Easter CupCakes

I try to do fun activities when I babysit my niece on Mondays (if you can even call it babysitting, she is so good and pretty much takes care of herself) and thought it would be perfect this week to make some Easter cupcakes. If you can't tell, which you probably can't since I am not that talented and either is my camera, the cupcake is suppose to look like Easter eggs sitting on grass. James' mom got me a new decorating tip that I thought I'd try out.


Alex decorated these cupcakes all by herself. She's pretty skilled for a 5 year old!


Joshua decorated these ones with jelly beans. Some of the cupcakes were in a few extra pieces when he was done with them.

First Night In A Big Boy Bed!

A few weeks ago Joshua spent his first night in a big boy bed. He did amazingly well. We spent the few weeks beforehand getting him used to his new room and the idea of a big boy bed. We also notified him of the big boy bed rule: when we put him down to sleep he can't get out of his bed until Mom or Dad come get him.

We had him sleep in his new bed for the first time during his nap. He tested the waters a bit and got out of his bed several times before falling asleep. Honestly, I was impressed by this. I thought I was going to have to put him back into his bed many more times than I did. And the beautiful thing is that he hasn't tried to get out of his bed ever since. Even when his prized blanket fell out of his bed he called out to me asking me to give it back to him instead of getting out of bed to get it. I'm seriously so proud of him.

Admittedly, the change was harder for me than it was for Joshua. James wanted to change him to his new bed weeks before we finally did it. When he asked me why we couldn't do it yet, I didn't really have an answer. Probably because the answer was "BUT HE'S STILL JUST A BABY!" or something silly like that. But the change had to be made eventually since a new baby will be here in a couple months and needs Joshua's old crib. It sure is fun, but oh so hard, to see kids grow up!

Here are some snap shots of his first night in his new bed. I quickly discovered that the blanket and sheets I bought were a complete waste. He likes to tuck his stuffed animals into them but that is about it.

It's that time of year again!

Mmmmmm. I used to have to search all over the place to find yummy girl scout cookies but now I've got a niece as a girl scout. Lucky day! I was tempted to buy a couple dozen boxes of Samoas to me last until next year (ok, fine, probably only until like June--I'm pregnant you know:) but I found my self control and ended up with just two. Of course, James may have had something to do with the purchase of ONLY 2 boxes. He somehow thought that eating a box a day wasn't healthy or something. Meh!

The Snow Cave

I spent literally hours shoveling the snow from our huge driveway into a pile so that I could make a snow cave for Joshua. Quite a challenge for someone 6 months pregnant!

And then I worked tirelessly through Joshua's nap (hello, I could have been sleeping too!) to make a snow cave out of the pile of snow I made. And what happens next? The sun comes out and melts half of it within 2 hours. And then when I show Joshua the awesome cave he is too scared to go inside of it! WHAT!! Not cool!

Despite all my efforts being a total and complete waste (especially because the 8 inches on the driveway had mostly melted off of other people's driveway by the end of the day), they did remind me of some of the fond memories I had of making snow caves when I was young. I remember being so excited about them that I found myself fantasizing about making and living in them throughout the winter. I'm much too practical now-a-days to dream of such things. I mean, do you know how cold that would be :)

Me. Pregnant.

My friend recently mentioned that there were no pregnant pictures of me to be found anywhere. I looked through the blog and my personal photos albums and noticed the same thing. Am I really even pregnant?! Well, I hope so. Otherwise my figure has really gone out the window lately!

Here I am 4 months pregnant. You can kind of see a little pregnancy bump (move it table!) but there isn't much. That probably has something to do with me having lost 15-20 lbs at this time from my Crohns Disease.


Here I am 6 months pregnant. I had James take this yesterday when I realized that the last pregnancy photo I had was the one above. Oops!


This is one of the few photos I found to compare from my last pregnancy. I'm 20 weeks pregnant (about 4.5 months). I'm in Yellowstone if you're wondering about the nice scenery :)

A Crush?

A 7 year old girl at our church likes to make pictures for Joshua during sacrament meeting. We usually end up with a pile of them by the time the meeting is out. Joshua loves it, and we, his parents, love it because it keeps him nice and occupied. The little girl even asked if she could come over and play with Joshua after school. James thinks she has a crush on him, but I don't see how a 7 year old can have a crush on a 2 year old. But I could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time!

Recent Photos

Some of my family got together last week to make pizza. We even had yummy dessert pizza.

My brother used to work at a pizza place so he had professional pizza making skills. Actually, what he was really doing here was redoing the pizza that his wife tried to make. Sorry Suzette :)

Joshua is as messy as ever. He did surprise me by reaching out to take a drink, stopping, and then asking me to clean off his hands. He then took a nice drink.

Joshua has been really into Winnie the Pooh lately so we thought it would be fun if we found his old halloween costume and put it on. After a bit of a struggle we were able to fit it on him and he loved it. He kept looking in the mirror with a huge smile on his face.