Ert and Bernie in Fall Break

October 10 is National Cake Decorating Day. 
One of Jeremy's earliest memories is of a Bert and Ernie cake for his birthday.  A while ago Jeremy's mom gave us that Bert and Ernie cake pan.
Jeremy and I have zero formal cake decorating experience.  We have really been wanting to try that Bert and Ernie cake, so we thought National Cake Decorating Day would be the perfect opportunity to make it.  So we got the tips, the decorating bags, etc.  And we made the cake.

This is how it is supposed to look:

This is how our cake looked:

Can't tell a difference, can you?  Ha Ha Ha.  It's okay.  You can laugh, too.  Did I mention we have limited cake decorating experience?  Obviously we have some things to learn.  When we realized it wasn't going to look like we wanted it to, we gave up on using the tips and bags and took butter knives with frosting/icing to the rest of it.
But it was a good experience.  Now we have some ideas of things to look up before we start next time.  And eventually we'll get it right- the consistency of the frosting/icing.  Here's what our first decoration looked like on wax paper.

So, we know we piped it right.  It will just take some more trial and error.  But we'll get it.

We did this while the kids were in school, so when Jr. came home, he went into the kitchen and spied it.
Jr.:  Ooh, that looks... [long pause]... yummy.  That looks like what you were going to make.
What a nice kid.
Later he gave his advice.
Jr.:  Maybe we could name the cake, "Ert and Bernie in Fall Break."
(Fall Break from school starts tomorrow for the kids).  And later,
Jr.:  And if we make another Ert and Bernie cake in Winter, we can name it "Ert and Bernie in Winter."

So, if not before, it looks like we'll be trying this again in the Winter.  Wish us luck.

Catch of the Day

I'd seen this truck before, but luckily Jeremy was in the car with me this time (with a camera) and was able to take a picture.
Look at the front of the truck.  Now name that movie.
It's really something when you're driving along, look in your rear view mirror, and see this coming up behind you.

Joy Is...

The look of surprise on a little boy's face when his first magic trick works for the first time.

Joy is also a patient and loving big sister who teaches her brother how to do his first magic trick.

For Anyone Else, about General Conference

Another great day of General Conference.  More wonderful talks and things I needed to hear.

Jeremy made scones for breakfast and snacking on throughout the day.

The boys took the opportunity during one of the choir songs to reverently dance around.

After Conference was over, Nichole shared a story she made up with characters she drew and cut out of cardboard. 

Unfortunately, I didn't hear the end of the story as I fell asleep.  I didn't fall asleep during any of the sessions, though.

More scenes from during and after Conference sessions.

We will be cleaning the living room tomorrow.

The Reverence Tent was put away soon after I was rudely awakened by it landing on my head.  That is not the way I wanted to end my nap.

Jr. and I got along today (except for the brief moment with the tent).

I do love these times spent with my family.

For Jeremy, about General Conference

Jeremy, since you had to work during General Conference today, I thought I'd share some highlights:

Wonderful talks of course.  President Uchtdorf reminded us again to be happy regardless of our circumstances.  The Proclamation was quoted several times.  President Monson announced two new temples and announced a change in the age that young men and women can go on missions.  Worthy young men who have graduated from high school or the equivalent can now go as early as 18 years old, and young women who choose to go can go as early as 19 years old.

Of course we had adventures at home, too.  I made 7 layer bean dip.  Have some.  It's yumm.

Nichole and Jr. both got BINGO on their Conference Squares activity pages, so they got M&Ms. 
Here's the between sessions scene.

I asked Nichole and Jr. what they learned from the first session.
Jr.:  To not do bad things.
Nichole:  Repentance.
Good job, kids.

Then before the second session started-

Mommy:  Jr., what do you hope to get out of the second session of General Conference.
Jr.:  M&Ms.
He didn't.  He got those earlier.

Despite the inspired talks about family and rearing children, I'm still not perfect and Jr. and I didn't get along the whole time.  Jr. was sent to his room and because he was mad at me, he stuck his legs through the bars of Jr. Jr.'s bed and got stuck.  Very stuck.

Apparently, he put quite a bit of effort in getting one his legs through, and it took a lot more effort to get it out.

Thanks for the tip about using dish soap to grease things up (without the grease) to make it slide easier.  That did the trick, although I let him know beforehand that if I had to break the bars of the bed in order to get his leg out, he would have to pay for it.  But he's okay and we got along the rest of the time.  We both apologized and forgave each other.  Repentance was another theme during Conference.  But I missed all of Elder Ballard's talk and some of the talks before and after his, so remind me to watch those with you when you catch up on the sessions you missed.

Jr. Jr. fell asleep during the second session.

Here's the after the second session scene.

I asked Nichole and Jr. again what they learned in the second session.

Jr.:  To love children.
Nichole:  Yeah, to love children.  Oh and... there's something more important than to get five candy bars for the movies.  (see Robert C. Gay's talk in the Saturday afternoon session).
Yay, kids.

I am really looking forward to watching both sessions with you tomorrow.

When the Kids Pick Your Date

Jeremy and I let the kids know that Mommy and Daddy were going to go on a date.  We were brainstorming a bunch of ideas of what we could do on our date.  We decided to ask the kids what they thought we should do.  When we asked Jr., he said, "You should eat ice cream and talk to each other."  Wow, that was a really great idea.
When we asked Nichole, she said, "We should go play at a friend's house while you stay home."  She couldn't think of something for us to do.
It took a while to get an idea out of Jr. Jr.  Finally we asked him this morning while Jeremy was cleaning his glasses.  "What should Mommy and Daddy do on our date?"  He responded, "Glasses."
So we took the kids' ideas and used them on our date.
We ate ice cream at home and talked while wearing our glasses.

That and we just got the game, Monopoly, which neither Jeremy nor I have played for years, so we played that at home while wearing our glasses, eating ice cream, and talking.

So we used the kids' suggestions and our own and ended up with a nice, relaxing date.

As an afterthought, Jeremy realized we could have been creative with Jr. Jr.'s answer and we could have had root beer floats in our big "glasses" or mugs.  A blind taste test of different brands of root beer was another one of our earlier brainstorming ideas.  We could have combined that idea.  Oh, well.  We're not disappointed with our result.

National Taco Day 2012

Boy, we've had a busy day.  Exploring a new to us park, field trip for Nichole so matching lunch for Jr., work, shopping, homework, Parent-Teacher Conferences, dinner, the kids visiting a friend while Jeremy and I went to Round Table for Scouts, bedtime, and now blogging.

Some highlights:
Highland Glen Park in Highland.  Big pond, lots of trails, playground, picnic tables and BBQ grills, lots of birds, plenty of trees, and so much more.

 click to see bigger

Check out the white duck in the middle of that last picture.  Does that hair remind you of anyone?  "The duck formerly known as..."


To celebrate National Taco Day, October 4, we had... tacos for dinner.  I didn't know about National Taco Day until my mom and dad gave me a list of October holidays yesterday.  Some we already had on our calendar, but some were new to us
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It was fun to see the different ways each member in our family ate tacos.

Jr. Jr. dumped out his filling and ate the shell. 

Nichole ate hers open side first.

Jr. picked the filling out of his to eat it first before the shell.

Jeremy skipped the taco shell and used tortilla chips to have taco salad.

 I ate my taco from the side.

No matter how you eat it, though, it's great to celebrate.