Cakes and a snake!

During the past week I've made a couple of cakes. First, I made a lizard cake for a friend of mine at work. It was a "joke" cake as she does not like lizards. Instead of doing my usual cakes, I thought it would be a nice change to do something funny. She did indeed laugh. Here's a photo:

Of course I had to put as many lizards on as possible, including a few on the sides:


Over the weekend Tristan had his end of season baseball party. I made the cake for the party and Tristan thought it was pretty cool:


And now for the snake....What present could you possibly get a soon to be 5 year old that would give his mother the heebie jeebies? Why a life like replica of a striking snake:

Of course the boys think it is funny to chase me around with it since I am so fond of it :) I think it looks just a little too realistic:

Prayer Request

Instead of posting tonight about our family, I want to bring your attention to another family. Please go to the "praying for Stellan" link to the right to learn more. Praying for him is what I have been doing today. My thoughts are with his family as they deal with another hospitalization. My heart goes out especially to his mom. A mother's love for her children is so incredibly strong. Sometimes I cannot find the words to describe how much my children mean to me. I feel her pain as a fellow mom and cannot comprehend how difficult this must be. I know her faith carries her through. Please pray for Stellan and his entire family. Pray for the doctors to have the wisdom to know how to treat this precious little boy. Pray for strength for his family. Our God is all powerful. Watch this brief video clip of my boys and a number of other children singing about God's power at Vacation Bible school last week, it will surely make you smile :)

The Birthday Celebration

Happy Birthday Dalton and Nathan! I cannot believe they are three. How can three years pass so quickly! We celebrated their birthday in "stages". First, there was the gathering with cousins at the beach. Last year and this year we celebrated by eating an ice cream cake which you can see they really enjoyed:





The next part of our celebration was this past weekend. Their newest fascination is with cows. So, I found a beef cattle farm about thirty minutes away and we rode there Saturday. The farmer was very nice and took us to see a baby calf which had been born about three days earlier. Her momma was very protective and stood between us and the baby.



We then went picking blueberries (as all of the boys love these). Jim joked that the farmer should have weighed the boys before and after our pick :)

After picking 12 pounds of blueberries, we were all very hot, tired, and hungry! Since we were only 15 minutes from Danville, we decided to go to the Red Lobster there in celebration of the boys' birthday. Jim and I had been there once before and enjoyed it. No long wait and the best part for children---a gentleman who makes balloon animals for you! The twins really enjoyed this as you can see by the smiles on their faces. It was so much fun watching them be so excited:



Nathan made me laugh at the restaurant. He opened a pack of sugar, poured it on his bread plate and proceeded to eat it directly from the plate. Luckily he was so tired it didn't keep him awake too long on the ride home:

To end their birthday celebration, we had cake and ice cream Sunday night (at 9:00 at night because the boys had been to Vacation bible school and that was the only time we could fit it in our busy day! :) When Jim went to get them from VBS, I set up the dining room for their "surprise party". They loved it!

Here is what the cake looked like before they got a hold of it:


Three year old's trying to "dissect" a cake

This is the end result...MMMMM, Don't you want a piece now?

And finally, this is how you eat cake after a long, tiring day when you just don't have the energy to pick up your fork:

Playtime with Daddy

Jim and the twins developed a new game the other night. This one had to captured on video:



All the boys had fun playing operation with Daddy. They were so into it I had to take this picture:


Yesterday Nathan put on two different slippers and the Dorothy the Dinosaur hat (and he usually does not wear hats) he looked so funny:

The Beach!

We had such a great time at the beach. One week of fun, relaxation, and family time. At the end of the week I always find myself longing for more. Wishing we had just a little more time. One week never seems long enough! I am thankful that we were able to go again this year. Time together as a family is priceless.

Cowboy Carl and the Watermelon Gang :)



Too cool for words


Here are some more miscellaneous pictures of our fun!










Carolyn and the kids made a person out of sand


Dalton became known as "Destructo Dalton" as he would knock down anything built out of sand as you can see by the destructed sand person :)



Carolyn and the "three little ducklings":)


I love the birds at the beach. I know they annoy some people, but I enjoy them and always try to take a couple of photos:



Of course the twins tried to "sneak up on them" a few times:


Everyone loved the water slide this year as you can see: