The Deamer Family

SuperBowl Party!

2012-02-11T12:06:00.000-08:00

I was so excited on Saturday when Jeremy told me we were going to have a superbowl party. We haven't for a long time, and I love doing them. Here's my first attempt at cake pops, I decided not to try anything to crazy, it's definitely different to work with runny chocolate, than frosting.
Here's our table full of goodies, more came out later, but that was just to get started. Needless to say we had plenty of food.
Here's our little Rylee cheering on her team.
And the Deamer's, (I believe Tayler is passed out for this picture.) It was probably 7:30 you know, pretty late I guess.
Here's the Hansen Fam, minus Hadley, who was in the other room playing the entire time.

Not super exciting, but just how I like it. Good family, and lots of good food.

Happy Groundhog's Day!

2012-02-04T18:19:00.000-08:00

Groundhog's day means a little bit more around the Deamer house. I think especially this year, the day was filled with thought for Jeremy's grandpa. Groundhog's day is his birthday. And this year he would have turned 90 year's old. He came within around 2 months, to turning 90.

It certainly made us think of him on that day, hoping he was somewhere celebrating with Jeremy's grandma. These pictures, of course were of his birthday last year, with his little groundhog cake and Reese. He certainly was a remarkable man, and a perfect Grandpa, and great - grandpa. The girls have a spot in their hearts for him, and I'm happy they were able to see him so much. Even little Rylee talks about him, I don't know how long her memories of him will last, which makes me sad. But I'm happy for the time they got to live next to him and visit every day.
So Happy Birthday, Jim! And Happy Groundhog's Day!

2012 goals

2012-02-04T17:58:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm not a big new year's resolution person, but I do have a few goals for the year, and I decided that if I wrote them down publicly, it will help me do them.

#1 Be more patient with my girls.

#2 Read my scriptures, (I used to read every day, now not so much.)

#3 Make an effort to go to the temple.

#4 I want to be able to run a ten minute mile. (I'm not sure exactly how to do that one. If any of you runners have some tips, let me know. I'm averaging a 12 minute mile, which is, clearly, a lot slower. Today I decided to run faster, to see if I could do just one 10 minute mile, and I made it in 11 min. but then was kind of burnt out after that, for the rest of the run. I don't know how people run so fast.

#5 Run 10 miles. (Now this one would be a lot easier, (and quicker) if I was running a 10 min mile.) But I think no matter what, I want to do it at least once, before the year ends. (I'm toying with the idea of running a half marathon,) but if not I want to at least do a 10 miler by myself sometime.

I have a few more, I'm thinking about, but maybe don't need to be posted. But for now, I think these are doable realistic goals, that I better accomplish this year.

Last year in my twenties, starts now!

2012-02-01T10:17:00.000-08:00

Yes that's right, I'm officialy 29. I have to admit I am a little bummed about it, which I am fully aware is stupid. You can't help aging, so why worry about it, but I do a little. But I have to say I had a great birthday. Now I have to admit, I'm way funny about my birthday and usually spend that day kind of bummed. Well not this year. I felt content, calm, and happy.We started by celebrating early, which turned out great. We went shopping, and to the Jazz game, and then a night's stay without the girls at Hotel Monaco. Then the yummiest breakfast at the Original Pancake House. (If you've never been there, do yourself a favor and go.) We watched Man On A Ledge, (really good), and then headed home. We picked up the girls and headed out to my Brother's house for some yummy hamburgers and fun. It was a full couple of days, and then I got to chill and hang out on my actual birthday, which started off with Jeremy making my breakfast, (see he did a good job). Then I was able to go to lunch with my friend, and have dinner with the Deamers. Darlene got my fav pie from Sandy's. Really it was great, thanks to Jeremy (The best Husband in the World.) And to Darlene, Jody, and Tayler for babysitting. Here's to a great birthday, and the start of my last year being young!
Here's just a few random pics of the girls. I had to get a picture of Rylee in her monkey jammies. She loves these, and wants to wear them every night, then she walks around saying "I'm a monkey, ooh ooh aahh.

Happy Birthday to Rylee!

2012-01-20T13:54:00.000-08:00

Well, it's official, my baby is two! It seems like maybe 6 months ago she was born, not two years! We let Rylee choose her own birthday party theme this year, so of course it was fire trucks. Rylee is super into fire trucks right now. So in the morning, we went down to the fire station, and it was so nice of them to let us in. They actually had gone on a call, but one fire man let us in, Rylee was ecstatic.
Here's a few of the decorations, I was hoping these would kind of look like fire balls.
I know it's kind of lame, that I always make decorations out of paper, but I think it's still fun, and Rylee seems to like it. Here's the little burning building, with a fire truck coming to the rescue.

Don't you love this little watermelon hat? My mom made it for her, I thought it was so cute.
She got a cozy coupe, but I know Reese likes it just as much as her.
Here's an action shot of her blowing out the candle.

Well, I think she had a good birthday. She had her fire chief hat, complete with siren a wailing. And we had fun with the family over. I love that my family, and Jeremy's family is so good to come to these little parties, Rylee was happy they were there.
Happy birthday big girl!

Failure #1 of the new year:

2012-01-13T15:44:00.000-08:00

I've accepted defeat, over the diapers. I hate to admit it, but I think I was wrong about Rylee being ready to be potty trained. I think she's smart enough to do it, but just physically not ready. I believe in going 100%. I don't think you should have them wear panties one day, and a diaper, or pull- up the next. Rylee didn't seem to have control of her bladder the way I thought she might. In fact, she still wants to try. So in a few months we'll try again. Until then, I give up, diapers, you win.

New Year!

2012-01-06T15:05:00.000-08:00

Here's our first little challenge of the New year: Potty Training!

I remember when I potty trained Reese I vowed I would wait till the next one was older. But now here we go again and instead of waiting till she's older, I've started five months earlier. She seemed like she was ready, and she's been wanting to do it. So far she has been doing ok. We're on day three, and she's not doing as good as Reese did. I have to admit with both girls I wanted to give up after the end of day one. But we're sticking with it, and hopefully by the end of next week we'll be diaper free at the Deamer house.
Here's our new year party, that sadly ended at about 7:30. The Deamer family is not crazy about staying up till midnight. Here's Reese and Hadley driving Hadley's new little Jeep.
Here's all the kids, doing their crazy faces.
This one is supposed to be all smiling, I guess they mostly are.
Then we decided to make gingerbread santa sleighs. Our turned out pretty ugly, because as soon as I got frosting on the cookies, this is what happened.
There's the evidence right there.
See that is one weird looking santa sleigh, which is ok. We did it for the experience right?
Happy New Year!

Our year in a nutshell:

2011-12-31T13:53:00.001-08:00

Here we are last New Year's Eve. We've has a lot of fun this year. I was trying to think of all the accomplishments we had this year. I can't think of too many things I've accomplished by myself, but here's some of our bigger events we've had throughout the year.

Right after the new year, Rylee turned one. She also started walking, and started to learn how to talk as well. And now that she knows how to talk, she doesn't stop talking :) (kind of like her mom.)

Reese learned to read. We still have more practicing to do, but she is doing pretty good.

Reese turned four. She has seemed so much older this year. She has turned into a little lady, and is no longer a baby. She is very much a big sister and I am constantly trying to make sure she does not become the mother of Rylee, although she wants to be.

We bought our first pet. Something I never thought would ever happen.

Rylee got her first black eye.

We have done lots of what I love to do in the summer, which is hanging outside, having a barbeque and letting the kids play.

Rylee and Jeremy both had some hospital stays this year. Rylee has been doing much better, while we have yet to figure out what is going on with Jeremy.

Reese learned to swim on her own. She could use more practice, but she got pretty good. We went on two vacations, both with my family. One to Park City, and one to Bear Lake, both fun.

Reese's first hair color.

Reese goes to preschool.

Another year, of matching family halloween costumes

Also this year we lost someone who is very important to us all. Jeremy's Grandpa Creamer. I think as a family, we felt this lost quite a bit, even the little girls.

As far as accomplishments go, I feel like I have one, My cakes. I have made (if you count a batch of cupcakes as 1 cake, as well,) 50 cakes! Which is actually pretty awesome. I have to admit, it was always something I really wanted to learn how to do, but didn't think I ever would. I started with fondant cakes a few months before this year started. But during this year is when I have done most of them. With each cake I think I've been getting better. During this year I have also started selling my cakes, and have sold quite a few.

So there you have it, there's a brief overview of our year. It was a good one. Next year looks to be a good one as well, with lots of new things. I plan to Potty train Rylee, we have a trip to Disneyland planned, Reese will start Elementary school, and that's is probably just scratching the surface. Happy New Year to you all!

Hadley and Kennedy's birthday!

2011-12-26T14:20:00.000-08:00

Well I lost about a week to this birthday, with making the cake, and two parties. But the girls had a lot of fun. Here's the birthday girls, both turning 4.Here's Reese and Rylee, all ready to go to the princess party.
Snow white made a special visit to the party, where she gave the girls the mark of a true princess. Reese still believes wholeheartedly that she is now a true princess. On top of that she will not let me wash the mark off her face. (I promise she is still bathing, I'm just trying to wash around it.)
See how cute this Snow White is, I don't know how much she cost, but the kids absolutely loved her.
Nice cake face!
I'm trying not to put too many of my cake pictures on here, now that I have my cake blog. But I just had to show this one. It took a lot longer and more fondant than I thought it would, and I thought I might have an anxiety attack trying to get it to Heather's house intact. But it made it safely (thanks to Jeremy helping me.) And in the end I think it turned out great.
Happy Birthday girls!

Santa, and Mrs. Clause

2011-12-20T14:03:00.000-08:00

We went with Reese's preschool class to Christmas Village. Mrs. Clause gave us a tour. It was cold, but kind of fun. One thing that kind of bugged me is that Mrs. Clause told Reese, that she wasn't really Mrs. Clause. She said "no. my name's beverly." I thought seriously Beverly? Good grief, now Reese knows people are faking, I could tell she's been skeptical anyway, all she needs is Beverly with her sunglasses on (even though the sun is not out) telling her that she's a fake. Oh well!This is actually a big moment for Rylee, I think because she didn't have to sit on her lap here, but usually she gets nervous.

Now here's a good Santa. We took them to the little house by Lee's. We go every year. This santa is the best. He has a real beard, and he is way sweet. Do your self a favor and go there next year. (Bonus, there's usually not even a line.)
Success, (well mostly.) She isn't actually smiling, and she didn't last long on his lap. And as you can see, I'm having to hold her hand. But, there she is sitting on his lap, maybe next year will be even better.
Merry Christmas!

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

2011-12-17T19:15:00.000-08:00

For those of you who I do not have addresses for, here's our Christmas card picture. Yes, this is actually our first Christmas card ever. (My sister Mandie took this picture, isn't it great, you can check her out at illuminephotoart.com.)

This year, we finally broke down and bought a fake tree. It really is so pretty though, I do really like it. It has berries and different textures of needles on it.

Sigh, another squinty eyed smile. This wasn't really the best day for us to put up our tree. Jeremy's grandpa had just passed away, and we hadn't slept in days. But I guess we felt we needed to pretend everything was happy and Christmasy for the girls.

Poor Rylee, looks like a boy in this picture. She just doesn't have enough hair yet, and I apparently didn't have the energy to make it cute that day.
One thing is I'm glad we got it up before all the out of town visitors, and the funeral, or we probably would be just getting it up. So here's to our fake tree.

Merry Christmas!

Random goings on:

2011-12-10T13:48:00.000-08:00

This is another one of these posts, where I just throw on some of my random pictures, that don't necessarily go together, but still things I'd like to show. So hold on tight, here we go.

Well the other day I was making my third cake in 2 days, and Jeremy took one for the team and was playing with the girls. I went down and this is what I found, he was not only reading them a story, but he had helped them make a big pillow fort.

I thought it was cute and had to take a picture. And probably every day since then, Reese thinks he needs to build them another fort.
I have a lot of pictures of Reese when she was about this age with her hair crazy, because of nap, and I couldn't help but take this one Ryllee, to show that they're both crazy sleepers,
I don't know why I even bother doing their hair before nap time. Do you love how she always squints her eyes when she smiles? I hate how it always looks like her eyes are closed.
This is the second snow we got. Reese had been dying to make a snowman, since about May, seriously. But the snow was not at all snowman making snow, (let alone the fact that there wasn't enough of it.) Anyway I did my best, and made a midget snowman. I know it's pretty sad, but it seemed to be good enough for Reese and Rylee.
I had to use a shovel and really try to smash it down into something resembling a snowman.
I just walked into Reese's room one day and saw this, (Rylee in Reese's toy baby bed.) It cracked me up and I had to take a picture.
Ok, it's been awhile since I took these. This was in Novemeber, on our last warm day, Jeremy and I decided we better rake up his Grandpa's leaves. Reese got her little mini rake and helped as well.

I love leaf pictures, I feel like you have to take some.
Jeremy actually let Reese steer (clearly he was right there,) But while it still made me a tad nervous, but she seemed to actually do pretty good.
That's the end, maybe my next post will all be on the same subject.

In Loving Memory..

2011-12-07T09:57:00.000-08:00

Of James Arthur Creamer. 2/2/1922 - 11/26/2011. Jeremy's Grandpa, and friend. What a great man, I am thankful for the opportunity to live next door to him for the last four years. You can see the good influence he has had on all of Jeremy's family, I believe that is where they learned all their generosity, and spirit. Jeremy is the man he is today, much because of his grandpa, and always being so to close to him. We will all miss you very much.

The Deamer Family has had a rough week.

2011-12-01T16:45:00.000-08:00

Can you tell what you're looking at? This is the view out my mother in law's back door.

Now here's the full view. It you look really close, can you see a tail light? Yep Jody's car is under that as well.
On top of some other stressful things this week, this was just one more thing. But they were really blessed that it wasn't worse. On top of everything Darlene was still planning a birthday for Tayler, during this whole thing. Also as I watched out my window, I could see the tree next to our house lifting up the dirt, as it swayed in the wind, luckily it hasn't fallen yet. And we're hoping to get it cut down before we loose another tree, that is in a very dangerous position.

What are you thankful for?

2011-11-21T19:36:00.000-08:00

So today at preschool, Reese had the opportunity to take her dad to school with her and eat pumpkin pie. On top of that they had written down what they were thankful for earlier in the day to share with the group. This is what Reese told her teacher word for word, what she is thankful for:

#1 Rylee (she's cute)

#2 Belle

#3 Turkey

#4 Candy cane treats from santa

#5 My bike

Clearly you can tell what's on her mind, but one thing that warmed my heart, was that not only was Rylee on the list, but that she was #1.

On top of that I'd like to add what I am thankful for.

#1 Our house, (which includes where we live, and our ward.)

#2 My family, Jeremy of course and the girls, and all the extended.

#3 The fact that we live so close to family.

#4 Jeremy's job

#5 Of course the gospel. (these are not in order of importance by the way.)

I feel like I could keep going, but I'll stick with the same number as Reese had.

We are so luck to be have what we have and I owe pretty much all of that to Jeremy and how amazing he is in providing for me and our family.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Katie's Cake Creations

2011-11-19T12:55:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have not checked out my cake blog, shame on you. Just kidding, but I wanted to show you what you've been missing for the last couple of weeks.

Here's my cute owl cake.
Turkey cupcakes.
Super cute spider cake.
My spooky graveyard cake.
I have plenty of more cakes coming next month. And I also give recipes and tips for beginners. Click here, or check the link on the side of this blog. Come on over and be a follower, or you can also like me on facebook under Katie's Cake Creations as well. And happy cakeing!

Lawn Decorations

2011-11-13T14:40:00.001-08:00

I'm not one for decorating my lawn usually, but I couldn't resist putting out this cute little garden gnome. Everyone needs a cute little lawn gnome right? The only problem was mine wouldn't stay where I put it.My mother in law saw this after Halloween and couldn't resist. Rylee loved it too, especially the hat, and little booties.

Snow Day!

2011-11-08T20:39:00.000-08:00

Well, we woke up the other day to snow. You would have thought it was Christmas morning, because Reese was so excited. She was dying to go outside from the second she woke up.

Did you notice that in the background our leaves haven't even changed color, and yet we're outside playing in the snow? I know weird, right?
This early snow, was also a rude awakening that we needed new snow pants and gloves.
I realized that pulling two girls in a sled with only and two inches of snow, is quite a workout.
Look at my two girls all snuggly and cute.
One cute snow angel.
And one snow angel, who doesn't get what's going on, but still has to do it anyway.
And the best part of a snow day? Drinking some hot chocolate, and getting warmed back up.... Till Rylee spilled her entire cup all over the floor. I should have seen it coming anyway.
Happy snow day.

Crazy Halloween!

2011-11-04T11:50:00.000-07:00

This Halloween was so full of things to do, I barely fit it all in.

Sat night - trick or treating at Dinosaur Park

Sun- make 2 cakes (p.s. check out my cake blog, they turned out so cute.)

then to my mom's house for carving pumpkins.

Mon- Showing off the girls at Jeremy's work, (all 3 buildings.)

Then to Darlene's work

Get home make cookie's for Reese's preschool.

Feed the girls lunch while I frantically, make monster cupcakes

Rush Reese to her preschool halloween party, (cupcakes still in oven.)

Rylee gets an hour nap

Pick Reese up early from her party,

And rush to my Dad's work for annual trick or treat.

Go to Mcdonald's with my fam.

Rush home to get ready and head to Darlene's for chili, and doughnuts.

Trick or treat around the neighborhood, and carve pumpkins.

Watch a scary movie with some friends. (I actually didn't make it through this one)

Then passed out, what a good day!

We decided to do another family themed costume, of the Wizard of Oz characters.

Rylee was Dorothy, complete with Toto in a basket.

Reese was the Wicked Witch of the West. (Poor girl, she was covered in green paint for about 12 hours, I had to keep touching it up too.) I sewed both Reese's and Rylee's costumes, by the way, I think I'm getting better.

Reese wanted to be something scary, which is what started this whole thing.
Jeremy was never able to try on the costume we had until that night, and it didn't actually fit, so we had to do some last minute editing, and he really needed a hat, but oh well.
Here's Rylee after the festivities winding down in her Halloween jammies.
This picture is a bit fuzzy but you have to get Jeremy carving his pumpkins, he always does the best ones.
We couldn't have asked for a better day.
Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

Mmmm, hamburger....

Definitely need fries too.

I originally was going to have them wear these as their costumes, but we changed our minds. But last night we were late for a neighborhood party, and I had these so, I put them on. I think they're so cute. Jeremy's mom Darlene made the hamburger last year for Kennedy isn't it cute? I love that she mad a pickle clippie to go with it.
I've been wanting to do this for a couple weeks, but haven't had the time, since we had nothing to do this morning, I dragged the poor kids out into the cold for a few pictures.
Now clearly I'm no photog, I need to take lessons from my sister, but still, I thought I might as well try. A few turned out cute.

I have a hard time getting them both to look at me and smile, (I'm sure most people have the same problem.) In this one they are both smiling and looking, it's not great, but at least their both looking.

Notice something different about Reese? She had me cut her some bangs the other day. Also here you can kind of see her highlights. She also had me put her feathers back in. Afterward, she said "mom, it's fun to change your hair, huh?" I said " I like to." She said, "I like it, maybe next time we'll cut my hair short." This is funny because she has been very adamant about the fact that girls with short hair look like boys, and she always wants her hair long. But it looks like she's got the hair changing bug.
I'm not sure how professionals make pictures look so much better, these look fine, but there's just something in my sisters pictures that gives it that extra umph, and I wish I knew how they did it. I guess that's what we pay them for right?

Our fun weekend!

2011-10-24T21:01:00.000-07:00

Well, it was UEA, and even though none of us go to school, we decided to take a little vacay. My Dad works for the Weber county school district, so he was off, and decided to take every one to Park City.On the way up there we went to the zoo. The weather was perfect, good time for going to the zoo.
This family trip was a bit small. My sister Leah is in Israel, Ben is in New York, and Mandie was in Vegas doing ragnar. So What was left was us, and Jake, Becca, and their kids. During the day, Jeremy, and Jake had to work, but we had fun with all the kids at the zoo.
I swear every railing we came upon this is what Rylee would do.

On the left are my twin neice and nephew, Mason and Avery, then Rylee, my cute nephew Davis (who is a little tuff guy,) and of course Reese. p.s. The twins are not identical, (which is impossible, obviously) but apparently they get asked that all the time, people are clearly not smart sometimes.
I have pictures of us with this monkey thing, you have to get a pictures with this don't you?
I'm pretty sure, I brought the stroller for the opposite situation, but Rylee was doing a pretty good job, pushing Reese around.
Look at how cute they are, I'm pretty sure Avery got squashed but she was a trooper.
I have the same picture of my in this little turtle shell also. I should have had her take off her glasses, but oh well.

Another picture hanging on something.
I got so many cute pictures of the girls.
Had to get an action shot, can I just say, that about a week or two ago, Rylee wouldn't even go down a small slide, but apparently this trip she finally got some guts.
How's that for a cheeser?
Oh look, me and Jeremy were actually there, now we have proof. We never get any pics with us in them.
We took this awesome walk down the canyon. And another trail that was lined with scarecrows, the weather was so nice.
Random fact: Rylee is obsessed with firetrucks, if we ever hear one, her jaw drops and her mouth stays wide open for about 5 min. Three firetrucks passed us, and I had to take a picture to remember how funny it is.
Oh hanging on something again?
Isn't this picture cute?
We played tag at the park, all together, really it was so much fun. What a fun little trip, it was nice to take a break. Happy UEA everyone!

Reese's field trip

2011-10-19T19:52:00.000-07:00

Don't ask my why her teacher decided to set them up for a picture right by the port-a-potties, that's a lovely shot. Can you see what a stinker she is? She's on the far right, I don't know why she does this sometimes, but it's always in public.

While we were going through the corn, Reese kept saying, "we're never going to get out of here!" Well we eventually did.
Reese said she wanted to have the boys in our car this time, and she did much better this time talking and interacting with the other kids.
So of course I had to push Reese down this slide, (before you think I'm a bad mom, I went down with her first twice. Really she just needed to go down by herself, ) She kind of threw a fit at the bottom, but then she went down it about 100 more times after that.
See how much fun she's having now?
On a side note, Jeremy bought Reese some spider webs, and a few scary skeletons. I was a little worried because I hate that kind of thing. (I just think it's kind of ugly.) But the girls loved it, and they kept the spider webs in Reese's room, which is good because no one has to see it.

Don't judge me.

2011-10-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

My Reese has been begging to get her hair colored for over a year. Well we finally gave in. I had hoped I could hold her off till jr. high, but obviously that is not what happened.

I have to say, that I have two personalities that have been battling about this. The mom says no, and the hairstylist in me says, why the heck not?

Now before you go freaking out on me, it really does look pretty. Plus look at that face, you can tell she's so excited.

It all started when we ran to the beauty supply to pick up some color. Reese said "mom, you're really good at doing people's hair." (apparently she was trying to butter me up) "Do you think you could color my hair blonde?" I said I could, but probably wouldn't. She continued to ask me the entire drive home. And me thinking fully that my husband would say no said, "Reese if dad says it's ok, then I'll do it".
As soon as we got home she rushed down and he told her yes, but not all blonde only highlights, (which I'm glad he stipulated.) Any way I just used a high lift, (for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, that means not as damaging and not too bright of a blonde.) She was sitting there saying, "I'm so excited, I'm so excited."
In the end, I think she was a bit disappointed because she doesn't look blonde. But it just looks kind of like sun highlights, I should have taken an after shot. I'm sure there will be plenty of pictures later. Anyway how cute does she look under that dryer?

Katie's Cake Creations.

2011-10-07T14:09:00.000-07:00

I have been debating about this for awhile. But it's official, I have made a separate cake blog. If you'd like to check it out there's a link on the side of my blog, or you can click here. The main reason for doing this, is for those who would like to check out cakes but have no interest in looking at pictures of me and my kids.

For the record I am making cakes for anyone who wants one. And if you'd like to refer any friends over to my blog feel free :).

Thanks everyone for the encouragement.

Rainbow Trout

2011-10-06T16:18:00.000-07:00

Again the picture is a bit fuzzy, I swear I'm going to get it under control. Anyway I made this cake a couple of weeks ago for my B.I.L. Dave. His friends were flying in for a fishing trip. He insisted on carrot cake, with pineapple, which I have never done before. But I turned to Ina Garten, who has never led me astray, and like the rest of her recipes I tried, it was perfect. (p.s. I almost doubled the pineapple and omitted the raisins and walnuts, because that's just gross, If anyone wants to google her recipe, I recommend it with those few adjustments)

Also this was my first hand-painted cake, although I think it doesn't look quite as good in the picture as it did in real life, I really thought it turned out good. And on top of that I was glad to try out this new technique, and get it under my belt a little bit, because that will open up some new options in the future. Also it's hard to tell, but I put the gills underneath the fondant, which gave it a cool look, which I haven't done before.

Overall I liked this cake, I didn't feel there were any issues with it. Happy Fishing!

Just a few random things.

2011-10-01T11:36:00.000-07:00

I was making dinner and Rylee was playing so quietly in her room, so I peeked in, and had to snap a quick picture of her in her toy box.Just trying to think of things to do, and we ended up finger painting. Obviously Reese is embarrassed I'm taking a picture of her in her panties.
Reese loves when they have things that match, and Rylee got handed down a pair of these Jammies from Heather's girls. They were being so cute, doing all these poses for me.
Cute cheeser. Oh there's nothing snugglier than a cute baby in feety jammies.
I think this was on labor day, we decided to have a quick fire, and look at the stars, it was really nice.
I'm pretty sure this was Rylee's first experience with a fire, and she really liked it. She's such a scavenger though, you take your eyes off her for a second and suddenly her mouth is full of marshmallows and she's unwrapped bars and bars of chocolate.
I know Reese's eyes are closed but it was cute of Rylee.

Preschool!

2011-09-22T19:54:00.000-07:00

Reese just started preschool, (yes she was not in preschool last year.) I'm slightly anti- preschool, somewhat because they're learning things that she already knows, but mostly because I don't want her gone, and I don't want to pay for it.

But she seems to love it, and it's a good experience for her. I went with her on her field trip the other day. It was cute to see her having so much fun. But I was pretty shocked because she wouldn't really play or talk much to the other kids. She usually is so social, (maybe she just needs some time.)

Don't you like their matchy shirts? Reese loved that. Down below is a pic of them all in a big nest.
We had snack today, and I whipped these babies up, I should have used fondant for the nose and eyes, but I was too lazy to whip up a whole batch of fondant just for a few noses. Plus I figured the 4 yr olds wouldn't care. Reese said "mom you're working so hard on these, and they're looking so good, I love you!" (And that's what we do it all for, right moms?) Apparently the kids liked them, Reese said they all were laughing, so I guess that means they liked them.
It's funny to think that Reese is so old already, it seems like I haven't had her that long, although it seems right that she should be in school, because she talks and acts like she's old.

I'll tell you what though Rylee asks "Where's Reesie?" about 10 times while Reese is gone. I think she misses her sister.

Fun, fun!

2011-09-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

So Rylee has figured out dressing up as a princess. I really didn't think she was old enough for that yet. (Classic "cheese" picture underneath, apparently for my girls if you smile big you can't really keep your eyes open.)So cousin Kennedy was in the hospital with some bad tonsil infection issues, so we got to hang out with Hadley for awhile. (Don't you love the look Rylee is giving Hadley? She just loves to be apart of what's going on with the big girls.)
Just had to put this one on here. She's even got to have the little high heels on, don't ask me how she can even walk in those.
The next morning we grabbed Hadley, and went out to the Hill Aerospace museum. I've been wanting to go for awhile and check it out. I wouldn't say it was super fun, but it's free and it's something to do other than stay at home. I thought the girls would like to get out and do something. They did like it, but we were super bummed to find out that we could not go in any planes, because I've been told by other people that you can.
These planes were humongous, once you got up close it was crazy how big they were.
Well, I decided we needed a little more fun, so we headed to Discovery Gateway. We have a free pass so I try take them here and there. This time Hadley got to come and take Jeremy's ticket.
The girls love this little house, and when we go they usually spend most of the time in here. In fact, we don't even make it to the upstairs anymore.
My camera was having issues that day, (well really operator error, not the camera's fault, I'm sure.) Anyway this pic is fuzzy but still cute.

Poor Hadley said, "I just want to play at Katie's house." Here I thought I was being so nice to take them to do something special, and she really wanted to just play at our house.
In the end she got to for a bit, and my house didn't get too messy, which was definitely part of my plan of being gone all day. I'm happy that the girls have cousins that they love so much. Even though we spent plenty of time with her, they were still so sad when she had to go home.

p.s. Kennedy is doing just fine, but most likely has to get her tonsils out, which means we probably will have another day or two to play with Hadley.

Sisters, Sisters..

2011-09-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

There were never such devoted sisters. (I don't know how many of you will get that old movie reference.) These were taken on different days, but I thought it was so sweet. Rylee loves to read books, so one day I peaked in and Reese was reading for her. I had to grab my camera.

This was a different day, I think she was singing her songs, again I had to run for the camera.
Don't you just love when they're getting along.
(p.s. don't you think that quilt behind them is cute, apparently the Overman girls didn't, so lucky me, thanks Megan and Chelsi :)

Bird Rescue... sort of

2011-09-10T19:03:00.000-07:00

I should not tell this story, because it shows that I am a bad person. We have tons of birds making nests in our car-port. This little guy fell out one day, but we couldn't get him back in his nest. So we got Reese's little bird cage, (yes it's more decorative then functional.) Jeremy fed the little guy with a dropper, and we were going to take him to the bird refuge in the morning. Well, poor little guy was making so much noise at about 6:00 am that I put him outside. And when I came to get him and hour later he was gone. (Yes, great rescuer I turned out be.) But the door was still shut, and those bars aren't that close together. I'm hoping that he was hungry and chirping and his mom came by, he squeezed out, and ran away with his mom to safety. (That's the story I'm telling Reese any way.Moral of the story is, if you want me to save you, don't wake me up to early and you'll be ok.

New York!

2011-09-02T09:59:00.000-07:00

My brother just got a job in New York, working for Entertainment Weekly, which is awesome. We were having a little party to send him off, so I hurried and whipped this cake up. I'm not sure what is going on with my camera lately, it's such a fuzzy picture. I'm not sure what happened, if it was the heat, or what, but the top cake shifted, and it's crooked. That has never happened to me. It kind of sucks to spend that much time on something and then when you go to show it off, it looks retarded.
Anyway despite the slightly askew cake, my brother is off to have an awesome adventure. Good Luck Ben!

Fine Art Gallery!

2011-08-31T13:41:00.000-07:00

So as you may know my sister (Mandie) is a super good photographer. Well, she has gotten her awesome work together for a fine art gallery. I've been thinking for years that her pictures would be perfect to put on people's walls, well now they can.

She's been going all over, and taking awesome pics, so click on this link to go right to it. http://fineart.illuminephotography.com Also for a bonus, if you buy anything before sept. 8th and enter the code FineArt at checkout you get 15% off your order.
These were just a few I stole off her blog that I liked, but if you want to see more, go check it out.
There are some super amazing photos of a bunch of gorgeous places in Europe, (I have my eye on a Moulin Rouge photo.) Any way, if you want some awesome art for your wall, check it out, you won't be disappointed.

Weber County Fair.

2011-08-27T13:59:00.000-07:00

Well, the Weber County Fair was here, and of course I jumped at the chance to go. You know how I like to find fun things that I can take the girls to. Well, I told Jeremy and he brought home a picture of these kids in bubbles, and Reese was just dying to do it. To be honest, we weren't sure if she would really do it or chicken out, but she did and she loved it.

Honestly, I would have loved to do it myself, except for I don't quite make the 100 lb weight limit. :)
My mom and Dad, and Jeremy came along. Which made it so much fun.
The great thing about having my Dad around is that he loves to "bond" with the kids, so that means he does a lot of the work of carrying the baby around. :) Which is good though, because it helps her get more and more used to them.
The people there were so nice, letting the girls touch their different animals.

I didn't want Reese to get to close to this horse, but I wanted to show how huge it was comparatively.
Speaking of huge, these horns were humongous, it freaked me out.
Reese even got to go on a little pony ride. I took probably 15 pics, and this is the best one I got. I guess it's hard to smile at the camera, if you're trying to not fall off a horse.
All over we had the funnest day, I didn't think we would stay very long, but in the end we stayed about 6 hrs. They had a rodeo that we stayed for that was great. The kids got to see tons of animals which they loved. I will definitely go back next year. My regret is that I didn't submit a cake in the competition, so everyone help me remember ahead of time next year, my goal is to get the best in show ribbon. ( Although the one that won this year was really good, so I'm going to have to do a lot of practicing.)
We had so much fun, I would definitely recommend people going to this next year.

Dinnosaur Park

2011-08-23T15:49:00.000-07:00

I'd been wanting to go all summer, and we were able to catch it on a RAMP day, so bonus, it was free! Which makes it more fun, because you don't feel like you have to stay so long :)

The girls really liked it, Rylee was a little nervous when I tried to put her by the dinos to take a pic though.
Even getting Reese to touch this one took me awhile.
It was a perfect day. I love taking the girls to explore new things.
I'm always looking for something to do other than just sit at home all week. If any one knows of any other good places to go I'd love more ideas, (especially ones that don't cost a lot of money :)

Happy exploring!

Happy Birthday to Jeremy!

2011-08-17T13:54:00.000-07:00

Well, my honey turned 32 last week.

I already showed a closer pic of the cake, ( a couple posts ago,) it was an angry birds cake. Jeremy likes to have low key birthdays, and just mostly relax. And since it was Sunday, there wasn't much to do anyway. So we hung out in the backyard, and had a nice day.
Here's the birthday boy, grillin' up the food.
Ok, this cracks me up, I don't know who taught her to put olives on her finger.
The day ended up so great, we hung outside till it got dark. We lit a fire in the fire pit, and watched the stars with Reese and Jeremy's fam.

I always want to do a ton for people's birthday, and I was trying no to do so much. But I think he liked it and had a great day.

Happy Birthday honey!

Girls will be girls

2011-08-15T20:43:00.000-07:00

Here's just a few different things my silly little girls have been doing lately. I told Reese to get dressed and this is what happened. Tutu's and super capes. Apparently shirts are not important.

Rylee has been copying what Reese does a lot. She follows her with her arms out and says, "fly, fly!"
Who doesn't love ice cream? Especially when it's all over your face.
One day Rylee came out of my bathroom with some of Reese's (clean) panties on her head, saying "hat, pretty." Of course Reese thought it was funny and had to do it too. And you can't not take a picture of total silliness.

I was posting this, and realized we're starting to have a theme here of Rylee putting things on her head. She found this shower cap, and so I had to add this picture to the bunch.

Stay silly!

Rylee in the Hospital.

2011-08-11T11:41:00.000-07:00

As promised, finally here are the pictures of Rylee in the hospital. I hadn't stopped to grab my camera, so I had to get these off Jeremy's phone. So here's the story : I went to grab Rylee from her bed Saturday (the 23rd) morning. She was throwing up, and there was already a lot of puke in the bed. (Sorry if that's gross.) So I try to clean it up, and she starts puking again. (and again, and again, and again.) So after about the 10 th puke, we call the hospital. (Also this is the third time this had happened in a month, but the other ones were not as bad, and she had been to the dr. and sent home.) So I take her to the hospital, while she's still puking every couple of minutes, although there really isn't anything left.) They gave her and x-ray (which is like a torture device.) They took her blood, (with difficulty) while four of us held her down. They didn't label her blood, so they mixed it with someone else's. (yes I was a bit angry) They then tried to take her blood again and couldn't get any. About and hour later, some special lady came and finally got her blood. A few tests came back ok, so they sent us home. As soon as I got home, they called and talked to Jeremy and said we needed to be admitted. Jeremy and Jody gave her a blessing, and we ran straight back. Where of course more blood was taken, (but it was so hard to get her blood with her tiny little veins, poor little girl.

Once the IV was in and she had finally stopped puking, (this was about 5:00) she finally got to eat a few crackers, and was starting to feel a bit better. The reason why she was there was her immature white blood cell count was very high, which could mean a few things, (including Leukemia, which I'm glad no one told me at the time.) So whatever they gave her seemed to do the trick, and they think it was just a bacterial infection although they can't tell for sure. But the test for all the bad stuff came back negative, so it seems like it was just one of those weird things, and our little babe is doing ok. I'm so lucky to have a husband who can give our sick little babies blessings, and at the hospital, my friend from high school Sheena, was Rylee's nurse. Which was really nice because we were taken care of. As far as hospital stays go, it was ok, and I got to bring her home the next afternoon. She seems to be doing good, and as you can see life is back to busy.

My three cake week last week.

2011-08-09T14:33:00.000-07:00

So I had a big week, here is Jeremy's birthday cake. If you are not into gaming, you may not know, but this is my Angry Birds cake. Please excuse the fact that these pictures are on my counter, I was just too nervous to move this cake any more than I had to.The cake is my homemade double chocolate, with an orange cream cheese frosting, super yummy. The pigs, and birds are fondant, the little fort is made out of fudge covered cookies, and the slingshot is modeling chocolate.
I thought it turned out fun, and I think Jeremy liked it too.
This cake, gave me some issues, with the ball. I had to end up scrapping my first one, (after spending a couple hours on it) and start over. One problem is I wasn't given enough time to make all the details that they wanted on the cake. It had a lot going on, but I do like the little details, like the crabs and life preservers. It's hard when they have a picture in mind, because I usually can't get it exactly like the picture yet. Still need some practice.

Heather called on Tues, and needed this cake by the next morning, (she would have waited, she didn't demand it.) But I figured why not just get it done? So this cake was for Taya (her baby-sitter's daughter) who had just received a green bird for her birthday. So I busted it out that night, so she could take it in the morning. Again, not perfect, or exactly how I wanted it, but still cute.

Happy 24th!

2011-08-05T19:15:00.000-07:00

Here's how our 24th went. Rylee was released from the hospital, and awaiting us at home was as close to a family reunion as the Deamer family ever has. All the Creamers were in from Oregon, and the Tattons came up from morgan, and elsewhere. Me and Rylee were maybe not the most bright eyed and bushytailed of the group considering we barely slept, but we still made a showing. They had every family take their pictures, which was good because we never get one all together. (ps. we didn't match on purpose, we're lucky I matched my own clothes. It just ended up that way.)

Here's the entire Deamer family, (minus spouses and kids.) I don't know why this picture looks so weird, I wasn't the one taking it, I think.
You have to have a cowgirl outfit for the 24th. Does she look like she just got home from the hospital? She was such a trouper.

She even got to stay up and watch a few fireworks. Which I'm sad to say, was her first time ever seeing fireworks. She did really like them.

Happy Pioneer Day!

Camping Day Trip.

2011-08-03T20:35:00.000-07:00

So I'm too much of a chicken to actually go camping, but my family was camping, so we went up for the day.

My Dad was so nice to take Reese down the river, I was too afraid to take Rylee, but I knew Reese would be safe with my dad and she had so much fun. That is definitely the first time she has done anything like that.

So if there is food, (or drinks of any kind) that is where you will find Rylee. She is hard, when there is a table full of food, she wants to climb right on the table and eat everything. I think she had quite a few cheetos.

That was definitely her fav part of the day. Little did I know we would be admitted to the hospital the next day(pics still coming), she was acting just fine.

Any way I was driving home, and it had been such a good day. And the air in the valley smelled so good, like freshly cut hay, and I'm not sure what else, but sometimes you just have to step back and realize how great life is. In that moment everything was very good. I'm glad my family does fun things like this, even if I didn't actually sleep in a tent. Which in the end was probably a very good thing.

Just a few different things.

2011-07-30T16:58:00.000-07:00

Well, we had a crazy week, with every extra thing you could fit, all packed in. We had a camping trip, a hospital stay (I'll go into more detail next post,) a family reunion, clients, swim lessons, a day is SLC, a night of fishing, made dinner for my cousin who had a baby, more clients, a family dinner outing, a cake order, and a 10 year reunion. I feel a bit relieved this week is over.

On to the pictures, Rylee loves to put on Reese's helmet and just walk around with it on. I know random, but cute, so I had to take a pic.

This cake is not super original but I think it turned out cute and it was for a very special occasion. This is my take on a pinkalicious cake. (It's a book series, about a little girl, who eats so many pink cupcakes, that she turns pink.) This cake was for sweet baby Mckenzie Terry, who would be 2 years old today. Unfortunately she had too many health issues and didn't make it past a few days. Her mom was hoping that if she had a party for her it would help. I really wanted to make this perfect, especially considering the circumstance.
Here's the cupcakes to go with it, I thought they turned out fun, and what little girl doesn't like a pink cupcake with a big pink flower on it. I hope this cake helped them through what was probably a rough day, and I hope somewhere baby Mckenzie saw it and liked it.
On to a lighter subject, one of the million things we did this week was go fishing, at the good 'ol Barker's Fish Farm.
Reese caught 4 altogether, but 2 without help at all. I think all the kids were nervous of the jumping fish at first, but warmed up to it in the end. This one is great with Jeremy, Reese loved that he was there to help her.
Of course I couldn't get her to look at me, but she is smiling :)
Now she's looking, but I think the eyes are closed.

It was a really nice night with the Deamers, we had fun.
On a random side note, I love that Reese and Rylee play together now. This is Reese's new thing to go pick flowers (aka weeds), or go in the Jungle (aka huge weeds in the orchard behind our house) or something like that. I just think it's cute how she wants Rylee to play with her, and Rylee just follows along with her.

Cake, cake, cake!

2011-07-26T19:17:00.000-07:00

This one was my toned down version of a patriotic cake. (I made it Red Velvet inside, so it was red, white, and blue.) It was my first time making red velvet from scratch, I thought it was a little dry, so if any one has a great recipe for red velvet I'd love it. I saw a pic of this cake, and thought it was such a pretty idea to do ruffles out of buttercream. Although I'd like to try it again with a softer color and two layers, would look a little prettier.

Some less toned down patriotic cupcakes. The frosting was super good. For the first time I tried an orange cream-sickle, cream cheese frosting, delish!
For Kris, (my bro in law's birthday) I had a hard time thinking of what to do for his cake. I was told to do a Heman cake. But I just didn't think I was talented enough to make Heman look cute, or even decent. So in the end I decided to go for RootBeer which is Kris' fav drink. I know maybe a bit of a stretch, but at least he got a cake, right?
The cake was a root-beer cake recipe I found, with Root-beer float frosting, and fondant. The "root-beer" is piping gel tinted brown, and the handle and rim are modeling chocolate. The straw is inedible, oh well what you going to do?
This last one, I just loved, I thought it turned out so fun and cute! Who can't smile looking at a cake like that. I actually did it really fast because I didn't have much of a heads up for it, but I think it was fun to make. Reese cracked me up, I was trying to make smaller lips that stuck out more, and she kept saying mom those look like bird lips do it like this, and did her lips in "fishy style." Well I think I finally got it.
Happy birthday to Fischer, which is why it was a fish.
I'm sure there will be more to come another day, but thats all for now!

Happy forth of July!

2011-07-20T11:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is kind of a backwards post starting with the night, but bear with me.

Classic sparkler shot.

I love this, here they are about to watch the fireworks.
Here they are 2 seconds later when the fireworks go off. Did you notice Ethan's not even there? He bolted the second the noise started.
Here's all the kids in firework anticipation.
Reese found these big leaves out by the orchard, and played with them for hours, making leaf hats. That's easy entertainment.
Earlier that day we went over to the Hansen's pool. That was nice to cool off.
Rylee was feeling pretty sick that day, so had to be in someone's lap the whole day, but at least we got a smile.
Reese and baby Grey, I thought it was a cute pic.

We went to the Farr West parade, which I was a huge fan of. It was short and sweet, and there was tons of candy being thrown for the kids. That's my kind of parade.

We decorated the kids' bikes and they rode in the kid parade. Reese was so excited.
The big inflatable slide didn't make it through the weekend I'm sad to say. I'm hoping I can somehow fix it.

The little slide will have to do for now.

Happy forth of July!

8 years and doing great!

2011-07-18T19:16:00.000-07:00

I'm aware I'm skipping the 4th of July, but I had to mention something this important. Me and my hubby just celebrated our 8th anniversary this weekend.

I'm sorry about the picture of a picture, but my lack of a scanner is to blame.
In eight years we have lived in four different places all within about a quarter of a mile. We have started our careers, remodeled an entire house. Been through a number of stressful church callings, and had two super cute girls.
It's been great so far, and I plan on it to continue for, well and eternity. Thank you to my husband for being such a good dad and husband. One of my favorite things is that Jeremy always makes me laugh. No matter what, he keeps our life fun. And that little tiny thing of completely taking care of us and providing for our family. :) I love him so much.

Enough smooshyness, don't we look so young? Well Jeremy does, but I think I look about the same, although that's probably not true. I probably have had 50 different haircolors since then.

Any way, after eight years, I am still very much in love with this cute man. Happy Anniversary.

Positions Reversed

2011-07-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

This was last year, it cracked me up at the time to see Reese pushing Rylee in the little baby stroller. But even funnier, last week when I saw this.

Rylee pushing Reese in the little stroller.

I was shocked to see how strong she was, she actually was pushing her pretty good. Although she has no steering capabilities, and kept ramming Reese into everything in their path.
Please excuse how homeless they both look. Rylee still has a bit of black eye, and their hair looks, well you can see. That's what happens when kids play I guess. It's funny to me that Rylee is big enough to push Reese, the position has been reversed.

Ogden Nature Center

2011-07-06T14:30:00.000-07:00

Last week we decided to check out the Ogden Nature Center. (We went on a RAMP day, so it was free.) If you don't know about RAMP, check it out. There's different things you can do each Saturday for free.

I was glad we went for free, because we stayed about and hour, and that was perfect for us. The girls loved it. Above is Reese with the tortoise, and below she volunteered to pretend to be a snake. She had to slither out of her skin without using her hands. She got to touch a couple of snakes, but I didn't get great pics of that.
You can see there is still remnants of her black eye.
There were lots of trails to go walking on, which would be a better if you had a little more time, or kids a little bigger than Rylee that could run around.
We had fun, I've been trying to look for things to do instead of just sit at home and this was great. p.s. take your mosquito repellant if you go, I didn't have mine and wished I had.

Strawberry Shortcake Cake!

2011-06-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to do a cake like this for awhile, so when my friend Kristen asked for a strawberry shortcake cake, I was way excited. I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

I couldn't decide if I liked it better with the figure on it or not. I don't like to put figures on my cakes that aren't edible. But I am kind of reticent about making figures, they're just hard to make as good as you wish they would look. So I let her choose, I liked the way it turned out. Happy Birthday cute Ella!

Founder's Day!

2011-06-25T13:55:00.000-07:00

Last week was Founder's Day for Pleasant View. We went over for the parade. Here is a cute random tractor, Jeremy took the picture, but I love these cute old tractors.

Here's miss black eye, enjoying the candy.
I love parades that have cute old tractors and little mini horses. It's so much better than just a car with a sign of a business on it.
Happy Founder's Day!

Bear Lake

2011-06-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

Last week, we joined the Wood family for our annual Bear Lake trip. It was a little cooler and windier then one may have wished for, but still very fun. My girls loved playing at the "beach". As you can see the beach was only about 2 feet of mud, but hey, who doesn't like to play in mud?
Rylee wasn't a huge fan of swimming, but did warm up to it a bit, by the end of the week. Where as, you had to drag Reese out of the pool.
Mostly Rylee just wanted to stay wrapped up in her towel. This pic cracks me up because I kept making her get in the pool, when I should have just sat by the side and let her do more of this.
There is this tiny golf course there, and luckily, there was no on else, when we went. So we kind of let the kids on a free for all.
My mom and dad were so nice to plan , and pay for the whole thing - thanks again! (not like they are going to read this :)

Finally a pic with Reese actually looking at me, and no crazy eyes. I better frame it.
Reese just got her bike and is doing really good at home riding it. But being there, presented a few challenges that she is apparently not ready for, like tiny hills, or practically non existent bumps. When anything looked a little bit iffy, she would have to get off her bike and walk it. She cracks me up, I'm sure someday, she'll be able to fly down hills and I'll wish she would be more slow, but this is not that day.

We had a fun week, Rylee got a few injuries, but is healing nicely. The best part was Jeremy got to come up for a bit of it. With work it's hard for him to get away. But the girls loved having him there.

First Black Eye

2011-06-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

Yep it's a shiner! Isn't it awful? I get nervous taking her to the store, with what people are going to say. She got into a fight with a table. She tripped on a pillow right into the table. It instantly swelled up and bruised up. My poor little baby.

My Rylee.

2011-06-01T19:27:00.000-07:00

I was trying to think of something to post, and I decided to talk about my little Rylee pants.

Since she was born she has been great, sleeping completely through the night at 5 weeks. Very calm, independent, and happy.

Since she's been getting older, her personality has been coming out. She's a bit mischievous, loves to climb, and loves to grab anything and everything. She's quite active, likes to be wrestled around, and puts everything in her mouth.

She is talking way above normal, already knows most of her animal sounds, and can point to most everything on her body. And can already pick out a few colors.

She likes to eat, and doesn't mind getting messy to do so.

She's staring to get quite an attitude. She's a lot of fun. For how much she wants to be independent, she's also a pretty good snuggler. She plays pretty good with Reese and loves to laugh. It's exciting when you get to see their personalities come out. I may have a bit more trouble headed my way with this one, than I did with Reese but we'll see.

Lucky me for such a sweet and silly little lady.

Safe Kids Fair.

2011-05-24T14:26:00.000-07:00

I sometimes feel that there is nothing to do around here. I saw they were having a safe kids fair, so I decided we should go. There was a ton of people there, and I have to admit, it left a bit to be desired, but at least we got out and did something.

They got to sit in a fire truck. (I could not get Reese to keep her hat on the right way.)

Little duck pond. Neither of them could really get the ducks.
Don't ask me who this princess was supposed to be, I think her name was Princess Amara, (whoever that is,) Reese didn't seem to care that she was some random girl, and liked meeting her.
They had a little (very little) petting zoo area, the girls loved that the most, as well as the kittys for adoption.

We did get a free t-shirt, but you should have seen the line we had to wait in just to get in, apparently everyone else was thinking the same thing as me. Here's to more things in this area, maybe the next thing will be a little bit better. :)

Happy Birthday, to my Dad!

2011-05-16T17:37:00.000-07:00

My Dad turns 60 this week, which is kind of weird, but anyway, I had to make a good cake for the big 60. For those of you who don't know my Dad, he has gardened forever. He has a nice big garden, that mostly he by himself takes care of.

I had seen this idea a long time ago, and was trying to think of a cute idea, and decided on this. I think what makes this cake cute is the little veggies for sure.

The veggies are made out of modeling chocolate, with some fondant. Homemade, yummy, chocolate cake, with buttercream frosting, and oreo "dirt".

I know not a great pic, because you can't see his face, but it's the best I got.
This was a big weekend for cake making. My friend Kristen's little girl is in love with Phineus and Ferb. Don't ask me which one is which. Apparently they sit under a tree and decide what crazy adventure they are going to have that day.
I looked at different pictures and chose things I liked from each one, and this is what I came up with.
Characters make me nervous, I think if they don't turn out good, the whole cake looks dumb. The tree and the boys, and their platypus are made from modeling chocolate. Obviously fondant covered. Chocolate and vanilla cakes.
Happy Birthday to Mallory and my Dad! I'm glad that's done with, now I can relax :)

I have a climber!

2011-05-10T13:41:00.000-07:00

So Rylee keeps climbing on things. She climbs on Reese's bed, and from there on to Reese's dresser. And in her room she can climb from the rocking chair onto her dresser, which is even higher, and a little more precarious. It's funny to me, because Reese is a little afraid of heights and still doesn't climb much. But I can't get Rylee to stop.

More than the climb, I'm worried about how she's going to dismount, especially if I'm not there. I have no idea how to stop her, so for the time being, I had to rearrange the rooms, so there was not such easy access to climbing. For now I think it's worked until she finds another way up.

Flash Back

2011-04-30T21:18:00.000-07:00

This was about a year and a half ago Reese found a little home in my cupboard. It has since been filled with stuff, so she can't play in it any more. But I cleaned all my drawers and cupboards out the other day leaving room. So Rylee followed in her big sisters footseps.

It's just funny to me that she did the same thing.

p.s. I'm aware her hair looks crazy, it was almost bed time so I had taken out her (ridiculously tiny) pigtails.

Reese looks so much bigger in comparison to the other pic, don't you think, and it makes her hair seem so long.

Deep dish pizza anyone?

Nope, this is actually a cake I made the other day for Ashley's b-day. (I know that's kind of random, but we were eating pizza, so it kind of made since.)
It actually was a little weird to eat, because it looked a little to real. Thanks to Papa Johns for giving me a pizza box, it made the finishing touch.

Happy Easter!

2011-04-25T13:54:00.000-07:00

Here's some pics of the easter festivities.

I went to seriously 10 different places, trying to find them dresses that match, (and were cute.)

Jeremy's sister Ashley was in town to bless her baby. So I made this cake, for the blessing. I tried to incorporate the baby, and easter. I was a little frustrated about it, it seems I keep running into different issues with each cake.
After the blessing we took a few pics at Heather's house. Of course I had just put the baby down. We never get pics all together.

Happy Easter!

Ponyo

2011-04-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

Ok, if my love for Reese was ever in question, this should prove it.

I let Reese watch this weird/random show, Ponyo. It's about a fish that has a face and turns into a little girl. Surprisingly it has a pretty big cast, and it got some awards. Anyway, it made Reese want a fish.

I really have no idea what compelled me to say yes. (We don't do any kind of pets. Ever.) I had a fish when I was little, and I actually hated it. I hate getting them out and they flip all over, and their water gets so gross, eeck. Again, why did I get Reese a fish? I don't know, at least it's not a dog, which that answer is a definite no.

Well I was told by the lady at the store, that these fish are much cleaner than goldfish and supposedly only need to be cleaned about every three weeks.

But look at that face. That's one happy little girl. And at least this Ponyo will stay in her bowl.

Getting decorated.

2011-04-14T17:58:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to get my house more decorated. Jeremy gave me these years ago and it took us awhile to get it put up.
I'm kind of into this show Cougar Town. (Maybe I shouldn't admit that.) But in Courtney Cox's kitchen she has these letters up that say EAT. I always thought it was cute, so I made my own. Probably not quite as cute as Courtney's but still fun.

Cute spring cake

2011-04-08T13:14:00.000-07:00

Sorry if you're all sick of cake pictures, but I'm doing more and more, so this is not the last either. I saw this cake on a blog that I have been looking at lately, (Simplyhomemadecakes). I changed a few things around, but I thought her original picture was so cute with the little bees.

It was the birthday of one of the girls Jeremy works with, I wanted to do something simple, and "springish," although it is snowing outside, it is April.
I made a moist from scratch lemon cake, with cream cheese buttercream, and marshmallow fondant, for the cake, bees, and flowers.

Rapunzel fun!

2011-04-04T13:09:00.000-07:00

$2 of yellow yarn

1 homemade Rapunzel extension

= hours of fun

Yes, I'm aware they have Rapunzel extensions that you can buy. I just figured that hair would become gross very quickly, and for how much cheaper this is, I figured why not? It actually works pretty good without really becoming that tangled. The downside is that now I have to pretend to be Mother Gothel all day for Reese. :) Happy playing, everyone.

Cute Basketball Cake.

2011-03-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

My friend Halli's little dude is turning one. This was a bit of a change for me, I have to admit. I had to google pictures of basketballs, because I don't even own one. In retrospect I maybe should have used a more "boyish" blue, (blame the girly in me.)
The little basketball is for him to smash, that is why I used all buttercream so he can get good and messy.

Hope is party was a "ball"!

Sheniqua

2011-03-25T15:10:00.001-07:00

When I was in beauty school, they started us off on mannequin heads. (mostly because no one is stupid enough to be someone's first perm and color ever.) My sister had my mannequin head, Sheniqua, (yes, I know, I was 18 when I named it that.)

Anyway, she brought it back and Reese wanted to play with it. Is it dumb that it kind of warmed my heart a little? She kept saying, "Now I'm just like you mommy." "Will you teach me how to cut real clients hair?"
So here she is, my little hairstylist to be.
p.s. No those are not the shears I cut hair with.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2011-03-23T14:45:00.000-07:00

Usually by the time St. Patrick's Day comes along, (right after Reese's birthday), I could usually care less about it. But this year Jeremy mentioned to Reese about how when he was little the Leprechaun would come to his house, leave footprints and treats.

So of course, I was hooked. We had little footprints, leading to a stash of treats. Luckily Jeremy found the gold (chocolate) coins, I had looked everywhere with no luck. (Zurchers had them by the way.) Also that crazy Leprechaun came and colored our milk green.
Which resulted in Green pancakes for breakfast, and green pasta for lunch. It's funny but things that shouldn't be green are so much less appetizing.
I'm glad Jeremy gave us the boost we needed to get in the St. Patty's spirit. It's not like it's hard to cut out some footprints and dump food coloring in milk. Reese loved it, and it was fun to do something for the holiday that we usually ignore. Why not do something a little fun! Hope you had a fun day as well!

Reese Is 4!

2011-03-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

For Reese's party we decided to do a Mad Hatter Tea Party. We decided to do it downstairs, so on your way down the rabbit hole I had the cookies that make you grow, and the drink that makes you shrink.

This is the door that Alice comes to before she goes into wonderland.

It was too late to find any Alice dresses at the costume shops, so I ended up sewing one. (No, I have never sewn a dress, or anything from a pattern really,) but it turned out ok. (As long as you didn't look to close to the zipper :) But Reese didn't know.

We set up a whole tea party, which was fun. And Jeremy had Alice in Wonderland going on the projector screen for the kids.
You have to have a mischievous cheshire cat. I'm sure Reese is going to get older and think my homemade decorations are not cool, but for now she seems to like them.

Since we did the party not on her birthday, I made a sign that said " A Very Merry Un-Birthday to Reese!" And here's the cards that paint the roses red.

And Absolum the caterpillar. Reese wondered where Tweedle dee and Tweedle dum were, and the truth is I just ran out of wall space.

Here's her cake, I thought it turned out so good.
Jeremy is really good at coming up with ideas, the whole party was his idea. And he told me if I made a teapot for the cake he could make it steam, and he did! It was so cute. I used modeling chocolate to mold the handle and spout. (Inside the spout is a pipe). Then Jeremy broke up dry ice and poured water in, and wa la! Steaming teapot! The pictures don't quite do the steam justice, things like that don't come across as good in a picture.
I have officially perfected my cake recipes, so not only did it look cool, but it tastes good too! Everything is edible but the pipe inside the teapot.

Jeremy bought this for Reese when we were at Disneyland in the fall. It has a little scene of the mad hatter tea party, and it lights up inside, so cute!

Once again I completely forgot to take and pictures of any of the party goers. But I think it turned out cute, and Reese seemed to love it which is all that matters. p.s. I can't believe she's already four! Now I really can't count her as my baby, she's a girl.

A few miscellaneous items from the past week.

2011-03-13T15:13:00.000-07:00

Reese apparently is old enough to push her own little shopping cart. Which was weird / nice. She actually did good, it kept her close to me, and she kept the groceries in her cart.

Pasta, anyone?

What? Chocolate cake? I saw this in a food network magazine. I used homemade choc cake, with a cream cheese buttercream, yum. Fondant noodles, (In the magazine, they had piped frosting to look like noodles, but I thought this made it look more realistic, I rolled fondant and put it through my pasta attachment, and wa la, I had noodles. Topped off with stawberry sauce, and white chocolate grated, to look like parmesan cheese. (The meatballs are just cake crumbs rolled into balls.) I made it for Jody and Heather's birthdays last week. (Not like pasta has anything to do with Heather or Jody, I just thought it looked fun.)

It was finally sunny, so we took out first trip to the park (for this season). It actually ended up being a little too windy so we didn't stay too long. Rylee is still a bit too little, so she doesn't know exactly what to do, but she'll get there.

Reese wanted to hold Rylee down the slide, (don't worry I was right there). I don't think Rylee thought it was as fun as Reese, but at least she didn't cry.
My computer was broken for a bit so sorry for the absence of posting, but now we'll be right back on track. :)

We finally have a walker folks!

2011-02-25T17:47:00.000-08:00

Rylee has been taking steps for a little over a month now. But it definitely counts now. Starting last week she was able to walk longer distances like across the room. She keeps getting better each day. I guess it's official I have a toddler, not a baby.

My latest cake.

2011-02-18T15:51:00.000-08:00

My friend Ellie is in charge of the young women's group in my ward. For their new beginnings night, they did a red carpet theme, which I thought was a good idea. They decorated with gold stars so I went with that.

It's 6 cakes altogether, in star shape, but gold is not really a color I could find. So I used gold dust to give it some gold shimmer, and I found these really cool edible gold star glitters. This was my tallest cake I've made so far. The top layer ended up being a little big, but by the time I put it together it was too late to do anything about it. But other than that I thought it turned out good. I've also been experimenting with recipes and I think I've perfected the cakes on the inside. A new thing I had heard about was a cream cheese buttercream. Which is basically the same, but replacing the crisco with cream cheese. Way better! Although I think you can't do as much with it, but I thought it made it taste a lot better!

Super Bowl party!

2011-02-16T11:08:00.000-08:00

Is it just me or do you just have to have a super-bowl party? And you have to have lots of treats, that's what the super-bowl is all about. These are yummy Oreo truffles I made, to look like footballs. (I always like my treats to be "themey").

We actually had no one in attendance for our party other than us. And I spent at least half the game trying to keep Rylee from dumping all the treats on the ground.
Our team didn't win, and we had a Lot more food than necessary, but we had a good super-bowl.

The other day, Jeremy had been stressed out at work so Reese, Rylee, and I, threw him a surprise party.
I made a little sign, Reese made some pictures to decorate, and I even made some party hats. We jumped out and yelled surprise! I don't know if it made him feel less stressed, but I think it made him happy to see how much the girls love him.
We love you Jeremy! We are proud of how hard you work, and take care of us! Thank you so much.

Baby Black.... or Blue?

2011-02-11T15:46:00.000-08:00

Actually his name is Grey, he is our new nephew, my sis- in law, Ashley's baby. Reese keeps getting confused. She knows it's a color, but apparently can't remember which one. So she calls him baby Black or baby Blue.

Isn't he cute? He was born on Mon, at 8:00 p.m. 7lbs. 3 oz. and 20 inches long. His full name is Grey Deamer Kuchenmeister. Welcome to the family little dude.

Pasta, pasta, pasta!

2011-02-09T15:30:00.000-08:00

As you all know I like to home make things, I really like to take the time to make food, or treats that you can't just buy. Well I'm into watching Kelsey's essentials, on the cooking channel. I had always wanted to learn how to make my own pasta.

Jeremy bought me the pasta attachment for christmas, which makes it so nice.
Home made pasta really is so much better. I'm still looking for the perfect filling for raviolis.
This is a different day, but I had to add this on there. Rylee makes such a mess when she eats. It's probably because she's really too little to be feeding herself. But I just love it when she can do it herself. I ran for the camera and missed the bowl right on top of her head, with macaroni falling down her face.
Bon Appetite!

Happy Groundhog Day and.........

2011-02-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

Happy birthday to Jeremy's Grandpa! I wanted to make Jeremy's grandpa a birthday cake. To my surprise, no one had ever made him a groundhog cake. It's fun to do "themey" cakes like this.

I made the wrong guess though. I put a shadow on the cake, and this year 'ol Phil didn't see his shadow.
I think his grandpa liked it, and that's what's important.

For the record I thought I would just start putting out there that I am willing to sell my cakes. I'm thinking up prices, if anyone wants, you can always contact me on here or by email. Katiedeamer@gmail.com, and I could give you an estimate, considering, it really matters what size and what is involved.

Happy New Year!

2011-02-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

I realize this is a bit late. But here it is anyway.Heather and Dave hosted a New Year's party, for the Deamer fam. Although almost everyone but us had a hard time staying up.
I can't even get Rylee to keep a bow on, but for some reason she was just fine with these, little weirdo :) .
We never get pics of the whole fam. And this one is not that great, but you take what you can get.

My goal for the year is to continue to do more things as a family, and continue working out and staying healthy.

Party time!

2011-01-28T14:07:00.000-08:00

As you may have noticed in the past I like to go all out for birthdays. So I decorated a little different than usual, but I think it turned out fun. We were going kind of Rapunzel themed. Since I don't do characters, I mostly went with flowers. I hand sewed fabric flowers and hung them, also hand sewn fabric garlands, which took some time, but I thought was a cute addition. The tissue paper balls, I already had, so why not use them.

I stole this idea, (Thanks Chelsie). Except she used 12 and I used about 24 of her growing up, It's hard to choose when they're all so cute.
This is kind of, one of the trends in birthday party deco, (if there is such a thing). So I had to do it as well.
I even made the party hats, because I didn't want cheesy character ones. That was easier than I thought.
Here's the birthday girl!

I had a hard time deciding what to give her, because she already has all of Reese's stuff. And Christmas was just barely, but we figured out a few things.
This is mostly what happened, Reese, Kennedy and Hadley, opening and playing with her toys, and her trying to see.
This is what I bought her, although everyone thought it was a bad idea. Yes, it is a little steep, but I think she'll like it as she gets a bit older.
I was so preoccupied, I didn't take any pictures of any of the party guests. But Tayler took this one of Reese and her bf Macklin. Reese has a total crush on him I think. Tayler's got some competition.
Here's the cake. I think this is my favorite one I've done so far.
I didn't want to make an actual Rapunzel, (since you saw how good the incredibles turned out), so that's supposed to be her hair coming out the window. And that's little Pascal.

Here's the smash cake, Ashley (Jeremy's sister) gave me the pan for Christmas, and I was excited to use it.

We went next door, to Jeremy's grandpa's house, for desert and cake, since they can't come to us.

I had no doubt Rylee would go for her cake, she's such a grabber. And I was right.

She mostly ate it like this, and she had to come up for air. It was so funny! The cake was clear up her nose. I loved it.
This doesn't really show how messy she got. Luckily the frosting and cake were mostly white.
I know she mostly doesn't know what was going on, but she knew something special was going on. And I think she had fun. Altogether it was a great party!

Rylee's Birthday!

2011-01-24T14:36:00.000-08:00

Just a few weeks ago Rylee was born, wait no........ a whole year, seriously? This year has flown, Rylee has been taking steps, and was tricked by Jeremy, and ice cream on her birthday to walk across the room, but has not done it willingly yet. I'm not sure where my camera cord is, so pictures of the big party are yet to come.

Rylee's stats are.

Weight 19.2 lbs 9 by the way I swear that's what she was at 9 months. which makes it 20%.

Height 29.3 inches or 57% Looks like she's not going to be as tall as Reese, but we'll see.

Head circ 32%

She's been so much fun, and I can't wait till her and Reese can play even better.

Snow Day!

2011-01-14T12:45:00.001-08:00

During the holidays, Kris, (my bro in law), Jeremy, and I took the kids out to play in the snow. Kris and Jeremy, being the good dads that they are built the kids a snow man, and a little hill to sled on.

Jeremy's cousins/aunt Kathy made this cute snowman kit. The kids loved it, in fact the snowman is miraculously still up. I guess when it's freezing outside the snowmen definitely can't melt.

I pulled Rylee out of bed and brought her outside, she wasn't loving being outside as much as the rest of the kids.

This is so mean of us, but we wanted her to go down the little hill too. Obviously she's not excited.

Look at that face, we are so mean!
Jeremy and Kris slid off the garage roof, and the kids wanted to. I knew Reese would freak out, because she doesn't like to be on the counter, it's too high. But she actually did it! By the way, this was safe Jeremy was right there.

We were lucky to get snow just in time, The Kuchenmeisters headed back for Cali the next day. This might be the only day we get to all play in the snow together as well, Reese loved it, Rylee not so much, but she will next year.

Hmmm time for some hot cocoa.

Gingerbread houses

2011-01-11T10:40:00.000-08:00

A few days before Christmas, I watched Ryan and Ethan, (my nephews from Cali.) I figured it was the perfect time to do a little gingerbread house making. (Actually I used graham cracker, but kind of the same thing.)
It kept them busy for awhile, but mostly they just ate candy. Poor Rylee was in the highchair, because she couldn't keep her hands off the candy either. Who can blame her?

For the record the grahams worked really good, I cut two grahams to have a triangle on top for each house with a serrated knife. They didn't look that cute, but it was a tasty activity.

Hadley and Kennedy's Birthday!

2011-01-09T18:25:00.000-08:00

It was my nieces' birthday, a few weeks ago. Heather wanted them to have an Incredibles cake. As I was trying to post this I'm not sure why I have only two not very great pictures of it. The "i" in the cake is crooked, and I know I fixed it after taking the picture. Plus my messy table is a nice background for the pic. :)

Here are the birthday girls in their Buzz and Jessie costumes.
I made a few of the characters with Fondant, although for that you really need modeling chocolate, or even gum paste would be better, but that's what I had, so that's what I used.
There's Jack Jack, it probably would have been better without them. But the kids liked it. Plus, at least they taste good, like a marshmallow. The kids like to pick the things off and eat them. I'll have to make sure I take better pictures next time.

Christmas Morning:

2011-01-01T18:31:00.000-08:00

I was nervous Reese would wake up early on Christmas, so I put the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs. Little did I know that can't stop a 3 year old who wants presents. At about 6 am, I heard some noises and she was up looking at everything. Luckily she knew she shouldn't, and she hadn't unwrapped anything.
(Above) She had a very specific list of things she wanted, I guess she had seen the commercials. A Baby all Gone. A puppy that walks. A lady but pillow pet, that I can't believe I don't have a picture of her with. (She'd been asking for one since April.)
I found an awesome dollhouse, I think she loves it.
Yes, Rylee did open presents, but she wanted breakfast more than toys, so she ate happily while Reese opened hers.
Most people I know don't let their kids have toys that make noise, but I know that's what they like, so I say why not? Almost all of Rylee's toys were musical.
Next door at Jeremy's Grandpa's house.

This is all the kids. (If you're wondering who the red-headed step child is on the couch, that is Hadley in her Little Mermaid wig, that she never took off all day.) I took about 15 pics and this is the best one, I know that's not saying much. It's hard to get 1 kid to look let alone 6.
Jeremy in his Gordon Hayward shirt. I make fun of Jeremy that he's obsessed with him so I got him the shirt. (For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, he's a rookie for the Utah Jazz.) I don't know if he'll make it past this year, but oh well. He can still wear it.
Our Christmas was so great. I'm so thankful that we were able to do anything let alone, I feel like I was able to get Reese everything she wanted. Also I got a pasta machine that I can't wait to use, and a food processor that I've wanted for forever, and had no idea Jeremy even knew about.
I hope everyone's holiday was just a nice! Merry Christmas!

Trimming the Tree!

2010-12-30T21:37:00.000-08:00

This is obviously a few weeks behind, but we got out the tree and had a family decorating day. Reese wanted her own tree in her room. It was only about a foot tall.

We borrowed a little tree from Jeremy's sister and put it up on the table so it would be more out of reach from Rylee.

This is Reese with her ornament.

Earlier that day we went to Bicentennial park (by Lee's) The santa there is the best! I had a feeling Rylee would react this way, she doesn't really like going to strangers lately, let alone one that looks like Santa.
Reese went straight in and snuggled down, it was so cute, Santa loved it. He said Reese was the sweetest and he felt like taking a nap.

This is Rylee helping me put up the tree.

Just trying to get into the holiday spirit. It worked, then we watched Muppet Christmas Carol, (my fav) Which we watched about 5 times this season. Hope you all had a good season as well.

One small step for baby, one giant leap for mommykind.

2010-12-30T20:59:00.000-08:00

I know you want your babies to stay small. But inevitably they don't. And since Rylee is getting so big, I find myself wanting her to be able to do more things, that older kids can. #1 - Feed herself. Now I know it's a little early but I started her on milk in a cup, and took her off bottles.

It's been the best, right there you save about 20 min, each feeding, which means I can clean up the dishes, (or actually eat myself, I know, novel idea.) Anyways she's getting better and better at feeding herself and I love it, for me it's a big milestone we've reached.

The rest of these are random pictures, Rylee on Reese's rocking horse that she's obsessed with.
I never have them in matching clothes because Rylee has so many hand me downs and they're never the same as what Reese has. But I had to get a pic of them in their matching jammies, even though it's not halloween.

Car accident!

2010-12-15T17:03:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, the girls and I set out for the craft fair. We were going to stop at my neighbor's house (about two blocks away) and go with her. Well we didn't make it. Luckily it was in no way my fault, and even more luckily we were perfectly fine. I can't say the same for my Acura.

This doesn't show how bad it really looks. We got hit on the side, (right where Rylee sits basically.) They had to completely replace both doors, the running board, and paint the fender. The bummer is we have to get new car seats, and that is turning out to be a pain. Also we're lucky she had insurance, and we've been able to have a rental car for about a month now. I'll be excited when we get our Acura back hopefully good as new.

Cabin fever.

2010-12-03T21:30:00.000-08:00

I know that winter is just started, but it's ben so cold that we haven't been going outside at all. I am aware that there is still months of cold left to go. We are missing the park, and I feel like we were getting on each others nerves a little bit, so last week I was trying to think of something fun and different to do.

So we stripped the girls down and did some pudding painting. I think it worked, it gave us something to do, and definitely entertained them. I had one of those plastic table cloths that cost about $1, and put out bowls of different colored puddings and jams, and some paper.
Reese obviously was more interested in painting herself, (which I had thought would be coming). And Rylee was more interested in eating it.
Afterward I just scooped up the whole tablecloth and chucked it, so cleanup wasn't bad at all. I was lucky my husband didn't see it though, I think he would have been less optimistic about the mess.
Of course after covering your body in pudding, it's time for a bath.

If anyone has any more ideas let me know........ there's a lot of winter left!

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-29T14:15:00.000-08:00

This thanksgiving was great, Jeremy took off a few days, and we got to spend lots of time hanging out.

Jeremy's sister (and fam.) came into town. The kids all had a lot of fun playing. All the adults went and saw HP7 and then on friday we took the whole Deamer clan to see Tangled (Which was soooo good by the way.)

You knew it was coming I can't let a perfectly good cake making opportunity pass me by. Yes this is all fondant. I had some pre-made red fondant from Wilton, now I see why people think fondant is gross, I actually didn't taste it but it even smelled gross. The rest was my regular marshmallow fondant, which is definitely better.
I found out you can make chocolate fondant, so I tried it out, it worked really good.
I'd like to take a quick second to say what I'm thankful for. I'm so thankful for my family, I'm so lucky to have them all so close, Except for Leah who is on the other side of the world :( I'm so thankful for my girls, they are so awesome. I couldn't have picked out two better kids if I had tried. I love that my husband is such a good dad to them, and such a good best friend to me. He always makes me laugh. I'm so thankful for where we live, and the neighbors and friends that we have made. Hope your thanksgiving was as fun as ours.

Nap Time?

2010-11-14T14:39:00.000-08:00

I love nap time, I think people who don't have their kids take naps are crazy. (That's when I get my house clean, or my projects done.) But I do know Reese is getting older, and lately Reese hasn't been sleeping. I keep making her take a nap, but she just plays, or gets out of bed. I keep thinking ok, maybe it's time to stop making her take a nap.

But last week this happened 3 or 4 times. I tell her to go back to bed, and finally when I check on her she's on the floor asleep, or a chair with the lights on. So obviously she needs a nap right? (Do you love that she's on top of a huge pile of toys, nice and comfy :) So what do you guys think, let her stop? But I don't want to.

Last week Heather called me at about 12:30 to tell me it was Cheryl's b-day (Jeremy's aunt who lives next door). I knew I only had a few hours to make a cake which is not enough, but I did it any way. I hurried and threw a cake in the oven right when I got off the phone. (Yes, I realize that was I a good person and remembered birthdays, I could have been prepared, but no I'm not.) Cheryl has taught school for about 30 years or so, so I made a schoolhouse cake. A bit ambitious for my skill level, and way ambitious for my time frame.

I think she liked it anyway, I don't think she's ever had a cake like this. I didn't have time to really cool the cake, or let the fondant rest, I tried to put it in the freezer for a while, which helped, but if you notice it's a little soft looking, it is.

I made little books and apples, to try and add a few little touches. After this I see why you don't try and do a cake from beginning to end in just 3 or four hours. Maybe the next one will look a little better.

Before and After

2010-11-10T14:02:00.000-08:00

Ok I promise this is the last time I post about my weight. Hopefully everyone is not completely annoyed with me. After I posted last about how I kept cheating, it did the trick and I got back to work again. I have officially met my goal, and passed it by three pounds so far. I was too chicken to take a real before and after. But here's a few shots of me looking kind of heavy.

And here I am about a month ago, so still about 10 lbs. more than I am now.
So far I have lost 49 lbs. It's been a long time coming, but it was definitely worth it, because now I'm much healthier. In fact this makes me laugh, but I'm only two lbs. away from not lying on my drivers license. (I was really lying there for awhile :). Anyway good luck to all of you who are doing the same thing. Happy exercising!

Free blankies!

2010-11-08T20:11:00.000-08:00

My friend Candace is doing a giveaway! If you click on my little mini minky button that's on the side, you can get your own free soft baby blanket. You just need to put it on your blog. There's lots of cute ones, you should check it out!

Alaska!

2010-11-08T12:48:00.000-08:00

A month or two ago, Jeremy, his dad, and some guys they know all went on a trip to Alaska for fishing. I wanted to put a few pictures on here from their trip. Since I wasn't there, I just put a few of the cute ones on.
He came home looking like a gruff fisherman. Beard, sunburn, bug bites, maybe that wasn't the funnest part for him.

Jeremy and his Dad Jody.
Here's the whole group. I know no one who reads this knows any of them, but I'm mostly putting these on for him.
He had so many gorgeous pictures of landscape, I only chose a few. But it seems like Alaska is one of the most beautiful places on earth.
You've got to have a pic of you holding a big fish, or it isn't a fishing trip.

So I think I could make a calender from how beautiful these pics are. I know I'm jealous too.

This isn't long, but it's funny, Jeremy has a fish that really doesn't want to be caught.

I could never find the video he shot of the whales coming right up out of the water, so close to their little boat, it was incredible! Watching it is especially what made me jealous that he got to do this, while I stayed home, but I think he had a great time.

Happy Halloween!

2010-11-01T13:11:00.000-07:00

Reese has a huge thing for Harry Potter, (yes I know what you're thinking, she's 3 and they let her watch Harry Potter?) Well, we do and she loves it. So she loves Hermione Granger, and months ago she asked Jeremy if he would be Harry for halloween with her. (And he surprisingly said yes.) So I decided to make us a matching family.

Reese's hair is exactly like Hermione's which I think makes the whole costume that much better. Reese wanted Rylee to be Dobee the house elf. As excited as I was at the thought of only putting a dirty pillowcase on her, I talked Reese into making Rylee be Hedwig the owl.
Yes I made this costume myself, and yes it did take quite awhile. But the owl costumes online looked so dumb, so I think it was worth it. She could tell it was funny, she kept laughing all day. And I'm surprised I was able to get her to keep that hat on, but somehow she did.

On Friday we went to Jeremy's work to trick or treat. Then my whole fam. meets at my Dad's.
This is my niece Avery, I thought she looked so cute, I'm kicking myself for not getting a pic of my sis in law Becca dressed as Marge Simpson.
The tradition has been to trick or treat at his work then go to McDonalds. The kids had so much fun. They both missed nap, but were having so much fun. ( Of course I paid for it later.)

Can I just say that I still am a little shocked at how willing Jeremy was to dress up. He had to shave and everything. I think a lot of it was because Reese asked him to. She just has him in her little palm I think.
If you've watched Harry Potter, you know there's not a lot of options of main characters for me to be. Reese wanted me to be Ron, or Dumbledore. But I decided to go with Ginny Weasley. Not the best costume, but I did my best.
This is Tayler and her boyfriend Macklyn, (I'm not sure if I spelled that right :) A bee and a bee keeper, I thought that was way cute, and creative.
Jeremy made Jody put a wig on and be Severus Snape, just for a picture, I thought that was funny.
We always carve some pumpkins. I'm only going to show these two.
I seriously have a fear of Michael Jackson, especially from Thriller, that stems from child hood. Jeremy did this one and I thought it was super freaky.
Jeremy decided he wanted to learn how to make homemade doughnuts. But he got started on a project with his dad, and so I was on my own. I swear it took me all day, but I think they turned out good. I made regular, and cake, with both glaze, maple and choc frosting. There was a ton, and this was all that was left, so I guess they were all right :) I think I want to do it again now that I know what I'm doing a little bit more.

We ended up riding with our friends the Richs', ten of us in their 5 passenger car, to go trick or treating. It was fun. We had good food, and lots of it. What a good night, I hope everyone had fun!

Jack O Lantern Saver!

2010-10-28T09:36:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to share a quick tidbit about how to save your pumpkins that have been carved. My sis-in-law Becca told me about this, and boy was she right!

To keep your carved pumpkins from shrinking up and turning brown : Just smear Vaseline on every cut surface, and on the whole inside, and lid. Supposedly it makes the life of your jack o lantern 4 times as long.

Reese carved her pumpkin three day's ago, and I did the vaseline trick, and it's not showing even a little bit of browning, or wrinkling.

Just thought I'd share - Happy Carving!

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

Halloween is definitely one of my favorite holidays. Last Week I had a mom and miss party for my activity days calling at church.

Unluckily for me, the three ladies, who are in my calling as well, were released the week before. Luckily for me one of them (Jamie Hansen) was nice enough to help me even though she was released.
I really wanted it to be cute, she brought a lot of decorations, and I brought everything I had. I think it really turned out cute. We had an area set up to take pictures of the moms and girls, which you saw up on top. Everyone came dressed up. I got home from Disneyland and went into a cooking frenzy, but I think it turned out ok.

This I think is my favorite cake I've made so far. I used a pumpkin choc chip recipe, my mom gave me. I think from now on I'll do something like that, instead of a cake mix. It seems like it's good to have it taste good as well as be cute. I used two bunt cakes on top of each-other, by the way, if you want to copy, it. I think it turned out cute.
Sorry I know this is ugly, but in the spirit of halloween, I had to put in on.
We went up to my mom and dad's this week, to do pumpkins. This was the first year Reese could somewhat do it. She thought it was so much fun.

Just a random note, when I was little I used to dress in a ton of layers, it would drive my mom nuts. Reese came up wearing all this the other day. Skull and cross bone socks, brown pants, an orange terry cloth skirt, an orange tulle skirt, a striped long sleeved shirt, a yellow hooded shirt, and a orange terry cloth hooded vest. I had to get photographic evidence. She is definitely my child.
Hope you all have fun Halloweening this weekend!