Esther's First Birthday!

Hard for us to believe, but our little Esther is one year old! We tend to keep baby/toddler Birthdays fairly low-key, just getting together with family, but I do like to try for fun cakes. Feeling somewhat uninspired, I turned to her older siblings for cake/theme ideas...

I asked the kids, "What does Esther like?"

Emily giggled and said, "Peas!"

We all laughed, because it is very true --- One of Esther's favorite foods is frozen peas (and she eats them while they are still frozen). We joked around a bit about decorating the top of a cake with frozen peas and decided it would be icky when they melted. (Eeeeew!) I had been expecting the girls to say "princeses" or "fairies" (because that's what they like), so I combined some ideas and decided to make a "Princess and the Pea" cake!

I wanted to use fondant (smooth playdough-like frosting) to make blankets, but I'd only used the store-bought kind and it tastes nasty. Fortunately I found a recipe on the web for making fondant at home from melted marshmallows (and lots of powdered sugar). The project was still kind of tricky, since this is only the 3rd time I've worked with fondant, but I think it turned out ok:
On the weekend, we got together with family over at the Boschis, since Esther shares her Birthday with Uncle Dennis (as well as my sister Lisa and Matt's dad!). Katie made a really yummy chocolate cake for Dennis.

We had all had a good time. I think Esther quite enjoyed destroying (her part of) the cake and ripping into presents!

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!

Ready for A Grand New Adventure: School!

Well, it's official: Mike and Emily are now "kindergartners", and quite delighted to be heading off to school each day. We met their teachers at the school open house last week, and I think they will both get along just fine. They are also excited to be riding the bus, and hoped right on the first day with no worries. Fortunately, the bus stops right across the street from our house, so by winter I can just watch from the door :-)

Anyway, here's a little collage of the first couple of days. (Hit "play" of course, then when the project is loaded up, you click the different pics at the bottom to see them "full size" in the frame.)

"Tea" Party is a Relative Term...

One of Emily's Birthday presents this year was a "tea" set and some other toy cooking items from Aunt Jana (Boschi). The kids had played with tea sets at Grandma Higgins's house and at friends' houses, but we only had generic cooking/serving toys at our place. Needless to say, Emily loves it, and the Mike and Natalie are right there with her! (Although I think Mike's favorite is actually the toy blender --- he makes "milkshakes" for the tea parties....)

Jana has wanted for a while to have the kids and Evie (our cousin, Jana's granddaughter) over for a little tea party at her house. Carmen (Jana's daughter) wanted to be in on the fun, too, of course. The problem is that she's getting married in just a couple of weeks; so they had to squeeze the party in amongst the wedding preparations!

Being LDS, none of us actually drink tea, but that's no reason to miss out on a chance to dress up and eat fun treats! Jana's teapot was filled with milk, and the "creamer" contained chocolate syrup, and as an added touch, the "sugar" bowl was filled with Hershey's kisses.

A good time was had by all, and, most miraculous of all (to me), I didn't end up scrubbing chocolate out of the party dresses, either!



Thanks Jana and Carmen!!!

Catching Up...

Well, it's been/being a fun summer! That said, I have lots of photos and related projects I've gotten started and never finished or that I finished and then didn't get around to posting here...

Anyway, over the next couple of days I am posting the finished project and (hopefully) finishing and posting several more. I will back-date them closer to the event(s) featured, and hope this will not be too confusing...

So far I have put in:
2 from our trip to PA in May
1 from the 4th of July

Hope you-all are having a decent Summer, too!

How Much Fun Can We Pack in One Weekend?

In May I was delighted to re-connect with a friend we'd lost track of almost 10 yrs ago, Shae (Shauna) Johnson. Come to find out, she's been living only about 5 hrs away from us for several years now! Of course, now she's working on moving back to Idaho/Utah... It just figures, doesn't it!

Anyway, in the middle of July we loaded up the family and went down to see her and another "long-lost" friend, Meg Dolan, before they headed westward. It was great fun to catch up with friends (none of us had any kids the last time we talked!)and we made sure we planned activities the kids could enjoy, too. On Saturday morning, we went to a local Farmer's Market with Meg and her 9-yr-old, 'Becca. Then we met up with Shae and her crew that afternoon and we all went to a neat little Children's Museum built in an old theater...

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

The trip was tons of fun, which now means even the kids are sad "mommy's friends" are moving so much farther away!

Good Luck, though, Guys!