We got our family pictures taken a few months ago. We went to the Donut Falls Trail head up Big Cottonwood Canyon. We love the mountains so much and the scenery made for some great pictures.
One day Whitney came home and said can my friends and I make cupcakes?? I said sure and off she went. Later I found out that she not only made them but went around my street selling them for a dollar a piece. This was the first time she had ever made cupcakes totally unsupervised so they were not the best. They only filled the cups 1/4 of the way full and then proceeded to bake them for way too long which resulted in tiny, hard, overly frosted cupcakes. The neighbors still bought them so you've got to give her credit for trying. It was that moment when GoldOn Cupcakes was born. She and her four friends decided to start their own cupcake company. They chose the name GoldOn with an O because there was already a company called Golden Cupcakes.
Ashtyn volunteered to help them set up their own website. They learned a lot about how it's illegal to use other cupcake companies images on your site. They also learned about privacy and how anything you place on the internet can be seen by others. Whitney asked my AWESOME sister in law Malia to make her a logo. She is super talented at this and was happy to oblige. Here is how it turned out:
Here is the Halloween run down from our house. First off I didn't get a single picture of my kids all together on Halloween this year. Everyone was going in too many directions. As far as costumes this year Ethan was a skeleton- he wanted to be a grim reaper but we couldn't find what he wanted in the price range I was willing to pay- so this was as close as he got. We let our kids buy a Halloween costume every other year and on the off years they have $5 to spend on an accessory and the rest they have to come up with from what we have at home. Whitney was a nerd and Ashtyn left for school as a pirate but then an hour before she was to go out trick or treating she decided to switch to the UP house. The week before Halloween the kids and I went to our neighbor's annual Halloween party. It was so fun and full of amazing food and friends. The night before Halloween our ward held a Fall Festival and chili cook off. I made Paige's white chili recipe. I was in charge of a cake walk along with the rest of the Relief Society Presidency. We gave a way lots of fun desserts and Kathy and I showed off our Thriller dancing- HA. Then on Halloween day we went to the elementary parade and I was in charge of both Whitney and Ethan's class parties. For Whitney's we did a pizza and movie party and for Ethan's we did four stations- two games, a treat and a craft. The craft I picked was from Pinterest. I spent a few weeks making orange pom pom's and collecting all of the things I would need- yet some how I ended up having to stay up until 2 AM to finish things. The craft did not turn out nearly as cute as it was on Pinterest but I think the games and the treat made up for it. We played Chinese tic-tac-toe where I made big charts covered in Chinese characters and the kids had to find pumpkins with matching characters on the bottom to get their three in a row. We also played guess who you are where you pin the name of someone to the back of each child and they have to figure out who they are based on how people talk to them. The treat was apple mouths and Hershey's bats- again from Pinterest. I wish I had taken pictures. That night our street decided to do a little soup and bread party in the Barney's garage to warm everyone up before they headed out for the night. Have I mentioned how much I ADORE my street. We have the best neighbors and we do lots of fun things together. Jeff took Whitney and Daisy out trick or treating with some of her friends. Ethan went to his friends house and went with his dad and Ashtyn went with her friends. I stayed home in my pajamas right where I like to spend the night and handed out our candy. We don't get a ton of trick or treaters because you have to go out on the main road to get to our street. I suspect that our Halloween's are going to get smaller and smaller as our kids get older and spend more time with their friends. Happy Halloween!
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Ashtyn is small. It wasn't very noticeable until Whitney started to pass her up and then this year as she entered Middle School. She is very small compared to her class mates. She is just 60 lbs and about 54 inches tall. An average 12 year old is 90 lbs and 5 ft tall. Being small- I tell her is a very good thing. I am not worried about her being so small but a lot of people are. She's had two doctors in her life and the first one made me get her tested for all kinds of things. I appreciate his thoroughness, but I hate having to see her poked and prodded if she doesn't have to be. The second one is also concerned because Ashtyn's growth curve is nowhere near the chart. I hear comments about how tiny she is a lot. Jeff and I are tall it's true, but we are both pretty slim so I know she's got slim genes. I also have a short line of relatives on my mom's side so there are short genes as well. They say that if you double your height at two years old that will tell you how tall you will be as an adult. This proved true for me because at 2 I was 35" tall and doubled that is 70" or 5 ft 10 which is exactly what I am today. However this is not always an exact science and can be totally proved wrong. That is the case with my youngest sister Melinda. When she was 2 she was only 31 1/2" tall. That would put her at about 5 ft 3 inches tall at adulthood. She is 5 ft 8 today. She was also really small for her weight all growing up too- at 2 she was just a pound more than Ashtyn was. We use to call her Minnie- which fit her because she was so small. Well she turned out just right and I know Ashtyn will too. I try to tell her that being small is not a bad thing and that she should be proud of the way God made her. What she lacks in size she makes up for in personality. She personifies the quote "Thou she be but little, she is FIERCE" from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Only time will tell what she will end up like as an adult but for now she's perfect just the way she is.
