MANY GIFTS OF THANKS

To thank all of the teachers and people that help within the schools I made them these. Thanks to my friend Becky letting me borrow a book for a few ideas (Thank You!). I think they turned out really good. I made a total of 12, there were a few teachers who were retiring so we wanted to thank them for there amazing dedication. We had 4 teachers and 8 helpers to surprise and I think they were pretty surprised. Gavin also gave his Ravens football jersey to his teacher. She was moving to Baltimore and we had the whole class sign it and we put it in a picture box. I didn't get a picture of that but he was very excited to give it to her. Thank you to all the teachers out there for all that you do for our kids we appreciate all of your dedication and hard work!

One Year Older!

I think I am starting to embrace getting older. I don't like it but there is not much I can do, fighting it won't make me younger! This year I decided I wanted to go out of town for my birthday. I had not been out of town for 6 months because school didn't allow. I needed a break and relaxation. Me and Jer went to a resort and did nothing but eat, sleep and lay by the pool. Just what I needed a weekend of nothing! These pictures are a few that we took to remind us that we really need to do this more. The breakfast picture had a funny story to go with it. We got a $75 credit each night we stayed at this resort and planned on using it at the pool bar and the resturant Saturday evening. Well the pool bar closed early and the restaurant was only open for breakfast. Long story short we had $100 to spent on Sunday before noon. So we decided to eat a really big breakfast. As we ordered the lady said "wow thats going to be a big breakfast" and that time we were sitting at a small table for two. Jer then asked do we need to move to a bigger table and I laughed so hard! We never planned on eating all of the breakfast but we wanted to try and use some of the credit we still had. We both had an amazing time.

 

My bread

Let me say that I love making bread! Well actually I love cooking!! Through out the years I have learned people either love to cook or absolutly hate it. Theres not alot of in between that I have seen. It brings me such happiness and joy and it's very relaxing for me. I have learned so much about baking and cooking since I started and obviously I am still learning. I decided to try a new recipie for a honey white bread. I found out a little trick to yeast and decided to try it to see if it would make a difference in how my bread would rise and boy did it! It turned out HUGE, I have never had bread rise so big! I chuckled to myself as Bailey walked by he said "wow, thats really big bread". My kids love homemade bread and I havn't had time to make it, so this made my kids really excited and they could hardly wait for it to cool. 

Ayden's 6th birthday

This is the face of one excited kid! Ayden asked me to make him a semi truck for his birthday cake. Being the mother I am, I love a good challenge. I looked at a few pictures to get an idea of how to pull this task off and decided that I could do it. I had a friend Missy Windsor help me with the fondant. I had never made it before and so I called her to help and I am so glad she did. It wasn't hard but it could have been a little tricky figuring it out on my own. I used a poster board to put the cake on that way I could make it a really BIG one like Ayden requested. Cuting out the cake was not to bad but with this particular cake mix I used getting the icing to stick to the cake was not an easy task! FYI, milk chocolate cake mix is not the best kind to use. Missy had the same experience it turns out very crumbly. Rolling out the fondant was really easy and I think it turned out really good for my first time making a cake like this. As you can see in the picture Ayden was stoked. His face is priceless hopefully this memory is one that lasts. We played a games having the kids wrap the older kids in tiolet paper like a mummy. I think the younger ones thought this was quite funny! The party turned out really good. I can't believe Ayden is 6 time has flown by and he has gotten so big. He is still the same sweet caring and crazy boy and we just love him!