MOTHER'S DAY

This is a horrible picture, I know. It's taken with my phone because Pete has our camera in Africa!
This is how my mother's day ended. This is a picture of me cleaning up lots and lots of smelly puke, which I do not handle well, and it has happened twice since Pete has been gone! But the thing that made it better this time was that my sweet little Mayci came and grabbed a paper towel and with a smile on her face started wiping the walls and floor with me and singing "Clean up clean up!" How could I continue feeling bad for myself then!

I wondered how this mother's day would be without Petey here to give me breakfast in bed and pamper me all day. But honestly it was a pretty good day, despite the puke filled ending. We got to church without too much frustration, even though we were still 15 minutes late. The kids were SOOO ADORABLE singing their sweet mother's day primary songs to me. Then they even got to give a short little "I love my mom because" in the microphone. James said because she helps me clean my room, Dallin said because she reads me stories, Ragan said because she gives me hugs and kisses and bandaids when I am hurt, and Mayci just grinned at the audience as she was held up by one of the primary presidency! I love my kiddos. I love being a mommy. I love being the one that is needed and wanted when my kids are sad or hurt or scared. I love being adored despite my many flaws. I love being adored minutes after scolding them. I love that they say I am a wonderful mother always, even though I am not. Motherhood is hard and frustrating and sometimes daunting, but the joy in the little moments makes every hard part so worth it!

I am so grateful to be called Mother. I am so grateful to have such a wonderful mother as an example to follow. I am so grateful that my Heavenly Father trusts me enough to have sent me four beautiful spirits to guide and to give a good foundation to that they might know Him and return to Him someday. I hope I can be a good example to them and give them a foundation for testimony and faith. I love my mother for doing this for me. Happy Mother's Day to all you mommy's out there. I hope you can find joy in the journey too. I hope you can focus on the good moments and small triumphs and forget the short comings and falling on your face moments. MOTHERHOOD IS A GIFT!

March and April

We celebrated Dr. Suess's birthday with some green eggs and ham and cat in the hat jello cups

 Then we painted some props and had some fun!

 It's been cake central around here the last couple of months. I have started selling cakes and have had quite a few orders. It's been so fun and I've learned ALOT.

 This one was for a bridal shower for a friend at the salon

 This was for my sweet Alex's 18th birthday (one of my Young Women)

 This cake and cupcakes were for Sarah and Pedro's cute Chloe's 2nd birthday. This one is one of my favorites except for the Rapunzel figure. 

 This was for my friend Nicole's sweet little Hyrum's bday.

And this one was for Heidi and Dan's Cece who turned one last week. Heidi added a cute Minnie Mouse head on top with a number one, but I don't have a picture of that. And for the record, I only assisted on this cute cake. Heidi did most the work. She is becoming quite the cake decorator too!

And last but not least, one I threw together last minute for Pete's graduation party

 Sadly I had to turn the big 3-0 last month. It sucks, but what do you do?

Pete and the kids made me this fabulous cake!!!!

Random fun pic of me and the kiddos

 We got to go and visit with the Julander gang for Easter in Star Valley. Justin and Minde are fabulous hosts. There were a whole lot of people in that house! Minde amazes me. Not only did she do food and and easter egg hunt, but she had crafts galore for everyone, and everything planned perfectly so no one got bored. The kids even performed a fantastic talent show for us. I loved every minute of Easter. 

Pete left for Ghana today with my camera, so there will definitely be no more postings until he gets home in 26 DAYS!!! Then I will post a million amazing pictures from AFRICA. I am so freaking jealous...but so excited for him....a nervous wreck that something bad will happen. I'm praying!!!! Wish me luck.

February

My kiddos helped me make a cake and were so proud! We made this cake as a demo to help my friend Lynsey learn how to do fondant. It was made with leftover fondant. Turned out pretty good!

My James is officially baptized. WOW. I can't believe I have an eight year old, and accountable child! I hope I've done my job right, and he continues to be a good kid. I had a white towel embroidered for him with the CTR symbol, his name and baptism date. I forgot to take a pic, but here's the packaged gift. It came with a sweet poem. It's on my pinterest if anyone wants to copy. He loved it.

Here's the fixins for his "after party!" I had a long night the night before!

It makes me physically sick that I forgot to take a picture of my boys all in white. By the time I thought of it their clothes were wet and changed. So this after shot will have to do.

And some more with the fam

Great Grandma Lange

Grandma and Grandpa Julander

Grandma and Grandpa Lange

Another cake demo, although Heidi did most of the work. I just advised, supervised and did a little of the detail work! I LOVE this cake. I think it's so cute, another wonderful pinterest discovery!

Just a few adorable photos of some cute kids I know!

Valentines pictures, or should I say picture. I didn't get any of the kids eating their valentine breakfast because right after this Ragan came into the kitchen with gum stuck in her bangs!!!! AHHHH! And then we had some drama with James and showering! Oh the joys of motherhood! Happy Valentines Day!

And last but not least, this is what Dallin wanted for his reward of 30 min mommy time. (More like a couple hours but who's counting!) He wanted me to make him a batman costume. ( I made Tag a lightening Mcqueen cape for his birthday on Sunday, and Dal had a little cape envy!)

December and January

WARNING: PICTURE OVERLOAD! PROCEED WITH CAUTION

K so I REALLY need to blog more often. It just took me almost two hours to upload the pics for this post. My computer is running a bit slow??? But still! So if you happened to be on pinterest tonight you'll know why I pinned a million things. I went a websearchin' while I waited and waited and waited for my uploads! SHEESH!

I don't know why I NEVER remember to put pictures in backward order, but I yet again forgot, so we're starting with January and moving backward to December:

Dallin and Kolten ( an adorable neighbor boy we watch frequently) had a blast helping me make homemade wheat bread/cinnamon swirl bread this week. I got the recipe from The Sister's Cafe. It turned out so yummy and the best part is it looks like white bread and the kiddos loved it! I got a bucket of white wheat at Costco last week ($18) and my mom came to visit with her trusty wheat grinder. (I have a mini one but it's a lot of work) She kindly left the grinder with me (yay!) She and Pete ground half a bucket of wheat for me while I was at work on Saturday (so nice). Then Monday me and the boys went to town making yummy bread. Dallin particularly liked the kneading/punching part! Too fun! I remember doing this with my mom, good times!

I forgot to get a picture of the baked bread, it was beautiful and so good!

These are my notorious random pictures for the month. I think Mayci is the winner at our house for the best bedhead/wakeup face. I come in a close second! HA she cracks me up!

We had such a fun birthday party for Ragan this year. I was inspired by a cake that I found online. Ragan really likes owls and I couldn't get this cake off the brain so we went with it. Then I wondered, how can we do an owl party??? So I turned to my dear friend Google and asked just that! And this is what I found: Thankyou to Snowybliss.blogspot.com. I copied her party almost completely. I hate to be such a copykat, but her ideas were just to desirable! We started the
NIGHT OWL PARTY

by making our own personal pizzas and a craft that was contributed by Ragan. I wish I had taken a picture of that (darn). She made paper bag owl puppets, completely thought up and designed by her. They were adorable. So half of the ten girls (+ some extras) did the craft and half did the pizzas and then we switched. After dinner, at Ragan's request we did gifts (no she is not blessed with patience) Then we gave them their party favors which were handstitched felt owls. Ragan learned to blanket stitch, as did I. She helped with a couple of the owls and was so proud to know how to "sew." I love that she was so excited. With each owl came a introductory friendship poem and an adoption certificate. I was afraid we'd have some cat fights over who got which one. But we drew out of a bowl and they were all so excited and satisfied with their picks (whew). Of course I let Ragan pick the one she wanted before the drawing. Princess of course!

After that we danced in the dark with glowsticks and attempted glow in the dark hot potato. Our hot potato didn't last! Last but not least we had cake and ice cream. Ragan (and my boys) can't stop talking about it! LOVE that...it makes all the hard work worth it!

THE CAKE:

This cake is by far the best cake I've ever made! I did have a wonderful assistant. Meahgahn Weber (formerly in my Young Women's group) came to visit me/be my slave...I mean assistant. Nothing against Pete but Meahgahn made a way better assistant. Pete is always willing to help, but it is much better to have someone that has an opinion about cuteness, and gets as giddy and excited as me when things turn out "SO CUTE" Thanks Meahgahn, for your girly opinion and your ability to function at 2 am!

If you look close you can see the owl has toothpicks sticking out of it's eyeball. When attaching the face on the owl in the morning, I accidently dropped the eyeball in the sink, and into a bowl of water. Sadly I swore when it fell in, and poor Dallin witnessed mommy's pottymouth and quickly repeated my four letter word! AHHHH! I hate bad mother moments. I told him don't say that, it's naughty, sorry mommy is a bad example!

This was our jimmy-rigging to get the eyelashes the right shape!

Another random favorite picture. The kids found the devil costume that has hung in my laundry room for months after promptly being washed after Halloween! (pathetic I know) and Ragan found some devil headbands I found on clearance for $.89 at Shopko in December. They decided to play dressup. These costumes are completely fitting for these two little devils. They will be the death of me!

So I am not the photogenic, cheese, cutesy posing type. Instead I manage to ruin every picture, so why not do it on purpose and get out some giggles in the process! All five sisters and my mom took Amy out to Olive Garden for her anniversary (her hubby was gone). We had so much fun talking and giggling and being goofy. I love my sisters, it's good to spend some time with them now and then!

Here's a nicer one!

My sweet baby James turned eight this year! He will be baptized next month. I can't believe he is getting so big! That and my ten year anniversary is making me feel really old!!! Ughhh! Here are some amazing pictures that my friend Kristi took for me. She did such an awesome job, and James is such a good, sweet, cute kid!

I took a few of my own after Kristi left. James is a bit shy, but for me he opened right up!

CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS:

Cinnamon rolls! YUM. I still have not perfected these like my mom, but for the life of me I will not quit trying til I get it right!

(Christmas morning in backward order)

Both my girls did some dancing for us! Ragan sporting some new dance clothes and Mayci sporting a hat that didn't quite fit! Our kids have big heads!

The boys showed off their moves in their new masks and their super stylin' beanies!

Here's Daddy and the kids waiting to pounce!

We had to redeem ourselves from last year and have real milk and cookies for Santa this year.

Ragan wrote the note this year:

"DIR SANTA,

WE WONT A SOPRIS FOR CRISMUS (heart)

Love, Ragan, James, Dallin & Mayci"

Sportin' their Christmas Eve "Impy Gnomes" (elf) gifts

I made these cute flower headband for the girls out of $.89 witch hat headbands from Shopko clearance:

BEFORE

AFTER

My Christmasy Sunday attire:

We took James to Texas Roadhouse for his BIG 8 Birthday meal. Then we had the BIG TALK with him at home after the meal. He loved the "me" time.

He got to sit in the saddle and get a "Yee-haw" from the servers. Then he got a free icecream. He was so full he said his tummy might pop, but of course he didn't skip dessert, he finished it all!

GINGERBREAD TRADITION:

WARD PARTY

April and Cami and commity put on a fabulous Ward Christmas Party. It was truly beautiful. Pete and the kids were a part of the fun. Ragan and James got to be Mary and Joseph in the Nativity Story and Pete was a Sugar Plump fairy!

We started a new tradition this year. Instead of just the one night of elf gifts on Christmas Eve that my family has always done, we made it a week. I found the idea online, but I can't remember where, so I'm sorry for not giving credit where due. Each night the elves would leave a package on the door step with a note from Elmer:

the packages included:

snowman poop (powder donut holes)

reindeer noses:

stuff for gingerbread house decorating

candy cane hot chocolate and marshmellows

paper for making snowflakes

reindeer food (oats and sprinkles and sparkle dust)

and of course our "traditional" impy gnomy gifts: normally they get jammies, but they have way too many, and due to the holiday falling on sunday we thought Christmas clothes were appropriate

Our reindeer left some "presents" on our porch...reindeer poop (chocolate covered raisins)

We visited downtown Ogden's Christmas Village with Dan and Heidi Goodrich. It was beyond freezing, and we only last maybe 20 minutes, if that. TRADITION!

James birthday party was a blast. He invite just a few close friends and cousins and had a late night video game party. The cake request was iron man and this is what I did:

This year my house became the dedicated party house since my parents moved. It's centrally located and somewhat fits all the gang. I made my first official holiday turkey and as much as it looks burnt in the picture, it's not. It turned out delish. I used injectable garlic marinade and smothered it in herbed mayo (so not good for us) It was delish!

A local tree lot down town had some honest to goodness reindeer and the kids could not resist stopping for a picture. (Dal of course would not pose...big surprise)

My Christmas present this year was to finally paint my kitchen. (It's been primed since we moved in three years ago!) I was going for a light tan for the all over color but it turned out more off whitish. I don't love it but don't want to redo it either! I hate taping!

But my chalk wall turned out perfect. LOVE IT! The kids now have something to occupy them in the kitchen while I cook (Mayci is still and ankle biter, but we're working on it!)

As we got out the ornaments to decorate the tree, three of them quickly became glitter for the garbage when the little ones were "helping" So we made them all garbage decor and decided that homemade ornament were more fun anyway. We intended to make more, but the kids attention span didn't quite make it to one each:

I love/hate our trees. I think I counted 48 bags this year. I might be considering de-treeing my yard next year!!! They do make fun pictures though:

Ragan has found true love. I just thought it'd be cute to put her in dance when she was so little, but she really has fallen in love. She's pretty good too! Here are some pics from her recital.