Diva Elise

Elise was in rare form the other night so I had to pull out the video camera to capture her in concert. Please forgive my son's and husband's attempts to be distractions, they apparently wanted some airtime.

Happy Birthday Reagan

Nathan, Reagan, Mikelle, Eliott, Annie and Elise

The kids gave him some great gifts, he was thrilled with all of them.

Notice Reagan here, he is leading the singing of Happy Birthday!

The Basketball cake
Today was Reagan's 6th Birthday, I can't believe it. He is such an amazing kid and I had so much fun today with him. He wanted to help me decorate his cake, he was so complimentary of everything we did today, it made me really appreciate how kind he is. I asked him a while back what kind of treats he wanted to take to school, and he said donuts. Go figure, I was willing to make anything and instead I ran to Smith's a picked up a few dozen donuts, helped me simplify, I loved it. After school we got ready for his Basketball party and it was a lot of fun. He invited a few friends, we played games, ate pizza, opened presents and then had cake and ice cream. The kids were great and Reagan had a blast. After the party, both Grandma Morgan and Grandma Larsen came over to wish him a happy birthday and we had a fun visit with them, as always. We love Grandmas.

Happy Easter

We sure had a fun Easter. Melanie and Jim and family came up from Kaysville, Matt, Rachel and Hailey and Mark and Jacque came up from Provo to spend the weekend with Mom and Dad, and we had a great time. Saturday, we went swimming, went to the Planetarium (Tyler was presenting), then we came home and the Easter bunny had come to Mom's house. The kids found their Easter baskets and then went to find the eggs. They had so much fun. Cousins are the best.
Sunday we all went to church with my mom and dad, and that was a great treat. Since we live in Twin, when everyone gets together we usually go to our own ward, but decided to join the group this time and it was great to go back to our old ward and see friends as well as be with family.


Enjoy the slide show of it all!

Happy Birthday Tyler

Happy big 31 Tyler. Here is my top ten list of why I love Tyler
10. He is the nicest guy I have ever met.
9. He makes me laugh, even when I want to be mad.
8. He always smells nice (weird, I know, but he does, even his feet.)
7. He loves sports and is very competitive, that's sexy.
6. He is the most wonderful dad.
5. He is so cute.
4. He wants me to be happy.
3. For his birthday, he asked the kids to give him the best give of all, make mom happy all day long!
2. He is smart and hard working.
AND
1. He loves me!

March Madness, Baby!

Forgive the Dick Vitale sound of that title, but alas, this is the time of year to reflect upon one's competitive nature. This is our favorite time of year, so I figured I ought to post about it. Since the first year we were married, Tyler and I have had a March Madness competition and sadly, I have lost 7 of those 8 years. I know, I know, it is truly pathetic, but this is the year! I have promised myself I will redeem those last 7 losses. So here is how it works. We alternate in picking 16 teams, each time we pick a team, the other is assigned the opposing team for the opening round game, so we each have 32 teams. The winning team of the first round gets 1 point, second round winners get 2 points and so on. The National Champion gets 7 points. Whichever one of us gets the most points, wins! I have had to give Tyler so many stinkin' massages and make him dinners and breakfast in bed, and one year I even had to make him a t-shirt that boasted of his 5-peat winning streak. I am done with losing, it's my turn to win! Keep your fingers crossed for me.
On a side note, the championship game is our favorite because it is always Nacho Bar night.
This year at the Bank, they have a campaign that runs along with March Madness, so last night we were up until midnight making a bracket board that is about 9 feet by 5 feet that will hang up at the bank. I did not get a picture, but I will. It looks awesome.

Don't Eat Pete!

I thought I would share a fun kids game with you all, as it is Spring Break here and we are trying to find some fun things to do while Mollie naps and we are at home, other than Nintendo and TV. (Not that we haven't done plenty of that.) This would also be a fun FHE game, especially with younger kids, but big kids get a kick out of it as well. My sisters made these as Christmas gifts and they are quite easy to put together with stickers or print pictures from Google Images. Anywho, the rules of the game are as follows. You ask the person who is "it" to leave the room, while everyone else picks one of the characters on the board to be "Pete", then each character is topped with one M & M or marshmallow, or cereal piece or even raisins if you want it healthy, whatever you have. The "it" returns to the room and proceeds to eat all of the candy from the game board one piece at a time. When they eat the candy off of the pre-designated "Pete", everyone yells, "Don't eat Pete!" and their turn is over, and the next person gets to be "it". The kids got such a kick out of it and loved the M & M's. You could make a board with 12 or 16 characters. Give it a try.

Lil' Critters

My sister Jacque has started her own business. Remember the post about the hair bows for my girls, well she has now started it as a business and has added a lot of different kinds, ducks, fruit, spiders etc. Anyway checkout her blog. "Lil Critters" . For any of my local blog readers, she will be coming to visit this weekend and so if you are interested in any of thee she would be happy to make them and bring them with her. Just let me (or her) know colors and she would be more than happy to do them. Anyway, look at her blog and let me know.Here is another example of how cute they are.

Wedding Weekend

Saturday my sister in law, Shea married Kent Wade in the Rexburg Idaho temple. It was a great weekend and a cute couple. Let me recap the events for you all.Friday night we dropped the kids off at my mom's house and headed up to Idaho Falls to meet up with Tyler's family, then head on up to Rexburg, where we went through the temple with Shea. After the temple we went out for some grub at Applebee's, so much fun hanging out with Tyler's family, they are awesome.

Saturday morning we got up to get ready and I got to do the bride's hair and make up. She looked so pretty. Then we headed back over to the temple for the wedding and then pictures. It was cold, but overall a very nice day.

Tyler, Rhett, Shea, and Mac, the bride and her 3 brothers.

Tyler and Me, so much fun getting away for the weekend.

The Rexburg Temple, it is beautiful

After a luncheon in Idaho Falls we came back to Twin to get ready for the reception. I did the food and cake for it and it turned out really nice. I had a lot of fun and have stayed pretty busy the last couple of weeks. I made 430 chocolate and vanilla filled cream puffs, 330 croissant sandwiches (roast beef and cheese, turkey, ham and cheese, and then chicken salad) cake and sparkling apple punch. It was yummy and the bride picked the menu, she did well.

Platters of Cream Puffs

The mini croissant sandwiches

The fountain of apple punch

OK, so every wedding has to have a story, right, well here it is. It was about 6:55, 5 minutes before the reception was to begin and we were all doing last minute preparations. Suddenly we hear a crash, breaking glass and gasps across the room. The lattice wall set up behind the food had fallen over, onto the cake. It broke the statue Shea had chosen to place on top and smashed the back side of the top layer. I was frozen, just stared at it, wondering "Are you kidding me?" I looked over at Shea and she had tears streaming down her face, it broke my heart. I grabbed the top layer of the cake and ran into the kitchen with it, filled the now missing back half with the frosting I had brought to finish the piping upon assembly and then reconstructed it. Grabbed some flowers from the tables and the others I had already used on the cake and made a new floral topping, took it back out and Voila!, the cake was ready to go. (In case you are wondering the statue didn't break until it hit the floor, so no glass was on the cake.)

And here is the recreated cake, I didn't even get a picture of he first one. At the bride's request, this was a rainbow chip cake with rainbow chip frosting. I found hot pink, lime green and orange sprinkles (her colors) to use in the buttercream. It was really pretty and definitely fun.

2 Tags

I have been tagged twice, so here they go.

Tag #1 I was tagged by Ashlee
Grab the book nearest you...flip to page 123 and post the first three sentences on the page.
" The archbishop raises his hands above his head for final blessing, and I look straight ahead. Katherine Howard's bright face catches my eye; she has her hands pressed together, held her lips as if devoutly praying, but she is clearly struggling not to giggle. I pretend I have not seen her, for fear she should set me laughing, too and when the archbishop completes his prayer I say Amen."

This is from the book The Boleyn Inheritance by, Philippa Gregory. I am not sure what this is about as i have not yet reached this section of the book, just started it, but I like it so far.

Now I tag
Rachel
Becky
Paula
Carrie

Tag #2, tagged by Shannon

5 places to visit before I die:
New Zealand, Jamaica, Ireland, Greece and South Africa

5 salad toppings:
Tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, feta cheese, and pepperoni

5 Fiction Books:
To Dance with Kings, The Silver Touch, Gone with the Wind, Twilight, The Godfather

5 Favorite shoes:
My boots, my flip flops, slippers (do those count?) and anything I can get at Payless that is under $10.00

5 Hobbies:
Baking, Cake Decorating, Scrapbooking, Blogging, and did I mention baking?

Now I tag
All the people listed above (sorry guys)

Towels and Ribbons

This morning as I was bathing Mollie and getting her out of the tub to wrap her in her warm and cozy ladybug towel, I thought I need to post this. Last Christmas my sister Carrie drew our names in our family exchange and wow, did she spoil us. She did the 12 days of Christmas and even though she lives Michigan, with the help of my mom, we received a gift everyday for 12 days, and they were very nice gifts each day. When they arrived from Michigan for Christmas, the gifts continued to come. These towels were just a portion of the things she made for my kids and me. So every time I use these cute towels, the dragon for Reagan, the bumblebee for Elise and the ladybug for Mollie, I think about her and the true meaning of Christmas, giving. Thanks Carrie, and I know the timing on this is weird, but oh well, so am I.

While I am bragging about my very talented sisters, I have to add these pictures. My youngest sister Jacque sent these to me and they came today. She made all of these hair bows for any of the nieces who wanted them and we were all over that. Aren't they the cutest things in the world. She has made over 40 of them in the last couple weeks. Dragonflies, Butterflies and ladybugs, oh my. She said she is going to make some fun holiday ones, can't wait. Thanks Jax, you rock!This is Elise modeling the pink and brown dragonflies, as long as I didn't get a picture of her face because, "It doesn't look very good right now." (Heaven help me!)

This is Ice!

Yesterday Tyler, the girls and I went down to Centennial park during Tyler's lunch break to get some pictures for the Bank. It was pretty windy and cold, but a beautiful blue sky prevailed and it made me very anxious for Spring. We were on the golf course with the Perrine Bridge in the background, it was beautiful. Now here is the best part, on our way up out of the canyon we saw these ice falls, they were so cool, I had to stop and take some pictures.

In the Motherhood

My sister Carrie put this onto our family blog and I have gotten such a kick out of watching these videos. So for all you moms who wonder, "I am the only one?", or "What has happened to me?" or "Are you kidding me?" Check these out, they are funny. My favorite one is the Valentine's Day Episode, Carrie's favorite is the Birds and the Bees Talk. They are each about 5 or 6 minutes so when you have some free time (haha, what's that?) check 'em out and let me know what your favorite on is. Click Here.

Mollie Anna

At the request of my sister Rachel, I am doing a post about Mollie. I realize I haven't posted much on her and I need to because she is the cutest little thing ever. She is now almost 15 months old, runs around like the Energizer bunny and is an absolute kick in the pants. For example as soon as I say something like, "OK let's get ready to go", she will grab shoes and start passing them out to their rightful owner and then brings me my purse. It cracks me up, she is a genius. So here are some random photo ops.

Mollie loves to read and demands that we read to her. We have learned you can't say "No!" to Mollie, wonder where her strong will came from... hmmm....?
She loves to eat whole apples and it keeps her occupied for quite some time. Healthy and I get a moment to myself, wow, it is a win-win, yea for apples!

She is a big fan of Baby Einstein, now, it took us a while to get her to sit and watch, but she is fascinated by the animals. Go Baby Noah! (The creator of these videos is a genius, by the way!)

Her favorite pastime, especially when I am in the kitchen, is to empty my cupboards and pretend to cook. She and Elise have literally emptied every pot and pan out of these cupboards. (Crazy hair day, we weren't going anywhere so I didn't do it, I think she needs her bangs trimmed up.)

I can't remember if she was trying a somersault or if she as throwing a fit, either way I love this picture.

Me from A to Z

Me from A to Z

A:Attached or single: Attached for almost 9 years to Tyler and still madly in love.

B:Best friend(s): All of my sisters and my mom.

C:Cake or Pie: I love to eat cake with ice cream, but I love making pies, as long as someone else will eat them.

D:Day of choice: Thursday, excited for the weekend, and Survivor is on.

E:Essential Item: My KitchenAid

F:Favorite Color: Pink.

G:Gummi Bears or Worms:I love Gummi Worms, especially the sour ones.

H:Hometown: Born in Marlboro, Massachusetts, grew up as an army brat (literally), I'm a woman without a hometown.

I:Indulgence(s): Chocolate and pedicures, (I don't get enough of those!)

J:January or July: July, hands down, I have decided I need the sun.

K:Kids: The 3 most amazing children ever!

L:Life is incomplete without: my family

M:Marriage Date: August 6th, 1999

N:Number of siblings: 5 sisters and 1 brother

O:Oranges or Apples: Ooh, that's a tough one, Apple if it is really crisp and juicy.

P:Phobias or fears: Driving in the snow.

Q:Quote(s): "Dreams are like movies to watch when you are asleep , so you don't get bored." Reagan Larsen Age:5

R:Reason To Smile: My kids and Tyler

S:Season: I love autumn, and I miss the colors of the leaves from the East.

T:Tag: I tag Rachel, Carrie and Ashlee

U:Unknown Fact about Me: I'm scared of the dark.

V:Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animal: I'm an oppressor of animals, I need the protein.

W:Worst Habit: Biting my fingernails, but I am getting better.

X:X-rays or Ultrasounds: Ultrasound, they can be really exciting.

Y:Your favorite Food: Dessert

Z:Zodiac: Libra