100th Christmas

Yesterday we went to my Grandma's house to help decorate her house a little bit more.   We spent some time painting Christmas pictures on her window.   So much fun.  My kids loved it and they even shared and cooperated so nicely (if only they always were like that!!)

So, as we were painting the window we were talking to Grandma and saying how exciting.... it will be her 100th Christmas this year!!  She wasn't believing us.  But, it's true.  100 Christmases!!

Anyways, here's some photos....

Outside looking in at the kids painting

Grandma coming to check out the painting.

LOVE my Grandma

Finished window

So, as we're painting the window, Grandma is telling the kids how much she used to love to draw, sketch, paint.  She told them how she would always have a pen with her and she would find herself sketching anything and everything.  Sometimes she would draw on a scrap piece of paper, sometimes she would draw on a napkin.  It didn't matter.   Then she said she had a scrapbook with some of her pictures.  We got it out and we looked through it and the kids pointed out and told Grandma which of her pictures they liked.
It was a nice quiet moment that I thoroughly enjoyed and I hope my kids never forget it.

Here's a few pictures....

I love how happy Grandma looks in this photo.

Oops.  How can you rotate this photo?  I guess you're stuck looking at it like this...

A sketch of a dog

Grandma drew this in 1978, when my Grandpa was in the hospital.  An example of her sketching everywhere she went.

Well, this coming Sunday, Grandma will be having the entire family over to her house for her annual Christmas get-together.  Can you believe that at her age, she's still inviting everyone over and hosting a party?!  There's always some fun times to be had at these.  I'll try to remember to take some photos and tell you about some of them.

2 Missionary Suit Cakes

So, I've been getting some slack about not posting anything recently.  Who's been bugging me?   My kids!  Apparently they love to look at this blog and are always coming on here. 
So, here I am playing catch-up.

A few weeks ago I made some more missionary cakes.
It was actually quite a special weekend for one family in my ward....   two cousins.... one returning from a mission and one preparing to leave.  The Sunday Sacrament meeting was both a homecoming and farewell.   How special.   It really was quite a fantastic Sacrament meeting.

Afterwards they had an Open House and I was asked to make them some cakes.
I've made similar ones before (though, apparently it's been quite a while and it took me a while to figure out how I made them last time).   These missionary suit cakes are fun because I can decorate the tie to look like any flag from any country.  So, in this case, I made one tie to represent Guam and the other to represent Canada.

I will apologize for not having better photos of these two cakes.  It was a crazy weekend and just after I finished the cakes, some of my kids were driving me crazy by bouncing bouncy balls all over the kitchen and living room (talk about stress for me!  Could you imagine if the ball hit it?!)
Anyways, the sooner those cakes left my house, the sooner I could breathe easier with my kids being around.

 I thought it was a good idea to do two similar cakes..... until Cam said "you better not make one better than the other!!"   Nice.  Then I had a whole lot of pressure.   So glad they both turned out equally good.

Guam picture on tie is hand painted.

A special day for two cousins

 Thank you Julie and Liana for letting me be a part of this special weekend, by making you two cakes.   

Welcome home Dan!  We wish you luck Jesse!