Blue and Gold

We just had our Blue and Gold Night for the year. The boys were asked to bring a cake! Brayden's favorite cake of all time was the snake I made him a few years ago for his birthday. It wasn't surprising to hear him say he wanted to make one for the big event. 

He chose the color! He put the dots on for the eyes and nostrils. In fact he made most of the cake. I baked the cake while he was at school but when he got home he cut my circle cake, he put it together, he frosted it with some help. Then he took an avocado bag and rubbed it all over the snake to create the scaley look.

He did a fantastic job!

Totally Trick Taco's

Brayden loves to help Mom in the kitchen. He's quite the little helper. Earlier this week he came home from school with a new library book. He found a cook book and was so excited to find this recipe, Totally Trick Tacos. 

Now we have taco's quite often in our house but we usually use soft shells and not many of us care for tomatoes either. So when he first told me he wanted to make taco's I had him help me make them the usual way. 

He wasn't to thrilled with our "normal" way and really wanted to make these "Totally Trick Taco's". So I broke down, took him to the grocery store with me and let him help pick out our ingredients needed to follow this recipe. He was so ecstatic! I love how the "simple" things can make him and my other kids so happy. He absolutely loved following his recipe and loved that they turned out just like the picture in his library book!

President's Day

Kids didn't have school for President's Day. I'm going to be working a little more than normal this week at H&R Block so I wanted to get them out of the house and go "do" something while I could. It was a cold, rainy/snowy day so doing something outside just wasn't going to work. A few years ago Emily and I went on a field trip to the Wildlife Museum in St. George. None of the other kids had been there so that's were we headed. 

The Museum is 2 stories tall and you just walk along the path seeing animals from all over the world. 

They had a real little indoor waterfall with huge goldfish swimming around. 

One day, Hunter would love to go on a bear hunt. 

Emily wants to decorate her bedroom with giraffes. She loved seeing this exhibit. 

 These 2 munchkins love watching animal planet with their Dad. They loved seeing  a lion attacking a zebra in real life.....sorta!

Growling like a polar bear.

We came across a play room that was hands on. The kids loved spending some time here. 

Madelyn asking for a kiss.....

Emily pretending to be discovered by a bear. 

Playing in a tent. 

Oh my, this sure gave us the camping bug!

There was a play house that the kids could climb up and down and all over. 

When we left the museum it was snowing again!

 

Sure made for a few hours of fun, indoors!

Valentines 2018

I just don't like that my kids are growing up. A few years ago I was helping make 5 valentine boxes. This year I was able to help with 3 and next year I will only have 2. It makes me sad. 

I think the best part about Valentines Day is our 1-2 nights that we sit down and make the valentine boxes. Some of our schools have asked the kids to make and bring one while other schools have had the kids decorate a boring paper sack that day to use. I hate it when they make those boring sacks! So we still make our own unique box and the kids then take them to school to use. Some teachers have let the kids use them while others feeling it wasn't fair to the other kids made them keep it at the back table and use those boring sacks. I've told the kids to obey their teacher but that we are still making our boxes whether or not they end up neeing them. While living in Hurricane most teachers don't let the kids know until the night before whether or not to bring a custom made valentine box or not. Being Valentine's Day falls during tax season I can't always wait till the night before so we usually start a few days before to make sure we are ready!

Emily is into Giraffe's right now. She wants to decorate her room in giraffes. So it wasn't surprising she asked to make a giraffe. She found an idea on pinterest and she went with it. She went through our recycling bin and came up with the pieces she needed. I helped her glue everything into place and then she took it outside and spray painted it all yellow. She had to do a few coats so you couldn't see the tissue box. The next day after school she glued on it's eyes, antennae's, ears and painted the spots. I think she did an AMAZING job. She was so happy that the day before her Valentine Party her teacher, Mrs. Webb, told the class to bring in their very own valentine box. 

Our family is kinda liking the Marvel movies right now. One of Brayden's favorite characters is Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy. So of course that's what he chose. This one was a little harder to do. We ended up taking an apple juice bottle and gluing it into another apple juice bottle that had been cut in half. Then we rumpled and hot glued a paper grocery bag around the containers. Trying to form him the best we could. We glued the bottom into an old flower pot, glued some fake green leaves we pulled out of my greenery and drew on a face. Brayden and his classmates LOVED it!

Kylie wanted to make a ladybug! I hot glued two aluminum round pans together and let her go to town. She painted and painted and painted. I showed her how to make the black dots and she was in heaven. When she was done painting we hot glued some eyes and poked in the antennaes. She loved it!

Happy Valentines Day!

2018