I was reading Megan’s blog and although she didn’t tag anyone I thought I would take her up on her invitation tag. This tag asks you to go to your fourth picture folder and fourth picture in that folder you are to post and blog about it.
Well so here is what I came up with:

I made this cake for Jake’s first birthday. Actually it is the first cake I ever decorated so I am pretty pleased with it. It is not professional by far but it is the cake I caught the cake decorating bug on. This is obviously his pre- monster truck stage. It is supposed to be an airplane that says “Jacob Air” on the top. It has cloud cupcakes surrounding and a sun.

That day we had my family and Tyler’s family over for cake and ice cream. It was fun. I remember crying all day because he wasn’t a baby anymore. I kept thinking, ” Where did the time go?  How did he grow so quickly?” Little did I know that it was just the beginning of a trend and that time would always fly by and I just need to enjoy the ride.

This picture was taken in our first home. Ironically enough I was just looking at pictures of that house when we were building it and thinking how much I miss it and the simplicity of the life we had there. I love our home now and the way things are now, its just nice to reflect back on life and enjoy the the different stages you had to go through to get to where you are now.

Now I also extend the invitation to anyone who wants to join in on the fun. It is interesting to see what you come up with and reminisce.

Now this may seem lame but Ty and I don’t go on very many vacations due to lack of fun funds but luckily we were forced to go to Logan earlier this month to my younger brother’s baby blessing. It was so nice to get out of the house after being stuck in for so long. We drove into Logan taking a sort of scenic tour which this time of the year was well worth it.

I love how the farms look like a quilt.

The first place we stopped was the Pepperidge Farm factory and that is always nice. However, this time we walked in right after the person who took the last of the Milanos. I thought Tyler was going to either freak out at me for being so slow or tackle the woman. Weird thing I ran into my first companion ( or mission mom we called our trainers) while there. I think I was more excited to see her than she was to see me. Which was actually a surprise since I thought we had worked out our differences. Oh well. 

Then we went to  Gossner Foods were Tyler and Jake looked like he was in heaven with all the free samples of cheese and milk. At Gossner Foods they sell milk that you don’t have to refrigerate and it is perfect for food storage. They have plain milk as well as several different flavors such as root beer, mango, banana and the classics- Strawberry and Chocolate. We left with a couple of flats of milk for our food storage and a few bricks of smoked cheese- our favorite. 

Later we went to the Logan Temple, not inside,  just drove around outside, We stopped to let the kids roll down the steep hill and they loved it…well Jake did anyway, Elizza was freaked out she got wet grass on her hands.

Jake rolling down the grass hill.

What a woose.

 Its a beautiful temple with lots of character in more ways than one.

Logan Temple

Sign by temple says: Thou shalt not park here

Building that housed the Copper Mill Restaurant

neat little gallery

I know it sounds like all we did was eat but Logan is known for their Food tour. So to work off all those treats we ended the day with swimming. The kids loved this part the best.

Growing up my mom used to sew our costumes and we used to dress up in themed costumes like one year we were soda pops, another year my dad was the bun, my mom was the hamburger and we were the toppings, one time we were playing cards, but my favorite memory of the costumes my mom came up with was my dad was Snow White and we were the seven dwarfs. Well I always had high hopes that when I had my own family I could continue on the tradition.  Everything was set for my theme costumes for this year  Marriah was little Miss Muffet, Elizza was Little Bo Peep, Ty and I were Jack and Jill and then there was our one exception who took all the fun out of my ideas and traditions by dressing up in scrubs and being a doctor although if you asked him he would tell you he was a monster truck doctor and wouldn’t be anything different even though I did everything to convince and bribe him to go along with the family and be a nursery rhyme character. Oh well, we had fun all dress up going to our Neighborhood Halloween Party, Melaleuca’s trick or treat day at their office, Ward trunk or treat and regular trick or treating to the empty nesters and widows in our ward. It was neat how grateful the widows and empty-nesters were that we stopped we told them we would stop for free candy anytime. It is sad how many don’t get visited anymore, they would say how years ago they would have tons of trick-or-treaters and now they only get a few and how they miss seeing all the kids in their costumes. We decided even though it is a hassle to get the kids in and out of the car and brave the cold and rain it was worth it to visit with people and make them happy- oh and get more candy, seems like because they don’t get many that stop they buy better candy like the mini candy bars and cans of pop. Needless to say we got tons of candy.

Little Miss Muffet not scared of spider after all.

Elizza dressed in childhood doll dress.

Monster Truck Doctor to the rescue

In my last blog I gave a heads up that this was coming so I better follow through with it. There are three reasons now for writing this 1) for posterity purposes 2) to help you know my kids and 3) the final reason is for me. Jake’s preschool teacher asked the parents to write a note about what their child was good at, and sadly enough I actually had to sit and think about this. I am so caught up in what he is doing wrong all the time and getting on his case that I forget to look at the great and wonderful qualities he does have, needless to say it was a very humbling and wonderful experience and I am glad she gave us this assignment. Today, of all days, is probably the day I needed to write about his good qualities the most since he has hit my last nerve.

I guess I should start out by saying why we named him Jacob Tyler. His middle name was given to him for obvious reasons but Jacob was a name Tyler knew he wanted to name his oldest son since his mission. I, on the other hand, had to be convinced. I hated the name Jacob because I knew a kid named Jacob (we called Jake the Flake because it fit) and this guy was the biggest geek ever, so the name Jacob was not my favorite by far. One day, Tyler told me the story of Jacob Ashcraft, the first person to join the church in the Ashcraft family and so I, being a sucker for a good conversion story, would have agreed to any name at that point. I have since gotten used to the name and feel it fits him perfectly (not the flake part though).