Decorating with the Youth!!

First I just have to say, I love the youth of the Church!

I had the wonderful opportunity to teach some of my Young Women from one of my old wards how to decorate cakes last Wednesday. I will always consider them my Young Women even though I am not their leader anymore. I miss both groups of Young Women I have served. I truly love these young girls and I always think of them. The youth of the Church are truly amazing.

I had such a wonderful time visiting with the girls. I couldn't believe how big some of them have gotten in the past 3 years. One of my primary students was there in the Young Women's. I can't believe how time flies.

The one in the center was my primary student and look at her now, she is a young woman.

All of them with their beautiful cakes.

Good job girls!!

The 2 girls that missed the group photo.

Oh how I miss these girls!

As you can see, I have been extremely busy. Not only did I teach the Young Women how to decorate cakes and have to bake all those cakes but I have been getting ready for the Blue and Gold dinner we are having on Saturday for our Cub Scouts. Yes, I am in Cub Scouts and I love those boys too. Like I said, I love the youth of the church. I have been in charge of the food and some of the decorations for the dinner and we are expecting 300 people. I also am making 2 cakes for the dessert auction we are having.

Not only have I had the Blue and Gold dinner to do but I have been working on the 2 projects for Ayla's birthday. I am almost done with them. I would have had them done today because it is Ayla's Birthday today but I had to postpone her party until next week. I had a few reasons for that: Ayla was sick at the beginning of the week. She got better but then Grandma Perry went into the hospital and we were not sure when she was going to get out. Also, one of Ayla's present's is still coming in the mail. Plus, I had enough on my plate with the Blue and Gold dinner. Happy to say that Grandma Perry got out of the hospital yesterday and is doing fine. I think I was meant to postpone the party because I didn't have enough time to bake Ayla's and Kurt's cakes and get everything wrapped in time for their party. Yes, it was Kurt's party too. His birthday is today. I just want to end this post with:

Happy Birthday Ayla! Happy Birthday Kurt! I love you both so very much!!

Project #1 so far!

I have been working on the two projects I mentioned earlier in a post but I am only going to show you what I have done so far for one of them. Some time this week I will post about the other.

So here goes:

Project #1

The high-chair.

So I wiped down the high-chair and washed the seat cover in the washer.

I drew a template and traced it onto the board I bought to make the tray for the high-chair.

I was going to cut this out by hand with a little saw but I didn't have to, I was blessed. Let me explain:

You see this garage?

It is outside our door and there is a wood shop inside. A guy had been working in there for the past week. As I was going outside to cut the board by hand, I decided to go and knock on the door to ask if he had a band-saw and if I could use it. Well, guess what?

He did and he let me use it. So I cut the tray in no time.

He then let me use the sander. I rounded the edges and smoothed out the tray the best I could with the sander.

I thought it was so nice of that guy to let me in and use the equipment. It would have taken me forever to cut and sand that thing. I was definitely blessed.

I then finished rounding and smoothing the tray by hand.

Here is the tray.

I was happy with how it turned out.

My dad came over on Saturday and coached me through using the drill to drill holes so I could glue the tray on the arms of the high-chair. My dad also helped me with the doll bed but, like I said, I will show that in a later post.

Then we glued the tray to the arms.

I didn't have any c-clamps to use to hold the tray tight to the arms so I used the drill and our fruit bowl to put weight on it to let it dry.

Well the high-chair is ready to paint and so is the doll bed. I will be painting them tomorrow. The high-chair will then be complete. I will still have to make the mattress for the doll bed on Tuesday but then that one will be done too.

Wish me luck!

Our Valentine's Day!

We had a wonderful Valentine's. I just haven't been able to blog about it because Kurt has been working on the desktop again. He had set up the laptop for me to use but it crashed this week. So it is back to sharing. So most of my posts are going to be behind again.

Back to our Valentine's, on Wednesday before Valentine's I came home too:

These!

It is the only thing I ever what for Valentine's Day. Kurt doesn't care for Valentine's Day. He thinks you should treat your loved ones good all year not just for one day. He feels that giving because society says that, if you don't your a jerk, doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot; but giving flowers "just because" at any other time of the year shows real affection. But he is so awesome he still will gets me roses because, like I said, they are the only thing I want for Valentine's.

Here they are the day after Valentine's, all in bloom.

Close up of my favorite one.

Kurt also surprised me with a lunch from T.G.I Fridays, on Friday. He meant to take me to Outback Steak house but it doesn't open until 4:oo p.m. Kurt and I don't like to do dinner around Valentine's because all the restaurants are a zoo. We drove all the way up on the East side to go to Outback and when we got there the parking lot had hardly any cars. We thought "Cool, it won't be busy." Well the parking lot was pretty much empty that was when we learned they don't open until 4. So we went to T.G.I Friday's right by our house. Which was prefect anyway, because it was at T.G.I Friday's (where I took Kurt for his birthday when we were dating) when he decided he wanted to marry me. We also went there a couple of times before that and have great memories of going to dinner there while we were dating.

Valentine's fell on a Sunday and so we went to church.

This was Ayla's Valentine's attire. She looked so cute!

This was taken right when we got home from church. It was a nice day so we decided to stay outside for a little while.

Kurt and Ayla on the porch that leads to nowhere. Yeah, this house we are renting is strange but we love living here. I love that, in this picture, Kurt and Ayla have the same smile.

Just had to share this one. Ayla looks so cute leaning in to her daddy.

Kurt and Ayla were outside for a while before me so I got sneaky and put out the Valentine's on the table.

We let Ayla open all the presents.

She loved it. She is so going to love her birthday next week.

Kurt got some black socks from Ayla. See the packaging in the picture?

And he got his favorite PJ's sewn up from me for Valentine's. They are on the floor by his foot. He was so excited. He had been asking me to sew them for quite a while. I haven't had time to do it so I thought I would make time to do it for Valentine's. He loved it!

Ayla got this cute little doggy stuffed animal from Daddy and Mommy.

Here she is looking at it.

I love this little dress, I put little leggings under it and it becomes a top.

Kurt also got 2 new pairs of pants because his favorite ones ripped in the knee that Saturday. They ripped in the Knee because he always plays on the floor with Ayla. He is such a great dad and I love him!

Our Valentine's was wonderful! I loved spending time with 2 of my favorite people, my little family! I love them so much!

Projects

I have 2 projects that I have been wanting to do for some time. I tried to do them before Christmas but that didn't happen. I figure if I post about them, I will commit to doing them. So here goes.

Project #1

See this darling little doll high-chair?

Ya, I bought it from the D.I. for $2 dollars last May. I have been wanting to make a tray for it and fix it up for Ayla to play with.

Project #2

This cute little doll bed. I got this at Savers for $4.

Do you see why I wanted to get them done before Christmas? Well now I have 3 reasons to get them done soon:

1- Ayla's birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and I want to give them to her for her birthday.

2- I have posted about them on the blog now. So I have committed to them and plus it makes it more fun to share the progress with them with you.

3- They are taking up the table by the door and I can't stand anything on this table. So just more motivation to get them done.

I have already made some progress with them.

I bought a board to make the tray for the high-chair.

I bought the foam for the mattress and the material I need to cover the foam. Notice the material matches the material on the high-chair? Ya, I plan on painting them both white and have them match. You know, like a little set.

I also bought some screws to make the little bed sturdier. And of course I bought a sand block to sand every thing.

Well that is all I have done right now! Stay tuned for more!

The Coolest Night Light Ever!

So now that Ayla is in her toddler bed, I wanted to get her a different night light. One that wasn't the $2 plug in the wall night light. I just don't feel safe about her getting up in the night and pulling it out of the socket.

So I figured I would spend at least $25 dollars on a good, safe one. I thought for sure Walmart would have some kind of a children's night light but they didn't. I was shocked. Walmart has every thing. So I went online to my favorite purchasing web site, Amazon. I swear I am buying something every week from that site because you can find anything there. In fact, I bought Richard Simmons "Sweatin to the Oldies" the complete series today on Amazon. I need something to work out to. I love Jazzercise but Jazzercise doesn't fit into my schedule right now and "Sweatin to the Oldies" is kind of like Jazzercise just not as hard or as cool but it is still a dance aerobic kind of thing and that is what I love to do. I will let you know how much I like it when I start.

Now back to the night light. I always go off on tangents. Anyway, I went on Amazon and found:

This little cutie.

It is a KinderGlo night light. They come in a few different forms. I chose the owl because it was the most girly, girl and Ayla is a girly, girl. It is the coolest thing. Let me list why it is so cool:

1- It is rechargeable. That was a must thing with me, something to plug in or plug in and charge.

2- It never gets hot, so it is safe to play with. It is so safe your kid can sleep with it.

3- It is easy to use. Even Ayla knows how to use it.

4- It has 4 different light settings. You can set it to whatever color you want or just let it change from one color to the next.

Below are the colors. Ayla will model them for you.

White

Even though this picture was taken as the light was changing to red.

Red

Changing to blue

Blue

This is my favorite. It is the brightest and so I usually use this color.

And Green

And last but not least:

5- You can set it to stay on for 30 minutes or all night long.

I am so pleased with it so far. I found exactly what I was looking for and even more than what I expected in a night light. I love it! And it cost around $25 with shipping and handling, just what I wanted to spend. I feel it was well worth it. Now lets just hope it lasts a few years. It does have some kind of warranty. I will have to read up on that.

2 Birthday parties!

We celebrated 2 birthdays this last weekend: our nephew, Lane's and our niece, Morganne's. I will give you one guess what they got for their birthdays. You guessed it, I made them cakes.

Lane wanted Toy Story .

I had promised he would have a toy on top but I had a hard time finding Toy Story toys that were not expensive. So I went on Amazon. I got a set for $10 and my sister pitched in on half of it. So it cost us a whole $5. Not bad. I think it turned out awesome.

Lane liked it too.

I love how he hides himself with his hand when he gets shy or is very happy.

Like the decorations?

My sister and I decorated for the occasion because it was Lane's 13th birthday and we felt we needed to make a big deal about him becoming a teenager. I can't believe it. A TEENAGER!

We even did the railing. It was fun.

Dad and Ernie from far away.

Dad and Ernie closer up.

Ayla trying to make a get away.

Didn't make it. Poor sweetheart!

And of course I had to take pictures of her with her Aunt Marion.

So cute!!

We had a yummy roast and mashed potato dinner provided from my mom.

Then we let Lane open gifts.

Marion and her boyfriend, Monty got Lane this bull riding shirt. Which is perfect because Lane loves Monty and Monty used to bull ride. Plus Lane was named after a famous bull rider, Lane Frost. Lane's middle name is Frost.

See how it says, "bull rider" on the side?

Lane loved the shirt. He looked good in it too.

It was priceless to see his face when we all sang "Happy Birthday" to him.

Blurry but still caught the moment.

We celebrated Lane's birthday Friday night. Then, on Saturday, we celebrated Morganne's birthday. Morganne's birthday was actually in December but with it being close to Christmas, we celebrate it later.

Here is the cake I made her. She likes Samurai Jack.

I actually made this cake 2 weeks ago. We were supposed to celebrate her birthday then but people got sick so we postponed it. We just froze the cakes for a later day.

Yes, I said cakes. I made her 2 cakes. One was her very own special cake without wheat. She is allergic to wheat.

She is so into Samurai Jack that she loved her cakes so much that she wouldn't take her eyes off of them.

Happy girl with her cakes!

Like I said, she couldn't take her eyes off of them.

This is what makes cake making all worth it.

Such a cute girl!

Ayla loves to be right by Morganne. She so looks up to Morganne. It is so cute.

See how she invades her space? So cute!

Both parties were a lot of fun. I so love being with family. There is nothing more fun!

Oh, just in case you were wondering, Morganne's cake still tasted delicious. Even after being frozen for 2 weeks. In fact I think it tasted better. It had a little chill to it.

Happy Birthday Lane and Morganne! We love you!