Finally!!!!!!

I think my computer woes are finally over. At least I hope they are. It has been a long and frustrating process. Here are some blogs to update you.

As many of you know, Maggie is very afraid of animals. It is becoming a problem when we visit people with dogs and sometimes cats. I have two sisters-in-law that have been fostering kittens from the Dewey animal shelter and we decided to give it a try in hopes that it would help Maggie. We of course had her permission before we volunteered and they called us at the beginning of November and asked us to take these two darlings. We will be giving them back after Christmas so they can be adopted to a permanent home. It will be hard, but I'm not looking for a long-time pet right now. My kids are messy enough.

Meet "Socks" and "Stormy"
Believe it or not, Maggie is actually holding an animal. This has been so good for her. She is so responsible with them and loves to hold them. Their claws still make her nervous but we are making progress.
Grady is loving having them also. Tate is a little rough and Gavin looks for quiet moments with them.

Halloween

Maggie and Gavin are characters from the "Percy Jackson" book series. Maggie is Annabeth and Gavin is Percy Jackson. Their shirts say "Camp Half-Blood" with lots of symbols representing the various Greek Gods.
Grady wanted to be "FBI Dracula".
Tate chose to be a bat this year. Pretty cute!!

Grady's Baptism

Grady turned 8 in September and was baptized the first part of October.

The Wedding cake!!!!

Here are some pictures of my niece's wedding cake. It is not perfect but for my first (and last) attempt, it turned out nice. I received lots of compliments on it and some wanted my number to do their cakes. The best compliment I got though, was every piece was eaten. People loved it. Thanks Jen and Lindsay for all your help.

I hate virus creators

I hate virus creators. I was hit with spyware two weeks ago and haven't been able to use the internet from home. So, therefore I haven't been able to update my blog with pictures of the wedding cake, birthdays or Grady's baptism. Hopefully we will get it taken care of this week. So frustrating. Too many evil people out there who just want to hurt others any way they can. So sorry if you have been waiting for an update. I am not just dropping the ball like in times past. I am turning over a new leaf.

Wedding Cake Stress

As some of you know, I have been asked to make the wedding cake for my niece's wedding on the 19th of this month. I was completely shocked to be asked because I only ever make my kids birthday cakes. They are usually 3-D cakes so they might seem good but it isn't hard to please a kid. A wedding cake is an entirely different thing. Fortunately, the bride is flexible and doesn't really want anything fancy. It is going to be a three tiered (but stacked) cake with a 16x16 square bottom, 12x12 square middle and 8x8 square top. I am going to wrap ribbon in her colors around the bottom of each tier and pipe little "pearls" at the bottom edge of the ribbon. I am going to top it off with a fondant bow. She wanted fondant to cover the whole thing but I was nervous about doing that much plus it doesn't taste very good so we are smoothing the frosting to look more like fondant. The pictures below are my first practice. My corners need work and a few other things but not too bad for my first attempt. I will be making another one this week to practice again. I will actually have to do the real thing next week so I better get it right this week.

Tate's first day of Kindergarten

Here is a picture of Tate on his first day of kindergarten.

Please no heart attacks.

Please don't anyone die of a heart attack. I am still here and I might actually get some pictures uploaded. Life in general is really good. Bryan is now working at his new office with Southwest Gas up by the Speedway. It is a long commute for him and I worry every day about him making the drive. He is enjoying his calling as the Young Men's secretary. I am plugging along doing all the "mom" duties. I am still the second counselor in the primary. Trying to have a good attitude every time they take one of my scout leaders or whenever a new "training" or "conference" comes up for me. Gavin is now in 8th grade. He just made the Jazz band. Early mornings here we come. Maggie is in the 5th grade and smart as ever. Grady is in third and we'll see how his handwriting improves this year. I am hopeful. Tate just started Kindgergarten. He came home the first day and said "Mom, we didn't learn anything today." I said, "What do you mean?" He replied, "We didn't learn how to read!!!" He was quite upset about it. He came home the next day mad because they didn't learn how to read again!!! Well, I will now try my hand at pulling up some pictures of things that have been going on.
Strawberry Reservoir. This was a view from the bottom of our campground. It was absolutely amazing there. We really enjoyed ourselves with my parents for a couple days in early August.

The boys fishing with my dad at Strawberry Reservoir.

"Big Mama" the potgut. We spent hours watching her and a multitude of others.

Grady and Tate having a "blast" at Lagoon. They loved al of the kiddie rides.

Maggie and Grandpa Bud about to Dinosaur "drop". Maggie's favorite ride. Grandpa was a real sport to ride many a ride with Maggie whenever she asked him to. We had so much fun with him. Grandma stayed home and enjoyed the peace and quiet.

Gavin & Bryan about to Dinosaur "drop". Miniature of another ride they have there. None of us were willing to try the big one.

What we've been doing lately