Easter Egg Hunt

We came home from church to find 50 eggs that had been hidden throughout the house....Kenneth had a lot of fun trying to find them.

After much searching, Mike finally gave him a few clues to find the last 3 eggs.

Snowman Cake

I had the opportunity to decorate the January table for our Relief Society Dinner. I choose a snowman theme, and so I made a cake to go along with it. I have a Betty Crocker dome cake pan set that I used. I had never used them before, so I was a little nervous - but it turned out pretty good. It is hard to see in the picture, but each cake is not only in the shape of a circle, but also rounded into a dome shape. I frosted them and put white coconut on it to add dimension.

Relief Society Birthday Dinner

We had a great turnout for our Relief Society Birthday Dinner. We have so many talented sisters in our ward that decorated the tables according to monthly themes. Each table represented a month of the year. The sisters who share a birthday month sat together - it was a fun way to visit with sisters that we don't always have a chance to visit with. The food was delicious and it was nice to have an evening to visit with each other. Thanks so much for everyone who helped to put this event together!

Sisters Video

Sisters from NTSMadDog on Vimeo.

Kenneth's Cooking Night

I am trying to convince Kenneth that he should be responsible for dinner one night a week. This means that he gets to plan the menu and be the official chef of the evening. I am mostly there just to answer questions. Well.......last week he decided that he wanted tomato soup and melted cheese sandwiches. He got the bread out and put the cheese on it. I told him to turn the oven on to broil. He pushed the broil button, but didn't realize that he had to push the start button. So 5 minutes later we realized that the oven was not ready. He got the oven turned on the second time and I told him to go ahead and put the sandwiches in on the top tray and melt the cheese. Silly me, I didn't think to tell him that it only took a minute or two and that he had to watch it closely. As I was cleaning the table off so that we could set it, I smelled something burning and realized that the sandwiches were still in the oven.....this is the result -

So he started over and the second attempt turned out great and we had a good laugh. I think that next time he will remember to watch them closely.....I am just glad they didn't start on fire!!

Ark Day - March 4th

My sister, Melissa, gave me this fun idea - her daughter has received Ark Day stuff from a nice neighbor for the last couple of years. I made the ark out of popsicle sticks - lots of popsicle sticks. I used a hot glue gun to build it - and I only had a few mishaps with the hot glue.....but all of my fingers have recovered most feeling! I lined the ark with tissue paper and then filled it with frosted animal crackers.....a fun and inexpensive idea -however, it is a little time consuming.

Here is a copy of the poem that we attached.

After Noah loaded the ark,
It rained for forty nights and forty days
Most of the animals didn’t complain
They thought the ark was a pretty nice place to stay.

The only one to complain was the bunny, Winky
After a while it did start to get pretty stinky.

The rain waters covered the land,
But Noah fed all the animals by hand.

When the ark finally stopped,
The animals were so happy they hopped!

“What way are we facing?” - Most of them thought north,
So, old Noah let down the ramp - And said March Forth!

Happy Ark Day
(March 4th)

Kenneth's Hair

Kenneth has been asking me for a while now if he can color his hair. So I started to pay attention to kids his age and noticed that a lot of them have colored their hair.....mostly highlights or just the top part of their heads are colored......Come on, they are only 10!!!! So I finally gave in and told him as long as he didn't dye it black, he could have it colored. So we went to the store and bought a bottle of brown hair color. He wanted to be almost as dark as me. So he called his Aunt Emily to come over and actually do the dirty work.......this is him "meditating" before the process begins.

No turning back now.......

This picture was taken once all of the dye was applied - he had to leave it like this for about 30 minutes. He thought it was pretty cool.....Once he washed it and saw the final results, he was a little disappointed. It did go brown, but it has a reddish tint to it and it is not very dark. I think that since he was so blonde to begin with, maybe we will have to go with a darker brown to get the right color. He hasn't said anything about doing it again, so we will just wait until it starts growing out a little.