Happy Halloween!

'Tis the season for black frosting! Logan always enjoys licking the beaters, and this time it was a batch of black frosting. Cute isn't he?

We carved our pumpkins a few nights ago. James decided that this year, he was going to carve his pumpkin like a real man: with power tools.

Logan is modeling with our finished products. I call them: "Old Man Pirate" and "Laughing Vampire". We call the cute kid in the middle, Logan.

Logan and Lizzy are modeling their Halloween costumes. Logan isn't thrilled about Elmo riding around on his head, so I was impressed that he put up with it long enough to have his picture taken.

Actually, the real shocker is that Logan has been letting us take his pictures the last few days. Yay!

Happy Halloween everybody!

Catching Up

It's only been a couple of weeks since I last posted, but I feel so behind! It's been a couple of busy weeks for me; I like that.

Ok, so what's kept me busy, you want to know? I don't really remember. I had to refer to my pictures as a reminder.

Here is one of a batch of apple butter. I made two different batches using the apples from my mom's trees. I also forced my friend Mary into making a batch for herself. It was soooooo much easier to make than I had been anticipating. If you've got a lot of apples, I recommend turning them into apple butter. It is super yummy.
I have also made two of these birthday cakes and 60 of the cupcakes in the following picture. A friend in the ward asked me to do these for her son's birthday.

(Argh! I just now spotted the three green dots in a row on the cake! Sorry Viv!)

Speaking of cake, I get to make a lot more cake! Today I baked a cake for my friend's birthday, and in a few weeks I will be making my sister's wedding cake. Careful planning is going into that cake. This wedding has been A LONG time in coming for her, so I want to make sure it is extra special. The wedding is the day before Thanksgiving, so be patient for the pictures. As for the friend's b-day cake, I'll get the pictures up as soon as I'm done with it.

The following are just random pictures from every day life. Logan requested that this picture be taken of him. He usually screams and runs away when he sees the camera, so I was happy to oblige when he asked me to take this. I was lucky to get this shot because right after I took it he got mad at me for trying to take his picture. What the? Strange kid. Cute pic though. He dressed himself.

These are the other two crazy people in my life. It's seriously difficult to get a good picture of James. The first one I took of him he had his eyes closed. This was the second picture and he doesn't like it. He thinks he look possessed. It doesn't matter though, because I was really taking the picture of Lizzy. I love her hair in it. It is her post bath look. Come to think of it, this is James' post bath look too. :)

I hope you enjoyed the path down the last two weeks of my life! I guess I wasn't as busy as I thought. Oh well.

One of THOSE Mornings

Logan has been potty trained for a little while now. He did really well at first but has regressed somewhat since then. He hasn't regressed in the sense that he doesn't know what to do now, it's all just a power struggle with him at this point. For whatever reason, he hates to pee in the potty. He has no problems telling me when he has to poo, but pee is the power struggle. I've even started giving him treats again for when he goes potty by himself and actually does it in the potty.

This morning happened. Logan once again decided that he was NOT going to pee in the potty. I put him in the bathroom and told him he could come out once he was done. He kept asking to come out while I kept telling him to go potty so he could come out. While I was waiting for him to decide to go to the bathroom, I changed Lizzy into her new diaper and clothes for the day. I went back to check on Logan. I opened the door only to find that he had decided to pee on the floor. In my own private rage, I completely forgot about Lizzy, grabbed Logan and threw him in the tub. I turned around to see Lizzy, in her new outfit, crawling right through the puddle of pee. Needless to say, they both got baths this morning and I have lost a little bit more sanity.

Are you sad that I had no pictures of this episode? Don't be. The only thing the pictures would have depicted would be crazed mother, crying son, helpless 10 month old soaked in pee. It wasn't a pretty picture.

Pumpkin Picking

We finally decided that it was time to go get our pumpkins. Luckily, our good friends, the Anderson's, were thinking the same thing. We decided to go to Schmidt's together. James, Von, and Lizzy decided to scope out the pumpkins while waiting for the rest of us to catch up.

This was the best picture I could get of all the kids. Logan still hates to have his picture taken, so the fact that his face is in this picture is lucky. Julia and Ellie have clearly had their pictures taken a lot. They were PERFECT posers!

Clearly Logan doesn't know what a "pretty" pumpkin looks like.

Nice load, no?

These two stuck together pretty closely. It was so cute! Until they tried to run out into the street that is. :)

Now, go get YOUR pumpkins! This was a great place. It's on the corner of 9000 south and 2200 west. The real reason I'm endorsing this place is because these local farmers are in my Mom's ward. It feels good to support people you know, you know? The place is very family friendly too, so GO!

Happy Halloween!

Cooking Blog

Sorry, this will be the only time I remind you, but I did officially start my cooking blog. I think I will give it a more prominent spot on this blog so you remember to look at it. Well see how long it takes for me to get around to doing that. In them mean time, visit it, cook stuff, tell me what you think. Will this be worth while to keep up? I hope so! It's been more work than I'm used to. Clearly I'm not used to a lot of work. :)

Visit it at amickelsen.blogspot.com

Or you can find it under my list of friends and family. It's called "Heart of MY Home". James doesn't like the title. Maybe it will change. We'll see!

We're Finished!

James spent all day putting on the new base boards and hanging the new doors. It was more of a job than even he realized it would be.

We still want to put shelves in the closet and we need to touch up a lot of paint. But, that won't happen until this winter. I think we are all sick and tired of this project and we are just ready to get back to real life that isn't centered around this addition. Enjoy the silly video!

On another note, I decided that I really wanted to start another blog about what I cook on a day to day basis. It won't be anything fancy; I mostly just wanted to share the few tips I know and to keep a record of what I cook for my own use. If you like the blog, please feel free to share your comments and or suggestions. You can link to it from my list of family and friends, it's called "The Heart of MY Home" or you can get to it from amickelsen.blogspot.com. I'll post something on it soon, so if you are interested in this new blog and realize I don't have anything posted yet, don't get mad at me! I will tomorrow or the next day. Thanks for your interest!