I love baking!

1. It's no wonder I'm 10 lbs overweight.
2. I'm so excited to get to use all the Wilton decorating tips, food coloring, etc my mom gave me for my birthday.
3. I enjoy making & decorating fun cakes for my boys' birthdays.
4. I think it would be fun to buy all the Wilton cake pans in the world (haha) and start up a business of making cakes.
5. I made a chocolate cake (completely from scratch) last week--Hmmm I actually made 2 of them. lol They were yummy. The best part was the frosting.
6. I baked rolls this week just because I could--when I started out baking they would always end up heavy and hard, until I realized that you don't have to keep adding flour until the dough isn't sticky.
7. I love making our own pizza dough--especially since Hayden will actually EAT pizza.
8. I have finally found something that will make all that wheat in our food storage useful--thankfully my mom has that VERY loud electric wheat grinder.
9. I bake cookies--often. (again, see #1)
10. I'm always trying to think up in my head what new thing I'm going to make next--I think I'll try to make candies, which means I need to add some new flavorings to my kitchen.

There is nothing better than seeing the ones you love truly happy. My heart is so full right now, and I'm so thankful that Heavenly Father answers prayers. I remember once praying that others would see the light of Christ in me. Shortly after that my institute teacher commented that I had a wonderful countenance. Even those prayers that seem so small and insignificant are important to our Heavenly Father because they are important to us.



With that said, here are a few silly pictures of my boys, who mean the world to me.

So, there I am, minding my own business with my feet propped up on the computer (bad, I know), when all of the sudden Mooch Man pops his head up through my legs. It was pretty funny.

I've been Tagged!

And I guess since I have nothing else to write about, I'll do this.

Here are the rules: Write five things about yourself that nobody knows or that is unique to you. Then tag five of your friends.

1. I have weird thumb nails. It all started in High School when Holly and I went to get our nails done. Those acrylics messed up one of my thumb nails, and now both of them are weird/deformed. Somewhere along the line I developed a habit of pushing my cuticles down, and that's why they now grow dented. lol They are SO ugly.

2. I would love to go back to school someday to study Math Education or Interior Design. Anyone who has seen my house is probably wondering why Interior Design. Just because MY house isn't nicely decorated, doesn't mean I wouldn't LIKE to decorate it. :)

3. I would LOVE to move back to Cheney, Washington, and raise my kids there. I like small towns, but I have to be within 45 minutes of a Target and other major shopping.

4. I get a lot of my adult interaction through message boards. I belong to a forum online full of women who had babies in October 07. We all went through our pregnanies together, and I have made some great friends there. I have a hard time staying away.

5. I'm a big homebody. I want to make friends and get out, but most of the time I would rather stay at home with Allen & the boys. I know I need to get out every once in a while with the girls, but it's always hard to get to that point. Once I make myself go out, though, I always have fun and I'm glad I did.

Now it's your turn. I tag Anika, Tera, Lynnea, Bernadette, & Laura. :)

Ramblings...

Some of you may be wondering why I haven't mentioned anything else about moving, preparing to move, or nursing school... And the rest of you, well you probably already know that we're not moving to Utah.

Our decision to do nursing school was a very quick one. We felt good about it and started to move forward with the plans to move to Utah. We always asked Heavenly Father in our prayers that He would let us know if this decision wasn't right, or that He would confirm it if it was. When we didn't get the money we were hoping for, we were surprised. We have never had problems in the past getting federal funding for school. Some of this must have been due to the fact that Allen already has a bachelors degree. Then we applied for a small private loan, for which we were denied--also a shock since we both have excellent credit. Anyway, this made us stop and re-evaluate things. We found out that Weber State (online) will give resident tuition to a non-resident living out of Utah. So, we thought maybe we could go that route.

At the same time, we started thinking of other career paths we could pursue. That's when Law Enforcement came up. One thing that is really appealing to us about Law Enforcement is the idea of NOT going into more debt. Instead, Allen would get an education incentive for having his BA, AND we can focus on paying off the student loan debt that we already have.

We have looked into a few different police departments (Oregon, Washington, & Idaho State Police, King County, & Seattle PD), and we are leaning toward Seattle. It's still way too expensive here for us to ever buy (or want to buy) a house. So we'll focus on paying off our debt, and maybe Allen will be able to transfer to Idaho in a few years (or at least Eastern Washington or Oregon). Obviously, he doesn't have the job yet. He tests for Seattle PD in October. I don't think he'll have a problem getting hired, but you never know. Sometimes Heavenly Father has other plans.

Update

It's been a couple weeks since I've blogged, so I guess I better update. I'll just post some pictures of what we've been up to.

The boys & I "camped" in our living room.

Little Brother did the dishes... a few times.

We went to the zoo with Aunt Courtney & Uncle Shawn.

My big boy turned 3!

(Yes, he always has the Wii remote in his hands).

We got Allen to "sort of" smile for a picture.

We took sisterly pictures.

Today Mooch did a really cool thing.

He said family prayer all by himself. We asked him if he wanted to say the prayer. (Usually he says no, but a few times he has said yes and we would help him). So, tonight he said yes. Allen started helping him, but Hayden just went on and said the prayer all by himself. It went like this:

"Heavenly Father,
Thanks for this day,
Thanks for the food,
Thanks for Dad (we pray for Dad while he's at work),
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

We were just so proud of our little man. I got all choked up.

Another cool thing is that I think we're on our way to potty training. We've made some progress this week. Which includes (TMI) 2 "huge big poops" (as Mooch would say) in the toilet. I'm just lucky I caught him in time before he went in his diaper, otherwise it wouldn't have happened. And I have to bribe him with otterpops, or else he won't go anywhere near the toilet. Maybe there IS hope that he'll be out of diapers by the end of the year.

Memory

Here's a little game from my old roommate, Darcy.

Here are the directions:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.