Otitus Media

Yeah - say WHAT?? This little pumpkin took us on a trip to the urgent care facility yesterday. We thought we were just getting a quick strep test, but ended up with an inner ear infection (aka otitus media). Unfortunately, she's allergic to pretty much every antibiotic that we could have used on her. So....she's been hanging out with me. She's become my movie buddy. Yep...watching movies all day with my girl. At least I made her shower today. We've also been holding a cooked onion up to her ear and steaming it. (Don't barf Liz). I've heard that it works...and it seems to make her feel better. Who knew? 

This guy wasn't feeling too hot either

Somehow they actually got the cross eyed version of this picture.  Boy were we bored.  2.5 hours of hanging out in a little room with baby poop colored walls

Good thing I had my kindle.  At least she didn't mind the wait. 

uh...we were REALLY bored.  Unfortunately, I can't find the photo of my husband with his Dr. Office "Balloon".  He seems to think that volleyball with a "balloon" is acceptable Dr. Office behavior.  

Arches

One of our favorite places on earth is Arches National Park. Really - I don't know what it is about that red sand and the beautiful rock monuments, but love it we do. Every year my husband likes to participate in the Moab half marathon. We try to get there a day or two early so that we can really enjoy the area. Here are some photos from our latest visit. Here we walked through some fins to get to our favorite Sandstone Arch

Climbing around the Arch

Playing in the sand around Sand Dune Arch. Alas - no full body burials today.

Exploring beyond the arch

My cute guy \

Sand sifting

Just hanging out

On our way to the Pine tree arch (another favorite), there's a little jetty that the kids LOVE to hike up and run as fast as they can back down. The girls couldn't remember where this was exactly, but were adamant that we visit it again.

The bunny

Pine Tree Arch. This is my all time favorite. I probably have 5 pictures here on my blog from it. One from each year most likely. For some reason this arch area always feels SO peaceful to me. I wonder if the area was a sacred place anciently. Love this one.

Family photo at the Pine Tree Arch

Outside of the Sand Dune Arch

Don't ASK!

My husband is a runner. Every year (unless he has an injury like last year) he puts in for the lottery for Moab's half marathon race.
Yes folks, that's 13.1 miles.

The girls and I like to go and cheer him on, and we love to hike around in Arches, and....this year my girls discovered shopping.

We found the coolest shop with all kinds of cool sun-catcher type trinkets.




The door was locked.

We went to the store next door and saw the sign. 

Love it! I wish life was always so easy. 

Sunday afternoon Daddy daughter bonding

As I walked past these two as they were playing together last Sunday afternoon, I had to go grab my camera. It was a pretty cool sight to see them playing together.

Frosting Roses

My girls and I spent some time this morning watching different tutorials on cake frosting. I bought a tip set last week, and we decided to spend our day test driving all of the new tips to see what they could do. My girls said it was the best day they've had in a long time. Our oldest daughter realized that she REALLY LOVES cake decorating. It was a very fun day.

We started out with frosting roses. Everyone in the family made at least one (even dad), and they all turned out really well.
Here's our spring - time rose cake. Believe it or not, we still have more roses that we didn't get on the cake! I have no idea how we are going to cut this baby, but it was really fun to put together.

Crazy cupcakes!

Our daughter decided to do some crazy snowman like tower cupcakes. They were REALLY creative.

Here's one our older daughter did from a tutorial we watched this morning

Creative cupcakes

Here are a few more creations we enjoyed coming up with.
You may note the buttercream rose - that was a different experience from the Royal Frosting Roses



A flower we found a tutorial for this morning

Sunflower cupcakes with ladybugs

Small butter cream roses our daughter made on a basket weave

Glass Of Moooooo

So uh, we have a rock star performer in our home. 

Here's his latest hit.  Just you watch - it will be at the top of the charts within the week. 

Misc photos

My husband is pretty patient. I don't really think that these colors go very well with the foot hair. Poor soul - he's surrounded by estrogen. What's a guy to do?

My husband hates to get his hair cut. When it gets long enough, I threaten him with letting the girls have at him. Here's their latest creation. Needless to say, he succumbed and got his hair cut as soon as he could get the ribbons and barrettes out.

Our cat - she's not generally very patient. She especially likes to come and lay down on top of your book if you are reading, or in the middle of your game. No matter what you are doing, she wants to be part of it. Unfortunately, during the winter months, our cat gets a little stir crazy and doesn't like to be outdoors in the cold. This translates into unpredictability and crankiness. You never know when she'll actually cooperate or not. My daughter was recently playing with the dominoes, and the kitty came and interupted her play.
Apparentely, she disturbed the game (by lying on top of it) and wouldn't move. My daughter decided to just keep on going anyways...and the cat let her!

Family Visit

We traveled out of town last week to spend some time with family and see our nephew's baptism.  We had the opportunity to write down and share our testimonies for our nephew/cousin so that he can remember our testimonies on the day he was baptized. Here's what our youngest daughter wrote. I love, love, love it.

We had a chance to go to church with my husband's grandfather who will be 95 next month. It was great to see him and spend time with him.

Here are the girls with their great grandpa.

My husband and his grandfather. Aren't they handsome?

Little dolly

I know. I can't decide if it is wrong or not, but I LOVE that this little girl still trusts my fashion judgement - just a little bit - ( although she's missing her black sweater with the red and pink stripes that ties everything together here). I love that she still lets me fix her hair and help her pick out her outfits. Remember playing barbies years ago? Having kids is SO much better. After our daughter got ready for school on Friday, I just couldn't resist taking a few photos of her darling sweetness.



She let me fix her hair, and we did a braided headband with a messy bun.

I'm so glad she doesn't mind modeling for me either!

Sugar Cookies

A couple of weeks ago I was going through a cupboard and pulled out the cookie cutter container and set it on the counter.
Our youngest daughter saw all of the cool shapes and begged me to let her make sugar cookies.

We did, and then the next day, we started to frost them. I pulled out some frosting tips, and the girls had a blast. They even talked their dad into joining us. He informed us that he had never frosted anything using real frosting tips - we had a blast, and the girls loved taking their creations to school in their lunches each day.