The Big 05!

My sweet little (big?) girl turned 5 today. I can't believe it's been five years already. She is such a wonderful girl. She loves to learn. She is always asking me to help her read books, and to write her letters. She is so excited to start kindergarten (even if Mom is not!). She loves to play with my little ponies, polly pockets and to do anything arts and craftsy. I can't believe she started out so small. She's pretty average now. We just love her personality and her fiery spirit. That red hair really comes into play sometimes :) Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!!!

Kaitlyn had her pony party today. She invited five friends. We started out the party by painting some wooden ponies. Then we played pin-the-tail on the pony. Lunch was Little Ceasers, and then it was time for a little game with each girl getting to open a pony to take home. Then came Kaitlyn's favorite part of the party, the pony pinata. The girls had a blast hitting it, with Annie Atkinson doing the honor of breaking it open.

Then came the cake and ice cream. I think Kaitlyn had a great time. She was so happy that her friends could come a spend such a special day with her. Happy Birthday Bean!!!

Here are Kaityn's friends starting at the left : Lauren and Carly Ray, Kaitlyn, Annie Atkinson, and Gabby Lacher. They are all such great girls!

A Simple Request ?!?

It all started out with Kaitlyn asking for a My Little Pony party for her 5th birthday. I thought, okay, I can do a my little pony cake. In fact it will probably be one of the easiest ones I've done. Not in the least! After I started doing my research to find the best way to make one, I quickly realized it was easier said than done. You could buy the Wilton Pony pan for like $35, but what's the point if you're only going to use it once? Then a bunch I looked at were just a cake with ponies set on top, or elaborate pony houses made out of fondant, but since I believe that cake should be edible, and let's face it fondant just isn't, I quickly ruled those out. That left one option, making my own. Once again I was feeling rather confident. I had done some pretty cool cakes over the last couple of years (excuse me for bragging a little bit),
Here is the duck cake from Katilyn's first birthday. I did have help from my mother-in-law for this one, and a duck pan complete with directions. Kaitlyn's second birthday was Mickey Mouse, and my sister helped with this one.

Third year was a Little Einstein's theme, ergo a rocket cake. I did this one by myself.

Her fourth year she wanted princess. This was probably the coolest, but by far the easiest one to make. Did this one myself to.

Now we are to this year. I went to Michael's and bought a 12x18 inch pan, since a regular 9x13 was not big enough. Then I had Aaron draw me an outline for the pony, since my would end up looking like a stick figure. Then I placed the outline on my finished strawberry cake (and just f.y.i. it took three cake mixes to fill that pan!), then I cut out the shape and set to decorating. 2 1/2 hours later I'm finished. I'm sure Kaitlyn will point out that rainbow dash actually has a blue body instead of pink, but oh well. I did the best I could. It is far from perfect but I think it looks like a pony. What do you think?? I'll post pics of the pony part tomorrow!

Clark County Fair

On Wed. night we went with our friends, the Atkinson's, to the Clark county fair. My good friend Betty had set us up with some free tickets to get in. So we went. This was the first time we had ever been, but it was pretty fun (if not a complete rip-off, each ride costing 4 or 5 tickets and each ticket costing $1). Luckily the kids were too small to ride most of the rides. Kaitlyn did go on the swings, and I must admit that my heart was in my throat the whole time she was up there. She looked so little on those big swings (she just barely made the height cut-off) and this big punk teenager behind her kept running his swing into her. I wanted to hit him when he got off, but I restrained myself. Matt conned me into doing the tea cups with him, and after I had finished being sick afterword, we went on to ride a little roller coaster and go on two big slides. We ate dinner there, sharing hamburgers, corn on the cob, and huge elephant ears. We also got to watch a little bull riding, which was pretty cool .The kids liked it when the riders came out on their bulls, but got pretty bored fast since it took a while to switch bulls. I thought it was great though. We stayed pretty late, so the kids were pretty tired, but it was definatly fun. Now for the bad news, I had some great pics of the kids on the rides but alas, I accidently deleted them all. I'm hoping when Aaron gets home he can find the in the great expanse of our computer, and then I will add them to this post. Until then, I leave it up to your imagination :)

Beat the Heat

If any of you ever decide to move to the Pacific Northwest (and I highly encourage you to do so) don't let some crazy realtor tell you you don't need air conditioning. It's a big, fat lie. Since we've been sporting St. George-esque temps around 108 degrees (plus like 80% humidity) we've been blissfully happy that we have a working air conditioner. But alas, you cannot stay in the house all the time, so we've tried to find others ways to stay cool. This includes a wonderful place known as Cottonwood Beach. It's only about 15 minutes away, and it's this great place on the Columbian River. There is plenty of sand, and water for the kids to play in. There isn't any current by the beach, so you just have to make sure the kids don't swim out too far. As long as Kaitlyn has her life jacket on, she's as happy as a clam. She'll swim all over in that thing. Matt is more of the "as long as the water doesn't pass my shin" mentality, but hey, at least he's getting in. This last week we didn't go until later so Aaron could come with us. It was a blast. We go with a bunch of friends, and we always stay at least 3 hours. You can all thank my wonderful friend Karen for the pics, I, of course, forgot my camera. :)

I know that you're all admiring my fetching farmer's tan here, (and the complete lack of tan on my legs) what can I say, it takes work to look this good :