Happy Birthday Emily

We celebrated Emily's 10th birthday.  How did she get that old?  I normally ask the kids what kind of cake they want... they normally will tell me Barbie or butterfly, Dora, or Rock star... giving me some idea of what they want.  Emily being 10 doesn't really like kid cakes like that much anymore.  She just told me "vanila cake" which gave me no ideas at all. 

I decided on a rainbow, and then in her card talked about how rainbows are precious, beautiful, amazing, rare... just as she is those things, she is like a rainbow.

I even found candles that had rainbow flames, the looked great when the lights were turned off.

She blew out all the candles... which is good, she is too young for a boyfriend.

Even her vanila cake was rainbow colors.

Samantha got her a big ball, Amber got her a kite and a bubble wand...

Lauren drew her a picture and wrote her a card...

Lindsey got her a rubber band collection (Em wants to collect them to make a rubber band ball), she made her a card, made her a crystal necklace and a little statue of some craft stick people. 

Both Lindsey and Lauren did their present by themselves, on their own.  I didn't even know about the rubber bands, but was looking for them the other day and couldn't find them.  Now I know where they went.  Lindsey and Lauren both wrapped their presents and then hid them in the house so Emily couldn't find them.  Pretty funny.  All my girls are great girls, very thoughtful and loving.

Then she got a stepping stone kit (now she can give her rabbit a proper headstone instead of a pvc pipe to mark her grave) and then a series of 4 books, and a DVD... oh and a cookbook.  She also got some pillows for her room, but I have taken after my mom in the way of  "I also got you this, but it isn't done yet."  She had great projects that didn't quite finish in time.  I see how easy that is now, you get this wonderful idea and then time is lacking and it doesn't quite make it.  (That was my Christmas projects... I still have a several undone, but just didn't tell the girls about them.  I was hoping to finish Emily's for her birthday... but maybe next Christmas.)

I do like making cakes, decorating them and all that.  I always get a bit upset when I hear someone "purchases" their cake from the store.  I always think, I would have made that for you!  There is a draw back to making them though... my kitchen always gets to be a mess...especially when I have helpers.

Amber used the last pound of powder sugar that was still in the bag, it ended up on the counter, the floor, and her clothes.  Samantha (although I didn't get a picture) found my bags of frosting and sucked them dry.  Luckily it was after the cake was done.  Or most of it was, she got my blue that I was going to use for Emily's name, but instead I had to go with the uncontaminated color of purple.  Which was probably my last choice for her name, but what can you do when someone has sucked on all the other frosting bags?

Maybe Amber likes making cakes too.

Happy Birthday Emily!!

New Rules

Amber loves to play games like the big girls.  Most of the games are too complicated for her to play.  This game she likes to play and recently made up her own rules.  As if that even suprised me, she is kind of bossy that way.  The game is Kerplunk but I am sure there are other names for this game too. 

You put all the little sticks into the middle part to hold up the marbles...

Then you add the marbles.  You then take turns taking out the sticks.  Who ever knocks out the most marbles loses.  Amber first played that you won if you got all the marbles.  Now the game rules have changed again.  Imagine that, nothing ever stays the same with Amber around.

She added a little white dog, so if you get the dog you win.  Next round it was the dog and the rock that she added.  Now you have to get the dog and the rock and you win.  The marbles don't count anymore I guess.

One night Amber, Robert, and I played... remember you gotta get the rock and the dog now to win.

Robert got the rock, then Amber got the dog.  You wanna guess who won? lol

"I won, I got the dog, the dog is the winner, because it is the best.  Give me your rock, Dad.  I won, I won!"

Amber is trying to change the rules again, but I am trying to convince her the game is just fine the way it is.  (And that the pencil would get stuck and wouldn't really come out.  I was afraid for the dog, but it seemed to work out okay, but I am not so sure about the pencil.)

Racoon visit

Back on Christmas Eve it was made known to us that we had a little visitor that come to our house while we were sleeping.  I found him in the garage, masked and cute looking.  The racoon stood up on his hind feet and just looked at me, as I walked closer to get a picture on my phone he went back out the kitty door that is in our garage. 

Of course many mysteries where solved... who was getting into the garbage, who torn into the cat food sack, who broke the plastic off the kitty door... who ate the cake that was in the garage?  Of course it was the RACOON!

He (although I am not really sure if it is a girl or boy, I just call it a HE) was eating our cat food, so we moved the cat food in the house.  Problem is, he came through the cat door in the garage, why not the cat door through the house?  I guess I was just hoping he wasn't coming in the house. 

Some of the girls, Emily especially was afraid of this possibility of the raccon coming into the house.  Robert had said he saw something BIG one time in the kitchen that darted out the kitty door when he came down the stairs.  Was it the racoon? 

On Saturday morning Robert noticed a trail of blood that went to the cat food dish.  He asked me if our cat was okay.  I remembered he was sleeping on our bed earlier and seemed fine.  Robert found GATO on Em's bed and he seemed fine.  Next question... where did the blood come from, and whose blood is it? 

I used my best tracking I could and I found a trail of blood into the garage around the garage a bit and then out the kitty door.  The tracks then disappeared on the grass.  I decided to go check out the back patio when I have seen racoon tracks before to see if they continued there.  Sure enough, they went in front of the rabbit cage across the cement, behind the steps, and then across the yard to the rock wall.  On the rock wall there was lots of big spots of blood. 

Since I was thinking I was just looking in the garage, I didn't have shoes on, so I went back in and fetched my shoes.  I then followed the prints up the rock wall, and across the driveway of a neighbor, then across the street to the backyard of another neighbor were I was unable to follow them any further. 

Then we realized, we really have a problem.  At least he had just been to the cat food and left.  BUT.... later I noticed a bloody mark on the tile floor in front of our basement door, next to the carpet... it looked just like some of the prints outside.  Had he really made it in that far?  Emily had a sleep over and they were sleeping in the same room the racoon came to. 

I didn't tell Emily that, she is so freaked out already..."What if the racoon cames up and attacks us while we are asleep?"  I before told her, "He won't, he doesn't even come into the house." or "he came right in and right back out after eating... "  Now I am not sure really what he will do or does do. 

Until we find a better solution or any better ideas, we are blocking our cat door in the garage to keep the racoon out of our garage.  The bad thing, is that locks our cat in the house/garage for the night.  I think since it is cold he stays in most nights anyway, but once the weather is nicer, he will want to go out during the night.

Any ideas of how to keep those cute little critters out? 

We are going to Disneyland!

I think we are going to Disneyland this year.  The girls are so excited!

Disney is doing a "Give a Day, Get a Disney Day" program this year.  If you give service for a day then they will give you a free ticket to your choice of Disney resort.  We try to go to California each year to visit Robert's sister and brother, and his sister lives very close to Disneyland, that will be our plan for this year then. 

The project we participated in was Project Linus.  They collect handmade blankets to give out to children in need.  My girls had so much fun doing the blankets, Emily said, "do you think we could do more?" 

The nice thing about the "Give a Day, Get a Disney Day" program is that children age 6 and up can participate in it and get their own ticket for a Disney Resort.  For us, that meant everyone but the two young girls got to get a ticket for free!  That is pretty cool huh!

Disney is only giving out so many tickets, so the sooner you act the better your chances of getting a ticket.  I think the tickets have to be used by Dec. 16th or something like that, and there are a few blockout dates that the tickets are NOT good for. 

We had fun, I would definitely recommend it to others wanting to help out.  We made 3 fleece blankets, a quilted panel that I put a binding on, and then I made a rag quilt too.  Those were our 5 blankets. 

The girls cut strips in their fleece blankets and then tied them in knots.  Emily did a little different things on each edge of her blanket.  I cut their blankets to the correct measurements and made sure they were square.

This is the rag quilt I made, before I washed it.  I was feeling good that for the most part it was square, and most of the squares lined up.  I made one for my brother and sil's little boy and it wasn't very square at all, it looked more like I was trying to make it all staggered and brick laying kind of look.  I got a cutting board, and I think that helped out a TON for this blanket.

Project Linus recommended sending "blanket hugs" on the blankets.  Wrapping cut out hands/arms around the blanket with a note inside.  These are done, so now we have to just wait to see if they are accepted and wait for our vouchers to be sent via email. 

Samantha and Amber even helped with my pins... they would try to pin my quilt squares and then Amber would take the pins out after I was done.  Samantha mostly just took the pins out of anything she found and put the pins on the floor.  She would say, "pokey, hurt, pokey, hurt" over and over again. 

I am so excited!  What a great way to get free tickets. 

My overdue appointment to the dentist

I finally went to the dentist...  I am not really sure I am glad I did now.  I typically have teeth to fix... I don't think I have many of my teeth that don't have fillings in them and I have several crowns already. 

Last time I went to the dentist...  I was pregnant with one of 4 of the pregnancies between the twins and Amber.  We started trying for another baby when the twins were 2 and finally when they were 4 we had Amber.  With all that, that says I haven't been to the dentist for about 4-6 years.  OUCH!  Can that really be true? 

The part that made me not sure I am glad I went is the price of all the work to be done... many of my old fillings they want to redo and then of course make into crowns.  Then I have a root canal that needs to be done because of a bad tooth, although it hasn't been giving me any problems. 

Of course when I told Robert, he was mad asking me to tell him the truth... and I kept saying, "seriously."  Robert was explaining to Emily that my teeth to be fixed will cost as much of two of his cars (his honda civic that he has now).  He then laughed and said, "we can put two of my cars in mom's mouth."  Robert is angry that I have waited so long to go, and now of course we get to pay for all that lacking care...  and his comment was, "maybe you should just get false teeth, that should cost less."  I see nothing wrong with that.  having nice uniform perfect white teeth... sounds beautiful!  I should call and ask if they can do that!!

I am glad we have dental insurance but with all the work to be done, it doesn't seem like it covers much as far as the WHOLE picture goes.  I think they have a max of $1500 a year.  Sounds enough for a normal person going to the dentist, but I am not your normal person going to the dentist.  (I think I had a root canal on a baby tooth when I was about 5 yrs old.  I think my twin brother got the good teeth gene.)

I am wanting the sleep denistry to get it all done in ONE visit...  but Robert wants another opinion to make sure we aren't being robbed.  Actrually he wants to pull all my teeth out and have me run around with halloween fangs for teeth until we can afford real teeth.  (Okay not really, although he probably wouldn't think that was a bad idea.)

How embarrassing!  I don't even want to go back there again!  What a nighmare.  Maybe I will just let my teeth fall out. 

Samantha and the cat

Samantha LOVES the cat.  She will try to follow him around, she will squeal when she sees him and then he normally will take the cue and slowly head toward the kitty door to get outside.  Sometimes he will head for under a bed where he is always safe. 

Samantha has been better with him lately... she isn't as loud so he tolerates her a little more. 

GATO (our cat) was sitting on our bed, then Samantha found him.

And she found a bottle too, and then Amber came to see what was going on.

Samantha was trying to feed the cat and herself too.

Can you believe it, the cat just sat there... in the beginning she grabbed him and pulled him toward her.

He just sat there with the girls... as they tried to feed him a bottle and love on him.

Samantha thinks she has bonded with the cat.  Funny thing is, that a day or two after this, I put Samantha in her bed at night to go to bed.... and the cat was sleeping in her bed already.  Stupid cat, he is just asking for it.  Samantha even moved down to the end he was at and he stayed there until later when she squealed, then he left.  I have since found him numerous times in Samantha's bed.  Samantha likes it though!