More Cakes

These cakes were for Alex's Birthday and Parker's preschool graduation party.

These last two were done for my 2nd cake class, which they no longer teach. These were a lot of fun. I really like making the fondant roses. All of those roses took me about 6 hours to make. In all the tiered cake took about 12 hours with baking time.

my latest investment

I thought I would share a few pictures of what has occupied most of my time in the last month or so. I have thouroughly enjoyed it and plan to continue. Here are a few pictures from my first month of class

Joseph's blog about the space program

Check out Joseph's letter to the president at www.rocketpolitics.com
Send letters to your Congressmen and Senators that we need to save Constellation - our manned space program!

Balance

Balance is something I struggle with. I have not been able to find a balance in much of anything as of late. How do I balance the need to work and bring in income and having the time I need with my family? We've balanced it in terms of one of us always being with the kids, but that doesn't balance family life or time to do things together as a family. How do I balance keeping a neat home with not creating contention and a bad spirit by 1)yelling at the kids 2) being frustrated and angry with them and 3)both not yelling and not being frustrated and angry when any little progress I make is destroyed five minutes later. How do I balance the need to fulfill myself so I have something to give with the constant needs of five little ones and a husband, not to mention sisters I visit teach, people in the ward who need help and the many other demands on my time that stem from the afore mentioned? How do I balance the budget with the ever increasing demands on it, including a house that is in need of repairs, not cosmetic upgrades but structural, functional repairs?
How do I fit in time for scripture study and prayer and the basics? I can't fit in time to use the bathroom without something or someone being hurt or needing my attention.
So like I said balance is something I'm really struggling with. I am sorry to be such a downer right now. Hopefully I will find a little more balance and be able to post more often, and share some happy and fun things!

Hopelessly Behind

That is how I feel in about every aspect of my life. My blog shows it the most however. Maybe someday I 'll catch up on the past 7 or 8 months, but until then I'll just start with this week. We are currently trying to refinance our house.
we were hoping they'd be able to do an electronic appraisal, but that fell through when the difference between high and low was somewhere in the range of $150,00. So, we made an appointment to have the appraiser come on Thursday evening. As many of you are aware, I am not a neat person. Housekeeping and organizing is NOT one of my talents. So on Monday we made a list and were planning on prioritizing it after the kids were in bed and then spending every spare moment the next few days tidying and cleaning and organizing. Then the phone rang. It was the appraiser wanting to come the next day mid morning. He lives in the Salt Lake area (by the way - is it really that hard to get and appraiser who is from the area? There is a HUGE difference between Brigham and Salt Lake. When we first got the house appraised when we were moving here, the guy did comparisons of our house with houses all over Brigham. I know its a small town but that's ridiculous. One of the houses was a few hundred feet from the train tracks!) and would be up in this area and wanted to make it all in one stop. PANIC! We rushed around and cleaned and tidied and organized as best we could in the short time we had. We went to bed about 1 am. and said that's as good as it's going to get. I spent the entire morning yelling at the little boys to not play with toys and keep the house clean. I was suddenly reminded why my house is never clean.

I believe I was tagged...

It's been a really long time since I've posted, and I don't really have much time right now, so you'll have to wait for news. I believe someone tagged me with the 6th photo from my 6th folder so here it is:

A visitor

Andrew went to let the dog out this morning and suddenly comes running back into our room asking if he can take a picture of the creature that is outside. Joseph and I hop out of bed and this is what we found:

We have a found evidence of deer in our backyard before, but never a deer. They have to jump fences to get in. I'm not sure what makes our yard so attractive. We are not even that close to the mountains. It has been a couple of hours since we first saw the deer. He did get up and eat some our ivy/grass, but then laid right back down. I wonder how long he'll stay?

Space Derby!

Our pack meeting was a few days ago and this year we tried something new - a space derby. Everyone had a lot of fun. I think the dads were way more into this than they were the pinewood derby last year. There were some very creative rockets. I wish I had gotten a picture with all the scout and their creations, but alas I did not. It was a big hit and will probably be repeated again next year. Trying to fit renting the track for the pinewood derby is just not in our cub scout budget! Th rockets just ran on fishing lines, and were powered by rubber bands. It was a lot of fun for all!

Our New Webelos

Well with becoming ten, a new rank in scouts begins. We will have to try and figure this webelos thing out. Our ward actually does not have a webelos den as yet. They had been going to another ward's den, but that was only supposed to be until the end of March. Hopefully they will call someone soon, because until then another mom and I will be running webelos as well as the wolfs and bears!

Double Digits

BJ's birthday was, well several weeks ago now. I am a bit behind. He had a good day, and even had the day off of school! He turned 10 years old this year. He can't really be that big can he? We tried to make him the cake he wanted, but our oven is not working properly and after two underdone and overdone at the same time, we gave up and took him to the store to pick out a ready made one. I honestly don't remember much about the day anymore, except that it was rather busy. We had scouts that day and so it was a scramble to finish that up and then get the birthday dinner on. He chose Barbecue chicken with mashed potatoes, lemon jello and watergate salad. I think that was it. He ended up with a chocolate cookies and cream cake.