Amy's New Blanket

I just wanted to share pictures of Amy's newest blanket because it turned out so dang cute! No, I did not make this myself. A few weeks back our RS had an activity where you were supposed to come up with a service to auction off and when you got there, you were given pretend money based on things that applied to you such as you read your scriptures or you had started your Christmas shopping, etc. My service was a birthday cake, hence one of the three I did this week.

That night I bought some babysitting from one person and a custom flannel baby blanket from someone else. I finally called and told her I would love baby blue and black, but any girly assortment of patterns and colors would be fine. And this is what I picked up today. I just love it!! You rarely see this color combo in girls clothes, but it is my favorite! And, it is nice and big to keep her warm all winter long - yay!!

Cake #3 and Pumpkins

So here is my third and final cake for the week. I didn't take a picture of cake #2 because it was a simple chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and no decorations, so nothing to really show. This one turned out fairly cute. It is the now fabulously famous Almost Too Much Chocolate Cake with black and pink decor on top (birthday girl's favorite colors)

I used buttercream to attach the curly things and dusted the loops of the bow with pearl dust to add a little sparkle. We took it with us to dinner at T.G.I. Fridays where we enjoyed some time with other adults while Sam played with a friend. I also have to add that this is the first cake I have been paid to do, which is exciting! Onward and upward!

And here are our three pumpkins sitting on the porch. We didn't get around to carving pumpkin #4 because of the dinner last night, but Sam and I found some of the battery operated candles at the local variety store and so we set out the pumpkins. I thought they looked pretty good and very Halloweenish! The big pumpkins we purchased from our neighbor, but since they were close to the last of the pumpkins and wouldn't stand up, we got them for $1 each instead of $3 each - gotta love a good deal!

Gearing Up for Halloween

Well, we are getting ready for Halloween here in Rigby, Idaho as I am sure most of you are, too. Today was our first opportunity to wear costumes to the Halloween storytime. My camera started wiggin' out afterwards, so I only have a few pictures. Above is Sam as a cowboy with his friend, Josh, who is a pirate along with his sister, brother and mommy - very cute!

And here's little Amy before we left for storytime in her borrowed ladybug costume. I love that it is stuffed with filling and the leggings are a thick cotton, so she actually stays pretty warm.

And this is Sam yesterday when he came home from preschool. He was so excited to tell me all about picking out his pumpkin and his bat ears he made and about singing the songs about the witch and the spider (no, I have no idea what songs he is talking about - one of the bummer things about preschool). We carved pumpkins last night with Daddy, but we have one more to find a face for and then we can take pictures to post.

Today I am working on cake #3 in three days, for Robert's friend's girlfriend. It is the Almost Too Much Chocolate cake with a bow and a few of the curly things in black and pink to dress it up a little - should be fun!

Tomorrow Sam gets to dress up again for his preschool Halloween party, which he has been so excited for ever since they told him about it LAST WEEK (thank you ever so much preschool teachers) and while he's at school I get to go take the test to get an Idaho driver's license (I know, such a procrastinator) since my Utah one has finally expired.

We missed our ward's trunk-or-treat (that's what I get for missing church for 3 weeks in a row - don't know anything) so we are hoping to maybe try out the Boo at the Zoo this year and maybe even hit a corn maze before the season is done.

Truck Cake

This is the picture that I found that was my inspiration. I know it doesn't look exactly the same but it's the general idea, right?

Well, here it is - the truck cake! It didn't turn out quite how I had in mind, but my cakes rarely ever do. Thankfully the person I did this cake for only requested a chocolate truck cake and left the rest up to me, so less stress.

Overall I think it turned out pretty cute, though and I hope the little boy will just be so excited that he got a truck cake for his 4th birthday that all the imperfections will be overlooked. I tried a homemade devil's food cake (which was very yummy and super moist, which is partly why I had so many issues) and put a layer of homemade chocolate cream cheese frosting in the middle with canned vanilla icing on the outside to get the red color (another major part of my issues)

Little Debbie chocolate covered donuts and M&M's make up the wheels. Crushed chocolate graham cookies, pretzels, and M&M's make up the "trash" in the back and a white chocolate bar for the windows and front grill of the truck complete it.

I would definitely like to try this one again and do many things different so that it comes out better, but overall it's still a fun cake and I think the family will be pleasantly surprised.

My First 5K

So tonight I ran my first 5K. We did really well for it being our first. Our time was somewhere around 44 minutes or so which wasn't really fast, but all that matters is that we finished and we weren't the last ones.
On the left is Bec and on the right is Julie. Julie is the friend I have been training with in the mornings doing the Couch to 5K program. We were both really proud to have reached this point where we can run for 30 or 40 minutes without stopping. Neither one of us thought we were the running type and we still may not be, but we have learned that we can push through and finish.

Go mommies!!

Where in the World are the Skousens?

Sorry to be MIA for so stinkin' long! I didn't realize how long it had been, but let me explain my absence. First of all, Robert has started digging potatoes, so once again we are without a husband/father which makes for really long days where we just try to make it to the end each time with everyone and their sanity in tact.
Then there was last week. My friend and I had planned to do our canning together and made a trip to Idaho Falls to get peaches, pears and corn on the cob. The plan was to buy the produce and then start two days later. But we would save a bundle if we bought peaches that were ready to be canned that day. So we ran home, quickly threw everything together and jumped in. We were able to finish the four boxes of peaches and one box of pears before the stomach flu hit both mommies and some of the kiddies. After giving ourselves one day to be sick, we went at it some more to finish the last three boxes of pears and dive in to fifteen dozen ears of corn to be shucked, blanched, cut off the cob and frozen. It was insane, let me tell you! But now we have our year's supply of each and probably about half of our canning/preserving done.
Then it was my birthday yesterday. It was pretty good as far as my birthday is concerned. Even though it was on Conference Sunday, I didn't have to prepare and teach a lesson or get the kids dressed up and wrestle with them at church. And Robert got to be home with me instead of digging potatoes. We had Papa Murphey's for dinner (since Robert can make that) and I decided I wanted cake for my birthday instead of pie, so I tried an orange cake with cream cheese icing (SO good!) and Super Fudge Brownie Ice Cream (yes, I realize these two don't really go together, but it is the only time Robert will allow me to buy ice cream now that we have an ice cream maker and I wanted to go all out). Sorry, no pictures, though because the batteries on the camera are dead (convienently).
Sam is as active as ever and is just loving preschool and we have started feeding Amy rice cereal!!
This week may or may not be more laid back, we shall see. I picked plums and peaches from the trees at our old place to make jelly and jam and probably should be taken care of this week, so that is probably going to be in the works along with all the housework that got neglected last week. But it will be worth all the work for a weekend of play with my sisters at Candace's bridal shower! Amy and I will be going down for the day while my brother-in-law watches Sam. Party on!!

The Strider Video

As promised, I have made a video of Sam riding his new Strider bike. He LOVES this thing and the other day I had him try his friend's pedal bike without training wheels and he can do it!! After just two weeks with the strider and he could move to a pedal bike - so worth the money!! But since it is the end of the summer, he can keep riding his Strider and then next summer we will see if he is big enough to ride the green bike from my parents and if not then we will get him a smaller pedal bike. You've gotta love the big wipe out at the end of the video! After I gave him a hug, he told me he wanted to do another movie, but not say "bye", because that makes him fall down :) Enjoy!

Zoo Adventures

My friend and I have been meaning to take the kids to the Idaho Falls Zoo for a while and finally got around to it this week. It was kinda small, but it was a beautiful day and not very many people were there so we had a great time walking around seeing the different animals they had. Amy was a little grouchy and I spent most of the time wrestling with her and trying to push the empty double stroller with one hand, hence the lack of pictures of the kids.

Black swans

Cranes - we were able to watch the employees feed these massive birds. They like to take the fish and swallow it and spit it back out over and over and over again. Sam was quite afraid that these birds were going to eat us, too.

Giant turtles

A leemer. He came right up to the glass where Lily was standing and put his hand out by hers, it was so cute! We all loved the different monkeys they had.

They had a few peacocks just running around the place, which was kind of neat. None of them had the full plume of feathers, though. We were also able to watch the penguins be fed (no picture, though)

We waited for a few minutes for our friends to meet us, so we grabbed a picture of each kiddo ready for the zoo.

Miss Amy. Still isn't real good at sitting up, even if she is strapped in.

State Fair

So we were able to get Daddy to sneek away from work for a few hours to get our fill of the Eastern Idaho State Fair on Friday afternoon. It actually turned out quite well because there weren't a ton of people. Sam was a little grouchy at times and it was a little on the hot side, but we managed to still have a great time letting Sam go on a ride or two, check out the petting zoo and of course get our fill of fair food. Our usuals include the Prime Steer hamburger, Tiger Ear scones, and Reed's Dairy ice cream. To try something new, we decided to get a strawberry funnel cake. Oh my gosh!!! I just about died and went to heaven - seriously! It was a great day and I am really glad we were able to go together as a family and just enjoy some time together walking around checking things out.

Getting to ride the Nemo boat ride all by himself.

Brushing the cow but still (quite understandably) terrified

Llama

Sam loved the bunnies the best, mainly because they weren't trying to smell or lick him and they were in a cage

Sam was terrified of the goats getting so close to him, but as always Daddy is there to protect him and ended up being the one to feed the animals

Going on the kiddie ferris wheel

First Day of Preschool

Amy ready to send big brother off to school

Sam showing us his MarioKart Wii backpack he picked out for school this year. I wasn't going to buy him a backpack because he already had a Buzz Lightyear one, but as luck would have it on the flight home from our trip to Arizona two or three weeks before school started the main zipper ripped clean off.

Sam was SOOO excited about going to school. He said he had a great time on his first day playing with playdough, playing outside on the castle, coloring a picture of a cowboy and singing "Old McDonald". Here's to two days a week preschool!!