Snow Day!

A few weeks ago Ben had a half day at work because of all the snow. When we got home from picking him up from work, Cynthia wanted to play outside and the side walks needed to be shoveled. So I got Ben to do it. Cynthia was more than happy to help.


Cynthia helping Ben shovel.


Walking were no man has walked before!


I was in charge of putting the salt out. Here Cynthia is playing in the salt.


Happiness is helping Dad!

Cynthia and Santa

Cynthia did not like Santa this year. Maybe next year will be this lucky year of change.

Baby Car-Car

Monday's and Friday's I watch our neighbours little boy, Carson. Cynthia loves little Carson to bits and pieces and always want to help. She calls him Car-Car or Baby Car-Car. It is so cute.


Ben, Cynthia and Carson. Ben and Carson were napping and then Cynthia woke up from her nap and wanted to join them.


Cynthia holding Carson and giving him his binkie.


Cynthia trying to get Carson's attention.


Cynthia going in to give him kisses.


The chair Carson is sitting in has some setting. Cynthia loves to change the setting for Carson.


Cynthia trying to get Carson to take his binkie. She still uses the green hospital binkie (and wont give it up). It has a little thing that sticks out on the back of it and Ben and I always steal it out of her month or something like that. That is what she is trying to do with Carson. But his binkie is a Nuk so it does not work.

Random Cuteness Of Cynthia

Just random cuteness of the cutest! She loves to dress up, because that means she gets to go outside.

Christmas Decor

I enjoy to decorate every now and again. I would love to decorate all the time if there was decorating money in the budget, but that will happen - all in good time. Cynthia decorated the tree this year. I believe that it is better to have a good time with the family than to have a 'perfect' tree. Cynthia had such a blast putting the balls on the tree that I don't have the heart to hang them. Here are some of the Christmas decor that we did this year.


The tree! (I can't seem to turn it - stupid library computer!) Aren't Cynthia decorating skills so cute?


Our living room window. I hung some coloured lights and snow flakes in the window. It looks super cool from the other side. I did not want to go outside in the cold, so this is what you get. There is also red and silver tinsel on the windowsill mixed in with the coloured lights.


Our entertainment center. We got the stocking hanger things at the dollar store. I think that they are so cute. The Train is Ben's, the Snowman is Cynthia's and I get the sleigh of toys. There are also coloured lights in and around the tinsel on top. Part of them flash.


My first Christmas while dating Ben, his parents gave me a snowman for a present. The purple and white one on the right. The Christmas before Cynthia was born Cindy from the LDS BC gave me a snowman, the on with his arms out on the left. This year when getting the snowmen out, we had to go and find a snowman for Cynthia. Since the one looks like 'Mommy' and the other 'Daddy.' At the dollar store we found the cute one in the back for Cynthia. It has flowers on the bottom of it.


An up close picture of the way Cynthia decorated the tree - in ball clusters!



Cynthia decorating the tree - and what fun did she have!

Ben's Birthday

Ben's birthday was a fun day. In the morning he (and Cynthia) opened his present, which was a red long sleeve shirt (which was to big, so he returned it and got some work socks) and the new TSO CD. He has been listening to his new CD ever since. In the evening we had some friends come over for cake and ice cream. I borrowed a friends ice cream maker and made Ben some coconut blue berry ice cream which was so delicious.



Ben's birthday cake was a coconut red velvet, which he loved!


The three little penguins are Cynthia, Ben and me. Cynthia is the little one playing on the ice. Ben and I are watching her. I am the short fat one. If you notice the white marks on the penguins. You will notice the different between male and female. I had a little to much fun making them and everything on the cake is eatable.

Thanks to everyone that came! You really helped make it a wonderful day.

Balloons

Cynthia loves balloons. For Ben’s birthday I found a couple of balloons in a box and decided to blow them up. Cynthia had the best time in the whole world! She would try to hold all 6 of them, or something funny. While playing with the balloons and having such crazy hair, she become a ball of static. It was so funny. You stick a balloon to her back and she spins and spins until she got it off. Who needs a puppy when you have a toddler?

Cracking Nuts

Last week we got 5 lbs of shelled nuts. We never realized until after getting the nuts that we do not have a nut cracker. We went to the Dollar Store and found one. Ben did not like the way it worked so he got his piece of marble from the Columbia River Temple and my little hammer and proceeded to crack all the nuts. It was a great family activity. Cynthia loved to help, but to get anything done; we had to do all of it after she went to bed.

Cynthia taking a 'whack' at the pecan

Ben helping Cynthia

Cynthia trying to do it all by herself.

Cakes For Sale

Because of this wonderful winter snow we are having, Ben has not been to work lately. Making our bills have just gotten harder. So I have decided that I want to try and sell some cool, fancy cakes to help our income situation. If anyone is interested in buying a cake, please let me know. You can email me at malchicken@gmail.com. Thanks!

Computer Problems

Saturday night my computer died. We are not sure what happened, it just peeled over and died. (Well maybe not that visually, but that is what is feels like! So on Sunday we take it over to a neighbour who tells us that either our motherboard or CPU has fried itself. You can't see any burn marks or smell any smoke. I felt that he diagnosed the problem way to quickly and so I called my trusty computer friend, Micheal (should have called him first!). He thinks that my RAM has just died - I like that problem better, it is cheaper to fix. Micheal can only come around to bring life back to my computer on Friday, he is writing his finals this week. So until my computer is fixed, I have to use the computer at the library. Thus making it a little difficult to post on the blog. Lets just hold fingers that only my RAM is the problem and that we can fix it on Friday!

Thanksgiving

We were invited to join my Aunt and Uncle for Thanksgiving in Provo this year. It was great fun to relax and hang out with extended family. It was held at Charne's sisters house. So there were many South Africans at the party. Cynthia loved every moment of being there.

Here is the turkey on top of the cake that I made. It was made in a rush the morning of so I don't like it ever much. I think that it could have been so much better.

Cynthia loves Layne. She kept wanting to play with him.

Cynthia is marvelous at getting just about anyone to do what she wants them to do. Over the course of lunch, I think about 4 people fed her from her lunch bowl.

Layne and Cynthia playing outside. She followed him around most of the day. Every time Layne asked her if they could go inside she said no. If you enlarge this picture you can see the big smile on her face.

This just a quick video of Cynthia playing around at lunch. She would bounce from on person to the next.

Thanks for a great Thanksgiving!


Friday night, Layne came up for dinner. Ben's work gave him a ham, so we cooked it up and I tried my hand at making fried/roasted potatoes - the way my mom makes them. They were a success and tasted so good. Cynthia followed Layne around. If he went to the bathroom, she waited outside the door. It he was on the computer, then she was on his lap. I think Layne has made a friend for life!

Just Plain Cynthia

Cynthia is a true one of a kind little character. She has her own agenda and her own way of doing things. Tonight while I was at my final cake class Cynthia and Ben had a little fun. The story goes as follows:

Cynthia finds a pair of my pink socks all folded up. She unfolds the socks and promptly puts them on her feet. Ben and Cynthia play around, kicking the soccer ball, putting daddy's socks on over mommy's socks and a few other things. Next thing she runs over to the back door - where I left my slippers - and puts them on her feet. (She loves to where my shoes!) Then she is back chasing the soccer ball - slippers and all! Here is a little video clip that Ben took of Cynthia and her shoe agenda. If things don't work out she throws them away and then goes back and tries again - notice her throw the slipper away. This is Cynthia being herself!

Cake Decorating Class 1 Week 4 - Final

Tonight was my final decorating class. This is the cake that I made. I found a picture online and just mimicked it. I changed the colour to yellow instead of pink. Underneath the icing is triple layer lemon cake. The colour is a little funky in the pictures. The side of the cake is more a pale yellow and the roses very from a bright yellow to a buttercup yellow.

Thanks Layne for this wonderful birthday present.

Black and White

A few months ago I got this idea for a dress for Cynthia. I have been waiting until we had some money so that I could buy the material that I needed for the dress. Last Sunday I went to dress Cynthia for church and discovered that most of her dresses were way to short. I think that she had a growth spurt this week because most of her jeans are suddenly to short as well. So this week we bought all the material that I wanted and off I went. I used a basic pattern that I have and altered it to what I wanted. All the black is part of the alterations that I made. Originally there was supposed to be a white flower on the black waist band and the black chest was not going to be part of the dress. The flower I got was to big and never looked good so I went to plan B. There is also a second layer under the dress with mesh stuff to help give it flare. I think that it is darling. What do you think?

The front

The back

Cake Decorating Class 1 Week 3

This week's assignment for my cake class was to either decorate cupcakes or an 8 inch cake. The book that we are working out of suggests that you make a clown 8 inch cake or flowers on cupcakes. I wanted to be a little different. I enjoy walking through the cake section in stores. Last week we were at Walmart and saw some super cute cupcakes. They had taken two cup cakes and made them into an animal. There was a dragon/lizard thing, a bear and a little puppy. I decided that I was going to copy the puppy, but instead of using two cup cakes I used my mini loaf pans. That way when you want to eat it, you don't have to fight the paper cup holding the cup cake. They were super easy to make and they were a hit.

Up close with one of the puppies

All seven looking forward

A different angle of the seven

Best Husband in the WHOLE World!

I have had the New Moon movie scheduled on my wall calender since the first time I found out when it would be released. I also created a ticker on the bottom of my blog so that I could have a running count of the days left until New Moon come out. I have been getting super excited about the whole thing. I had it all planned out just how it was supposed to go. Then the beginning of the month hit us. Ben never got all the hours at work that he needed because of the weather. Insurance was being taken out of the weekly paycheck that left us a little short and my dream of going to New Moon started to fade. Yesterday I decided to just forget about. Talking about it to Ben and keeping a running count of days, just promoted sadness. So I made up my mind that I would forget about it until things looked a little better - maybe next month with the Christmas bonus or something.

Last night I was feeding Cynthia her dinner and Ben was taking his time getting home. He told me that he stopped at the store on his way home so that was the reason why he was taking so long. The next thing I knew, there was a knock on my front door. I was like great another door to door salesman or something. But it was Ben! He was standing there with a long stemmed red rose. He asked me if I wanted to go out with him on Friday night - then revealed two tickets to NEW MOON! I don't know where he got the money from but at 7pm on Friday night I will be on a date with my wonderful and truly amazing husband!

Thanks Honey!

Cushion Fun

Cynthia loves to play with the cushions. She usually uses them as a 'blanket' and put the over her legs and sits there all proudly like she just accomplished something that no one else has yet to complete. But Sunday night at play time, they become sandwich material. They were the best toys that we could have had in the house at the time.

Cushion Sandwich Cynthia

Laughing at Daddy for being sandwiched

Getting comfortable with the a cushion 'blanket'

'Hi!'

Snow Angel

After Cynthia's afternoon nap and once all the snow had stopped falling from the sky, we went outside to play in it. Cynthia loved to walk through the snow where there were no foot prints. Then she discovered the fun in snow angels. She would lie down in the snow - it had to be just off the path - then I would move her arms up and down. She would giggle and then get up and be dusted off. I also taught Cynthia how to make and throw snow balls. Sure her snow balls where about the size of a golf ball and landed at her feet, she still had fun trying to get Daddy!

Cynthia's snow angel

I wanted to get a video of how we made the angels, but Cynthia decided that she was done. But you can the basic idea of the fun we had.

Happiness Is...

...Playing in Mommy's shoes!

Snow is Falling

This is our second/third snow of the year. We had some snow back in September and then again last night. I am not sure how you would really count snow fall. Anyway... I love the snow and so does Cynthia! I don't know how someone can hate the snow so much. Whenever it snows it feels like the Lord is cleaning the world. Everything looks so pure and good. It boggles my mind how someone can say horrible things about it.

When Cynthia woke up from her nap at 11am this morning I promptly got her dressed to go and play in the snow. At first she was a little unsure about what this white stuff was falling from the sky. After a few minutes of being in it she was having a blast. She would run around and look at her foot prints. Once we were all nicely 'chilled' we went back inside to warm up. Once Cynthia had finished her lunch, she was gathering her warm clothes to go back outside.

Bundling up

Wanting to go outside

Outside

Ben met us outside a few minutes later. Cynthia had to run over and say hi.

Making footprints in the snow


'Come on! Why are you not running around with me, Dad?'

Happiness is....

'Let's play!'

Killer Geese

Over the weekend Cynthia and I took Ben to go and feed the birds. The last time that Cynthia and I went she had such a fun time throwing the bread for the ducks. Ben was at work, so that is why we took him over the weekend. There was only one problem, there were more geese there this time. They were not afraid of humans either. We could not get a good picture of us feeding the birds, but Ben was fighting the geese off. Cynthia got her finger bitten once, an attempt bit on the finger once, attacks on her shoulders and elbows (thank heavens for her thick jacket), the bread bag got attacked once and on tried to bit me. It was rough. There was this one cute little duck that hid from the geese behind us, so I would give him his own bread to eat. Cynthia was more shocked that the goose bit her than anything. It never broke the skin, just left mud on her hand but she did get a little scared every now and again since the geese are the size of her.

Me, Cynthia and the geese

Part of me, the geese and my cute little duck

Me and the cute little duck again

Here is a video that Ben took of the geese. Part of the video, the sun on the water makes a glare in the camera, but you can still see the point. Check out how many there are. And that does not even show you half of them.

Cake Decorating Class 1 Week 2

Last night I made my first cake for my cake class. The assignment was either to make a character cake or to do a transfer. The transfer in the book was a rainbow that was made out of stars. I know how to make stars, I sometime have trouble making leaves. I decided to practice my weakness rather than my strength. I had a little problem with my leaves at the beginning because they were not forming correctly. I then learnt that sometimes the tip closes, so I had to stick my spatula through it and then it worked perfectly again. I also got a new toy for my cakes yesterday that I wanted to try out. It is a little 5" triangle that makes patterns in the side of you cake. So I tried it out. It is harder than you think it might be. But I still think that it looks kind of cute.

Live Love Laugh Tree

I know that the picture is a little washed out but I wanted you to see the different colours in the leaves. I bought a Burgundy red for my leaves, but it turned a little more purple than I wanted. So I had to add red to it. Sadly I never had enough red to add, so then I stripped my bag with orange. The idea being that when you put the icing into you icing bag and push it out, then the icing will come out stripped. My teacher did not think that it would work since the icing was dark already. But I did it anyway. So the outside leaves, the first leaves I did, were the Burgundy colour I started with, then slowly I got stripped leaves, but they were red stripped. And by the time I was done, I had a nice red leaves for Fall.

The side of the cake. The lines are come from my new triangle toy. And the spiral stars are from my new tip that I got a few weeks ago and have not used.