Lollipop lollipop oh lolli lollipop

I made this cake for my friend Lindsay's birthday today. I was so excited to make this cake. I had it planned for weeks and weeks. i searched forever for lollipops and then just by chance found them on the counter as I was paying for some stuff at the dollar store. So I bought all thirteen that they had left. I had 5 left over I think. My kids enjoyed eating them and getting sticky! It also took three recipes of icing to cover the cake. Anyways, my batteries are dead in my camera so I didn't get a picture of Lindsay with her cake, but here is a couple pictures of just the cake. Hope you had a great day today Lindsay!!!

Winter Solstice 2008

A family tradition Chris and I started with our family, is celebrating Winter Solstice. It is a fun little tradition, and helps tide the kids over til Christmas. This year I made a snowman pinata, and we filled it with tons of goods, I made sock and gloves stuffed animals for their gifts. Also we made bird feeders out of pine cones that we covered in peanut butter and rolled in bird seed. We also had a delicious dinner and each person got their own bird, either cornish game hen or quail. We had some friends of ours come over this year to celebrate with us. It really was a fun night. I posted a few pictures of our evening.



this is the giant snowman pinata, it took me many many hours to make.

the kids making their bird feeders

the end results

hanging the bird feeders

this is our feast. Stuffed cornish game hen, corn, beans and mushroom soup, and stuffed potatoes. The younger kids got a quail. they are so small.

Everyone being best friends with the pinata, before ganging up on it and beating the crap out of it. LOL!!!

Enjoying the pinata guts!

Winter Solstice gifts

I just thought I would post the gifts I made for the kids for their Winter Solstice gift. They always get a Winter Solstice gift and without meaning too, it ended up being homemade gifts, so now the tradition is set and so I am always on the search for things to make them. This year it is animals made out of socks or gloves. I really enjoyed making them, and will probably make more of them too. I got the book called sock and glove from Chapters, and gloves and socks from the dollars store and this is the end result.



Forrest ~ bunny


Daisy ~ black dog

Lynnette ~ horse

Abigail ~ Zebra

Zipporah ~ pig

Sydney ~ white dog

Owen ~ cat

Calliope ~ elephant

here they are all together. There is a brown bear there as well, that Brandon got, but for some reason I never got a picture of him with it.

JJ is 3

Today JJ turned 3. He is quite the little character. We do enjoy him lots. He often through out the day, just randomly tells me he loves me, so cute. He saw his cake after his nap this afternoon and told me that he loves his cake and it is his favorite. I made a little monster cake for him. We just had cake and presents as a family, no big party or anything.




blowing out the candles.

the cake

JJ with a couple of the gifts we got him.

Gingerbread houses

I took the kids to my parents house this weekend. My brother Kai and his family came earlier than planned so they could see us. Also, my brother Kipp and his family and sister Tisha and her family came by (they both live close to my mom) So I thought it would be a fun activity to decorate ginger bread houses. Since there are so many grandkids, I thought the graham cracker houses was a good idea. Everyone had alot of fun and we sure got my moms kitchen nice and sticky and candy was everywhere!

Decorating the Christmas tree

Just a few pictures of the kids decorating the Christmas tree. I always let them decorate it alone without help from Chris or me. I did do the bead garland and at the end I put up some white glass bulbs. We have a snowman tree theme and I have all plush snowmen decorations, so I just let them all go for it!

Owen is so much into Santa this year, it is awesome!!! He had to get a picture with our little Santa.

Our tree topper! lol!!

Chris putting on the tree topper

Lynnette is 10!!!

WOW, hard to believe Lynnette is 10. She has grown up so much since the day she came to our home when she was 3 1/2. She is such a happy content, goes with the flow gal, and we so love having her as our child. She had a friend sleep over yesterday and Chris took the two of them out for lunch and to spend her birthday money. She of coarse got a nintendo ds, but she was very lucky to get the limited edition color that came with a cool case. There was definately some jealousy when she arrived home. LOL!!!! We also let her pick out a gift from us and she picked a Bratz doll, not my favorite gift, but it was her pick. Her friend gave her a dog that barks, drinks from a bottle and pees! yikes!!! And her activity days leader gave her all the stuff to make a cake. She will have fun baking, thats forsure!!!!! She picked out this cake from one of my new cake decroating books. I think it turned out great! It was fun to make anyways.


the cake

Just as I was finishing the cake, my brother Tate called and he was still in Edmonton, so he and his fiance Felisha came over to sing to Lynnette with us!! The kids were all excited to see Tate and Felisha.

Lynnette with all her gifts.