Newest Creation

Today was a long day at work and then half an hour I got off I was still at Michaels for my cake decorating, Course 3. We learned how to make this nifty bow out of fondant. I love the chocolate frosting and pink nifty bow and hearts on the cake. I think it's my favorite so far.

Boys, boys, BOYS

Here's a little peek at Travis & Jess' baby number 2! It's a boy! He's a wiggler.

Tootles,
Sharon

School Days

Well, I always have mixed feelings about school starting. On the one hand, the boys do better with a schedule but I love the mostly carefree and fun days of summer. Sure, not having them home during the day will make my job easier, but then who will tell me funny jokes on my work breaks? And my kids crack me up! Here's a pic of Ran & Chan yesterday, the first day of school. For Ransom it's the first day of high school and Chandler starts middle school. No more elementary days. That does make me a bit melancholy...

*Wannabee* Ace of Cakes Part 2

These pics are from Course 2! We start Fondant and Gum Paste class on September 8th! We can't wait! The last cakes are our Grand Finale cakes with the basketweave!

*Wannabee* Ace of Cakes

Ever since I was a little girl I have always wanted to learn how to decorate cakes. My mom had this neat book on all these different kinds of cakes to decorate. I can't tell you how many times I just looked and looked at that book. I remember for my 9th birthday that she made me this special cake that had poodles made out of sugar. I loved it!

So as my life has gone on I kind of gave up on learning cake decorating since I had so many other fun hobbies and felt that I didn't have time or energy for another one. Then I'm in a position now for free Wilton cake decorating classes at Michael's because I work there. I resisted and resisted for months and then July I decided to give it a try. What's really fun is that my sweet Jess is taking the classes with me and my friend, Wendy, is the Wilton instructor! Jess and I have had lots of fun learning together. Some of it has come really easy, others really hard like it took 'til Course 2 to realize that I had been doing the rose BACKWARDS...no wonder it felt so difficult. Jess has a real flair for it. Not surprising since she's so artistic. I'm including some pictures so you can see our creations. Oh! I even got Chandler to come one day when we were creating cupcakes! Enjoy the pics and YES the cakes were divine!

See the next post for more pics!

Happy Mother's Day

I look forward to Mother's Day because I get to get pictures with each of my boys for the scrapbook. It's a tradition that started a few years before my mom passed. I'm so glad I started it! So I actually have pictures of me and Mom together that I can cherish. This year we chose the front yard for the location. We were too pooped to party anywhere else and hey, we have the built in bench (aka. the tree that we felled like 2 MONTHS ago. Haven't gotten rid of it yet so why not use it?!). We have this group shot and then Dan had the boys each give me a kiss when he took the picture! Love, love, love it! The only thing that would have been better would be to have Jess and Thomas with us on Mother's Day but they were on a little vacation, seeing her folks in Idaho. Travis was happy to come hang with us.

I started my day with Chandler waking me with breakfast in bed. He has piles of scrambled eggs for the eyes, a spot of syrup for the nose and bacon placed in a happy face smile. He also made me this really neat heart shaped dish out of clay. I have to find a good spot for it on my desk. Ransom made me a card that was so sweet! Trevor made us dinner of bacon wrapped hot dogs with chili over it. Not my fav. but he made it so happily, I wasn't going to argue about that. We played Apples to Apples after that. I never win that silly game! The boys play it the way you put the most outrageous things for the category. How can I match that? Still, it was fun and I love hearing my boys laugh. Poor Dan had a wicked headache so he wasn't feeling so festive. Oh, lest you think my honey forget to get me a gift, he got me an iTouch a bit early!!! It's so cool. I can even surf the net and watch youtube while in bed. Love wireless internet! I guess I could put movies on it too but I haven't figured out how to do that yet. Hope your Mother's Day was good too!

The Latest Project

Okay, for the last week or so Jess and I took over the kitchen table to work on an album for my cousin, Kelley's daughter on the birthday of her first son. Jess is oh so talented and it was such fun creating together. She can come up with these adorable ideas out of her pretty little head. So this album is one of our collaborations. Oh, the scrapbook already made it's way to Kelley's house and she's thrilled! Can't wait to tell Jess. Here are pictures of our layouts. Kind of hard working layouts without any pics, but it can be done! Oh, and have I mentioned how much I love the Cricut machine?! Made our titles much easier. To think I used to cut every title from hand!

Fun

Trevor's letter of acceptance came this week from Central Washington University. He is so tickled and so are we! I'm not looking forward to him being gone come fall, but they have an excellent metal working shop there and will give Trevor even more experience. He eventually wants to own and run his own metal working business after mission and college.

I could go on about the adventures of my tooth but instead I'll talk about the value of having fun as we go. Last night I went to scrapbook at Krista's. Jess and I rode up together. It took us awhile to get going because we started out the evening with a jewelry party. Nice stuff but I didn't decide to get anything. I usually wear a lot of my jewelry as an afterthought. So I didn't think it was a good idea to spend some more money on it just because. Connie was so tickled that she won the door prize of some cool earrings. Jess and I worked on making explosion boxes to eventually go on our Etsy site. We had some fun with the Cricut. Jess got quite a bit done on the baby boy box and I couldn't get rolling on mine. So I had some fun helping Krista with her layout. Love her idea of her and Connie buying new cartridges for the Cricut and pitching in with a mat here and there! I'm so excited that I get to share this new, cool tool with everyone! We decided that at around 12:30 am or so Krista was out of adhesive and we needed to make a WalMart run. What really happened last night was that I had fun and laughed a LOT. Always worth a bit of lost sleep when I've been able to do that and forget my cares for a time.

Can't wait until May 3rd for my National Scrapbooking Day party! If you're in town, come on by, make sure to bring the chocolate!

The latest...

Well, it's been an interesting week or so around our home. Let's see, Chandler has pneumonia, last Sunday Trevor woke up with a horrible muscle spasm in his neck and shoulders so had to see the doctor. I've been dealing with a root canal gone bad. So I was back in the dentist's chair twice to get relief. Both times they gave me antibiotics and such. On Friday they tried to get me into a specialist and wouldn't you know that every specialist in the state of Washington was at a conference in CANADA!!! It's been a painful weekend, with brief reprieves from the pain when the pain medicine decides to work. Monday I'll be in a specialist's chair....UGH. but I'm looking forward to the relief that will bring.

Yesterday was brought us beautiful weather and so Dan and the boys were out working on the yard. Probably to the relief of our neighbors ;) Chandler kept sneaking outside. We want him to lay low until he gets rid of the pneumonia. He's feeling somewhat better and is actually getting bored and no more laying like a limp rag on the loveseat. So the challenge is keeping him resting so he can get rid of the sore throat, headache, etc.

Good news is that Trevor was notified that he's a recipient of a two year scholarship to any college or university in the Washington!!! He thinks that he may also be receiving another one. Now we're waiting for acceptance letters to come so he knows where he'll be going in the fall.

Since I'm not going to church today (staying home with Chandler), I realized that the Church website has so much audio that I can download for my mp3 player. Plus all the stuff I can put on my Palm. And it's free, how great is that? Yes, I'm easily amused. :)

Families Are Forever

Brent, Thomas, Travis, Jess, Ruth and Amber


Connie, Aunt Ruthie, Tom, Bernice, Thomas, Travis & Jess


Tom, Dan, Travis, Jess, Sharon and Bernice


Four generations!


Jessica's sister, Elise, made her a beautiful bouquet for the special day!
Thomas, Travis & Jessica
as a forever family on March
22nd, 2008.

What can I say about this perfect temple day other than we are so very, very blessed...

Update

It's been an interesting week. Ransom received a medallion for being on the school honor roll. We are so tickled that he has earned such good grades. Trevor had his school swim banquet last night t Round Table Pizza. Dan insisted that we try the garlic chicken pizza---YUM! Trevor got the scholar athlete award for having over a 3.5 GPA, also lettered for his 4th year and got a star for being captain. Good job, Trevor and Ransom! Last week Chandler had his first violin concert. I had hoped to put a video of him playing but life has been too busy and today...too painful. Today I had to have three teeth extracted due to infection and such. OUCH! The doctor was really great and the wonders of gas at the dentist. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to even get in that chair. Dan and the boys are spoiling me. Hopefully, I will heal quickly from this. So meanwhile I'm sitting in the recliner with the laptop and surfing the web, watching Monk, Criminal Intent and Law & Order. But Jess and Thomas are on their way over so that'll make the night lively. :)

Work?

Okay, I have two jobs these days. One I do transcription for insurance companies. I love to type so that part of it is okay, but to be honest, I see this job as work. It takes up the bulk of my day each day. Then there's this other job that I have....I work at a craft store! But how can I call it work when I LOVE it! I'm their new papercrafts and scrapbooking instructor. My good friend, Wendy, got me the job when I didn't even know that I wanted another job. She's the one in charge of getting instructors, she loves my stuff and talked me into it. It's so FUN to play with all the new items on the market and have people gush about my projects! Also, when I'm in the store and not in the back creating I love helping customers. I'll go over into the scrapbook section or whatever to get a ribbon or flowers or paper for a project I'm working on and then I'll see someone looking and I just have to ask them if I can help them. I think crafters as a whole are a happy bunch and so it's fun chatting with new people. It makes me smile from ear to ear. I also do demos on Saturdays of new products. Or the kids club on Saturday mornings. I'm beat by the time I'm done, but it is SO worth it. The fun part is Wendy lives at the top of the same cul de sac that I do so we ride in together. Such fun! We get to chat all the way to and from the store. The boys and Dan are so supportive in me doing this. It's time away from them but it's not every day so they like it when a happy, but tired mom comes home. Gotta love this job!

Our Prophet Passes...

Last night Travis, Jess and little Thomas came over just to visit and not long after that Trevor got a text message from a friend that our prophet and president of our Chuch passed. Immediately we tried to get on the internet to find out more details. This shouldn't be such a surprise because he was 97 years old. But he was so full of life, energy and the drive to share the Gospel everywhere he went. I love his voice and his sweet face. I have been amazed at how well he has used our constantly changing technology to offer information to members of the Church and those wanting answers. He was tireless in his efforts. And his laugh, he had quite a dry wit about him and it was such a delight when we would hear him make a comment during General Conference or any other time. We know that he is reunited now with his sweet wife, Marjorie and that gives me a smile to think that they are back together again. Our prayers go out to his family that they will be given the strength they need during this time. Goodbye, dear President Hinckley, we love you. For more information, I love this write up. http://www.ldsmag.com/churchupdate/080128presidenthinckleypassesaway.html

Happy Surprises

Here I was sitting at my desk this morning, a bit after 7am and in comes Travis and Thomas. I was so happy to see them! What a nice, happy way to start my work day. I even got a kiss out of Thomas. He happily played on the phone and wandered the house. He looked so cute up on Travis' shoulders before they left. He reminded me of a little Beanie Baby just leaning on Travis' neck and head. But he knows how to hold on if his daddy moves too fast. It was time for Chandler to go to violin so Travis even dropped him off for me. Nice brother that he is. What a wonderful surprise! Gotta love that they live close enough to drop in!!!