Saturday, November 12, 2011

Vancouver

We had a great time last week on a family trip to Vancouver, British Columbia. We went to go see a close friend, Melissa Leonard, get married and the wedding was great. Then we spent Halloween there. We got to do some sightseeing in the city and the trees were so beautiful. I sometimes miss the change of seasons, so visiting somewhere where it actually felt like fall was a nice change. By the end of the cold and rainy week, however, I was ready to be back in SoCal. Here are lots of pictures:
Image


At the Vancouver Aquarium looking at belugasImage Some dolpins...Image ...who were actually my kids:-)Image In a bubble looking at frogsImage Image Notice Ethan's hand under Annalisa's chin, trying to lift her head up for the pictureImage Ethan looking at the jellyfishImage TurtlesImage Image On a boat ride looking at the cityImage Granville Island Public Island, where we ate a great lunchImageThe beautiful cityImageAt the Maritime Museum- notice that Ethan wanted to wear his pirate costume, even though this was the day AFTER Halloween- we thought it fit the day's activities...Image Captain steering the ship with his hookImage Image They had an actual boat dry-docked inside the museumImage Exploring the boat Image
Image Just outside the Maritime MuseumImageBig anchor with Vancouver in the backgroundImage Our friend Reuben was a skeleton jesterImageHis dad Chris and his random costumeImage Our little pirate princess outside of the Leonard's houseImageCaptain Hook and a pirate princessImage ImageInside a building in Ft. Langley, the first British trading center in CanadaImage She liked the little rocking chair



We are now looking forward to Thanksgiving in St. George and then Salt Lake city for the week after that. I love vacations!

Monday, November 07, 2011

Cupcakes

Being pregnant has really made me lazy with my posting. We also just got back from a trip to Vancouver, which I will post about once I have all the pictures downloaded.

For now, here is something fun that we did to find out the sex of the baby. Now, let me just say that Cory wanted to wait the entire nine months to find out. Although that MIGHT have been fun, I'm just not that type of person. I NEED to know so I can mentally prepare. Boys and girls are very different...

Anyway, so I had the ultrasound technician write down on a slip of paper what the baby was and put it in a sealed envelope. Then I went to a local bakery and gave them the envelope. I told them to put either blue or pink frosting inside the cupcakes depending on what was written. Then we all went to a park and found out together that it is a...

Image

Taking a bite


Image And the frosting inside was...

Image BLUE!!! We're having a boy!


ImageThe before shot. They were really good cupcakes...

Monday, August 22, 2011

Ethan's 4th Birthday

Let me preface this post by saying that I am not a crafty or artistic person. I like to do them when someone else does all the preparing and tells me exactly how to do it. I really don't feel like there are too many crafts that I enjoy or that I feel are worth my time. With that being said, for each one of the birthdays, my mom made me a birthday cake. I really appreciated it and looked forward to it every year. I couldn't even tell you what most of the cakes were decorated like, but I remember feeling very special on my special day. So when I started having kids, I wanted to continue that tradition, regardless of my craft deficiencies.

This year for Ethan's birthday, I wanted to make him a Lightning McQueen cake. I had originally planned to just do an outline of a car. However, I was intrigued by an online tutorial that showed how to make a 3-D cake. I thought to myself, "I can do this...I watch Ace of Cakes and it looks easy enough...I don't have fondant so frosting will have to make do, but this is going to be awesome." I also had the dilemma of figuring out the red frosting. I kept having thoughts of a pink McQueen...so I opted for red sprinkles instead.

Here is the final result- you can tell I'm not a professional, but I was SO excited to show Ethan:

Image

Image

ImageI felt pretty good about the finished result. And Ethan loved it! He even said later that night, "Thank you for my Lightning, Mommy." Totally worth the 3 hours I spent! Here are some more pictures of the big day and activities later in the week:


Image Eating at Giggles N' Hugs, a fun kids restaurant

Image Annalisa had fun too

ImageBlowing out the candles

ImageLook at that face

ImageAs Ethan said, "I'm eating his Ka-Chow"

ImageOne of his presents

ImageAt the Natural History Museum and Butterfly Pavillion

Image Annalisa looking really small

Image Looking at the butterflies

ImageEthan pointing at one of the big butterflies

ImageSitting for a picture

ImageWith friends Korven and Westin

Image Dinosaur bones

Image More bones, bad lighting on the kids...

ImageAt the Peterson Automotive Museum with Dad

Image Riding in a real race car

Image