Making Sarah's Birthday Cake

Today was Sarah's 8th Birthday! We had a small family party because we'll have the big party in a few weeks when the Grandparents get here and she is baptized. We took the kids to Chuck E Cheese's and then when we got home William and Kaitlyn helped me make an ice cream cake for Sarah.
She wanted a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, and mint chocolate chip ice cream in the middle. As you can see, William enjoyed taste testing the frosting. "Do you want to taste it too?"

Last Day of school party

Today was the last day of school, and the girls wanted to have a "slumber party" in Alan's room. I let them drag their things into his room and they are all playing quietly in there right now.

It's a rare thing-them playing quietly. Maybe I should let them do this more often.

Scripture Challenge

The idea door has these scripture cards that you can print out and use for fun or for learning. We printed out the Book of Mormon cards and played concentration with them. It was neat because the matches are not matching the exact pictures to each other, they are matching the elements of the scripture story to each other. For example, there's a card with sheep on it that matches a card with Ammon on it. There's another card with 16 small clear stones that matches the card with the brother of Jared on it. It was fun. I let them see if they could match them together without my help and they got them all! I guess our Book of Mormon reading each night is paying off.

Click on the picture below for the link to the cards. It's called "Scripture Challenge"

Girls Night

Last night was the Father and Son campout. Alan went with some friends because Tom is still in Europe. So while Alan was gone, we had a girls night. We made homemade pizzas, watched "Princess Diaries 2", curled our hair, put on makeup, and had ice creams Sundaes. This is becoming a tradition because we did the same thing last year during the Father and Son campout too. I still think it's so funny that I have little girls that like such girly things. I was never into that kind of stuff when I was little. But it's fun to see how excited my daughters get when we do things like that.

Happy Mother's Day, Grammy!

This is a video we made just for you! I wanted Kaitlyn to be in it for you too, but she went to play in her bedroom, and within 5 minutes she was asleep. We didn't want to wake her up, so Alan and Sarah sang this song for you. We love you!

Pre-Mother's Day Acitivities

For a primary activity today, we framed the "Proclamation on the Family". In preparation, we bought mat boards for 8x10 pictures, and printed out the proclamation on normal sized copy paper. We invited families to come and bring pictures of themselves, and provided a table for each family with glue sticks and scissors to make a collage of their pictures on the matboard as a frame to the proclamation. It went really well. The children and parents all worked nicely together cutting out the pictures and figuring out where to place them.
After the activity, I needed to go to the grocery store. Tom being gone, I took all 4 little ones with me, something I don't usually do. When we got there, one of the ladies in the bakery came over and asked me if the children could decorate cookies for Mother's Day. Of course I said sure! They had a table set up with sugar cookies, frosting, and sprinkles. Alan, Sarah, and Kaitlyn had fun decorating them while I did a little bit of shopping. When I was done, they each had their cookies in a tiny bakery box with the writing, "Free Cookie" on it. What a nice store!(It was Publix on Milgen Road for those of you in Columbus.) Now that we're home, the kids are in a "giving spirit". I never said anything about gifts on Mother's Day, they just decided they wanted to do things on their own. They are all going around the house looking for ideas for presents that they can make for me. They were all in the play room and I was forbidden from going in. Now Alan is in the kitchen doing the dishes, and Sarah is wrapping little presents she made.
I never thought I would have much of a Mother's Day this year because Tom is in Europe, but this just might be the best Mother's Day I've had.

Drinking from a cup

I've never thought sippy cups were the best idea. I know they prevent spills and everything, but they also prevent children from learning to drink from a normal cup. I have known 8 yr-olds who couldn't drink from cup without spilling because they were never allowed to drink from a cup without some sort of straw or sipping mechanism.
Sometimes being a mother means knowing when to relax and let children learn. Even and if you have to clean up a few spills along the way, it's ok! So that's my soap box moment for the day. :)

William eating pizza...

I took a video of William eating pizza because I thought it was so funny the way he ate it.You also may notice my 3 other crazies yelling in the background.

Kaitlyn's new bed

We finally traded Kaitlyn's toddler bed for a normal twin size bed this week. Sarah and Kaitlyn already shared a room, but we had to rearrange the room to fit the new bigger bed. She's really excited and loves her new bed.

Reading

This was too cute. I just had to post these pics of Kaitlyn reading, or rather, trying

to read to William. He was more interested in climbing around on the rocking chair or smiling at the camera.

Song for Girls Camp is finally finished

I've been asked to write another song for Girls Camp this year, and I'm finally done. The 2009 theme for the youth is "Be thou and example of th believers.", but the theme for our Stake's Girls Camp is "Source of Strength". I had alot of things that the YW leaders wanted me to encompass in the song, and so as a result, this song is very wordy. The chorus is the longest chorus I've ever written for any song. The vocals are my amateur voice, so don't cringe when you hear it. I've just worked so much on it, I thought I'd share. http://jenniferjoyrose.com/files/I_Belive.wma

For Uncle Johnny

My brother Johnny is all alone in Indiana while his wife is away visiting family, so here's an easy dessert recipe for him to enjoy. (He asked for us to send him some dessert in the last post)

Sunday evening is always a night where we like to make a dessert, and tonight we wanted brownies but all we had were cake mixes. I looked up recipes for brownies using a cake mix and found several, but not wanting to work too much on the Sabbath, used the simplest one I could find.

Brownies:

1 chocolate cake mix

1/4 cup water

1 egg

1/2 baf of chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Mix all ingredients together and press into greased 9x9 square pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Enjoy!!

William and Kaitlyn had fun licking the leftovers from the mix.

Family Fun Night

Last night was the first night in almost 3 weeks that Tom has felt good enough to be out of the bedroom, and able to be with us as a family. His surgery was really hard on him, but he's doing much better.... So, we played some fun little games together-mostly games that we made up. Then we got creative with a dessert just for fun. We had a box of vanilla pudding that we made up, then added some sliced strawberries, a dallop of whipped cream, and then sprinkled chocolate chips on the top. Yum!

Mini Puzzles

Here's my latest addition to my puzzle biz. These are really cute and only about 5" long, but like all my puzzles they're a chunky 3/4" thick. Super easy and fun to make. Good for curious little hands. I just listed them up on etsy.

At the Park

I took Kaitlyn and William to the park yesterday. It was beautiful outside and we really needed to get out. William absolutely loves being outdoors and it was nearly impossible to get him back into his carseat to go home.

These are pictures from my old cell-phone, so they're not that great. William loved picking up sand from the playground and throwing it in the giant puddles near by. (We've recently had lot's of rainstorms)