The Coolest Birthday Cake Ever!

Samuel's fascination with Star Wars began at an early age. He's just 6 weeks old in this picture. When I was showing him the scrapbook yesterday he was very impressed that he was holding a gun when he was just a baby.

Apparently there are several other boys in Samuel's Kindergarten class that have the same fascination with Star Wars because Samuel always comes home and tells me new Star Wars facts that he learned from other boys. We had a Star Wars party last year, but this year Samuel wanted a Legos Star Wars party. Building with Legos is a daily activity at our home. I told Samuel we weren't going to have a friend party this year and he kept telling me, "But mom, I have friends". Instead he invited one his friends from school over to play for a few hours.

Drum Roll Please .........

And here according to Samuel is The Coolest Birthday Cake Ever!

A Legos Clone Trooper.

I must say it did turn out pretty amazing!

It was a messy affair and we cheated a little. We decided sculpting a cake into this shape would be too tricky so we made 2 batches of Rice Krispies and Chuck molded the Rice Krispie mass into a clone trooper. And the fondant turned out perfect and was pretty easy to work with. In fact I think I'll be making many more fondant creations in the future. The marshmallow recipe I used wasn't too hard and it even tasted good.

Thanks Honey for again helping me with my crazy ideas - well this one was Samuel's crazy idea!

Happy Birthday My Sweet Boy

Happy 6th Birthday Samuel!

I've been thinking about what to write for Samuel's birthday for awhile now. And the one thought that keeps coming to my mind is what a wonderful year this has been for Samuel.

He is an absolute delight and I think this must be the perfect age. He is excited about everything, he loves to try new things, he loves school and loves to learn, he is helpful, he works hard, he keeps us entertained with his constant stream of talking, he keeps us on our toes with his endless questions, he amazes me. He is valiant and just a great kid. I'm lucky to be his mom!

I was looking through old pictures today because I always talk to the kids about the day they were born on their birthday. It's fun to get out the scrapbook and show them pictures of when they were a baby.

Of course I got a little teary eyed, not because Samuel is getting older, but because I look back through those pictures and the two of us always look like this - big smiles having so much fun together. The day this little guy was born was one of the best days of my life and the second I held him in my arms my life changed. Everything about me changed. He will always be my witness that the Lord blesses us with miracles. I LOVE you little buddy and you still make me smile!

He's always had those gorgeous blue eyes, long lashes and cute smile (except now he is into the cool look - which according to him isn't smiling! There's a few more pictures on my photo blog)

Wish Me Luck!

I made the mistake of showing Samuel the cake I was going to make for his birthday. He instantly decided he didn't want that cake and proceeded to pick out what looked like the most difficult cake on the page I was looking at.

So I'm attempting to build a stand-up Lego's Clone Trooper using homemade marshmallow fondant. I've never made fondant or for that matter ever worked with fondant before. This could certainly be a disaster!

This stuff was really sticky and took me FOREVER to get it to the right consistency. It's chilling in the fridge tonight and I'm praying it turns out okay.

Wish Me Luck!!

Beautiful Weeds

I LOVE this time of year when the desert weeds start to blossom.

Yes, I really love the weeds!

Apparently not everyone in our family feels the same way!

This picture cracks me up because Jenna is such our little redhead. Her hair probably won't stay this color, but it sure does match her temperament - she's feisty! Or maybe it's just being the youngest and needing to make sure your voice is heard. Either way, she's a screamer and a fighter!

You Did What!

So you know what really stinks?

When your husband comes home from golfing and tells you he broke someones window with a wild hit.

And what stinks even more, when the homeowner comes out to track him down so he can pay for that wild hit. I mean call me crazy, but isn't that a chance you take if you build your home on a golf course?

My first question of him when he told me this story: "How big was the window?" I wanted to know how much this golf trip was going to cost us!

Yeah, it was a pretty pricey golf trip.

Happy St. Patricks Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We actually celebrated St. Patrick's Day last Saturday morning because the kids and I along with my sister and her kids went to my parents house for Spring Break that morning. We just got back today and I am exhausted! Can I just say that if these people were not my family and I didn't love them there is no way I would get together with them! This may sound harsh, but seriously every time we spend time together it creates a health hazard! More details may follow on another post.

This is the cute sham"rock" Samuel made.

Around our home, we like to celebrate the upcoming holidays for weeks in advance. And one of my favorite ways to celebrate is by making some sort of goodie. We had lots of fun with the green colored chocolate this year especially Isaac who was fascinated that chocolate could come in this crazy color.

(and for those of you wondering, these are NOT food storage brownies, but actual made from scratch very yummy brownies - on certain occasions my cooking acutally turns out!)

Last year was our first attempt at making a Leprechaun trap and Samuel has talked about making another trap for a solid year. This kid has an amazing memory. I found this idea on the Family Fun website and modified it a little so all three kids could work on it. The idea is that the Leprechaun will want to take the golden nuggets and when he pulls the nugget from the last pot the trap disguised as a cloud above the rainbow will fall on him. Sounds simple enough unless you have a little guy who is a stickler for details and making sure things work properly.

I was going to take a short cut and just glue the trap to the rainbow. Samuel was standing by supervising, telling me there was no way it would catch the Leprechaun. He kept detailing all the problems with my design. And he was right, if there really was a Leprechaun there was no way our trap would work. The details of making a trap that would actually work were a little more than I wanted to experiment with so we had our Daddy help with the design one evening. And yes, he came up with something that would actually work and satisfied all of Samuel's questions. The kids were really excited when we laid our trap out on the table.

When they woke up the next morning this is what they found. The trap had fallen and two little shoes were sticking out. Sort of reminds me of the Wizard of Oz. They were excited the trap had worked, but disappointed when there was no Leprechaun inside. Those Leprechaun's are hard to catch!

It's no wonder the kids love St. Patrick's Day so much. Who wouldn't love to eat chocolate and Lucky Charm marshmallows for breakfast. And notice how dark it is outside - yes, these kids get up way before the crack of dawn!

The Leprechaun couldn't leave sweet Jenna out of the mix. The kids were delighted that her milk had been turned green.

Chuck had a little talk with the Leprechaun about the wisdom in dying the whole gallon of milk green. We usually have milk leaking out of bottles and sippy cups and he couldn't believe a Leprechaun that is very anal about the carpet hadn't thought about green dye in the milk. Yeah, the Leprechaun should have thought about that detail!

And The Winner Is...

Chuck and I went to a banquet for the local ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) last night and it was a lot of fun! For the entertainment they played several games from Minute to Win It. There's nothing quite as funny as watching a room full of engineers taking part in these silly challenges. Chuck and I came away with $70 and this great prize.

Chuck constructed a tower out of plastic cups and won us this fun popcorn maker. I'm pretty sure I was more excited than even the kids. We make popcorn every Friday night for our family movie night so this will just add an extra layer of fun. The kids and I had to try it out after lunch today. I love popcorn and obviously so does Bella because tonight as she was saying her prayer she thanked Heavenly Father for our new popcorn maker.

I'm glad we had such a fun evening last night because tonight we're a little bummed out. We have been planning for months a little overnight stay in Vegas for just the two of us for tomorrow evening. It's been years since we had a night without the kids so we were super excited, but you would have thought we were trying to plan a month long exotic trip instead of one night to Vegas with all the complications surrounding this weekend. It's really become quite comical, but I'll spare the details, just suffice it to say we aren't going and no we can't get our money refunded on the hotel. So instead of packing for our trip, I'm doing a lot of blogging to ease my disappointment!