Sara's 10th birthday cake

I am so excited about this cake!  It turned out so well and it was fun to make.  I made marshmallow fondant this time and LOVED it!  Usually when I work with fondant it cracks and looks really bad, but today it was my friend and worked beautifully with no cracking.  I did have a couple of tears, but that was only where it stuck to the countertop and tore when I picked it up.  Sara and I looked at pictures online and found a couple of cakes that she liked.  She picked the colors she wanted and it turned out so cute!

Of course she wanted it to sparkle, so I dusted it with edible sparkle dust.  As I was done and stepped back to look I thought it would look much cuter with the bottom stripes going the other way, but I still liked it and she did too.

Climbing and raspberry jam

Sophia figured out how to climb up on the kitchen chairs yesterday.  I got her down and pushed all the chairs in thinking the problem was solved.  I then see her tipping the chair back which pulls it away from the table enough for her to climb up on it again.  I am not happy about this new climbing phase!

Ben and I ran to the corner gas station to fill up the truck and the gas container.  Sara was in charge of watching Sophia and this is the face we came home to.  We were only gone 10 minutes, but Sara got on facebook and Sophia got in the garbage and found the empty raspberry jam jar.  Her face and hands were so sticky it was hard to get her clothes off!  Fun times every night around here!

Fish game

Since I'm such a mean mom and don't let the kids watch any t.v. on Sunday they get creative and come up with some fun games.  Sara drew 7 or 8 pictures of different things that live in the ocean and taped them to the walls.  She took Sophia around to each one and of course she loved it!  So cute to see them doing things together.

Cookies

Sara loves helping in the kitchen and this last week she wanted to bake chocolate chip cookies.  The hardest part for me is standing around and baking the entire batch.  Well, all I did was mix the batter and Sara did the rest.  She did amazing and didn't burn the cookies once!  Having older kids has benefits although I haven't decided if the benefits outweigh the negatives.............

Yankee Doodle

Brandon has been learning about the American Revolution in school and each person in his class was assigned to dress up as someone important to that time.  All the parents were invited to the school for the presentation.  Brandon got to be Yankee Doodle.  His teacher sent out an email Monday afternoon reminding the parents about the event on Wednesday and unfortunately this was the first I had heard of it.  I casually asked Brandon about it and he says "Oh yeah!  I need a costume so I can dress up as Yankee Doodle."  Monday was a busy night, so I really only had one day to come up with something.  Luckily he had a pair of dress pants that were too short, so I cut them off to make the knickers.  I had to go to every thrift store in town to find the vest and he already had the white dress shirt and shoes.  I had the knee high socks in my sewing room because I was going to make baby legs for Sophia.  It all came together in the end, but it was a stressful day for me.  I really don't like being surprised like that.

Sneaky

Someone left an opened box of sour watermelons on the edge of the table and guess who came along and got into them?  Sophia can reach up onto the edge of the kitchen table and she checks every so often to see if anything has been left there.  She grabbed the box and dumped everything out on the chair then proceeded to eat the sugar and candy.

I think she liked them- can you tell?  She has sugar all over her face and hands and luckily there were only 4 or 5 pieces of candy left in the box.  Unfortunately there was a mess for me to clean up on the chair and floor.

Jamba Juice

Sara stayed home from school today because she still wasn't feeling well.  All she wanted was a Jamba Juice, so Sophie and I got ready and went to get her one.  She wanted Mago-a-go-go and I got Caribbean Passion.

I had them put some in a little cup for Sophia and she loved it!  She would not let anybody take the cup away from her even when I was getting her out of the car seat.  She walked around with her cup until it was all gone and I had to take it away.  She cried and cried and cried.

How adorable!

Basketball!

We have been wanting a basketball hoop for a while and have just been waiting for the weather to be nice so we could buy it.  We went to Walmart and Target who were both sold out, but we found this one at Big 5.  Ben and Brandon put it together (with a few helpful suggestions from me).

Ben did not want to fill the base with water so he went and bought 400lbs. of sand.  It took us a while to get the hang of it, but the last 5 bags or so went really fast.  It was really heavy and we could barely get it where we wanted it.

We spent most of the day Sunday playing outside (except for Sara who was not feeling good).

We had to get a hoop with a shatterproof backboard so Ben could dunk!

Sophie loves playing basketball too!  We are loving this and we hope the weather stays nice so we can be outside a lot this year.

Ballet recital

Sara's recital was Saturday and she did so good.  The director likes to do a story each year and this time they did the flying ballerina.  It's pretty much the story of Dumbo, but instead of Timothy the mouse helping Dumbo to fly he helps a ballerina to dance.  It is a small studio so the whole show was only 1/2 an hour!  So wonderful!  There were trains, storks, roustabouts, baby elephants, clowns, crowd children, crows (Sara), Timothy, the ballerina and the ringmaster.  All the costumes were adorable especially the baby elephants!  There was a dress rehearsal that morning then the show at night.

She had to stretch out before the show.

She got lots of her favorite things like flowers, a balloon and chocolates.  Love you Sara!

Walking

Sophia is walking!  She is all over the place and can even stand up and walk with nothing around to help her.  She doesn't mind falling down and usually laughs when she does.  She is getting taller and her reach longer, so we had to put another baby lock on and move everything to the middle of the table.

Precious

Sara wanted to feed Sophia her bottle the other night and this is the precious scene I returned to after putting Brandon to bed.  Sophia loves her bear and I even bought a second one in case the first one is ever lost.  She is my first baby to have a lovie (or whatever you call it).  I think it is totally cute, but I dread the time we can't find it.  Anyways, Sara and Brandon both love their sister and love to help do things for her.