Happy Easter

We had a wonderful Easter with our sweet girls. Holidays seem like so much more fun when you can share them with your children. I find myself getting excited about seeing them excited - I don't know if that makes sence.

I played the Easter Bunny, which was fun. These were the girls', and Justin's, Easter baskets.

Emma was very excited to come down stairs, she ran right to her basket!

She needed some more age appropriate toys, so I used Easter as an excuse to buy some. She plays with her tea set every day. She likes to have 'tea, milk, and dinner'. We have a lot of fun together playing with her blocks, I don't know how many towers we make with them daily, but it always has to be 'a BIG one!'

Hannah had no idea why she got an Easter basket, or what it was, but she loved her little doggy, and especially enjoyed the plastic grass!

She also enjoys Emma's tea set. It's fun to watch them play together!

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These are some pictures of Emma hunting for Easter eggs. If you can see in the pictures, she didn't need to look very far, my uncle spread over 200 eggs across his lawn for her and 3 of her cousins - it kept them busy for a very long time. She would run out to the grass and grab a few eggs, shake them to make sure there was something inside, and then run back to me to put them in her bag. Occasionally she opened one and took a little snack break.

My Cute Babies!!

At the end of the day, Emma was absolutely exhausted from fun, and slept all the way home!

Yummy Things

We celebrated my little sisters 20th birthday this week! I can't believe that she can be that old, it seems like she should have stopped getting older years ago so that she could still actually be my 'little' sister. Anyways, she requested this cake, and it was really yummy!

I made these cupcakes for Easter, they were a lot of fun, and everyone thought they were cute!

Fun Outside

Last year we wanted to buy Emma a little pool to put in the back yard so that she could play, but we were never able to find one (long story so i'll spare you). Anyways we were leaving Walmart the other day and I saw the little pools so I went back in and bought one because I didn't want to deal with not being able to find one later. Emma was very excited and has been laying down in it without any water while shouting 'I'm swimming mommy, I'm swimming!' So yesterday was such a beautiful day I decided I'd let her 'swim' while Hannah took a nap, and I pulled weeds - YUCK!

Emma had so much fun filling up her pool with - 'cold water mommy!' I added 5 or 6 pots of hot water so that she could play without freezing.

As you can see in the background we had neglected the weeds for a just a little while. I don't care who you ask, weeds are just no fun! When we were kids, my parents used weeds for punishments and chores, or as a job you did for endless hours every day to pay for your prom dress! (we had almost and acre, and at the time it seemed it was almost all weeds.)

Anyways, It took me a few hours, but I got the weeding done for the most part. It really helped that Emma had so much fun in the pool. She did take a few swimming breaks to climb up the retaining wall.
And when Hannah woke up we set her up with a blanket and some cherrios underneath an umbrella. Emma wanted her to go swimming, but I'm pretty sure Hannah liked it better on her blanket where she could stay warm and dry!

More of my cakes

Everyone is always asking to see pictures of the cakes I've made, and after the last post, I decided I may as well post pictures of some of them. Enjoy!


I made this cake January 07 for my brother Robert and his wife Amanda's wedding reception.

I helped my sister make this cake for a baby shower she was throwing. The body is cake, and the head and feet are cookies.

We had a classic pooh themed baby shower for my sister in law Amanda this summer and this is the cake I made.

I made this baby shower cake for my cousin about a year and a half ago.

This was a birthday cake for another one of my cousins this last November. Emma absolutely adores her, and so do I. I made the flowers in advance out of royal icing.

Emma is in love with the Little Einsteins on Disney, so I made her this 'Rocket' cake for her second birthday in December.

Another birthday cake.

This cake was for my nieces first birthday last August.

Here are some cupcakes!

I've made these baby shower cupcakes on a few different occassions. Emma loves eating the fondant umbrellas after I make them.

Happy graduation to Justin! I made these to celebrate Justin's graduation in December.

These were also for Emma's birthday.

Some yummy cupcakes I made last July.

Cake Cake and More Cake!

I am officially caked out! I spent the last few days of last week baking, torting, filling, crumb coating, icing, hot knifing, and decorating cake! My house smelled great, but by saturday night I was exhausted! Don't get me wrong, I love decorating cakes, I just wish I was better at it. My mom says i'm my worst critic. Whenever I finish a cake, my aunt always asks me "So, what's wrong with this one?" I guess I can be a little bit of a perfectionist, but I just want to find something that I can be GREAT at. Anyways... enough of that, you can judge for yourselves - here are some pictures of the cakes I made.

This was a cake for a luncheon celebrating the sealing of one of my friends sisters and her husband.

We celebrated my brother's birthday a little late this year since he was so busy with wrestling. He is CIF champion for his weight class this year; an accomplishment that no one from his school has acheived in like 20 years! He wanted his cake to look like a wrestling mat. I did my best in a short amount of time and I was literally finishing it as we were going out the door.

Happy Birthday Craig! WE LOVE YOU!

The cake did taste yummy! Emma and Preston gave me great reviews!

Amy Rules!!!!

I just wanted to post this small token of gratitude on our family blog to say Thank you! and I love you! to my sweet and intelligent wife. If it wasn't for her I would've had an ulcer while getting my Bachelors. I enjoyed CSUSB and will probably go back for the MBA.

Now I just need to pass the darn GMAT. =)

Big Owies!

It was dinner day at Nammy and Pappy's (Amy's grandparents) house today. It's nice to get together with our extended family once a month. Emma especially loves their gigantic swing set. Until today, I didn't even know that she could swing on a 'big girl' swing. But she can and she loves it! I don't know how long she had Justin outside pushing her, some of my younger cousins recruited him to push them too. All of the kids have fun with Justin on dinner day. Anyways, Emma hasn't quite become a pro at the 'holding on' aspect of swinging, and she fell off the swing and got an owie! Though it didn't stop her, she wanted to get right back on, and only came in when Justin noticed that both of her knees were bleeding :( When we came home I took some pictures of her as she told me all about it!

Fun With Cousins!

Joseph, Jennifer, Jonathan, Courtney, and Hunter came over this Saturday, and the kids had a great time playing together! We all went to the park and then came home for pizza and a movie. It's great to have family near by! I love watching our kids grow up together!

It was a cold day so we bundled Hannah up and she enjoyed watching everyone play!

Hunter had a great time running around in Jonathan's jacket!

And Jonathan was more than happy to fulfill his big brother dutys and give Hunter a ride down the slide.

Little Miss Courtney proved to be quite the basketball player, she enjoyed dunking with the help of Uncle Justin.

Courtney wanted to make sure Emma stayed nice and warm so she stopped to help her zip up her sweater! What a sweetie!

Emma and Courtney have lots of fun together!