Milestones

Back to School!
Back to school time brings such mixed feelings for a parent.  At least this one anyway.  On one hand, I'm so very sad to see summer over already & have to entrust them with a teacher & a group of students to be their guide & mold them - with probably more influence than I can ever give them as their mom.  It's so sad to see them grow up so fast & watch the grade levels tick up so quickly... I feel like I just had them in my arms just yesterday & blinked just a little too fast.  And knowing that this is the last time I will ever have a "first day of school" experience with one of my littles kinda breaks my heart.  Having the house so quiet in the mornings is a little tough too.  I've grown accustomed to being bombarded with Bubble Guppies songs in one room & the soothing sounds of zombie blasting in the other. ;)  But I will be totally honest with you.  Despite all of that, it was kinda nice to drop them all off, have a quiet walk home while we sip our tea, then enjoy a three mile run with my husband.  Freedom is nice.  It scares the crap outta me & it makes me sad too... but it's nice!! lol  (I think that will only make sense to a mom in the same boat as me right now! lol)

My three big kids ready for their first day of school!

I kinda wish there was Facebook & Pinterest back in the days of Mark & Gavin's first days of school so I could've thought to do this!  So cute!  Essentially the child wants to be Doc McStuffins when she grows up.  I'm okay with that! lol

 And incidentally, Natalie now thinks that it's customary to take a picture before every day of school!  We've taken one every day this week.  ;) lol

Walking to school with daddy.

Anyway, Mark is now in 6th grade (WHAT?!?!), Gavin's in 5th, & Natalie has just started Pre-K.  Almost old enough for Kindergarten, but that darn October birthday got in the way.  Oh well.  I get to hang on to her for one extra year. ;)  The way my kids' school works is 5th & 6th grades do a lot of working together (so do 7th & 8th).  So if I didn't treat my kids like twins before (I do.  Often.  I totally do.  Always have!) then I certainly will now.  They're sharing teachers & classroom experiences & it's kinda fun!  We were worried about how that would work out in the sibling rivalry department, but so far so good! :)  Natalie, my little shy girl, had a hard time letting go of Mommy's arm the first day, but she did, & neither of us cried (a little lump in my throat, but I did good!) and she had a great first day.  She LOVES her teacher & has so far brought me home three pretty paintings.  I love preschool! :)

Also while we're on the topic of milestones, I feel the need to mention that my little girl tied her own shoes yesterday morning!  It adds a full 5 minutes to our morning routine now, but that's totally okay!  She's VERY proud of herself, & I am too! :)

Let Our Birthday Season Begin!
One thing I haven't had time to blog yet is Mark's birthday!!  My baby boy turned ELEVEN on the 23rd.  How does that happen!?!  Quit growing so fast dude!  It's Gavin's turn for the real birthday party this year, but Mark got to have a couple of buddies stay the night before school started.  They had a good time playing Minecraft like it was going out of style.  (Which it may have already where you live.  Here in Vermont our kids were still into Pokemon just last year! lol)

Mark & his presents.  We wrapped his new backpack too because we're mean cruel parents who think a brand new L.L. Bean backpack is gift-worthy.  What were we thinking! ;) lol

The boys laughing at Gavin's card.  Something with a "nut" reference.  Sigh.  Boys.  ;)

A new Kindle Fire!!  He got a Nook tablet for Christmas last year & let me tell you, the thing is junk.  We felt so bad for him that he couldn't play all of the games his friends were playing!  So he's all up to date now.  But you must get some reading time in on that sucker once in a while too buddy, okay???

So you guys know me & my cakes by now.  I have to make something crazy with it.  I don't know if I've ever told you guys why I do it though.  Not a huge story or anything, but the first set of birthdays for my kids after the storm were really hard for me.  We were finally out of the hotel & in our first rental house at that time, but the kids had only a few of their toys & we weren't able to go nuts with a big party for their birthdays with everything going on.  I knew they really didn't care as much as I did, but I needed a way to show them that they were special & I wanted to do something fun to make their birthday memorable.  Crafty scrapbooker  + crazy mom = making their favorite characters out of icing!  I'm nutso.  I'll admit.  That first year I made Phineas & Spongebob (that's love cause I friggin' hate Spongebob) & I just drew them free hand.  They turned out pretty cute!  But I attempted Dora for Natalie & it was an epic fail.  I sobbed irrationally.  It was crazy & I think my husband was tempted to take me in for treatment. ;) 
But then I discovered this neat little trick that makes me look like this super artistic & talented lady, when truthfully I'm a big fat cheater.  Now I can make almost anything that I can find an image of!  I'm about to share my secrets with you all because I love you that much. ;)  I know that's not my usual format for this blog, but it's fun!

First of all, my son wanted a Zombie cake.  Pretty sure the local grocery store doesn't do that kind of thing. So I went looking through google images & found the Plants vs. Zombies guy.  (And for those of you who worked with me at CMH back in the day know that that holds a special place in my heart anyway & you all know why. :')).  So I decided to go with him & printed that out.  I flipped it over & taped it to a piece of cardboard, then traced the lines so I could see them just a little bit better.  Then I covered the whole thing with saran wrap & lightly taped that to the back. 
I made my icing as usual, using my favorite buttercream icing recipe.  (It's so easy you guys.  You should try it!)  But after that I take sections of it & mix it with food coloring, then put each of them in ziplock bags.  (I like Wilton's food coloring gels the best). 
Then, after snipping the tiniest of corners off of the side of my ziplock bag, I start tracing my picture.  I start with the small details first so that the colors can layer each other & nothing gets missed.  The key to making this work though, is making sure the colors don't smear each other.  To do that, you have to do one layer at a time, then put it in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes.  Once you have all of your layers filled in & your last freeze complete, all you have to do is flip it onto your cake, peel off the saran wrap, & voila! :)

A step by step view.  Not so hard!

The finished product!  One zombie cake for one very special guy.

I think he approves.  ;)

Our Trip to St. Louis

Growing up in St. Louis I never ever thought I would live anywhere else.  In fact, when I met my crazy husband, it even terrified me to move counties!  But it's so faaaarrr!!!  LOL  I don't think anyone would've been able to convince me that someday I would follow that man to the other side of the country & raise our family in rural Vermont.  Never!

But I did, & I'm so very glad that I did.  But my biggest objection all along was that I didn't want to be so far away from our family.  Even in the age where there's cell phones & emails & Skype & FaceTime, it still is oh-so-very-hard.  We've been here for two years now, and things have been getting pretty stressful.  Who wouldn't be with the amount of work we've taken on with the house on top of working full time & trying to raise three kids??  We were really needing a break, & taking time to see family was the perfect respite.  (The time off that I requested from work was initially supposed to be for our trial vs. Nationwide, but that's been postponed indefinitely.  Sigh.  We won't dwell on that part...)

Anyway, it all started out with Matt & the kids picking me up from work after a busy 12 hour shift to start our 1250 mile drive.  (Self admitted crazy people, I'm tellin' ya!)  Well, it turns out, when you're not carrying a 24-foot loaded trailer behind your vehicle, the drive is not that bad!! lol  20 hours of driving, with Matt & I trading for naps, & we were there.  The kids are so used to being stuck in the car for long drives they did wonderfully.  (And it helps that the first 10 hours they spent sleeping!)

We spent 9 wonderful days with family, staying with his brother Martin, his wife Sarah, & their two adorable girls.  I've barely gotten to know those two since we've been so far apart, so it was SO great to be Aunt & Uncle for a while like I wish we always could be.  Isabel is just eight months older than our Natalie, and they became best friends right away.  We were all amazed at how well they got along the WHOLE time!  They're 4 & 5... we figured the attitudes would come out sooner or later! lol  But they were great!!  (Makes me even sadder that they're not closer together to hang out more.  :().

Natalie & Izzi playing with Doc McStuffins.  They played so well together the grown ups actually missed them! ;)

Natalie & Arianna playing with their coincidentally matching "Waddles" penguins.  Too cute!

 We only got to see Arianna a couple of times before we moved.  And now she's a big 2 1/2 year old!  She really took to Gavin & Uncle Matt.  She was too cute with them!

Ari & Matt

The day after we arrived, my dad drove across the state to meet up with us for the day.  We were so happy we could make that work!!  First we had breakfast, then we went to spend some time at the Butterfly House.  Hard to believe, but we'd never been!  After that we went to this pretty waterfall in Forest Park for a photo op.  (You guys thought I was crazy with the camera.  You should meet my dad! lol)  

Bubbles make everything more fun!

Snuggles from PaPa

All of us with PaPa & Nancy... and some random kid in the background... ;)

 We were sad to say goodbye so quickly, but hopefully we'll see them in Vermont soon!

After that, we tried to cram in as much family time with everyone that we could.  It started off with dinner at Matt's Aunt Zarah's.  This lady is about as incredible as you could imagine.  She just got back from visiting her family on the other side of the globe, and instead of sleeping the day away (which is probably what I would be doing!) she instead spent two full days making Matt's favorite Persian dishes for 20+ people.  OMG so amazingly good!!

Love this lady!!!

It seems we took Vermont weather with us while we were there, because it was such a gorgeous week.  The kids took full advantage of the mild evening & played outside at Zarah's house that night with all of their cousins.

Playing catch with their cousins Jordan & Jack.

I want to frame this. lmao!

So what's a trip to St. Louis without a trip to the Zoo!  We of course took a short detour there while we were in town.  It's been a while since we've been able to go! 

The girls learning about elephant skin.  We got to see Baby Priya!

While we were there, we got to meet up with my dear friend Angie.  GOD I was so happy to see her!  Have you ever had a friend that you've known for years ~ one that you sometimes get caught up with life & lose touch a little bit, but any time you get together it's like you can pick up right where you left off??  I'm lucky enough to have that with Angie.  I've known her since I was 14, and I love her to pieces! :)

Angie with my silly kids

After a little while in the Zoo, we went back to Art Hill & had a picnic.

Yet another *beautiful* day!

Afterward, we decided not to walk all the way back to the Zoo, but to stroll around the Art Museum instead.  Some of you may not know, but our 13th wedding anniversary is coming up.  We actually had our wedding reception at the Art Museum!  After checking out some of the art, we thought we'd head on up to see the old reception hall.  Turns out that they've turned it into office spaces now :( but we still thought it would be fun to go see.

Right down this hall was where our reception was held.  We have photos of our cake in front of this chandelier!

First comes love, then comes marriage...  Thirteen years ago, I had to climb up into this window well in my wedding gown for a photo with my wedding party! lol  Now we get to duplicate the photo with our three beautiful kids! <3

One of the other fun things we did with Martin & Sarah was go play Frisbee Golf.  We'd never gone before, & it turned out to be super fun!  The kids really enjoyed it! 

While we were there though, Gavin thought it would be a good idea to jump over a little creek bed.  He made it over, but we learned a couple days later that he landed face first into some poison ivy.  Awesome.  Poor dude!  (He's all better now.)

We also spent plenty of time just hanging out. 

Missing one, but I like this picture of the guys!

Pretty rare to get all of these boys together.  Can you tell they're brothers or what! lol

Fire pit & wine.  Perfect night! :)

On Friday night, we joined Martin & Sarah for their Friday night routine at their local Mexican restaurant.  And we brought along the whole family!!  Margaritas abound!

(Almost) the whole fam!  Fun times!

John & Caroline & their *massive* margarita!  Yum! :)

Mitch, Martin & Sarah sharing some laughs.

 So much fun!

Oh!  And one more thing!  We have been planning all along to get a cat.  We'd planned to get one once we moved into the new house, but we wanted a specific kind & Matt wondered if we might have some luck while we're in St. Louis finding the one he wanted.  Well his musing aloud turned into reality.  We added a new member to our family while we were there!

Meet Todd!

We found him online from a rescue shelter & just had to bring him home.  Now Copper has Todd to play with!  (Get it?? ;))

We had such a wonderful time in St. Louis.  We were so sorry to see it end. :(  We hope that we'll be able to head that way every couple of years at the very least.  But in the mean time, we hope that all of our family & friends will be able to come up here & see beautiful Vermont!

P.S.: 
Sorry for the pic-heavy post.  I had to narrow it down from the 1100 pictures I did take!  Not even kidding!!