3 Year Old on the Loose

We invited a few friends to help us celebrate Sam's birthday Friday night. Sam wanted a Rescue Bot cake, so I searched Pinterest hoping there would be something within my limited ability to deliver. Thankfully other moms had come up with a pretty simple way to create the cake. I had a sweet helper that loved to climb up behind me during the process. I started just squirting chocolate out on another piece of parchment paper trying to keep him from climbing all over me. It worked pretty well.

Sam's friends who came to his party were Cruz Hunnicutt, Mattie Jenkins, and of course Ella who he says is his best friend. They brought along their brothers and sisters which made for a fun and loud house! Patrick and I had a good time visiting, too.

Sam had been waiting for his birthday since Jack's birthday in September. He was always sad it wasn't his turn yet. So when the time came to sing to him and blow out his candles he was more than ready! We sang, "Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you," and he blew out his candles, haha. He was definitely the messiest eater of the cake. I don't think another kid had it all over them (or the floor) like he did.  He really enjoyed every bite. He'd been wanting a piece since I had frosted it the day before and asked for cake at each meal time.

Samuel Owen Big Boy (you like to be addressed this way),

You are our all boy boy. You love all things boy. Will and Jack were never into super heroes or wrestling until they were a lot older than 3. You have grown up watching them and loving all the things they love and thinking you are just as big as them. You have been a super chill, go-with-the-flow kid. You have probably been my easiest so far and take disappointments really well. You are so super sweet and most of the time have the best manners. You don't love sharing too much, but I'm betting you'll grow out of that. We love you so so much and are so happy we are a family.

Love,
Mom

Valentine's Day

Sugar Sugar

Layla and Olivia came over a little unexpectedly one day. I asked them if they had any ideas of fun things we could do and not surprisingly they wanted to make cookies...for their mom. Layla suggested Lemon Whipper Snappers - so tasty and so easy! Still it was not without the mess. The part where you roll the cookies in powdered sugar, oh man what a mess it made, but the girls had fun and so did I. I made them take their clothes off and stay in the kitchen so I could take them (the clothes) outside and shake off the excess. Luckily, Will slept through the whole thing.

Once Will did Wake up, the girls were happy to entertain while I finished tidying up the kitchen. When I walked into the living room I found Will's play pen made into a cage and all three of them in there having a grand time. So I had to snap a picture.

BUZZ

My new calling(responsibility) at church is Enrichment Night leader. That basically means I'm in charge of an activity every quarter for the women at church (Relief Society). Well a couple weeks ago was my first one. The theme was milk and honey and we talked about food storage with home canning and dry pack canning. One of the things I did was make a cake--a "Sweet Beehive Cake" mind you. It turned out pretty good. It didn't look just like the picture (like always), and I did it a little different as well. But most importantly it tasted good - according to Layla and Olivia anyway. I would definitely do a few things different but I doubt I will ever need to make a beehive cake again.