Edible snowmen...

Playgroup was at my house today and the boys had a BLAST making edible snowmen. I highly recommend doing it with your kids...they'll love it!

We used a little oreo cookie on top of a big oreo cookie for hat. Marshmallow for the top third of the snowman, little powdered donut for the middle and big powdered donut for the bottom. Chocolate chips for eyes and buttons. Pretzels for arms and Dots candy for gloves. Licoriche for the scarf (but you could also use fruit by the foot.)

The snowman quickly melted into the boys mouths!

I'm a little behind on some posts so scroll down after this one to see two other new posts I put up today...hopefully it won't be blog post overload!

Happy 8th Birthday Michaela!

Michaela celebrated her 8th birthday last week. We are so excited that she has decided to be baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We are excited for that to happen next month.

I found edible horse-themed cupcake toppers on-line which made cake decorating ez!
The girls got to color a personalized horse picture while we waited for all to arrive. Later they painted little ceramic horses.

We used sugar cubes to have an indoor relay race.

Later, we had a different relay race out in the garage. They had to put on a hat, cowboy boots and a bandana, ride a tricycle around a chair which proved to be very difficult so we let members of the team push them. Then they had to climb over a bale of hay and gallop on a toy horse. I laughed so hard I nearly peed my pants...of course that's partly because I'm pregnant too. I don't know if they kids had fun...but the adults sure laughed hard.

We also took pics with all the guests dressed up to use on their thank you cards.
Sisters!

Cowboy Steen...so cute!

Michaela and her cousin Alanna.

Michaela and her grandma...we love having her live so close.

Michaela got an American girl doll for her birthday...she couldn't be happier!

The kids with Santa

The kids each got to sit on Santa's lap at our ward party! Yeah for not having to wait in line at the mall!

Notice Michaela's newer hair do!

And yeah...this isn't exactly Santa...but I forgot to post our Robin Hood themed Halloween costumes back at Halloween.

Locks of Love

Before

After

Michaela donated almost 12 inches of hair! She has been contemplating it for sometime, and she finally decided she wanted to do this. I heard her on the car ride over saying "bye, bye hair." I'm so proud of her and think she looks adorable!
Look at those Locks of Love!

Good luck Jessica!

We hosted a family baby shower for Steven's niece Jessica. She will be having a little girl sometime around Feb. 6th (nice date!...my b-da) I am excited to be a great aunt again! (Heck...I think I've always been great but this makes me officially great! ;-) Congratulations Jessica!

Steven helped by making cinnamon rolls for our brunch. They were amazing! He is sooo amazing!!!!! (But maybe that's because he's a "great" uncle.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Andrea had her kindergarten Thanksgiving feast. Here is her vest and hat she made. After I took her picture, she wanted Steen to be able to wear it too! ;-) I'm grateful for such a sweet family...most of the time ;-)

Puppy Party!

Happy Birthday Steen! He celebrated his 3rd birthday with a doggie party.

He invited his buddies. They're all wearing sunglasses with doggie felt ears glued on. Some of them had their noses painted black with face paint.
His favorite color is green so we had green cupcakes with little dog candles in them.

They ate doggie treats including dog bone shaped cookies.

They played games including pin the tail on the doggie; Dog, Dog, Dog Cat; and doggie doggie where's your bone.
In this game they tossed doggie bones into a doggie dish.
Steen loved the batman cave from mom and dad...
BUT He REALLY LOVED the doggie shirt from grandma and exclaimed, "this is sooo cool" and immediately began to put it on!

And since Steen is now 3 years old...it's time to announce that he has a little baby sibling on the way. I'm expecting #4 on April 22nd.

Apple pickin'

Our neighbor invited us to her parent's apple orchard to pick as many apples as we wanted. The kids had a blast picking apples and Steen walked around eating them with two in his hand at a time. Afterwards we had carmel dipped apples and the kids got to ride on the cherry picker tractor. I forgot my camera, so no pics of the actual event, but afterwards, Steven and I canned 12 quarts of applesauce! Thanks Lori for letting us use your special applesauce maker (it separates the peels and seeds from the applesauce) to make it much easier.

Cornbelly's Kindergarten fieldtrip

Andrea's class went to cornbelly's for their kindergarten fieldtrip and had a blast. I went along as a parent helper and had fun riding the bus with Andrea. They each got to pick a pumpkin to take home from the pumpkin patch. I told the 5 kids in my group that nobody could take a pumpkin that was too big for them to carry...well Andrea chose a huge pumpkin and I ended up carrying it back to the bus most of the way. I guess I should have been better at enforcing with my own child, but she loves her pumpkin and can't wait to carve a jack o' lantern.

Family Pictures

My sister-in-law Rachel and her partner Crystal do awesome photography. If you want to check out more go to there blog at www.rcphotographyutah.blogspot.com.

Daddy's boy!

Our Curly Girly!

Sweet Michaela!

It's a miracle this pic ever got taken...Steen wanted to be back hanging on dad and interrupting our kissing session...just like real life!