Let us eat cake!

Tonight was the last night of my cake decorating class. It was A LOT of fun. We practiced flowers and writing on top.


Daniel didn't want to eat cake and I knew if I brought it home I would eat it all myself (most likely in 1 sitting!) so I decided to give it to my friend Kaitlin and her family. Her kids are SO CUTE and they get excited when I bring things over so I decided to put their names on a "Happy Spring" cake. I think it turned out alright considering I've never done flowers before. The flowers were kind of ugly but if I take the next course "Flowers and Cake Design" I will learn a lot of different kinds. Guess that means I should try and figure out my schedule so I can keep going with the next class huh?!

Kids in the Kitchen

I've never liked to let John in the kitchen. It scares me to let kids into my kitchen, especially when I'm cooking. I will allow John in the kitchen with me when I'm doing the dishes or washing the floor because he absolutely LOVES to help me...most of the time doing the dishes and washing the floor go hand in hand because John will splash the water out all over the place so whether I like it or not I have to wash the floor in order to get all of the water up!


He's so cute when he wants to "help me clean" but when I'm cooking I will put my foot down and not let him in. I've seen too many accidents happen when a kid is let into the kitchen while someone is cooking. John has been able to climb on things for a long time now but he has just figured out how to get over things for the past few months. He will climb up and over gates, furniture, and anything else in the way of what he wants. He is fearless about climbing. At some point I will have to take him rock climbing or something to see how he does because he amazes me with his skills. More and more he has been finding ways into the kitchen when I'm not around. He gets into the fridge when he's hungry, tries to get baby food for Joshua when he thinks he's hungry, pulls out the pots and pans, scatters the silverware, and has even been known to try the nobs on the stove. This always seems to happen when I'm preoccupied with something else and I don't even realize he's in the kitchen until I hear a crash of some sort or an egg being dropped on the floor. So I decided to try something...


Has it worked? Yes! However it breaks my heart to see this every time I make dinner....Poor little guy!!

University of Utah

It's official, Daniel received his acceptance letter for the University of Utah yesterday! We're still waiting to find out what kind of funding he will receive but at least we're in and we have a plan of what's going on for the next 3-4 years. I'm so proud of him for wanting to do this. This is definitely the highest degree of anyone on either side of our families. Life is going to be VERY busy but at least now I'll have family not too far away and I'm sure I'll make friends where we end up living. I am SO SAD to leave Santa Barbara but I'm so happy I had the chance to live here for the past 3 years. I'm having such mixed feelings about all of this right now but I'm mostly excited and ready for a new adventure...

Happy Birthday Annie!

One of our good friends had a birthday this last week and threw a GREAT "Diva" birthday party. Everyone came dressed in their best "diva" outfit and I sported my best diva hat complete with flower and a red feather boa (not in the picture unfortunately because Joshua kept pulling all of the feathers out)

Is this not the cutest face you've EVER seen!?!?!?!

I love this little guy. He seriously brightens up my life....not just because the light reflects off of his bald head!! I can't believe he's still so baldy. It will be weird if (and hopefully when) he actually gets hair one of these days :)

Here are my two sweet little guys enjoying Maters Tall Tales during the party.
Portable DVD Players= Best invention EVER!!
We sure love our Annie. I'm so glad it was her birthday so had a great excuse for a really fun party....and a great excuse to wear a hat and feather boa!!

Cupcakes!

Dear Jeannie,

We missed you at our last cake decorating class. Here's what you missed...
Somehow there were only 5 of us there. Jacquie took your seat so we would feel like you were still there and we wouldn't miss you too much! We practiced and practiced making different flowers which never seemed to turn out like the pictures.


This week it mas my turn to have weird icing. It would not cooperate even though I made it the exact same way as I did last week.

Jacquie was amazing as usual and every time she demonstrated something it always turned out perfect...even with my horrible icing. Once she gave the bag back to me and I would try the exact same thing and it never looked quite the same! I still have a lot of practice to do ;)


These were my finished product. We again ran out of time trying to practice all of our stuff and in the meantime I got a little too hungry and ate one of my cupcakes. It was delicious and I don't regret it!

Next week's class is sure to be amazing. Get well soon and Happy Baking!

Love, Brandy

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

You gotta love St. Patrick's Day...even if you're half Scottish like me! Yesterday was a fun day filled with lots of green and a great party hosted by Family Student Housing and the Tenants' Association. For those of you who don't know I am the President of the Tenants' Association and I have a lot of fun being the President. It's a lot of work but I still enjoy it. This year FSH (family student housing) asked us to co-sponsor the party together. They were in charge of the food and we were in charge of the crafts and prizes. We had green eggs (with basil and cilantro) and ham, Lucky Charms, and a variety of other green delicious food. We set up craft tables to make rainbow hats, fruitloop necklaces, green ties, coloring pages, wordsearch's and we even had a treasure hunt for a "Pot of Gold". Everything turned out really well. There were a few things that weren't so great...the older kids ripped the clues to shreds and had no respect for anyone including myself during the treasure hunt. It was really chaotic but I think at least some of them enjoyed it. We also had a unfortunate mishap with our Pots of Gold we were giving out to all the kids at the end of the hunt. My friends Brad and Janeya helped me blow up 36 balloons (we had a helium tank) and tied them to each pot of gold so each kid would get a balloon in the end. They left them in the box to make sure the kids didn't just come over and steal the whole lot, and the only problem with that was the kids ran over and started pulling at everything and the entire bunch of balloons all knotted together and it took FOREVER to get them apart. Looking back on the situation now it's pretty funny but at the time it was a little hectic! The party was a total success even though we were a little squished. I'm sure people still had fun....I know I did!

After the party and after Daniel helped our neighbor move (we miss you Flemings!) we went out on an actual date to Chili's (thanks Kaitlin for watching the kids!!). We had so much fun together and we even ordered a Molten Chocolate Cake of awesomeness for dessert. We saw our friend's the Poland's there which was really fun then went home and went to sleep. It was a pretty exhausting day for both of us so we just didn't really have the energy to do anything else.

It was a great day! Here are the little random facts I found out about St. Patrick's Day for our treasure hunt.....

1. St. Patrick was born in 385 AD somewhere along the west coast of Britain, possibly in the Welsh town of Banwen. At age 16, he was captured and sold into slavery to a sheep farmer. He escaped when he was 22 and spent the next 12 years in a monastery. In his 30s he returned to Ireland as a Christian missionary. He died at Saul in 461 AD and is buried at Downpatrick.

2.Clovers: St. Patrick used the 3 leaf clover to explain the holy trinity to the irish. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the highest number of leaves found on a clover is 14! One estimate suggests that there are about 10 000 regular three-leaf clovers for every lucky four-leaf clover. Legend says that each leaf of the clover means something: the first is for hope, the second for faith, the third for love and the fourth for luck.

3.The Snake: It has long been recounted that, during his mission in Ireland, St. Patrick once stood on a hilltop (which is now called Croagh Patrick), and with only a wooden staff by his side, banished all the snakes from Ireland. In fact, the island nation was never home to any snakes. The "banishing of the snakes" was really a metaphor for the eradication of pagan ideology from Ireland and the triumph of Christianity. Within 200 years of Patrick's arrival, Ireland was completely Christianized.

4.Leprechauns had nothing to do with St. Patrick or the celebration of St. Patrick's Day, a Catholic holy day. In 1959, Walt Disney released a film called Darby O'Gill & the Little People, which introduced America to a very different sort of leprechaun than the cantankerous little man of Irish folklore. This cheerful, friendly leprechaun is a purely American invention, but has quickly evolved into an easily recognizable symbol of both St. Patrick's Day and Ireland in general.

5. 34 million Americans have Irish ancestry, according to the 2003 US Census. That’s almost nine times the population of Ireland, which has 4.1 million people.

6. The Irish flag is green, white and orange. The green symbolizes the people of the south, and orange, the people of the north. White represents the peace that brings them together as a nation.

Like Father Like Son...

At the end of Feb. Daniel flew to Utah to audition for the Doctoral program at the University of Utah. He said he did very well and he really liked the facilities and performance halls. We're both really hoping that he gets into the program (which we won't find out about until April...blast!) because we really don't have any other plans yet. One way or another we HAVE to leave family student housing come graduation but our plans for what is to come after that....still undetermined! We are really thankful for wonderful family who have offered their homes as a place for us to stay until we figure things out but exactly what is to come is still a complete mystery to us. Still, we're hoping to get into this program then at least we'll have a plan for another few years while we hide behind graduate school biding our time to enter the real world and dare I say it...find a job!

Anyway, Daniel had a great time visiting old friends, hanging out with his stepmom, and freezing his butt off in the snow! After the weekend was over he traveled back to warm sunny Santa Barbara and offered to take Joshua for me while John was having his Speech Therapy. Once Wendy left I walked through into the bedroom and this was how I found them...
I have so many pictures of Daniel holding either John or Josh sleeping but this one is my very favorite. Even though Joshua looks a lot like me he is definitely a lot of Daniel as well. Once Joshua woke up I took this cute little cheeser picture. Can you tell how happy he is to have his Daddy home?!

My Creative Side...

Recently I have been feeling very crafty. The problem is sometimes I start a project, get distracted (kids, dinner, laundry, a loud crash coming from the other room followed by my son running like the wind!) then I never seem to find the time or energy to get back to it so then I decide to start another project which I get distracted from and the vicious cycle continues. Eventually I will remember my dust covered projects and finally finish them but its never in the time line I originally thought. Oh well, at least they get done right?!

Here are some of the recent things I have done...

Chocolate covered Strawberries for Valentine's Day

A bouquet of Pink Chocolate roses for someone in my ward. I sold these for Valentine's Day and they turned out really nice. I had other orders of red roses and some dark or milk chocolate but I don't put pictures of those. Here is another picture of a bouquet that I did for my friend Kaitlin. It shows all of the different kinds I made...

This has been an ongoing project for a while. I managed to acquire a big stack of old jeans and cut out the pockets and patches of the denim. I sewed them together in long strips and made a blanket top. John and Josh absolutely LOVE it! I'm still not finished with it but I'm getting there. I just got the batting for it so now all I have to do is put it together with the back, sew or tie it together, bind the edges and voila! Sounds easy right...WRONG! I'm pretty pathetic when it comes to sewing and I have no idea what I'm doing or how to make everything go together. Daniel keeps telling me to quilt it together because my new sewing machine has a "quilting" option but I think it's too thick for that. What do you think? Would it be better to tie it together then bind the edges or should I be brave and attempt to quilt this bad boy together?



My favorite form of crafty that I have been lately ties in to a Cake Decorating class I am currently taking. My friend Jacquie is teaching it at Michaels and it is so much fun. I am learning things I never even considered before even with a professional cake-decorating mother!

Here is my very first attempt at a cake...

The poor fish had a droopy mouth and HUGE eye. It didn't turn out like the picture but I still think he's cute!

Last night I made my second attempt at a cake. My wonderful friend Annie is having a birthday this week and I made this for her last night. It took me 4 different tries to get it to look like this but at least I finished it and she said she liked it. I was too close to the project and kept finding all the mistakes but I was happy with the finished result.

This next week we're doing cupcakes which I'm REALLY excited about. I really look forward to having this class each week and I think I will be sad when it's over.

Growing Times

When we first moved here I heard a lot of people talk about the kid classes that were offered through the Santa Barbara City College. I signed up for one when John was about 6 months old and really enjoyed it. The only problem was it was so far away that I was getting pretty sick of driving back and forth each week to attend the class. When John got a little older I was able to sign up for a Growing Times class that was held at the Community Center in my apartment complex... SCORE! It was so nice to walk through my back yard gate to attend the class rather then a 15min drive on the freeway. The instructor Bonnie is a very nice lady who really loves being around children. She has the longest hair ever and she's always a positive happy person whenever I see her. This quarter they switched things around a little bit which didn't make the class as fun as it has been in the past. The only upside is John has actually started to pay attention and sit through the singing time (something he has never been able to do before). He's even started to do the hand motions to all his favorite songs (some at the class, some at home): The itsy bitsy spider, The wheels on the bus, 2 little speckled frogs, 3 little ducks, , 2 little monkeys swinging in a tree, and his all time favorite Popcorn Popping.

He plays really well with the other kids but most of the time he bounces around from one toy to the next so fast that he hardly plays with anyone for more than 30 seconds.

He LOVES playing with the dress-up and his all time favorite toy is the red telephone.

One day he found the Ruby Slippers and wouldn't take them off until it was time to clean up!

I caught he and his bestie in the class (Avalon) both wearing them one day!

He likes all of the different activities they have but when it comes to the silly puddy he usually thinks it's food and will try to put it in his mouth when I'm not looking...

This quarter was our last quarter to take this class. I could sign up for next quarter but since we will be leaving before the classes even finishes and I have A LOT to do before we go I think we will have to big adieu to Growing Times with Bonnie!



P.S-This was the greatest day we ever had. He was paying attention so well and joined in during singing time!

Joshua at 6months....well...7 months!

Joshua turned 6 months....last month! Yesterday he turned 7 months old. I had every intention of posting his 6 month pictures with all his stats a while back but never actually did it until now.

My adorable little guy is a whopping 20lbs already (I think 95th percentile) and I can't remember the exact height but it was in the 50%.

Joshua is the best little boy ever! He is a champion sleeper, eater, crawler, and mess maker. He loves to hold very lengthy conversations with his toes and always gets a huge grin on his face whenever his daddy is around. Sometimes when he wakes up either in the morning or from a nap I won't even know he's awake until I come through and he's rolling around checking out the world making the cutest little noises. He loves his big brother so much. He takes his fair share of lickings from John but can dish it right back when John is least expecting it. He likes peas. His hair is getting darker but his eyes are staying blue. In some lights his eyes look green but whenever I take a picture of him they are always a vibrant blue. His cheeks are SO much fun to kiss, and I absolutely love getting slobbery kisses back.

He's growing up way too fast, but I LOVE each and every day I get to spend with him.

Here's a short clip of when he first started to crawl (army crawl). Daniel was in Utah for an audition so I made sure to get this on my phone so I could text it to him. He got distracted by the Buzz Lightyear and therefore wasn't tempted with the red feather anymore...but at least I caught him doing it for a few seconds. He's doing it ALL. THE. TIME now so I'm sure I'll get more and more little videos of it.