Catch up...I'm HIRED!!!

So I've been super busy lately and kind of blog-lazy. Plus, my laptop crashed so that didn't help either. I've got quite a bit to catch up on! First, the most exciting news...I got a job! I am a Wilton Cake Decorating Instructor at Robert's Crafts (the big craft store chain up here in UT). I love it! I make my own schedule and I only work two nights a week (for 2 hours each night) and I work 2 hours on Saturdays too. I got to do an hour long demo at "Ladies' Night" on Saturday night as well. Every conferance, all the craft stores up here throw a "Ladies Night while the men are in priesthood session. Only in Utah... It's so nice to get out of the house every once in a while and feel like an intelligent adult again. Jacob is very supportive and has assured me that I don't HAVE to work but he is happy that I am out doing something that I really enjoy. I really do have the best husband ever. I had to do a demo for the store to display to advertise my class so this is the demo that I did. It is made from styrafoam instead of cake and it is iced with royal icing so that it wont spoil.

I've actually been doing a lot of cakes lately so here are a few:

This is a baby shower cake I did for my friend across the street. I snuck up into her nursery to get color and design ideas. She had brown, burgandy and pink colors and different flowers hand-painted all over, including the Black-eyed susans that you see on the cake. Everything on it is edible. The cake is lemon berry with a lemon filling and lemon buttercream covered in fondant and royal icing flowers.

I also did one last night for my friend's birthday. We both share a love for shoes so I thought this was very fitting. It is a chocolate-chip sour cream cake with chocolate sour cream buttercream and strawberry filling covered in fondant with a gumpaste shoe that I made. Once again, everything is edible...even the shoe. The shoe is pink gumpaste and I hand painted the zebra stripes with foodcoloring. It looks much better in person.

Here's a close-up of the shoe:
Here are the cookies I did for St. Patty's day:

Anyway...that's a little of what's been going on in my life...cakes, cakes, and more cakes...

So greatful!

I am so grateful for the promptings and "coincidences" that come across our lives quite frequently as mothers. Let me explain one in particular:

We are all sick with colds at my house...no big deal, right? Trevor's cough was especially bad though. I thought of it as "just a cold" and thought that there was no need in taking him to the doctor because they don't do anything for colds anyway. But for some reason, I was inclined to make an appointment anyway...I don't know why. I was about to cancel the appointment when Ryan had mentioned that his ear hurt. He had an ear infection a couple of weeks ago and was completely done with his antibiotics by now. I looked in his ear with my otoscope and saw that his ear drum had ruptured. So I changed the appointment for Ryan instead of Trevor. Luckily, I have an amazing Pediatrician and he always peeks at all of my kids when I take one in. (It is for this reason that I made him a birthday cake for his birthday. He has the same birthday as Ryan.) He confirmed that Ryan had, in fact, ruptured his ear drum and assured me that it should heal on its own but that he had to take another round of antibiotics if it didn't lessen in redness within two days time.
I mentioned that Trevor was miserable (I've never seen Trevor this sick) so he took a listen to his lungs. He informed me that Trevor had pneumonia and and he was to immediately be put on two different types of antibiotics as well as an infant's pro-biotic (kind of like to goodness that yogurt has to offer but much stronger.) with instructions to bring him back in two to three days if he is not remarkably better. Had we not caught that, he could be in serious trouble. After one dose of his antibiotics, he seems to be a completely renewed Trevor. I am so grateful for modern medicine, "coincidences" and a great pediatrician. We are so blessed!

Playing with food...

Lizzy decided to make an ice cream stand today. No pre-school...she must be bored. Luckily, we had some ice-cream in the freezer. Who am I kidding...we ALWAYS have ice-cream in the freezer. She gave Daddy a pretty good deal (him, being the one to buy the ice-cream and all...) just one hug and a kiss. Anyway...here's my cutie-patootie.

Frogs and "Scientific Stuff"

A couple weeks ago, the pre-school theme was "Reptiles and Amphibians" and the letter "C". The kids LOVED it. We made froggy faces, had turtle races (with turtles that we made from styrafoam bowls and played a lilly-pad cakewalk (which helped with numbers). We made a a display of all things that start with 'C', and did a couple of 'C' worksheets as well. Here are some pics. BTW: if you ever want any of these ideas, let me know and I can send them to you.

This past weeks' theme was "Science Experiments" and the letter "E". Lizzy loved doing "Scientific Stuff" as she calls it. We did tons of fun experiments. I even wore a lab coat and my glasses (...that I never wear. They make me look like a geek) to make the experiance memorable. The biggest one (this was getting them ready to do a real science experiment in elementry school) was "Which salt grows the largest crystals??? Epsome, Kosher or table salt. Kosher salt won. We even did a crude version of a Science experiment display on a poster-board that I had left over. The kids got a huge kick out of it. They loved coming to school the next day and finding the crystals that grew.

We also learned about: Static electricity (balloons rubbed on their hair and then stuck to the wall), How plants drink water (we placed celery stalks and carnations in colored water and watched them change color), How germs "run away" from anti-bactierial soap (a pie tin, filled with water, sprinkled with pepper and you drop a drop of dish soap in and watch the germs (pepper) run away from the soap.) We finished off the week by making an "Invention". The kids loved this the best. Lizzy's invention was a hat that sheilded her mini pine cone from the sun (she put a mini unbrella on top of it) and it also tickled people because she put feathers in it. Ryans was a spaceship that taught you the alphabet because he put foam letters on it.

I love spending this time with my kids and getting to watch them learn. I will look back on these days and remember what fun we had.

Just two

This is for Veronica...love you sis!

Two Names You Go By:

1. Betheny
2. Mommy
( I do NOT go by Beth! I hate that name)

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now:

1. plaid pink & green flannel p.j. bottoms
2. green t-shirt
(If I'm home, I'm always in p.j. s. Poor Jacob)

Two things you want out of a relationship:

1. Trust
2. humor

Two of Your Favorite Things to do:

1. Decorate Cakes...(Shocker, I know).
2. Go out to breakfast on a Saturday morning.

Two Things You Want Very Badly At The Moment:

1. To move back to Cali
2. Some chocolate because I wont be moving back for a long time...:(

Two Things you did Last Night:

1. watched cake competitions
2. Went to a frustrating HOA meeting to break away from my current HOA.

Two things you ate today:

1. Strawberry Frosted mini-wheats
2. Haven't decided on lunch yet.

Two people you Last Talked To:

1.My sister, Heather. I love talking to her.
2. My little Ry-guy

Two Things You're doing tomorrow:

1. My new calling as Primary Chorister
2. cleaning my house...as always

Two longest car rides:

1. Cali to Utah...Done it a million times!
2. To the hospital while I was in labor with Trevor

Two Favorite Holidays:

1. Halloween
2. Christmas

Favorite Beverages:

1. Sangria
2. Peach Fresca

Two Things About Me you may not have known:

1.I'm a bit of a "spit-fire" when I don't get my way.
2. I hate the smell of Baby oil.

Two jobs I have had in my life:

1. Mom
2. Dental Assistant

Two Movies I would watch over and over:

1. The Notebook
2. The Best Two Years

Two places I have lived:

1. Orem, UT
2. Temecula, CA - The best town ever. "It's always a great day in Temecula". No kidding!

Two of my Favorite Foods:

1. My hubby's Thai cooking
2. Chicken Scampi

Two places I'd rather be right now:

1. Um....Cali hanging out with my sisters and friends
2. On the beach in Thailand

Four people I think will respond:

1. Eh...whatever...
2.
3.
4.

Heber Valley Camp

My brother Doug and sister-in-law Lizzy flew in from TX and her parents invited us to spend a weekend at the Heber Valley Camp where they are currently serving their mission. My mom, sister Ashley, and brother Quinn came along too. We had so much fun. The road up the mountain was closed off so we got to sled down a 4 mile road that we had all to ourselves. We had great food, games and fun. It was so good to see Doug and Lizzy again.

Ryan turns 4!!

It was my little Ryan's Birthday today but we went out to celebrate yesterday. I made his transformer cake the night before so that we would have the whole day to celebrate. It was a lemon-berry cake with rasberry filling and lemon buttercream underneath a layer of fondant.

We started off the day with the traditional "Blueberry-Banana-Birthday-Pancakes" and many

various versions of "Happy Birthday" were sung in celebration.

We then bundled up to go sleading at the local high school where they have a sweet hill to ride

on. Ryan LOVES sleding.

After that, we took the traditional trip to McDonalds for happy meals.

Then he got to go to Wal-Mart to pick out a toy from his "Grandma and Papa" birthday money. He picked out a transformer...of course. We came home and took a nap, read all the birthday cards that he got in the mail (thanks everyone!) and ordered pizza for dinner.

We sang him "Happy Birthday as a family and of course, he had to "Bite the Cake".

He got a huge walking (and very noisy) robot that he can't get enough of.

We stuffed ourselfs full of ice cream and cake and slept well that night. Happy Birthday Ry-Man! We love you!

P.S. Here's a little dance for you, Grandma! Thanks for the musical birthday card!