut off and donated it to locks of love. I think she looks pretty cute! Love you Meg!

My Sister's Birthday!

Happy Birthday Kristy! I made a new cake for my sister Kris. It's a 4 layer chocolate fudge cake with chocolate ganache poured over the top and pirouette cookies around the outside it was so yummy! Kristy's blog is the ashbyarchives.blogspot.com you can check out what an amazing woman she is. She is an incredible sister, friend, daughter, wife, and mom... I love you sis and hope you have an amazing day!

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Happy Mother's Day Mom!!! I'm so blessed to have my mom. She is an incredible woman who has faced many challenges in her life and has taught me many important things. I'm grateful for every lesson I've learned from her. I'm grateful for her testimony and devotion to the Gospel. I'm grateful for her wonderful hugs. I'm grateful for her unconditional love and most of all I'm grateful for her wonderful example. Love you mom!

We had the opportunity to spend Spring Break in Arizona with some of Dustin's amazing family. Dustin got to spend some quality time with his brothers, they golfed, played softball, and went to a Diamondbacks game. Jen got a pedicure and did a little shopping. The kids swam in the pool, played with cousins, did a little shopping, and went to Amazing Jakes a fun buffet arcade place. We wish we lived closer we had such a great time. We can't wait to go again. This little slideshow is some of the pictures MaKady and Mom took along the way. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday to an Amazing Sister!

This last week my sister Shelley celebrated a big birthday. One that ended in a zero!!! (To protect the innocent we won't reveal which birthday it was besides the fact that she's my younger sister it would just make me seem older.) I had the opportunity to try making a new cake. The cake was 8 inch round chocolate fudge layers and I split the layers and frosted in between them. So it was 4 layers of chocolate and frosting. Then I frosted the outside and poured chocolate ganache all over the cake. The top is the chocolate play dough flowers in Shelley's favorite color purple. I've never attempted the whole chocolate ganache thing and I think it turned out pretty cute, not to mention delicious! Hope you had a wonderful day Shelley! Love you tons!

A fun hobby

Last month was MaKady's friend Shelby's birthday and we made her a really cute basketball cake. The basketball was a 6 inch cake covered in chocolate playdough set on a 10 inch cake. The letters and shapes were chocolate as well. Shelby really liked it and we had fun doing it.