Building tents

OK this happened way back in the summer but it was awesome! I remember building tents when I was a little girl and whatever day this was the girls filled the entire basement family room almost wall to wall tents! They were so proud! So was I :)Everyone got in on the game :) I hope they are always building such happy memories!

Back 2 School

These are my back to school pics that never quite made it. As you will see at the bottom I started this post on time. Yesterday was quite the big day! (Yesterday? Sheesh what happened?) I thought you'd want to see some pics anyway. Even if I'm a slacker :)

Hey guys I made a little video of Jack while trying to catch him practicing his crawling.

Kind of fun and you can see how big he's getting!

And, to head off any comments on the subject,

I don't know when I'll be seeing you all next but we think about you all the time!

Love you all!

Lake pics

As you probably gathered from the last post it was lake weekend last week. And everyone but my camera had a great time! I have a few good shots, but mostly it was so hot that anytime I tried to pullout my camera to take pictures my lens would fog over

Phoeb's havin' a good time!

The girls tried laying out a few times of course they decided you couldn't do that without a stack of magazines. Here's Liv enjoying her Midwest Living or some other magazine not geared for teenager's or girls laying out :) I guess I should be genuinely happy but I can't help but laugh a little!

Here's Ally being taught by Anna how to hold her sparklers :) We've never been as careful with the fireworks as we probably should!

We of course had tons of fun in the water! This is Alex, Jack, Layna, & Livvy enjoying some float time :) They all came back crispy!

Surprise, surprise, this is where Layna spent most of her time!

Here's my boys wishing you a happy summer!

Happy 25th Anniversary at the lake!!

This is the cake I made for the 25th anniversary of lake house ownership for the Malter/Sperry/Blackburn Clan

We celebrated with chocolate cake and marble cake both filled with rich chocolate ganache and topped with a layer of the same yummy stuff!

It was wreathed in fondant leaves

I thought it looked pretty cool! The chocolate stripes remind me of a hat box :)

Oh do you know the muffin man?

This face is not unusual at our house... I decided to pull out the muffin tins today... Now I'm seeing faces like this....

He particularly likes it when there's food in the muffin tins :) ....

I might actually be able to make dinner now!

Thank goodness! We've finally met the muffin man!

Jon and Anna's Wedding Madness!

Well it was slight madness for me but that's all it takes right now! So 2 weeks ago it started with truffle making... ha, ha, ha! Yes I had planned on making 1,000 truffles.

What can I say I think big :) I only made it to 700 with the help of the lovely Suzanne who is currently staying with us. They were milk chocolate dipped in either white or dark chocolate. and most were specially decorated with little pink flowers or a squiggly S type of Monogram.

Then after leaving for Missouri last Friday morning I spent Saturday at a Civil War reenactment with my Mother and Sisters. Fun! Pretty much I love anything that involves dressing up! Then Monday morning we imposed on my good friend Laura and I started the cake. Wow! It was gorgeous! 6 tiers, the 1st one chocolate with chocolate chips and filled with chocolate buttercream, the 2nd was white filled with a cherry filling, then Marble with a coconut and pecan buttercream filling, then we had 2 layers of strawberry filled with strawberry buttercream :) , and it was topped with another chocolate layer filled with strawberry buttercream!!! Aah! It was so good! Here's pictures!

All the stuff sticking out of the sides was from a flower display behind it :)

This is a good close up so you can see a few of the details :D

I have to thank Both of my good friend Lauras! Laura McDavitt was absolutely incredible hosting us while I destroyed her kitchen and my children overran her house and she watched my baby and helped settle many of the decisions that were made during the cake and pictures process! And thank you Laura Aitchison who so willingly put us up in her house while we stayed for the wedding in Nauvoo, she guided me around to help with picture ideas, and helped me prep and choose pictures! Thank you Thank you to the fabulous Laura's in my life!

And this is a picture of the wonderful new little family that we did this for!

Congrats Jon & Anna! We love you!