Pictures Galore

Danica and Hanna both recently decided to take some fun pictures with their friends. Luckily we have friends and relatives with excellent cameras as well as a talent with photography.
This is Danica and her cousin Kinsey, best buds. Photographs are by Greg Garn, a man of many talents.

Here, Hanna and her friends, Christy and Heather, decided to spray paint some t-shirts for neon day at school. It was a fun project and these girls are so creative!

Hanna's pictures with her friends Kathryn and Kylie. Photographs by Patrice Crandall, a very talented photographer. These girls have so much fun together.

My Mom is Home

Well, my Mom is home for good. She finished her missionary service in Berlin and came home last week. She got home on Thursday night and left Friday morning to see my sister and her new baby, Laney in Utah. So we haven't seen much of her yet, but we are glad she is home.

Welcome home Mom!

Teenagers are Awesome

There are many things that bring joy to my heart. Here are some from this week:

--Chandler's willing and happy attitude about running my errands. Amazingly, he cleans the toy room and mows the lawn with equal willingness, but not in the same time frame. Also, he got his wisdom teeth out last week and hasn't complained at all.

--Danica's amazing piano talent. Currently she is working on "A Thousand Miles" by Vanessa Carlson. She has not been assigned this song by her piano teacher, but she just wanted to learn it for herself. It is a beautiful song and it is incredibly moving when played by my own daughter on my own piano.

--Chandler and Hanna wrestling. Afterwards, I get the details from Hanna, victor in her own mind. Also, Hanna's seminary is doing missionary week this week so she has to live like a Missionary. One thing she has to do is cook for herself. I keep forgetting this detail until she is preparing something different for herself. This morning, she was making a bagel while I was making waffles. Of course, I forgot why, so I asked her what's up. She reminded me that she has to cook for herself--oh right, you're killing me, Hanna. Who is going to eat the rest of these waffles?

Cupcake Question

Ok here are the chocolate cupcakes with a hint of cinnamon. The frosting is flavored with maraschino cherry. I thought they were quite delicious but some my my children with unsophisticated tastes didn't love them. Who wouldn't love that beautiful pink frosting?

Now I have a question. I might be thinking about selling my cupcakes. Some of you have mentioned that you would buy them so I am checking to see if that is true. Cupcake stores, such as Sprinkles, charge $3.25 per cupcake so I would think about charging $2 per cupcake. My packaging is obviously amateur (paper plate?), and I would probably need some advance notice to make sure I have what you want. Plus you would have to come to my house to pick them up. The flavors I would consider are:

Tres Leche

Chocolate Orange

Peach

Vanilla

Coconut

Chocolate Maraschino

Chocolate Caramel

Cranberry Almond (in season when I can get cranberries)

And possibly other flavors that sound fun.

So, let me know!

By the way, I have a batch of coconut cupcakes that I am making for my Mom to bring to Utah but she doesn't need all of them so if you want one, they will be frosted some time on Thursday. Email me at danjanand7@gmail.com

More Cousins

Last week we had some visitors. Teichert and Booker stayed at our house while their Mom and Dad went to Boston. Actually Booker only stayed during the days and went with Callie for the nights. Teichert stayed day and night. Isn't he so cute? We just loved him and the girls couldn't get enough. Zanya and Booker were little buddies

MamaGinger even came for one morning to play with Samantha and Booker

All the girls wanted to feed Ike, so we had to take turns. Here is Sam's turn.

Andria and Ike

Brothers, Booker and Teichert

We became very fond of this baby boy and my kids want to know when we are having one of our own. What? When we drove away from family dinner on Sunday and Teichert wasn't with us, Zan said "Where is Teichert, we need Teichert!" We had to tell her that he was going home with his Mom and Dad. We'll miss him.

Valentine's Day

Ok, so it wasn't exactly Valentine's Day. It was Friday which was the day that we had all the Valentine parties. Here are the Valentine hair dos:
Andria
Maranda

Samantha

Zanya

Zanya loves Valentine hair :)

That night we had a ward dance/service project. Hanna thought it would be fun to have a LOVE t-shirt. So she spray painted one and it turned out so cute that everyone else wanted one too! So we pulled out whatever white t-shirt we could find and Hanna made them look like converstation hearts. They turned out so cute. Seaver is a lucky guy.

Funny kids!

(We missed Chandler and Danica that night. Chandler stayed home, sick and Danica went to a school dance with her friend.)

Maranda the Artist

We have recently become amazed at Maranda's skill as an artist. She will draw pictures from coloring books or other pictures that she sees. We would ask her if she had traced them because they were so much like the originals. So Dan asked her if she could draw a face and Maranda said that she couldn't. Dan asked her to draw this guy from 101 Dalmatians: We think it is pretty great especially since we don't have any talent in this area ourselves and she is only nine years old. Anyone know where we can find inexpensive drawing classes?

Cucumbers for Dessert?

Andria is not a great eater. She never thinks she is hungry. So now I bribe her with a cucumber. That's right, I tell her if she eats her dinner then she can have a cucumber for dessert. This works whenever I think of it. Crazy! She just wants it whole and eats it like a big pickle. Luckily they are on sale now at Superstition Ranch Market four for a dollar!

Oh, yeah, sometimes she has to share with her sisters.

Cousin Weekend

We had some of our cousins spend a few days with us last weekend. It was so much fun! We went to the green belt to run off some energy before dinner time.


Here, Kindyl and Maranda built a brick tower around Andria. I think they took turns being in the middle.
Rachael curled everyone's hair.
Andria and Breazy, beautiful!

Zanya and Brenley all ready for bed.

Zan and Sam were so excited for Brenley to spend the night in their room. Zan wanted to sleep on the floor so Brenley could sleep in her bed. They were so good and they all slept through the night. Cousins are so fun!

Valentine Treats

Here is the cupcake with the fluffy pink frosting. Well, it isn't very fluffy but it is pink. It uses the juice from maraschino cherries for the pink part. The chocolate cupcakes have a hint of cinnamon which I thought was delicious and different. I thought they were great but not all my kids liked them. All my kids do love valentine sugar cookies. We tried a new recipe this year from a friend of ours. They are delicious! I liked the cookies almost better without the frosting because they were so good. Most of the rest of my family likes a little cookie with their frosting (Dan). Actually, Hanna made these for her seminary class so we didn't get to keep too many for ourselves.

I think I might need to start taking pictures of all the nutritious meals we eat over here so that you don't get the wrong idea about our home. We do not eat treats all the time. We have a healthy balance of nutrition and treats. Probably most of my kids would say we have too many healthy things. I'll try to remember to take fun pictures of healthful things next time :)

Photo Shoot

Hanna and Kylee goofing around one Sunday afternoon at Grunyon Run. I think Kinsey is the photographer.

It's great to have cousins!