Half-way to 90!

Yes, I feel old. Ian baked me this delicious chocolate cake and kindly reduced the number of candles by a few. ;)

Tunnel of Fudge Cake

Dallin gave me a cookbook for Christmas that he is very proud of. He chose it all by himself at our church's Primary activity last December in Yuma. We decided we should make one dessert a month from it. This month he chose a very rich, very elegant Tunnel of Fudge Cake. One serving has 570 calories! It is delicious and very gooey!

43 Years Young

Megan's Culinary Skills Manifested in Chocolate Cake Form

Happy Birthday, Mom!!!

Eight is Great!

Erin's 8th birthday was today!!! She was so excited and had been counting down the days for the past two weeks. She opened her presents before church.

For some reason, she got a lot of presents relating to owls: owl DVD, owl necklace, owl pillowcase, owl cross-stitch pattern, and owl stickers among a few other non-owl-related items.

After church, she played with some of her new things, then we made a big batch of homemade pizza (but forgot to take photos), and ate her owl cake. Mom modified it from this design. We thought it turned out pretty cute!

 

We're taking a trip in a couple of days to the San Diego Zoo to celebrate the rest of Erin's birthday.

D-boy is Four!

Dallin turned FOUR YEARS OLD this morning!

Look at what a handsome boy he has grown into.

He LOVES the color red, just in case everyone is not aware of this fact.

Dallin waited patiently (well, as patiently as a 4-year-old can wait) 

while we held our homeschool co-op lessons (since it was a Wednesday), 

and then everyone gathered for presents and birthday brownies.

Dallin chose pizza for lunch.

He wanted a cake "with one red light saber and one green light saber."

So, that is what he got.

He managed to blow out the 4 squiggly candles.

Stay tuned for Part II of his b-day celebrations when we get to go to Legoland!!!

Kristin's Cake

So...the other day Kristin from the UAZ crew set a new record for total FTHL captured in one day on our removal plot. She caught 12! April bakes a cake for anyone who beats her record. This is the applesauce cake that she made for Kristin. It's supposed to be depicting a FTHL emerging from its burrow in the sand, in case you can't tell.

Kevin doctored up a dollar store plastic lizard to make it look like a FTHL. April used an ice cream cone to make the burrow. The "edible" sand is made from sugar, crushed graham crackers, and spices.

Independence Day 2012

Our day started bright and early putting up flags on people's lawns for the Scout's "Fly the Flag" project. It is a fundraiser that pays for all the scout camps and activities throughout the year.

Later on, we cooked a tasty barbecue over our fire pit.

We made a yummy applesauce cake but were not terribly creative with the frosting job.

Once it got dark, we played with sparklers!!!

Group Photo 

Everyone wanted to start a new tradition of swimming for the occasion.
That was followed by cake consumption.

We are indeed grateful for this wonderful country of ours.

Happy Birthday, America!

 

What We've Been Doing Lately...

 Zach broke yet another one of our green chairs. 

We're going to run out of chairs if he keeps this up!

 

Also, we have some great visitors staying at our house!

Arthur W. and Genifer L. came to town just to do FTHL surveys with us.

Naturally, we took them to play in the desert for fun the first chance we got.

 

Dallin won't ride in the backpack anymore,

but he'll accept a shoulder ride.

 

 One morning, Ian found a ground snake in our front yard!

It was very beautiful.

On the 12th, our friend Jesse M. (USU alumni) and colleagues stopped by on their way to collect rattlesnakes in the Tinajas Altas. We haven't seen Jesse for years--he remembered Megan as a toddler. They joined us for a float trip down the Colorado River with Arthur and the Horrocks family, but we couldn't take photos since we don't have a waterproof camera, so you'll all just have to imagine what we looked like.

Before the float trip, they showed us some rattlesnakes they already had in their cooler.

 

They tubed the snakes, and we could touch them and admire their rattles.

 Kiki likes her perch.

Megan earned this cake as a trade for making a photo op for the Horrock's family reunion. They were planning a western theme, so she drew a cowboy with a cut-out hole in the head for the children to put their faces into for photos. Luckily for us, Megan shared some of the cake.

Erin got stung by a bee when she was out swimming. 

Usually she doesn't have much of a reaction, but this time it swelled up for a day.

Happy Father's Day to our favorite father!!!
We celebrated with his usual applesauce cake.