Party Time!!!

Kiera's birthday is not until Friday, but since Grandma L. was out this weekend, we thought we would celebrate it Monday after her cousins got out of school. Our theme (pretty obvious from the pictures) was Strawberry Shortcake. Kiera picked this cake for me to make and I was a little nervous attempting it. I was very pleased with how it turned out and learned all about Fondant icing...made it myself and then found out you can buy it at Wal-Mart already made. Oh well, I learned something new this way! Her poor boy cousins had to suffer through the pink and girly stuff, but they had fun anyway!!! On Friday her best friend Katelyn is coming over to play and celebrate some more. It's a party all week!!!







The kids played pin the jewel on Strawberry's crown. The boys loved it, but Kiera was too shy to play. She doesn't like people watching her do ANYTHING!

Snow, Snow, go away...

We have had so much snow this year! I am getting rather weary of it all. We thought we would post some pictures of the piles in our yard. It's to the point where if I shovel, I can't throw it high enough at the end of the driveway it's so tall! Supposedly we are getting more this weekend. Yuck, yuck, yuck!!!

Kiera can't even sit on her swings, they are buried in snow.
Our front entry is pretty slick
Here is a view of the front yard...at least 2 feet of snow.
And here was an extremely rare mommy moment I had to share. We were coming back from somewhere and all the kids fell asleep. This NEVER happens. I got out of the car, went in the house, sat on the couch and relished the peace and quiet. It was almost surreal (even if it only lasted for half an hour)!!!

Life here has been fairly routine. The boys both got ear infections a few weeks ago, so we are finally done with medications and Dr. appts.(the cranky kids still linger). Joel may need to have tubes put in due to a high number of ear infections. We are going to wait another month to see how things go. Both boys are now walking all over the place. Tomorrow I'm headed to Target to get some backpacks with leashes on them. Going anywhere is quite a challenge since their motto seems to be divide and conquer. We'll see how those leashes work (a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do!!!). Ryan was in Orange County, CA for a week at a staff retreat at Saddleback. They had a great time and enjoyed the respite. He came back early to take the high school on their annual winter retreat. It was a long 10 days for me, but we survived and were very excited to have daddy back! Now we are trying to entertain active kids inside while waiting for the snow to melt. Next week we celebrate Kiera's birthday, so we'll be posting more soon!