Has Something Frozen Over?

We're Going to Disneyland!!!!!!!!  We told this kids this week.  Keeping this to myself the last 6 months has been making me crazy!  We put the tree up this last Friday night and the kids woke up to "Christmas morning."  We told them they were only getting one present from Mom and Dad and they got to open it early.  They were so sweet.  When they opened up Mickey ornaments they pretended to be excited-they thought that was it.  It took a lot of convincing to get them to believe we are really going to go.  Mary said, "Mommy, you so silly.  We're not going to Disneyland."  She is now a believer.  The thing they are most excited about is that Grandma is going with us!  Hooray!

More Updates

I really hate posting pictures. They never seem to go where I want. I am breaking this entry into different blogs to make it a little easier. OK, back to updates. In August we took a little vacation to Monterey and then down the coast to Southern California to see Craig and his family.

Updates

Hello! Much has happened since I last posted. In a nutshell: Ben turned 4 in June:

Mary fell on her head and spent a night in the hospital in July (no injury). The next day we went with Brittney to Stinson Beach to celebrate Neil's birthday. We also went to Muir Woods and spent a night in San Francisco:

Cute Kids

The last few months have been, well insane. Let's just say that my computer has been repaired and works on most days, the house is carpet beetle-free (we hope), the mice have been released back into the wild, the kids are back to only one inhaler each, and we love sleeping on the living room floor. Ben and Neil went on their first Fathers and Sons camp out a couple of weeks ago and had a great time. Ben came home quite happy to announce that Daddy let him wear the same clothes two days in a row. Mary is very, very good at being two. Look at her smile, and no further explanation should be needed. Neil's dad came to visit this past weekend and sold us his car. It is already a huge blessing in our lives. We had such a great time with him here. We are doing well, amidst the craziness. We hope that you all are well too.

The Elmo Cake

To answer some questions I've had about how I made the cake: The cake looks harder than it was. I made a round cake for the face, and then trimmed the bottom to fit the shape of Elmo's chin. I made the rest of the batter into cupcakes for the eyes and nose. I froze them before trimming them down. I cut a shelf out of the round cake so the eyes would set in, and then used frosting to glue them into place. I also put some wooden skewers in at an angle for extra security (thank you, "Ace of Cakes") I did all the red/black frosting, and then I frosted the nose with white frosting. I then spread on this orange glittery decorating gel I got on clearance after Halloween (being cheap comes in handy). That's it! Mary loved it and it has been fun to see what that bright frosting does when it comes back out the other end :)

So tomorrow is Mary's birthday. I can't believe she is two!! Yesterday we had the whole nursery and their families over for cake and ice cream. Today we had her birthday dinner and presents and tomorrow---she gets to play with her new toys. We feel so blessed to have Miss Mary (a.k.a. "Me Me") in our family.

So—Four months since my last post isn’t bad. Right? Life has been busy, but these cute kids are worth it. Our Mary is almost 2. Aunt Barbara did a great job taking her picture. Ben had a blast making “Frosty” on our recent quick surprise trip to Utah. I think it made up for our green Christmas here. I was reminded of how beautiful the snow is, and how much I don’t miss scraping it off my windshield. More to come; hopefully it won’t take another 4 months.