I'm a Proud Aunt (AGAIN!)

My sister had a baby yesterday. A sweet baby girl, named Keira, who weighed in at 7 lbs 1 oz.

She was born on their Wedding Anniversary.

I can't wait to go meet her in a couple of weeks!!

Sunglasses

Clara loves her sunglasses.

Whenever we are driving on a sunny day, she tells me the sun is in her eyes, and that she needs her sunglasses.

If we don't have her sunglasses with us, she will insist on wearing mine, or any one else's.

She love to tell us that her sunglasses are pink. With butterflies.

Ordinary things in life are so much more exciting through the eyes of a two year old.

If they happen to be pink, that helps too.

Palmyra Pageant

We love going to the outdoor Pageant in Palmyra.

The boys did a great job cleaning out the van before we left.

This year when we arrived, the first cast members we ran into were friends of Scott's sisters family that we had met 12 years ago when they lived in Ontario.

Waiting for the show to start... Eating the famous Pageant Potatoes. They were as good as we remembered.

The cast was huge this year - over 750 cast members.

Afterwards we drove to Rochester and stayed in a hotel with a pool. We arrived quite late, but went for a swim in the morning, then made another quick stop at the outlets in Niagara Falls before heading home.

It was wonderful to go on our first family trip of the summer!

Sisters

August 2010:

(My sister made these adorable matching dresses.)

June 2011:

Samantha left yesterday to fly out West to spend a week with her cousins. I miss her already!

Clara does too.

Muffins

My friend, Shannon, and I got together to make 13 dozen muffins for our Stake's Young Women Camp.

156 muffins plus extras for our children and husbands to "sample".

We were a good team and got them all done and cleaned up in about 3 hours.

We made Blueberry Muffins, Classic Banana Muffins, Apple Spice Muffins, and Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins.

Click each kind to see the recipe. I didn't include a link to the Pumpkin Muffins, as I decided to share it right here. Yes, it only has 3 ingredients.

And they are SO good!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 box Spice Cake Mix

1 can Pumpkin Pie Filling

1 cup Chocolate Chips

Combine in mixer, bake at 375 until done (about 15 minutes). Enjoy!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Scott went away to Scout Camp for a week, and while he was gone he missed Brett's birthday. So when he came back, we decided to celebrate again, this time at a baseball game.

We've been to a couple major league baseball games with the kids, and they have been pretty fun.  But this was SO much more fun for our family than any major league game.  Because of the much smaller crowd, our kids were able to really get involved in the game.

They got chosen to go out and play games for prizes in-between innings.

They were chosen as the "fans of the game" and we all got free cupcakes.

They got to go onto the field and run the bases during the seventh inning stretch.

They got to meet the players after the game for pictures and autographs.

Scott kept whispering things into Nathan's ear to yell to the players at bat.  Don't worry, they were nice words, just funny to hear a 4 year old yelling them.  Everyone thought it was pretty entertaining.  And since we were sitting right above the dugout, Nathan would run over and ask the players for a high five when they got a run or a good hit.

Later on he ran about 10 rows back and asked a man if he could have some of his sunflower seeds.

After that I started pretending I didn't know him.

It was a great night, and a fun memory for our family.  

Brett's Birthday

Brett turned 9 and he chose to spend the day at Storybook Gardens. He invited a friend from school, and Grandma, and it was a lot of fun.

Before we left, we had a breakfast of bacon & eggs, toast, fruit and chocolate milk.

It was really hot outside, and super sunny, so the kids are squinting in most of the photos.

The bubble station had some fun wands. Some of the bubbles were huge!

We came home for chocolate cake before the soccer games.

JD's present to Brett... 2 goals at their soccer game!