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.

Konnichiwa! Elizza in Japanese home.

Jacob Pan in England.

Jake and Elizza in Germany

One of my favorite pictures- Elizza in England

Marriah teaching good oral hygiene

Pres. Marriah in the Oval office-now that's more like it.

  President Ty or King Tyler the first, which one will it be?

 Jacob and Elizza in the Participlay. Jake was the duck and Elizza the lamb. Jake did great joining the group but Elizza liked sitting next to the witch that was supposed to be ostracized by the rest of the animals in the forest. It was sweet, I guess she didn’t like seeing her sit alone.

Marriah and I sitting on grandma's lap

 After the Treehouse Museum we checked into our hotel in Layton and headed around the corner to Chuck E . Cheese. For you Utahans this may be a regular occurrence but we aren’t so lucky in Idaho so this was our first time there and we loved it. I think Tyler and I had more fun playing the games than the kids did.

Elizza- future back seat driver

Jake giving Tyler a run for his money.

Hugging Chuck

Marriah and Jake loved hugging Chuck but Elizza was afraid of the overgrown rat and I don’t blame her one bit. After a few hours at Chuck E. Cheese we decided to got back to the hotel and swim before the pool closed and that is where the real adventure began, but I will let Tyler blog about that. (Note to readers it is not Ty’s bottle trick). The next day we enjoyed time with my family and watching the priesthood in action. It was a great trip we had a lot of fun and great memories were made.

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