What have we been up to, you ask? Well, this...

Well, it's been a while since the last post. I've had things to blog about but just haven't had the time and energy. Sometimes I lack the motivation too, but my sweet cousin, Julia, has encouraged me this week by assuring me that people actually do read this blog and enjoy the updates...so here goes. I'm thinking this will be at least two separate posts; pre-spring break and spring break.

A few weeks ago we had the cub scout Blue and Gold cake walk that I helped Shazer make this creation for:

Hopefully you can tell that it's supposed to be a bear's face (because Shazer is working on getting his Bear). If you look very closely you might also be able to see that it is actually made up of cupcakes alternating in blue and "gold" (aka yellow). We just used yellow cake mix for the yellow and then used food coloring to make blue batter of a white cake mix. The decorations were made using a very dark store bought fudge icing and chocolate sprinkles and frosting. It was fun for Shazer to do (as you can see he was very pleased with the result) and it seemed to be a big hit at the event. 

Our girls have had many a runny nose off and on the past month. Here's a picture of them "helping" their dad fix our bed. 

Here's a pretty good picture of the huge bruise that Sophie got while playing chase on the porch with her sister. Sally was on her tricycle and Sophie was running around. Sally got a little overzealous and pretty much mowed down Sophie, Sophie hit her head really hard into the metal frame of the sliding glass door. I'd seen it happen and heard the loud thud and was afraid at first that she'd cracked open her forehead, but upon closer inspection I was relieved to see she'd gone down on her chubby cheek and didn't even bite the inside of her mouth. Just a few days after this first incident we were sitting in Sacrament Meeting in the middle of the blessing of the water and she squirmed down off the bench and fell directly into the hard wood bench in front of us- in exactly the same spot on her right cheek. It took the poor girl at least three weeks for the bruise to go away. 

Sally has been helping me plant and water some nice flowers- I'm happiest with our violets.

Here are some pictures from a recent trip to the Arizona Mills Mall. We've been purchasing a lot of shoes recently (thank you tax return). I had to replace my black mary jane Dr. Martens because the strap broke on my old ones-they were older than Shazer and looking a little shabby. Shule finally allowed us to buy him new shoes in a size 9- we'd just bought him new black slip on Vans in the fall but he's had a hole in the big toe in both shoes for months now- he wouldn't let us buy new ones but I think they were finally too uncomfortably tight. He chose the exact same style shoe as before. Why mess with a good thing? Shule has grown a lot just in the past month. He's taller than me now and while he's grown up he's also lost inches off his waist. Shazer is also growing but adding inches to his waist- I think he's getting ready to have another growth spurt soon. He also needed new shoes after his sneaks that we bought in the fall had the soles coming off the bottom. Boys are crazy hard on shoes! He got some black Vans as well but his are the ankle kind. I also got myself some pink, white and black checkered vans (in a Ked style *cringe*)- I needed a cool, comfortable sneaker to wear that wasn't my Nike running shoes (at least that's what Jon said, he's not too hip on my Nike's but I can't help but love them for being such a comfortable shoe to exercise in, plus I kinda like the look- they're grey with a purple Nike symbol). Wow, I didn't realize I had so much to say about shoes- maybe I'll take a picture of all our cool shoes and do a separate post dedicated just to them. Look for it ;)  

Girls are loving the quarter rides and Shazer is a sweetheart for making sure Sophie didn't jump off and get hurt. 

I love this sad picture of Sophie- for some reason she was NOT into this train engine ride.

But the ice cream truck was much better. Maybe because it was broken so it didn't move or make any scary noises ;)