February

 

Honor roll! All the kids made honor roll last semester. They love seeing us wave from the crowd and cheer them on!

Due to John's....noise levels...I only got a few pics. But it's the same deal. Except Michael bows when everyone claps.

 

 

 

Valentine cupcakes

 

We drove up to Boone after an early release Friday. They make snow on the mountain and on a free community sled hill. We put the oldest four in snowboarding school all day and then took the little two to a sled hill and just played!

 

Boone has just a handful of small shops, these are the steps from the grocery to the diner where we had hot cocoa and a big cinnamon roll.

 

Mike loved his cars he picked out.

 

And Katy chose Cheetos for her snack!

 

Katy got more and more brave each time she went down the hill. We really enjoyed relaxing with them at their pace.

 

The drive home after the kids full day of snowboarding was much more calm. We got home by dinnertime, it was a quick but very fun trip!

 

Diana has lost 3 teeth now! One she swallowed, one her teacher pulled out, and one she pulled out.

 

Macarons on a cake are awesome!

 

Teacher gifts

 

Valentine Cookies! Katy's teacher has discovered my baking and now requests cookies (kindly) for all class events. haha.

 

My kids happily enjoy the extras!

 

John's cheesy grin saying "please more water"

Lemon cake order. This is an all-time favorite!

 

Peanut Butter Cup cake is out of this world!

 

Hard to see, but we spent a holiday Monday with our cousins playing at the park for a long awesome all day playdate. I love having Marian close!

 

Oreo Cake. Good as it looks.

 

Snickers Cake. Takes cake to a whole new level with the peanut nougat! (And caramel drizzle, chocolate ganache, chopped peanuts, and caramel buttercream)

 

Jim surfing in Puerto Rico! I love seeing his joy at spending this time with his brother and friends doing something he loves.

 

Jake's basketball season ended, he grew his ability a lot this year and really enjoyed it!

 

Sunset from Jim.

 Diana had a slight fever the Sunday Jim was gone. Since the previous week only 8/30 students showed up on Friday (the teacher and all others had flu/cold) I decided to keep us home. Thankfully, she didn't get worse, but we had a wonderful Sabbath at home.

 

Mike was a such an awesome singing time teacher. He hid things around the room, had "helpers" and talked about what the words meant. He is a star!

 

Katy with Jim and Luke. She loved spending time with her uncle while everyone else was in school. We brought them lunch before Luke left and they had fun feeling so special to eat with him.

 

Mike had a wax museum. He told all about Bill Gates and when it was done, there was John hanging off him like a dead weight.

 

The teacher placed him next to Steve Jobs. They kept one-upping each other on accomplishments, charity work, etc.

 

Beautiful flowers with a Caramel Toffee Semi Naked Cake

 

I planned a cake tasting and made 7 different awesome cakes. It was a lot of work and there were some snags but it all turned out!

 

20 friends came over and ate cake then gave me feedback.

 

When they left the kids each got their own platter for being so awesome!

 

7 flavors, listed below left to right.

 

The final tally (I had everyone list their top 3) showed Caramel Toffee Crunch on top, then Lemonlicious, then Chocolate PB Cup. I didn't have a Chocolate lovers cake on there, but at that point I thought 8 cakes was too many haha.

 

That night some friends took us to dinner after knowing about my long day, it was so sweet. The wives were full, but the husbands shared a romantic heart-shaped sticky rice. I appreciate the laughter and thoughtfulness of good friends and want to be more like them!