Dandelion Blowin'

Love her!

 For the 186th birthday party of the Relief Society we met at church as families and did a fabulous service project.  We helped make "angel dolls" which are plain dolls with no hair or faces that are wearing cute little hospital gowns that sick kids in the hospital get.  They don't have hair since many of the kids receiving them don't either and they don't have faces so that the kids can draw on their own faces.  We mad a TON of them that night.  It was the greatest assembly ever!  Aaron and I helped stuff and stitch up.  Afterward there was a cupcake decorating contest...since our whole enrichment was to celebrate the birthday of the Relief Society. 

These are the cupcakes I dreamed up and created.  They turned out similar to what I was imagining.  I really wanted to add edible glitter, but didn't want to drive across town to get some, so I settled for pink and purple sprinkles instead. 

The flowers were made of fondant...which my fabulous sister in law gave me a lesson in a while ago.  I think it tastes pretty terrible (made of powdered sugar and marshmallows) but it turns out cool.  My kids LOVED how the fondant tasted...big surprise ;)

Do you know how much I LOVE this little thing?  She is seriously the sassiest, funniest, cutest little thing ever.  Larkin started talking really well about at month ago.  She went from babbling to speaking in complete sentences, telling me things like the dinner I made was disgusting!  When you ask her what her name is, she always chirps, "Yu Yu."  (Lu Lu.)  She knows she is two and her favorite color is pink.  Her favorite movie is Ponyo...and she sometimes insists that we call her "Pawn-o."  She knows she has blue eyes, but sometimes gets confused and tells me they are pink.  She loves to wear dresses.  I put bows and flowers in her hair and when they fall out, (or when she tears them out) she always tells me that her "lady is falling."  (I think she calls them ladies because we always tell her she's a pretty lady when she wears them.)  She really is very naughty.  She loves to dance, and is always shaking her bootie, yelling things like, "tooties," as she juts her hip out to the side. She loves to swagger back and forth and make us giggle.  She says naughty things like bum bum and boobies...because she's two and she does what she wants!    She rules the roost around here...and I wouldn't want it any other way!  

So we went to El Gaucho or "El Gouge-o" for dinner last night.  It turns out that neither Sarah nor I are fans of meat flavored meat.  And expensive meat flavored meat is no better.  Both of us wished we'd got something off the seafood menu after we got our meals.  Sarah's medium was raw and mine just tasted, well, like meat.  Our appetizer was really good though some tuna tar-tar stuff.  And desert, bananas foster, was delicious.  All in all we had a fun time and did some walking around the city afterwards.

 Thanks for the fun night Sarah.

*Freckles*

No pictures allowed for this post. Why, you ask? Cause I'm the worst mom ever!!

Arwen was home for spring break last week. Aaron took Monday and Tuesday off so we could play. After lunch at Costco, we took the kids to a new play ground. It was super fun! Lots of new, high tech play equipment. There was a little river bed by the park, that was still dry. The kids had lots of fun playing with the river stones. I ran Noah to the bathroom and Aaron was playing with Lu on the teeter totter. As I got back, Joshua ran up from the river screaming. I ran over. He held his pinky out to me while telling me a boy smashed his finger with a rock. He had been playing with a little boy around his age. I guess he smashed a rock on top of another rock that Joshua's finger was on. After a 5 hour trip at the ER...we got to go home. After 3 x-rays, we found out Joshua's pinky was fractured. His nail was completely popped off. He had to have a few stitches after being given a shot to numb his hand. The icing on the cake was when the doctor cleaned the nail off and then shoved it back into Joshua's nail bed...to try and preserve the nail bed. We have no idea if a nail will ever grow back. (hmmm...seems I have another little boy with a very similar story...and a funky thumb nail!) The hard part is that it is on his left hand...and he's left handed. He's been a trooper. Everyone was amazed with how calm and well behaved he was. He's pretty stoic when people are around, but it was so sad when they would leave his room and he would whimper to me about how scared he was for his shot.

He got a cold later on in the week and managed to scrape all the skin off the top of one of his feet while opening a door. He just fell apart :(

Why am I the worst mom...because I cut the boys' hair on Saturday. I grabbed the wrong guard for Josh and he's pretty much bald. He looks ridiculous! I'm sorry Joshy!! So...no pictures of this cute little guy in his tiny little cast for a couple of weeks.

For Family Home Evening on Monday, we made gum for our activity. It was really fun! Let me just tell you though...that gum was so sickeningly sweet that I almost died. I got a belly ache and boy did my teeth hurt! I think there must have been at least 5 tbsp of powdered sugar, per piece of gum.

 
Gross.

Still gross.

Cute. We didn't let Larkin make her own. She just chewed a piece of bubble gum from the pantry. She had fun pretending to make her own. She would dip it in powdered sugar and chew...then dip then chew.

Happy gum making party.

Naughty Little Girl For Sale...or Best Offer...or FREE!

Not really...but Lu sure is a a naughty handful lately. Last Friday I had to take Joshua to his doctor to make sure that his pneumonia was going away. He was fine so I asked the doc to take a look in Larkin's ears because she had been telling me they hurt. Guess what he found...an ear infection, but only after an hour of flushing little clear plastic beads out of her ears. She had four of them. In. Each. Ear. I was a little mortified...okay, a lot!

Okay fast forward to a week later...today in fact. I took the kids to Krispy Kreme for a donut treat after Joshua's speech class. Yummy. Then I gave the kids a piece of gum. We went to the library to check out some new books and movies. They were surprisingly good. On the way home, Larkin told me she had gum...in her nose. Really??? I thought. No Way! She insisted the whole way home. She even showed me which nostril. The only thing that made the situation okay was that a professional offered his services. He's pretty much a doctor...when he dons his one white latex glove. Noah said to me, " Mom, I can get it out. I'm a really good nose picker." And you know what? He is.

I made a yummy turkey dinner on Sunday for our meal. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, and of course gravy.

While we were eating it, Noah threw his fork down in disgust and said, "Mom? How could you? Why did you put fish guts in the gravy. It tastes dreadful. What were you thinking?"

"Noah," I said, "they're turkey drippings...to make the gravy delicious."

I guess not delicious...dreadful.

We are still camera-less..sigh. But here's a cute Noah story for you. You know the song, "You Belong With Me," by Taylor Swift? It's really cute and the video is even cuter.




Anyways, we were watching it the other day while making dinner. The kids' favorite part is when Taylor pretends her brush is a microphone...everyone grabs brushes and we dance around the kitchen and sing the song at the top of out lungs. Well, we were are Carl's Jr. last week and I was in line ordering. Noah climbed up onto one of the high tables near the front of the restaurant. He grabbed the salt shaker and pretended it was his microphone and proceeded to sing these lyrics: "I wear high heels, I wear short skirts." Loud. The emo teenager behind the counter did an excellent job of pretending not to hear it and stifle his laugh. It's moments like these that make a mother proud!