Owl Cupcakes

Jr. let me know he wanted these owl cupcakes from FamilyFun Magazine. The opportunity came up, so we made our own version. This is how they turned out:

Jeremy and the kids made the cupcakes, Jeremy and Jr. frosted them,

and I decorated them using items we had on hand.

The frosting is coconut pecan. The wings are made from pecan sandies cookies, the eyes are pieces of pretzels with upside down chocolate chips in the middle, and the nose is a peanut.
I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.

They've Gone to a Far Better Place

We said goodbye to about half our plants today.
Remember all those posts about starting them from seeds, and how they've grown, and transplanting them, etc. etc. etc.
Our one spot to plant outside is a planter box in front of our neighbor's window (we planned to keep the smaller plants in front of the window and the larger to the sides- it's common courtesy). Our neighbors were okay with this idea. However, due to unforeseen circumstances that bit of earth is no longer available.

We feel worse for our neighbors than for the bit of earth we were going to use.

We tried. We really did. We wanted to do a garden, if even a little one.
When Jeremy went home teaching, the opportunity came up to donate our plants to one of the families he home teaches. They have plenty of garden space and were planning on sharing some of the food they grow with us anyway. And this way we don't have to throw out our plants because there's no garden for them.
So we said farewell to the pumpkin, tomatoes, banana peppers, and the one surviving sunflower, but kept the herbs and romaine lettuce.

Our kitchen windowsill seems so bare now. I guess when we separate the lettuce into individual containers that will help, though.

The kids look forward to going to visit the plants later in the season and we're happy the plants went to a better place instead of having to throw them away eventually.

See what good things come from home teaching? More than one family will be blessed from this.

Armed Forces Day 2011

A few months ago, we donated to the Boy Scouts who would then put an American flag in front of our place for certain holidays. Today is Armed Forces Day. As we were headed out the door this morning, Jeremy exclaimed, "Hey, they did put an American flag up," to which Nichole replied, "Did the astronauts do that?"
For as we all know, that's what American astronauts do when they go places. "Or take it on planets or the moon," Nichole says.

Joy Is...

having the entire playground to yourselves on a nice warm day.

Chocolate Girl

I told her not to get chocolate on her white shirt.

She didn't.

Kite Day 2011

Yesterday, May 12th, was Kite Day. As has been our custom lately, Jeremy made shaped pancakes- kite shaped pancakes. He even made a smiley face pancake to show how happy we were to have kite shaped pancakes.

Then guess what we did. You got it. We went to a local park and... flew kites.

Well, the kids did most of the flying, Jeremy showed the kids what to do, I ran around with the camera, and Jr. Jr. did his usual thing of sleeping in the stroller. There wasn't that much wind, but it was Kite Day, so we had to go kite flying anyway. The kids ended up with plenty of exercise getting their kites up while running.

And from time to time a little breeze would pick up. Enough for the kids to stand still for a few seconds.

It was a good family activity.

P.S. If you want to know a simple snack to go with the Kite Day theme, check out May 12th on our Calendar of Celebration.

Look What We Got in the Mail

Cousins from Washington sent the kids an Easter egg in the mail. It was intended to get here by Easter. We got it Monday this week. We didn't think it would actually get here since it was taking so long. Better late than never, right? The kids were very excited to get it... and the sweet card colored by their cousin inside.

Thanks, Washington cousins.