Making Easter Cupcakes

It's been a rather challenging week around here! Crafty was at State FCCLA competition on Tuesday and Wednesday (she qualified for Nationals!) and today was Cupcake Club. Her meeting was a week later than normal because last week was the end of the term, so we were feeling a bit off.

Thankfully, we got posters and announcements up before she left town and Mrs. Woodward bought most of the ingredients this time too, so that was nice, but this morning dawned way too early and one of my tasks was to make 96 unfrosted cupcakes before 2:00.

I just wasn't feeling it. I don't love cooking anyway and baking is only marginally better (mostly because the kids will usually actually eat the things I bake). By noon I knew I couldn't put it off any longer. By 2:20, I was parked at the high school with my basket full of goodies for yet another fun and exciting meeting.

Crafty is getting so good at running the meetings by herself, she really doesn't need me. I spent my time taking down the posters, talking with Mrs. Woodward about next year, and locating her FCCLA project. Oh, and running back home to get the sprinkles and colored sugar I forgot...

But the cupcakes turned out so cute! Our attendance was down because of the change in dates, so we had plenty to bring home for the kids and grandkids to decorate. (At least I managed to do one good thing preparing for Easter.) Right now my plate is pretty full.

So is Crafty's.

Little Gold Box

Lots of fun things have been happening for Scout lately. A couple of days ago she got this adorable little gold box in the mail. All the kids were super excited to see what kind of treasure it might hold.

I finally let her open it.

She was so surprised to see these cute ballet slipper earrings from SmitCo. One of my favorite parts about blogging is finding out about new companies and trying their products. I had never even heard of SmitCo before, but they have dozens of products and they are available on Amazon, one of my favorite sites.

And I was right. Now they all want something...

DARE Graduation for Scout

It's hard to believe that Scout is in 5th grade and old enough to graduate from DARE! Here in Utah some communities have this anti-drugs, alcohol, tobacco program for their elementary schools. Our city happens to be one of them.

I love that they come into the schools and teach the kids all of these great things, but mostly I love that the kids are getting to interact with police officers in a good way so they aren't afraid of them and they feel comfortable talking with them.


Our high school has a dedicated officer and the middle school also has a police presence. Over her high school career, Fajita has gotten to know the officer at Bingham quite well. He even knows I am her grandma. The good part is that Fajita always feels safe talking with him and he always has time for her. It's almost like having another counselor, but this one wears a uniform.

At the very end of the graduation program, the kids from all 3 classes all wore their green DARE shirts and sang a catchy tune written just for the occasion. It was all pretty fun, relatively short, and they served cookies afterward. I'm thinking very likely the best graduation program I have ever attended!

Shower for Savannah

Today all the girls (except Prima Donna, Bossy and Fajita) rode down to Utah County for a bridal shower for my cute niece. She is getting married on April 8 and we are pretty excited for her.

Baby Doll was so happy to be included in the grownup festivities she could hardly sit still. My sister-in-law throws a fantastic party with tons of amazing food. The younger girls were stunned when they realized that as long as they weren't sitting by me, they would be allowed back to the desserts as many times as they wished.

Twizlet was the hit of the party, of course, and they just loved passing her around. She endured it all with mostly good spirits. This coming week is spring break for Teach and then she goes back to teaching full time. My kids are all off track now and we are trying to get things in order so we don't waste all that time together.

I always have these great and grand plans. Sometimes they work!

Sometimes they don't.

The Big Announcement

Sorry to be so slow posting today, but I have been waiting for the big announcement! Beauty and The Beast went in for their 20-week ultrasound this morning and we have been waiting all morning for them to take guesses on Facebook.

I'm just thrilled with another new grandchild. In truth, I did not really care if we were going blue or pink, but I know it is a big deal to the parents.

So are you ready? Drum roll please...

In The Beast's own somewhat inappropriate words:

"Its a grand ol'flag, it's a high flying flag and forever in his pants may it stay!

A Big Step

Remember last summer when Crafty had her very first paid job playing the clarinet in the SLCC Marching Band? At the time she wasn't always so happy about getting up early in the summer and spending her holidays out in the hot sun.

Yesterday all that work paid off when she bought her very own computer with that hard-earned money. She is super excited to no longer have to wait in line for her turn at the family computer to sweat over her homework.

Not only is this a big step for her, it is a huge step for us! We have never allowed any of our children to purchase/have their own computer before they became adults. It has just been a rule. But now that they have phones and tablets, it seems that they have access to everything anyway, so this just makes everyone's life a bit easier.

Crafty is an amazing girl and I trust her completely or I would not have allowed this purchase, but still, I want to be a good parent. What kind of rules do you have for your kids with their devices? Should I set up a lockout time or restrict her hours in some way?

Need some advice here.

Stupor of Thought

I went to bed last night because my brain would not even come up with a decent idea to write about and it was late...

Problem is, here I am, showered and dressed and ready to meet the day and it STILL seems to be pretty blank. Lots of people ask me how I can possibly post every day and where do I find my material. I guess that means my kids have been sort of boring this week. Did you know that most of my very own children don't read my blog?

They have this excuse... "I was there, so I already know what happened."

I personally don't think that holds much water. They should be the first ones online every morning just to check my facts, right?

Enough ranting...

Last night Curly and I went out to the urgent care for one last x-ray of his finger. He has been so diligent to wear the finger brace all the time, even when he sleeps. The break was through a growth plate so they wanted to make sure it healed properly.

He was given a clean bill of health so he only has to wear it for another 4 weeks while he is playing baseball. All other times he can be without it. He was excited to see his finger again.

I was excited to not have to worry about it all the time.

Spinning

My head is spinning with all the new schedule changes. We actually missed one of Curly's baseball practices because I didn't log onto the Facebook page. You saw that the Dog Walker has begun his field assignment. He is working in a 6th grade classroom and all seems to be going well. We just need to make sure he gets everything done there and then focus on wrapping up the semester.

We got Crafty all registered for a few summer classes. She wants to earn her Associates while she is in high school, so it will mean some extra work. She is a super busy girl lately.

Teach is almost ready to go back to work, so that means I get to watch Twizlet while Twiz is working. Do you know that baby girl is one month old today? Time just flies by...

One last thing, I am really impressed with the Fitbit company! The Dog Walker just started having trouble getting his Charge 2 to work that he received for Christmas. We emailed the company and sent them these two pics and a few diagnostics later and his new Fitbit is on its way. It didn't cost us anything! Not even shipping!

One of Those Days

You ever have one of those days when you wonder if anything you did worked?

Like today...I ran to Big 5 to buy some baseball pants for the boys. Sport needed two pair of adult gray. Of course I got the wrong size, so I will be making a second trip tomorrow.

Then I dropped by the Home Depot to pick up a few things my sweetie needed. While I was buying my light bulbs for the bathroom, I remembered that my MIL needed a circular bulb for her lamp. When I got home I realized that the bulb is rattling... meaning it's probably worthless, so while I am at Big 5, I can chase the rest of the way back down the street and stop at the Home Depot.

In good news, I got rid of my very last box of Girl Scout cookies! If I could do a cartwheel, I would. Now if I can just get all the money and paperwork finished up, I won't have to worry about it until next year and we will have the funds we need for our troop.

Sunday afternoon snooze with Twizlet

I spent a good couple of hours today trying to deal with an insurance mess. We got a new plan this year and I'm still trying to figure it out. When I called, the lady on the phone seemed hopeful that the company would come through and pay the $2500 I owe to St. Marks...

Guess it's worth waiting a couple more weeks.

Sport got his turn to count her toes.

And you probably wanted to know how the Dog Walker did at his first real observation day for school. When I asked him, he said, "Great!" I sure hope the teacher agreed.

Someone asked me how I was doing today and I answered the same thing, "Great!"

Guest Blog: Time for Field Experience! by the Dog Walker

You may have not heard about this, but I've been attending UVU to major into being a Special Education Elementary teacher. And throughout this semester, I've been attending a lot of classes and have been trying the best I can to remember everything that has been taught and use it during field experience. They call this field, because it gives students the opportunity to go to an elementary school they're assigned to observe teaching methods of the teacher they've been assigned to both observe and help out with. Tomorrow is my first day for field and I'm both excited and nervous at the same time. I hope this works out and that I learn a lot of things out of it. I only have three weeks of observing before going back to the rest of the semester in the courses.

 

Elevation Dance Competition

The last couple of days my kids have been participating in the Elevation dance competition at Taylorsville High School. On Friday night, Drama Queen, Baby Doll, Scout, and I went over to watch Crafty perform her solo. She did a great job! (Sorry for the bad pics.) I just love watching her dance!

Then on Saturday, the kids were up bright and early for a full day. Their Peter Pan production number was first, so Drama Queen helped them get ready and then she ran Scout, Curly, and Crafty out to Taylorsville. They arrived right on time for their 9:00 performance.

It's a good thing 9:00 meant an hour early because at 8:15 Drama Queen called to ask me about Curly's boot covers. Then my sweetie ran them the 25 minutes to the high school.

He got there just in time.

None of them placed super high in the standings except for the production number. Crafty makes a fabulous Peter Pan.

Happy St. Paddy's Day

Today was another super busy day, so we decided to celebrate all things green with the girl scout troop and then not worry about it for the evening.

Baby Doll and I had planned two fun activities: making green Celtic headbands, and putting together a tasty rainbow fruit pizza. I ran to the store for ingredients in between helping the Dog Walker teach Curly's 3rd grade art lesson, and delivering cookies and money to the bank.

The girls arrived around 2:45 and they immediately got started on the fruit pizza. It used a pre-made pie crust, so that helped simplify things. We got the crusts going and then we concentrated on making headbands and slicing fruit.

Crafty and one of the other girls mixed up the cream cheese "frosting" while I sliced grapes in half. I think the favorite part for all the girls was lining up the colors of the rainbow. We used strawberries, mandarin oranges, pineapple tidbits, kiwi, blueberries, and grapes.

The tastiest part though was the eating!

Cookie Booth

I've told you before I still had about 500 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in my living room, but this afternoon my girl scouts did a 4-hour cookie booth at our local Smith's and now I'm down to about 50. Can I just tell you it was crazy?! So crazy I didn't even take any pictures.

People are so wonderfully supportive!

One man walked up to me and handed me a $10 bill. "Thank you for working with the girls," he said. "Use this for your troop." I was stunned, of course. I gushed a thank you and offered him change, but he declined and walked away.

This was not an isolated event either. It was the largest amount they were given, but certainly not the only person who simply offered a donation or left a tip or bought cookies just because my cute little girls asked them to.

Thank you everyone for all of your love and support, even those of you that I don't even know. Your generosity means so much. There are so many good people in the world.

I Can't Be Three Places at Once

Contrary to popular opinion, I can't be three places at the same time.

Today my list was brutal. Wednesdays were bad before with the dance schedule because the kids have 45-minute classes, so I need to be at the studio at 4:00, 4:30, 4:45, 5:30, 6:15, and 7:00. Then after throwing in a generous helping of ball practice, it read like this.

4:00   Take Crafty and Baby Doll to the studio.
Make sure to take the Dog Walker and his car so we can run over to the mechanic and pick up my car. (This worked, but not perfectly. The Dog Walker took off for home so he could make my next run when the mechanic was taking longer to bill me out than I had hoped.)

4:30   Drop Curly at the studio (the Dog Walker did this one).
4:45   Pick up Baby Doll from the studio.
5:00   Drop Sport at baseball practice and stay for the parent meeting.
5:00   Drop Scout at softball practice (Dog Walker did this one, but he had to be to work at 6:00, so his help was over.)

Chick-fil-A was doing their kids' club from 5 - 7 and the kids love to go, but I was worried it would have to be discarded this time. We had already discarded Scout's tap class so she could practice her first night on the dirt.

5:35   Baby Doll and I rushed home from the parent meeting so she could change for dance.
5:40   Took Baby Doll to CFA Kids' Club
5:50   Arrived at CFA, did activities.
6:05   Left CFA, took Baby Doll to the studio.
6:16   Dropped Baby Doll at dance and picked up Curly

Curly was nervously tapping his toe. He had finished both of his dance classes and he needed to change before he had to be at baseball practice.Unfortunately, Baby Doll had only grabbed his baseball bag and left his pants and mitt that were sitting on top, so we had to swing by the house. Thankfully, it was on the way.

6:30   Dropped Curly at baseball practice, met his coach, arranged pick up time.
6:30   Drama Queen picked up Sport from practice, drove directly to the studio to pick up Crafty and Baby Doll. Dropped Sport at Young Men's.


6:36  Arrived at the softball fields 6 minutes late to pick up Scout. Realized we had forgotten to establish a meeting place and after 10 more minutes of searching first in my car and then on foot, I called her coach.

Thinking I had already picked up Scout, her coach immediately turned back around for the fields. A couple of minutes later and she was found and a plan was established just in case we had trouble again. Apparently driving around and around in circles is not a good answer.

Scout was as upset as I was, partially because we couldn't find each other and partly because now she would likely miss the CFA club. We decided to drive there anyway, hoping they were held a little past 7:00 by kids just finishing up.

7:02  The sweet ladies at CFA gave Scout everything, including her ice cream and a sundae for me. (Nice!)

7:15  Drove back to Curly's baseball practice to pick him up by 7:30. Seemed rather silly to go home at that point. Waited in front of the batting cages for him to finish. Turned the Tupperware training class I was missing on my phone so Scout and I could listen to the presentation. Promptly fell asleep.

8:00   Curly finally comes out to the car the second time Scout went in after him.

Drove home.

Season is just started and I need a break already...

Definitely Spring!

I can't believe we are already at March 14th! What happened to winter?

Yesterday Scout had her first softball practice so we had to break out the equipment and divide it up for the new season. After Curly, Sport, Scout, and Baby Doll had all tried on baseball pants (none of them fit Curly; he has grown so much!) helmets, and mitts, we made a pile for each child.

The Dog Walker dumped the bag full of bats and I let each of them select 2 and then we sized those as well. We didn't have a problem there. In fact, I sent 4 bats with Bossy when she came over later so her boys could use them. (She also got all the cleats and pants that we weren't planning to use...)

My sweetie conditioned the gloves last night and now we have our shopping list of what we need to buy. It's not too bad. Baseball pants for Curly, (he thinks I'm buying him a new helmet, but I'm not) and possibly a couple of new bat bags. They have used theirs for two years now and since they were $10 cheap ones, they are simply wearing out.

Other than trying to figure out how to deal with all the craziness, we are good.

Happy baseball/softball season!

Happy Spring. :)

Visiting Grandma

On Sunday we decided to break with tradition and we loaded all the kids in the big van (all dressed for church) and headed to Grandma's house. It wasn't "over the river and through the woods," but it was still a pretty far drive for kids in their Sunday best.

We arrived at Grandma's church about 10 minutes before the meeting started and she was just getting out of her car. At 12:57 we were all sitting on a middle pew waiting for the meeting to begin. Teach and Twiz had driven down separately, but they arrived just in time to pass Twizlet to her great-grandma before the opening hymn.

We stayed for all 3 meetings, which was rather stressful for our children, but good for them at the same time. Sort of like eating asparagus...

After church we headed back to Grandma's house where we helped her with a few things and my sweetie made a nice dinner. After sharing food and laughter, we cleaned up, packed all the extra food into small containers in Grandma's freezer, and climbed back in the van.

We were home before 9:00 pm, which was good because the kids still had homework and other responsibilities, but I wanted to share some of these pics with you. Hope you all have a happy Monday!

Princess Gifts from SmitCo

With 8 daughters and now a brand new granddaughter, I'm constantly in need of a gift for a girl or a gift for a birthday party. So when SmitCo offered to send me something for free to review, you know I am all over it! My favorite item by far on their list is, of course, the ballet slipper earrings. I'm afraid I have several girls who will all need a pair.Click on this link to see them yourself. ballet earrings

I'm not a huge fan of glitter nails, but my girls love to do mani/pedi parties, so I've no doubt they would be happy to receive one of these things in their Easter baskets this year. I will let you know on the quality when I get mine, in the meantime, you can browse through them yourself at Amazon. To get a discount of 20% off your entire cart, go to: Amazon Smitco and use coupon code N3CQD6AE at checkout

Ready for Spring

Such beautiful weather in Utah!! I even convinced the little girls to clean up the backyard... sort of. It still needs a lot of work, but we are almost to the point of putting the patio furniture back outside. My neighbors were out mowing and cleaning, all that sort of stuff. That made me feel a bit guilty.

The boys and the grandsons had baseball tryouts this morning. I think they could have easily had them outside rather than at the high school gym, but I guess when they scheduled things they just didn't know it would be so nice outside.

We delivered more cookies and I spent a healthy amount of time helping the Dog Walker with his homework. He seriously suffers with time management. Drama Queen took the kids over to help rip out the old carpet in her new house. Then when they got back we drove down to American Fork to see Moana.

We sent the kids upstairs right after we got home since tonight is Daylight Savings Time. The Dog Walker came in the office and changed my clock about 11:30. When I glanced at it I was terribly confused for a minute...

Weekend, Anyone?

Sorry, I've been AWOL for a couple of days. The first day was on purpose. I've been trying to get Teach to write up something fun so I could legitimately put up all the cute baby pics I want. (She has SO many more!) I think I told you that every night around midnight she sends me a pic. This started when she was up in the hospital and the baby was awake at odd hours. Thank goodness they continued it when they got home.

My sweetie continues to slave away on the basement bathroom project. He grouted the shower and most of the other tile today. It will be nice when it is usable. Scout and Baby Doll had tons of fun with this giant box they turned into a fort.

Crafty is at a Youth Camp Leader retreat. Curly and Sport just finished up a baseball clinic tonight so they will be a little more prepared for the tryouts that start tomorrow morning.

So that is my weekend. That and helping the Dog Walker get back on track with a couple of classes where he has been struggling. And the cookies...

There are always the cookies, although we have now made most of our deliveries and Drama Queen assured me we have fewer than 500 boxes left...

Guest Blogger:Famous Mormons by the Dog Walker

It's been a while since I got to guest blog. Do you remember the time when I had an anxious life of wanting to be famous and learning from Mom and Dad about the consequences of it? Well, I just wanted to point out that there are famous people who are Mormons and have made a difference in their lives. I won't explain all of the details of them, but I could just tell you one unique thing about their fame. 

This is David Archuleta. He's best known as a famous singer for bringing spiritual moments to everybody in our world. He even sung Glorious for the Meet the Mormons documentary.

 

This is Alex Boyé. He's been known for singing a lot of songs, just like David Archuletta, but more likely singing a lot of African chants.

This is Donny Osmond. He's been known as a handsome singer as well as for playing the modern role, Joseph from the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

This is Gladys Knight.She's a former Baptist, but joined the church after teasing Gordon B. Hinkley about adding pop to the Church music.She's better known as the Empress of Soul.

This is Jon Heder. He's better known as the main character of the same name of the film Napoleon Dynamite.

This is Lindsey Stirling. She's better known as a dancing violinist. She's been an inspiration to all the world that anybody can show off their different talent, just like her.

This is Paul Cardall. He's best known for being a talented and a very-well clever pianist. He's played mostly hymns, but has made other music for LDS movies, like Ephraim's Rescue.

This is Stephenie Meyer. She's best known as the author of the Twilight Saga. A lot of readers have found her chapter books really unique and clever of life being the other perspective.

This is Shawn Bradley. He's best known as the seven foot NBA player. A lot of people consider him being the tallest man in the world.

These are the Piano Guys. They're best known as the band who come up with unique and very jazzy piano sounds to music. They even made a Cameo appearance in the remake movie Saturday's Warrior.

This is Studio C. They are the cast members of the TV show under the same name. They love to come up with funny and clean humor to make everyone laugh and smile.

This is Ken Sansom. He was an actor throughout the children's shows. He was best known for playing the voice of Rabbit in the Winnie the Pooh franchise. He died in 2012 from a stroke, but he has been an inspiration to everyone around him.




This is SHeDAISY. They're three biological sisters who perform a country band around the country. They're best known for singing lots of different songs, better known with their Brand New Year album.

So all of this brings to me that I sometimes like to be like these famous Mormons, but not literally gain so much fame like they did, but to be an inspiration to everybody around me, just like them. I hope you enjoyed it and hope you want to learn more about them.