Anyone for a game of catchphrase?

I thought I would share yet another one of my cakes. I made this one yesterday for our friends Geoff and Colleen Salter. They have built a house and finally had their house warming type party. I actually had given them the game months ago shortly after they moved in, as a house warming gift, and for the party yesterday I made the catch phrase cake. This game is a favorite of a lot of us around here, including the Salters.




Here is the picture of the cake next to the game. I think I did an ok job.

Get your clothes back on!

So I have this son, whom I love deeply. Owen is extremely funny and active. He also has a love for being without clothes. Luckily lately that means still having his undies on. But still I prefer him to wear clothes and am constantly telling him to get his clothes back on. He is even so bold as to start taking off his clothes while people are visiting. So yesterday I was bugging him for quite a long time to get his clothes on. I tried explaining to him that the girls were going to have friends over and that he can't be naked anymore (again naked meaning still undies on) finally I convinced him and a few minutes later I hear him yell that he got his clothes on. Then a few more minute passed and this is how he got himself dressed......








Needless to say he was pretty proud of himself for fooling me and putting pants on his head and wearing his shirt like pants. Crazy boy!!!!!!!!!!!! I took me quite awhile to get him to get dressed properly, It think it included him getting treats. Somehow I think he might have planned that one.

Cake makes everyone feel better.....right?

I am not sure what it means, or if it is a good thing, that when I think I need to do something for someone, I think of making a cake. There is this wonderful family from Mexico that we know living here in Stony Plain. There is the mom, the dad, and 2 brothers and 2 sisters, the oldest brother is married and his wife is here too. The oldest brother and his wife were worried about getting pregnant and having a baby in Canada until Chris and I reassured them it is very good having a baby here and she would be well taken care of. Well she recently went into the ER and then transferred to an Edmonton hospital. She was just a few weeks along and had a miscarriage. Chris spent a long time at the hospital translating for them and the doctors. Knowing the pains of miscarriage, both Chris and I feel so bad for them. They don't speak much English and they are in a strange country it must have been so scary for Betty, not to mention the rest of the family. So I just feel like there must be something we can do for them, anything, there has to be something. My brain is just searching for an idea. And then, I finally had it. A cake!!! I can make a cake. Cake is good, right, it makes everything feel better.... right? hmmmm well probably not, but I can make a cake and hopefully it will make her smile and feel a bit better, if even for a short moment. So I spent Wednesday morning last week making a super tall cake, and as you can tell in the pictures, it started to slope to one side because of all the weight. Chris picked up some flowers and when I was done the cake we dropped everything off and visited for a bit. Well Chris did the talking, I am the only one who can't speak Spanish. I really really need to learn Spanish. Anyways, so here are some pictures. I did white cake, chocolate cake, white cake, chocolate cake layers. It was pretty tall.

Zipporah and Sydney's friend Birthday Party

I am a big fan of birthdays. I love how whenever one of my children have a birthday it is a day just for them and Chris and I have this amazing opportunity to make them feel special and an important member of our family. They get a meal out with mom or dad (sometimes lunch, sometimes supper) I always make them a special cake that they get to pick what they want. of coarse some gifts just for them. They also get to pick what we get to eat as a family for dinner. Now as much as I love when their birthdays come around, I do not like throwing parties for their friends to come to. I do this, despite how much as I dread it, because I love them and it is exciting for kids to have their friends over and have a big party. Sydney and Zipporah are three weeks apart, so they have always gotten a special cake on their actual birthday and a family celebration, but I combine their party with friends day. I think this year is the last year I will be doing that, as they seem to need their own. So I make them each another cake just for the party, got everything planned and we had a party today. Only a few girls were able to come, but I prefer to just have a few. They all had so much fun and there was lots of talks with their moms about having play dates and stuff. It is a neat time when they start calling their friends and friends become more than just people they see mostly at school. All the girls were so excited about calling each other. I am so glad the party is over and I won't have to do another one for awhile. Usually 8 years old is the last party, after that they get a lump some of money to buy their own gifts, or they can have a friend party, but they have to do all the games, decorating and entertaining, I provide the cake and the food and that's it. I am feeling extra wasted after today's party, probably just because of the pregnancy, but tired none the less. I am laughing that my hands as sore from decorating 2 cakes last night. But I insist on my girls having their own cakes made my mom on their party day, so serves me right. We had a butterfly party, and I decided on doing a caterpillar cake because caterpillars turn into butterfly's and it is nice to have 2 different cakes. I had all these butterfly crafts ready, but after the crowns, the girls just wanted to play. I think Zipporah and Sydney had a great party!


singing happy birthday

blowing out the candles

Zipporah helping Sydney, poor Syd, she can't seem to blow out candles. hehehe


Zipporah and her butterfly cake

Sydney and her caterpillar cake







birthday party crew

eating cake, they all wanted huge pieces, but only ate a very little, but since we had so much cake, that was no problem at all.

lunch time!

School bully's

One thing I am angered about is school bully's. My three older girls are all getting bullied. I had told them the first week to tell the teachers when it happens and if it is still continuing in a week then I would get involved. Well I had to get involved. I wrote a note to the teacher today. Abigail (grade4) and Daisy (grade 5) are both being bullied by the same grade 5er girl named Jessica. She punches then and pushes and hits, gives dirty looks and pretty much is super mean. Also Abigail and Lynnette (grade 4) have a class mate (Skyla) that is pestering them. More so Abigail. So I send the note and wait. I get a note after school saying that the grade 5 teachers had a meeting with all my girls and the grade 5 bully girl. It was told to me that Abigail said that she wasn't sure if it was Jessica and she thought maybe it was an accident. Also Daisy backed down a bit. Jessica of coarse denied it all, and was starting to "fake" (Abigail's) words. And she even told the teachers that Forrest, my oldest (grade 6) pushed her. BLAH!!! Turns out Forrest accidentally bumped into her and she said sorry. grrr to the bully's. So pretty much my girls were very intimidated by their bully being in the room, so they backed down. The note back to me said they would keep their eye out for things. Also Lynnette is no longer sitting by Skyla. Abigail is very emotional lately and stressed over this. And she is worried she will get hurt even more, that's why she backed down. So I called the school and talked to the vise principal. as I was at a lose of what to do next. I was feeling like nothing was solved and my poor girls were still afraid to go to school, and even a bit more than before. Oh man the vise principal was awesome. He told me he was going to pull Jessica into his office on Monday morning and talk to her. He was going to call her mom as soon as he got off the phone with me so she new what was going on. he also understood completely how my girls would feel intimidated by that meeting and expressed how he takes this stuff very serious and he wants my girls (and all children) to be happy at school and feel safe. If the problem continues I am to call him again. I feel so much better. I then talked to my girls about the importance of not backing down like they had, even if they are scared. Also that they need to tell even if the girls are threatening them if they tell. Also with Skyla the class bully, she has been suspended from school before and is just not a nice kids at all. Abigail was still afraid Skyla was going to be hurting her still. So I talked to them about sticking up for each other and being each others witnesses. Abigail and Lynnette are in the same class, so from now on Lynnette is going to watch out for Skyla when the teacher leaves and if she hurts Abigail, she can be a witness for her if Skyla denies it when Abigail tells. And if Abigail is too scared to tell, Lynnette will do the telling. Lynnette is also going to get a few classmates to be in on the witnessing and they are all going to stick up for each other and witness for each other when this girl bully's them. I also told them that they can have a secret game called avoid Skyla and avoid Jessica. And they can make a game out of keeping themselves safe a recess and stuff. I really hope things get taken care of now, at the beginning of the school year. I am really almost outraged that these girls have been physically harming my girls for the first two weeks of school and I tell you things better change. Next time I will be going down tot he office in person and make sure things are totally taken care of, though I do feel the vise principal will be taking care of things and that the talk I had with my girls will help them too, so that,me going down to the school will be unnecessary.

Sydney's 6

Sydney turned 6 today. For months and months it was all she could think about. I can't even tell you how many times she asked me how many days until her birthday. Today we just had a family party and the Hamiltons came as well. On Saturday we are having a joint friends party for Zipporah and Sydney. I think she had a fun evening and she was so happy to finally, after months and months, get presents. Oh and her cake is a crown if you can't tell.

Back to school

Well today I got my 6 oldest off to start another school year. I must admit I am not a big fan of sending my kids to school every day all day long and as this is the first day I am a bit of a nervous wreck. I forgot to have a talk with Forrest about how to handle the mean kids. Poor boy just has had more than his share of boys being mean to him. And when I took the older girls to their classrooms, which are by Forrests class, he came out and told me he was all unpacked, he looked a bit worried/sad. I gave him a quick hug and told him to have a great day and that I would see him after school.

I was going to talk to Sydney's worker, the school is supposed to provide her with a worker because she is autistic. I wanted to introduce her to Sydney and let Sydney know this is who she can go to if she need help of feels frustrated or lost, but there is no one there for her yet. What the HECK!!!???? They freakin made a big deal about it last year long before school was out, you think they would have someone lined up for her for the first day. She is high functioning, but I could already tell when I dropped her off that she was off today. Apparently there is going to be someone in the class today, but not who they are going to hire. Ummm that is even worse. fetch. I am feel a bit of ownership with the worker, as it is because of my daughter that the class has the full time worker, she is supposed to be there full time for SYDNEY, but they told me not to worry because if Sydney doesn't need her she can help out with the rest of the class. But I don't care about that, that worker is there only because of Sydney and Sydney better get the attention she needs. It is her and Zipporahs first day of grade one and that has me a bit nervous as well. I know Zipporah will adjust well, but I hope all day every day is not too hard on her. I really worry about teachers being too hard on kids. We have had some not so great teachers in the past and it really makes for a tough year. I hope her teacher is nice. Daisy, Lynnette and Abigail all have teachers that we know and really like, so I am sure they will do really well.

All the kids were a bit nervous and unsure. I hope they all have a good day.

Chris is going to give everyone back to school blessing tonite, we forgot to do them last night. Maybe I need a 'mom needs to keep low stress while pregnant and the kids are back to school' blessing. I can't wait until school is out!!!

Back to school pictures