My First 8K!

Can I run 8k? Ummmm, no. But I walked when I needed to, and took it slow, and made it in 1 hour and 3 minutes (according to the time tracker thing on my bib!). It feels good to have done it! Here are my friends from church! Amy and I ran together, and Lori & Molly ran together (they finished before us). Fun experience! - Glad it's over!! Now I need to just keep running, maybe next year I can actually run the whole time without walking at all! Good job to the other 3, they ran the whole time without stopping!!!

Me, Amy, Molly & Lori! After we finished running and look gross great!

Kenna's Cake

Request: A jewelry box cake. The inner cake boss in me comes out I suppose. Ha!! Take a look...

Figuring it all out...the lid was chipboard (a la Stampin' Up!), since I couldn't think of what else to use, so it was the only non-edible part. The drawer/tray area was done with graham crackers!

Stacked, filled, cut, iced, and level (for the most part anyway!!)

At this point I coloured and rolled out fondant and went to town!!

Voila! She's done!! Filled with lipsticks, necklaces and ring pops!

I asked her what name she wanted on the cake, Kenna or Kennedy. She chose Kennedy:-)

In the end it wasn't as perfect as I pictured it in my minds eye, however, it was by FAR good enough to make a newly five year old girl ecstatic!

It was fun, and tasted great too!

Cookie Monsters! - Recipes

It's birthday time! You know what that means! CAKE! I decided since the only word Grey will say on command is "cuh cuh" for cookie, that I would make his cake a cookie monster one. So I googled cookie monster cake for inspiration. One of the sites that popped up was this one. I had never heard of Bakerella before, or a cake pop (yes, I do realize I don't get out much). I also made cupcakes, so sorry this is a little long, but it's a bit of a picture tutorial:-)

Bakerella's site has recipes and instructions for various kinds of cake pops. I decided on a red velvet with while icing. Bake a Duncan Hines cake mix 9x13 cake as per instructions on the box. Let cool completely. Crumble the cake into a large bowl. Take a 16oz tub of Duncan Hines (or similar) pre-made icing, and mix together (you don't need quuuuite the whole thing). It's very messy, and it looks like this:

Form the "dough" into little balls. Dip your lollipop sticks in a bit of melted chocolate, and stick them into the cake balls. Then freeze for a little while until they firm up.

Decorate as desired. I melted blue Wilton chocolate wafers, and coated the cake pop. Let dry. Then attach another Wilton chocolate wafer (cut in half), for his mouth (stick on with a bit of melted chocolate). Then dip again in the blue, and swirl around with a tooth pick to give him a scruffy/hairy look. I stuck on a teeny chocolate chip cookie (Keebler Gripz brand). He would not be cookie monster without a cookie!!!

Almost done!!

I couldn't find the perfect size of candy for his eyeballs. (all white gumballs maybe?), I didn't have the time to search every store, so I made mine out of fondant with black icing. Easy, and simple, since I had it all here anyway!

Cute, simple, DONE! I loooove them, don't you? Cutest ever.

Cupcake time!! I really really really wanted to make this recipe. Of course I am in love with Buddy (the Cake Boss on TLC) and his cakes! And his cooking show is amazing too. He's the best. I was attracted to this recipe because it doesn't "dome", and I needed a flat top to work with for my cupcakes. I also was curious as to the taste, seeing as it's something he makes. I still will make them someday! With the 6 rugrats running around and the time constraints I was faced with, it was just easy to make a cake mix from a box (I did a butter recipe one). So sad! Anyway, they tasted fine, as box mixes always do!

Coconut "fur". Coconut, blue food colouring and a ziploc. I probably put in 20 drops of colour, and just mashed it around until it was all blue!

Fur, ready to go!

I made some icing, dyed it blue, and put it in the fridge to get hard. I then formed them into little round "patties" almost. As you play with it in your hand to get the shape, it softens enough to take the coconut and stick to the cupcake, but will still keep its form. Dip in coconut. Take a sharp knife and remove a little portion and set half of a Chips Ahoy Chewy cookie on there. (Or make your own. I didn't have the time to play around with getting the size perfect, and I knew those were small enough to be just perfect, so I took the easy way out!). Then make and attach eyes (mine are fondant balls with black icing). Done.

Cutest. Ever. Ever. Ever. Loooove how they turned out!!

The Ides of March

We celebrated Kenna's actual birthday in a quiet way yesterday! Brian was out the door for work at 5:30am (!), so that made breakfast together an impossibility. (We been struggling with congestion and colds, we need our sleep!). So we had Apple Jacks, her chosen birthday cereal without Daddy. She has been dying to see a certain Barbie movie, so we got that on redbox to watch during her birthday dinner - her favourite meal - "desghetti's". Daddy stopped home briefly to eat with us and open her gift (a summer dress), and then he was off to work again, and we finished our Barbie movie and went to bed! She is more than excited about her little party on Friday night, and her jewelry box cake! We will have LOTS of pictures of the cake(s) and festivities on Friday. Since Grey's 1st birthday is on Monday, we are having a combo celebration on Friday. There will be LOTS of cake! Can't wait to share it all with you!

Look who's 5 years old! Time is flying by so fast we can't believe it!

Talking on the phone with the Kennedy's! She whispered to me at one point "There are a lot of people to talk to!"

Life!

We've been busy around here! Quick update: Brian has 2 side jobs right now (essentially kitchen remodels). One of them in particular is not going especially well, and he's pretty much swearing off all future side work. So much hassle, and in the end we don't end up coming out ahead financially. We'll see! Anyway, he works all day, and then works on his side jobs at night (& weekends), so he's usually not home until after 10pm, and also, he hasn't had a day off in over 5 weeks. No Saturdays. No Sundays (or church). Crazy! He's a hard worker, but we can't wait until we have him home a little more! He is being forced to stay home on Saturday morning, as I will be running an 8k marathon. We'll see how THAT goes! I am really not ready at all, I feel. Oh well! Might take me an eternity, but I'll finish (I hope!)

We've adjusted to our schedule with Sonny, Jack & baby Ardyn nicely. She's such a good baby, so that seems to be the key!

I am doing bookkeeping for 2 companies right now, just in a small capacity, that it only takes me about 3 or so hours per week. - Also trying to get our own taxes and such organized, and keep on top of the money for these sides jobs, no small task!

I am also trying to squeeze in some running where ever I can, to prepare for this 8k, but for lack of time, I am woefully unprepared for that kind of distance.

And then...BIRTHDAYS! We have lots of partying coming up around here! We celebrated Kenna's actual birthday yesterday, and will have another family over on Friday for cake and all that! She can't wait!

Enough babbling...here are some pics!

You can see his capitals! We've taken to calling the "big teeth" capitals, ever since Kenna coined the phrase. He also hates to be fed, and only likes to feed himself. Messy Bessy, as Kenna says:-)

The "bling your eyes out" comment in the Kids Kwotes was about this. She picked these flowers from our bush and decorated the table...

After a bothersome brother "ruined it up" she had to pick more flowers and rearrange it a little

The spoils of cleaning house. Look what was under the couches (2 couches, 1 loveseat & 1 large chair). I promise you, I move them and sweep once a month. Perhaps it should be more often! Although, when you consider the amount of furniture, I suppose it isn't that bad.

Kenna likes to line up all her people and say "this is my family, Josh, Jana, John David..." etc. She likes to pretend they are the Duggars from TLC's 19 kids and counting, and names them all J names like the Duggars.

Merry Go 'Round

Auntie Noni (Lauren) took the kids to the mall for a ride on the carousel!

They only have horses to ride, not other animals, Brooks told me

Wow, it's so pretty! They rode on "the upstairs"!

Ice cream for a treat! Thank you Auntie Noni!!

Short Story

This little story is written by...me! It's from a grade 5 project I did with 2 friends, Sonia and Krista about Japan. I was in a French Immersion school since kindergarten (all french, no english). I was looking through school papers recently and amusing myself at my old work! The original is typed out here, with none of the teachers edits (see pics), or the accents, since I don't know all the keycodes to type french on my computer quickly:-). The translation I just did now. Hilarious. I was only 10 years old, yet somehow it seems really "young" to me. Perhaps something was lost in translation:-)


Importance of the Family
Most of the families live three or two generations in one house. All the people in the family do their part to help with the housework, like setting the table, etc...There are activities that are familiar to everyone, that all the members of the family participate in. After diner, in most of the families, the grand parents watch the television, and the parents organize all the children and make sure they are prepared for bed. There is lots of love in each family.
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L'importance de la famille
Plus part des familles ont trois ou deux generations dans la maison. Toutes les gents de la famille ont leur partie a faire pour aider dans la maison, comme metre la table ect...Il y a des ativite familliers que tout les gents de la familles participe. Apres le diner dans plus part des familles les grand parents regards le tele, les parents range tout et les enfants se prepare pour aller au lit. Il y a beaucoup d'amour dans chaque famille.