“God Bless Us, Everyone!”

Wow, how did we get here? This year has flown by and dragged on forever all at the same time! It has been full of so many ups and downs, and blessings all along the way. Here’s our annual updates:

Nigel started a new position in a new team at work. He is a ‘scrum master’ (whatever that means!), working with the seminary and institute department. He loves his boss, who prefers everyone working from home, and loves the work he’s doing. He is also still working on Happy Giraffe, and has sold several books and attended a handful of farmers markets to talk to people this summer. Still playing pickleball every chance he gets, and loves his calling as ward clerk.

I (Laura) turned 40 in March (what?!) and have had my hands full with PTA at our new elementary school, and managing our home and all the behind the scenes work that requires.  I’ve been able to take a few cooking classes and a silk screening class through UVU this year. The end of last school year I was still substitute teaching, but decided to stop doing that just in time to move my mom in with us this fall after my dad passed away. I’ve been enjoying serving in the Saratoga Springs temple on Fridays, and love that our new, beautiful temple is so close!

Shey (17) is a senior! She is staying so busy with her two jobs… Cold Stone and T.A.’ing at a dance studio. She is taking hip hop classes from her Aunt Dani, and goes to the other high school to take seminary from her Uncle Dave. The rest of her free time she can be found reading, eating dino nuggets, baking macarons, or watching Korean Dramas with her mom.

Donny (13) has reached middle school. He is on the ballroom team, and loves 6:45 am practices a lot more than I like waking up to take him! He is still playing the piano and  has enjoyed learning Jon Schmidt songs this year. We’ve also learned what it’s like to have a teenage boy, and gained a deeper understanding of the phrase “eating us out of house and home!”

Violet (9) is loving her activity days teachers and her 3^rd grade class. She loves playing with friends, reading Dog Man books, and eating macaroni and cheese any chance she gets. She still beats us any time she joins the family playing games, and keeps us laughing all the time.

With all the different things we’ve experienced this year, the most important is our time we’ve been able to spend as a family. We are grateful for eternal families and for our Savior, Jesus Christ, that makes that possible. We were able to have a Bloomfield family reunion at Nigel’s parent’s house this summer on Lake Michigan, and got to be with all of my family in September. We are so blessed to have amazing friends and family, and count each one of you as a blessing in our lives.

Happy Holidays, and hope you have an amazing 2024!

With love, the Bloomfields

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas!

Happy Holidays to all of our friends and family… we are so blessed to know you and have you as part of our lives! Since we are not good at keeping up with social media (or old-fashioned keeping in contact with people) we decided that this would be a good way to share our “Christmas Newsletter” update of our lives.

Nigel has been so busy this year! After working on his book for probably a decade, he finally published his book, The Happy Giraffe, in April, and started his non-profit this year as well. He helps people budget, and recently found out that someone even in Finland has been using his program/spreadsheet! Nigel started a new job in November, still working for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, just in a new department, and he is loving it. He is helping with process improvement and is currently helping with some HR data issues. He also just got called to be the ward finance clerk, which is his “dream job,” and plays pickleball weekly with some ward friends.

I (Laura) just got released from being the YW President. I am not in ward YW for the first time in 7 1/2 years, and I’m feeling a little out of place. But my new calling is a counselor in the Stake YW Presidency, so I’m looking forward to learning my new duties and shifting assignments although I miss my girls so much! I have been subbing at the schools this year, just once a week or so, and am enjoying that opportunity, too. And incase my life wasn’t busy enough, I am also the PTA president this year and have kept busy helping out at the school.

Shey is a Junior at Cedar Valley HS, and turned 16 in March. She bought herself a car, named it Carson, and has been enjoying the freedom that comes with a drivers license. She has worked at Cold Stone for 18 months and is now a shift leader, cake decorator, and makes the caramel apples for Rocky Mountain. She loves baking and reading and when she is home, she is either on Pinterest or watching Korean dramas with me. She took a trip to Chicago/Michigan to spend a few weeks with cousins this summer and had an amazing time with them.

Donovan is in 6th grade at Hidden Hollow Elementary. He loves math and science and engineering. He is on the Lego League robotics team. Last February his team won Best Robot Design at their competition and went on to state. This year he is robot captain and takes his job very seriously. Donny took an engineering class at UVU this summer and loved it! And he tried out running his own power-raking company in the spring, where he learned that manual labor is really hard work! He is also enjoying Deacons Quorum and piano lessons. In his free time, he is either watching National Geographic documentaries or Mark Rober videos.

Violet is in 2nd grade this year. This will be her last year at Hidden Hollow, as they changed our school boundaries, and she is very sad to leave it. She loves playing with her toys, watching Bluey, and creating/drawing/coloring/crafting whenever she can. She loves activity days and loves that she got to stop taking piano lessons (I gave up)! Her 8th birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year, and she was baptized that weekend, which she did not enjoy. She came out of the water and said she never wanted to get baptized again! Haha.

Other family highlights from this year:

We took an impromptu family vacation to Los Angeles in September to see Pentatonix at the Hollywood Bowl. It was a really fun week checking out the space museum and swimming and going to the temple, and sitting in a lot of traffic.

We also took a vacation to San Diego instead of celebrating Thanksgiving, since we had a birthday to celebrate instead. So, we had three crazy days of the zoo, Sea World, and Legoland! We were ready for a vacation after our vacation, but we enjoyed our time and Violet loved having a whole “birthday week!”

We played a lot of board games (I lost a lot of board games) and we are finally getting Violet on board with playing with us! She doesn’t always join, but we enjoy spending family time together when we get the chance… its definitely fewer and further between with a teenager and pre-teen!

Most days are busy and tiring and filled with “all the things,” just as I’m sure your days are, but the happy moments sprinkled in our lives are when we are with family and friends, so thank you for being a part of that, whether we got to visit with you in person or just think about you from afar. We love you and hope all the best things for you, and are so grateful that the Lord has blessed us with the best “people.”

Birthday Bash

Today was Donny’s birthday party.  We were supposed to just do something simple, but ended up with a full on bash.  It was spy themed, and I threw it together in about a week!  But thanks to the interwebs and the pinterest, I came up with a fun party that I think the kids enjoyed!

For my party people, here is the link to all the pictures:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/d9Esox2OQsdqyoqr1

The party really started before the party even began… the invitations had a code the kids had to break to RSVP for their spot on Donny’s spy team.  This was brilliant on my part, if I do say so myself.  I knew exactly how many people would be here and exactly what to expect, where usually most people don’t actually RSVP.  So I know it’s my own horn, but *TOOT TOOT*!

The kids thought they were just going through typical spy training (code names, fingerprinting, obstacle course, disguise skills,  target practice, laser beams)… and earned stars on their badges once each area was completed.  When they finished, they went to go get their prizes but someone had stolen all the candy.  They then found spy tools in the spy vault (punch wall) and used them to solve the mystery. Turned out that Nigel had stolen it, and once they caught him they chased him around the yard as they played “human pinata” (Donny’s favorite game! Nigel’s least favorite game) where the candy was returned to the kids and they loaded up their bags.

Their name badges had a QR code that linked to the pictures from the party.  I messed this up, however, so I had to send them here to get their pictures, but had it worked it would have been awesome. 🙂

It was a good time, I think.

Caramel Apples

Okay, so I’ve had a few people ask for my caramel apple recipe.  I will say that I started with Robert Irvine’s recipe and tweaked it to what I like, so I’m not the mastermind behind these, but I do think its a delicious caramel apple! So, enjoy!

• 1 pound brown sugar*
• 1 cup salted butter, room temperature
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1/2 cup “pancake” syrup (maple flavored)
• 2 teaspoons mild molasses*
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 12-14 granny smith apples, depending on size, room temperature
• wooden sticks

First, fill your sink with hot tap water and a few squirts of dish soap.  Put all your apples in the water and one by one wash the apples off with a clean scrubby.  I use a stainless steel scrubby from the dollar store, but any scrubber will work. This is to remove the wax that the store puts on the apples to make them look nice. If you leave it on, the caramel will not stick to the apple.  Rinse with water and dry with a paper towel.  Place apple stem side down on a tray and stick a wooden skewer into each apple (yes, upside down). Place in the fridge while making your caramel.

Combine all the remaining ingredients together in a large saucepan, and stir with a wooden spoon over a medium heat until all the sugar has dissolved and is not gritty.

Clip a candy thermometer on to the side of the pan and bring the sugar mixture to a rolling boil over medium heat, and cook until the thermometer reads 236 degrees F. Pour into a stainless steel bowl and allow it to cool to 200 degrees F.

Line a cookie sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.

Dip each apple into the 200 degrees F caramel, watching carefully, so as not to dip your fingers into the caramel. Remove the excess caramel by shaking the apples in a downward movement over the caramel bowl, scrape the bottom of the apples off on the bowl and then transfer to the cookie sheet. Repeat with remaining apples. Trust me when I say that the bottom of the apples should not have caramel on them.  You’ll fix this later!

Once all the apples are done, place the tray back in the fridge until the caramel is set up.  I prefer overnight, but even just an hour or two would be good enough.  Take the caramel that has pooled at the bottom of the apple and gently push it under the apple where you scraped off the caramel before.  Push it back down on the mat/parchment to smooth it out.

At this point, you can be done OR you can dip them in chocolate and toppings.  (My favorite is white chocolate with cinnamon sugar!) Add a little oil to your chocolate to thin it out so that it goes on well.  Do the same shaking and scraping process as you did with the caramel and let them set up before bagging them or eating them.  If the apples are cold it should set up pretty quickly.

Caramel apples do not need to be stored in the fridge, but I like to use the fridge to set up the caramel and chocolate.

*Different brown sugars will result in different flavors of caramel.  Dark brown sugar makes a very rich, deep flavor of caramel.  Light brown sugar is obviously a much lighter flavor.  My favorite is probably golden brown sugar, and then I add an extra tsp. of molasses.  You can also use dark molasses if you want an even deeper flavor of caramel.

You can also use real maple syrup rather than “pancake syrup.”  I don’t want maple overtones so I prefer to use the pancake syrup that just has some maple flavoring in it.  Also, caramel apples are already very expensive to make, I don’t want to add to my cost!

Well, that’s it.  I hope that wasn’t too crazy.  It is easier to demonstrate it than to type it out, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask me.  I’m definitely not an expert, but I have made them quite a few times, and this is by far my favorite recipe. Good luck!

Magic Cupcakes

I made these a few weeks ago for my YW President’s surprise birthday party activity. They were DELICIOUS! They are a dark chocolate cupcake with a peanut butter cup baked in the middle, topped with peanut butter frosting and (a half) a reeses cup to finish them off. I had a few requests for the recipe, so I figured this was the easiest way of sharing it with everyone.

Magic Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes
*Recipe is adapted from Better Homes & Gardens Jr. Cookbook

makes 24 cupcakes

2 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
2/3 c. sugar
2/3 c. packed brown sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3 eggs
1 1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. oil
2 tsp. vanilla
24 bite-size Reeses peanut butter cups

Prep:
Preheat oven to 350*. Put paper cups in each muffin cup. Unwrap bite-size peanut butter cups. Set aside.

Mix first seven ingredients (dry ingredients) in a medium bowl.
Put wet ingredients in a large bowl and add flour mixture, whisking until smooth.
Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups, filling about half full. Place a peanut butter cup on the center of the batter in each cup. (Do not push down into the batter).

Place in the oven for about 15 minutes or until tops spring back when lightly pressed with your finger. Place pan on a cooling rack and cool for 5 minutes before removing cupcakes from pan. Set on cooling rack and cool completely.

Frosting:

1 cup peanut butter
1 cup butter
5+ cups powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp milk

Put peanut butter and butter in bowl and beat together. Add half the powdered sugar and mix until combined. Next, add vanilla and milk, and then continue to add powdered sugar until you get the consistency that you want. This should make enough to top the cupcakes by piping on a large mound (as pictured). If you are just wanting to spread a smaller amount onto the cupcakes, you could probably half this recipe. But we eat cupcakes because of their massive frosting to cake ratio, don’t we?!

To finish off, I threw some white pearlized sprinkles on top and finished off with a cut-in-half normal size Reeses cup in the middle. Enjoy!

Gymnastics

Donny completed his first gymnastics performance on Saturday. Trying not to be biased here, but I really did think he was the best one in his class. He will take it again next year as part of his preschool there at Tanglewoods, and I hope that he continues wanting to do it after that, too. It has been good for him this year, although he gets frustrated when the other kids don’t listen (yes, I’m sure he is ALWAYS attentive and behaves perfectly. that definitely sums up my child.) Anyway, here are the clips:

Nigel and the girls watching the action.

Donny and his teacher, Sarah.

Master Chef

Well, we now have a nine year old living in our home. Where did the last almost decade go?! I feel completely inadequate to raise a 9 year old, not to mention her TWO siblings, but I am excited for Shey to get older, to experience fun things and find her interests and talents. Shey amazes me with her positive attitude, her kindness, and her love for Donny and Violet. I really do feel blessed to have her as a daughter, as she teaches me every day.

Birthday sprinkle pancakes… one of Shey’s favorite birthday traditions.

Birthday Dinner at Tucanos… Shey with her Mango Cod Fish… her very favorite food in the world!

We quite enjoyed our meal. It had been two years since we’ve been there!

And the Birthday Girl with her cake… check out the smoke from the candles! She must be getting old!

Of course, with a birthday comes a birthday party in this house… this year’s theme was MasterChef Jr. The kids decorated hats and aprons, made their own smoothies, had a blind taste test, and decorated cupcakes. Triniti (the girl on the back row with the glasses) won the award! She blew us all away with her kitchen skills! And I think everyone had a good time. Grandma, Grandpa, and Amy (and Sam) came up for the party. G’Pa and Amy were the judges, and all three helped out so much, I couldn’t have done it without them! Shey thanked me for the party later that afternoon, so I’m pretty sure that means it was a success. 🙂

Too Cool for School

Normally I do not take pictures of my kids during day-to-day stuff, and especially during the tantrums, etc. But last week I couldn’t resist during the biggest tantrum Donny has ever had. It lasted about an hour, so I had plenty of time to snap a few shots on my phone. First, I’ll share the story behind it. I was writing it down in my journal in real time because it was seriously the funniest thing ever, and I have to remember it forever.

From my journal:

So Donny doesn’t generally have temper tantrums… something I’m VERY grateful of. But right now he is having the biggest tantrum of his life. It all started (for me) when Shey and Donny came into my room for prayer this morning. I was up with Violet until 4:30, so I didn’t wake up earlier than this to help Shey get ready (thank goodness she is so responsible!) Anyway, they walked in and Donny was dressed, ready to go to school with Shey. I explained (thinking they were kidding) that he couldn’t go. Donny started crying and insisted that he was going. I said no again and sent Shey on her way. A few seconds later I heard the front door open and close. I assumed Donny was just going out to hug her goodbye and come back in. After counting to 10 in my head he had not come back yet, so I ran outside and there they were — halfway to the school! I drug him back home where he cried and yelled and kicked the floor. After a few minutes he came up and told me he WAS going- he had his bag packed and his lunch packed and the Holy Ghost was going to help him. “What’s the Holy Ghost going to help you do?” The Holy Ghost was going to stop me from being mean and being the boss because the Holy Ghost is boss! He then threatened to pray, which he did. I couldn’t understand the words of his tear-filled prayer, but after, he looked up and said “THERE! I PRAYED ABOUT IT AND I’M GOING TO SCHOOL!” I explained that Heavenly Father and the Holy Ghost can’t help us break rules, even if we pray about it. He opened his backpack and showed me his crayons and paper and stickers and told me about the lunch that Shey packed for him. He’s calmed down now, so maybe the prayer did help him — just not in the way he was hoping for!

Further update: when Shey got home from school that day, she had a pillow in her backpack… in case Donny wanted to take a nap while he was at school with her. I asked her why she would think that he could go to school with her and she just said “I don’t know… I just thought of it!” The next day she was upset again that Donny will only go to Kindergarten when she is in 5th grade, so they won’t get to play together and they’ll only have the one year together. I sure hope that she continues to love her brother so much! And, needless to say, since then I have made sure that I’m fully awake before Shey goes to school in the mornings!

Isn’t he the cutest tantrum-er ever?! Donny saying his prayer…

Winter Wonderland

It has been quite an eventful few months, though not really eventful at all. We did get a little snow in November… I was surprised at how much Donny LOVED the snow.  He woke me up in the morning being fully dressed and ready to go outside.  It was adorable to watch him walk around in the back yard, using his sandbox toys to play in the snow, or just explore the cold.  I cannot relate to this at all, so I’m guessing its the boy in him.  He is too cute! I have taken up crocheting recently, and he told me he wanted a monster hat.  Thank goodness for YouTube or I wouldn’t be able to comply to his request! I would say that my world was turned literally upside down on Nov 24th.  Days and nights were flipped as Violet Mae came charging into our life.  She was a whopping 7 lbs 11 oz and 20 inches long. Here is me right before she came, feeling quite large and in charge: These two cannot get enough of their little sister!  They love her so much!  Donny worries when I drop him off at school that I won’t know how to take care of her myself.  (somehow, I’ve been able to manage thus far) This is our sweet Violet on ‘going home day.’  I was Strep-B positive, so we had to stay for two days.  But I was so glad to get home to the rest of the fam and in my own bed! This gorgeous pecan pie was given to me by my friend Cammie.  Isn’t it beautiful?!  Between her and our other friends, the Bodreros, we had a full Thanksgiving feast despite the homecoming just the day before! This was our FHE lesson about donuts… being grateful for what you have and not worrying about the little bit you didn’t get (missing the hole in the middle of the donut).  We had a few traditions that we didn’t quite keep this year for Christmas because of our addition, so I wanted the kids to focus on the things we were able to do and the gifts we were able to give and receive instead of focusing on what we were missing out on.  All in all, I think we got most of the traditions covered anyway, just had to adjust a few. *As far as Donny’s dress…??? he thinks he is hilarious when he comes down in Shey’s clothes. I REALLY hope he grows out of this stuff someday, although he makes us laugh for now! We had Parent’s Day at gymnastics so I got to go watch Donny’s awesomeness for the first time… he’s a natural! 🙂 Grandma & Grandpa and Amy & Sammy got to come visit the week after Violet was born.  Sam, 6 1/2 weeks older, was literally/exactly twice her size!  They are too cute! Oh, and the kids got to go swimming at G’ma&G’pa’s hotel.  They love any excuse to get in the water! We went to see Santa the Monday before Christmas… had to fit it in last second!… down in Ogden.  It was freezing cold, but well worth the wait!  Santa was awesome and my kids loved seeing him.  They kept warm during the wait by dancing around… of course! Oh, yeah… maybe it was bitter cold because I forgot a jacket! Brilliant. Violet stayed toasty warm in her snowsuit and snuggled up to me, though! I picked Thai food after Santa… it was delicious as always!  
This was Violet on Christmas Eve… four weeks and one day old!  She is growing so fast!

Christmas Jammies on Christmas Eve.  I know I’m a little bias, but I’m pretty sure these are the cutest kids I’ve ever seen! 🙂 Christmas morning… stockings! New pacifier from Uncle Mike and Aunt Liana… Oh, Donny.  He cracks me up!  I didn’t get the full effect shot with his monster slippers, too, but you can see them in the pic below this one… Shooting close-range at his puppy (named Break)… should I be worried?! Carmel Apple Bar for lunch.  Donny wasn’t too interested, but the rest of us had fun!  It was a pinterest idea that didn’t quite meet my expectations since caramel doesn’t stick to the inside part of an apple, so it was messier than I expected, but still tasted delicious, so can’t complain too much! 🙂*Insert baby blessing weekend here.  I forgot my camera at home!  So, we have no pictures of the day besides what is on my dad’s camera.  I will eventually have to get them from him I guess.  But, below is my SIX WEEK OLD!  Six weeks can go by so fast when you don’t sleep at all!  She is a crier/screamer, for sure, but we love her.  She is just starting to smile a little bit.  We can’t always get it out of her, but she is getting there, and we are all constantly in her face trying to claim one!

Thank heaven for little boys…

My sweet Donny boy turned 4 this week.  It was a bitter-sweet day for me… my baby is growing up so fast!  And yet, it seems like an eternity since I brought him home from the hospital.  I love that he is growing up.  I love his attempt at using big words and his attempt at telling jokes (which never have a punchline).  He is such a gentleman and MUST hold the door open for anyone/everyone no matter where we are, and he cracks me up when he constantly gives out these compliments to everyone around him.  His friend was over the other day and he says “Ty, you look REALLY COOL today!”  or he’ll tell me I did a great job on something or tell Shey she looks pretty or cute. He is my ball of energy that drives me crazy most of the time, but has this special place in my heart that I hope never ever goes away.

The day started of with the traditional sprinkle pancakes.

 This was definitely a hit, as he LOVES pancakes, and he was so excited to get a number 4 pancake for his special day. Then he had gymnastics during the day and got a lot of extra tv time on top of that.  He decided to go to Pizza Pie Cafe for his birthday dinner… it is a pizza buffet.  Luckily, they have a salad bar, too, so I was able to eat something!  We had a fun time and afterwards came home and ate cupcakes that Shey decorated and opened gifts.  He had a fabulous day, I think.

Aren’t they adorable?!  We kind of pulled this one out of nowhere… Shey wanted to make monster cupcakes with the hair/grass tip that I have for frosting, and so we kind of just went from there.  The eyeballs are candy melts and the mouths are a black sugar sheet I had in the cupboard, with white sprinkles for teeth.  I think Shey did an awesome job on her little creations! 🙂

On Friday, with Nigel home on his day off from work, we had a Wild Kratts Birthday party for him.  I was a bit overwhelmed to think that we would have 8 kids there (including Donny & Shey), but in all honesty it was probably the easiest party I’ve ever done.  He had a great time and I think all the other kids did, too.  I am just glad it is over!

This was one of our games… with platypus power.  It was just the traditional egg&spoon race.  Hilarious when they’re so little and don’t understand that they’re even racing and really can’t hold the egg on the spoon!

This was our cheetah power game… they each had a tail and had to chase each other trying to get everyone else’s tail.  This lasted a lot longer than I thought it would… some of those boys were FAST!!!

This was spider power… I got a pinata that has the pull strings rather than one you have to hit with a stick, so they each pulled a ‘spider web string’ to get their food.  Donny requested a pinata, so this was the only way I could think of to incorporate it into an animal power.

Shark power… they had to ‘swim’ through the balloons to find an ocean animal (stuffed animal) on the other side and then ‘swim back.’  Donny was super excited about this one, and went a little crazy, but it was fun to have him enjoy it so much.

This was our “Tortuga HQ.”  Each kid got to punch a button to find out what animal power we would get next.  This was also a request from Donny as he had a punching wall at his last birthday party.  This year we went heavy duty and made it out of MDF board and felt bags so it would be reusable.  It didn’t take much longer to make it this way rather than a one-time-use out of foam board, and everyone seems to LOVE a punching wall, so I’m sure we will use it time and time again!

Donny with his cake.  This was quite an ordeal of itself!  We were trying to just find an animal themed cake at the grocery store, but nothing was working, so I had to make one instead.  There weren’t any ideas on Pinterest or Google that I really loved, but I found one with a somewhat similar idea to this one and ran with it & made it my own.  I think it turned out pretty well.  I went with marshmallow fondant, which I normally don’t make, but I went to a fondant class a few weeks ago and she swore by it, so I attempted it once again.  It never got hard, but it tastes like marshmallows, so my kids loved it.  They picked the real fondant off Shey’s cake and threw it all away, so I was happier, I guess, that they at least thought this was edible!

Rhett got cut out of the picture… sorry dude… but this was the gang.  NOTE: press & seal over the cups DOES work, thank you pinterest!  I couldn’t find the Solo cups with lids in Brigham, so I tried this idea that I had seen on pinterest a while back and sure enough it worked.  It wasn’t the classiest looking, but saved me from a bunch of pre-K kids spilling chocolate milk all over the place!

And my two kiddos with their Creature Power Suits on. You can’t tell from this picture, but maybe you can see in earlier ones… the biggest circle actually has a layer of clear vinyl sewed on it, creating a pocket so that they can put their creature power discs in them.  These were a few days of work, but well worth it to me.  I went with fleece so I didn’t have to sew them, and I hot glued all the felt and velcro on, so all I had to sew was the vinyl circle… not too bad!  Donny loved his party and that was really the most important part to me.  (I’m just glad the details all worked out, too!)

Post birthday celebrations:

We had a halloween cookie decorating activity we went to with our city library on Saturday.  It was fun for the kids to get to make sugar cookies.  We haven’t (other than birthday cake) had much sweets in the house for the last six weeks, so I think they were pretty excited to do it.  

So there was this cookie cutter and none of us knew what it was supposed to be exactly, but after I put yellow frosting on it I thought it looked like a pregnant banana.  So, that is what it is… Donny has told me multiple times in the last two days how much he loves the pregnant banana and how he could never eat it because he loves it so much.  For me, I just feel like I know how she feels!  We are getting excited to bring a new baby into our family, and we are counting down the days until I can stop being pregnant!

And… we spent our Saturday afternoon at the Trampoline Park in Logan.  The kids love this place.  I was jealous that I couldn’t jump in there with them, but knew that if I jumped into that foam pit then BEST case scenario I’d pee my pants… WORST case this baby would pop out and then we’d all be in trouble!  So, Nigel and I just watched from the sidelines this time.

I love my family.  I love being with them and am so nervous to start over with another one, but I know that she will only add joy to what we already have.  I am so blessed to have my kids and my husband… they bring purpose to my life.  They are my strength, they cause me the most pain and the most joy all at the same time, and I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.