We gave Emery a haircut just before the wedding and it is amazing what a difference it can make he doesn't look like my little baby anymore he is a little boy now it makes me a little sad because I don't have a baby anymore but he snuggles with me lots to make up for it. It is amazing that cutting off a few inches of hair can make such a difference. Gracie wanted to show off her pretty dress she wore for the wedding the colors were sky blue and navy blue and all the little nieces had matching dresses they were really cute we didn't get as many pictures as would have liked of all the kids. The boys all had light blue polo shirts and wore navy blue pants they lookes really nice since we didn't get enough pictures we are going to take some more at the Blackburn family reunion we have on the in about two weeks. We decided to go camping this next week since Jared's big hike got cancelled so I have to get everything packed and ready for our little trip we are also going to spend a few days at Jared's parents house that should be nice we haven't been over in awhile.

This is the cake that I made for my sister's wedding it looks like it is tilting because the table was not level. I free hand painted the design on around the top and the flowers are silk and it is covered in fondant the top two layers are made from scratch a family recipe of the groom and they both have raspberry filling made from fresh raspberries. The bottom layer is fake. I haven't posted this yet even though my sister got married last Saturday because our computer has not been letting me on the internet and all of the sudden today it did I don't know why but I am glad it is working. The wedding was alot of fun the reception was in my parents back yard and it turned out really well.

I am leaving first thing in the morning to head to my parents house to help out with all the stuff to be done for my sister's wedding on Saturday. It should be a fun week and a very busy one my kids are really excited to go and see Nana and Papa. I think it has more to do with the horses and sheep and 4-wheeler they have that and the trampoline and the huge back yard. It might also have to do with the fact that Grandparents houses are always fun at least mine were. Poor Jared is being left behind he has a leadership class that he gets to go to for work on Teusday and Wednesday. Harlan has recovered really well from his surgery. Well gotta go much to do and no time to do it

Emery got into the flour the other day and doesn't he look innocent and cute

Here is Harlan's poor mouth as you can see they pulled the front two teeth because they were coming out early anyway because of some kind of trauma he did to them and it was more expensive to get them filled than to pull them. Just to give you an idea how much work Harlan had to have done he had all of his 20 teeth worked on he had a cavity between every tooth and some had more than one cavity on the tooth and he had six crowns put in you can see one of the silver crowns in the picture. He hasn't complained too much about them hurting or anything. The dentist said that Harlan's front teeth might take a year or more to grow in so he will be gap toothed for awhile. The dentist also said that Harlan will definitely have to get orthadontia work done because his teeth are already crowded. But he did day that his permanent teeth might not be as bad in fact they might not get cavities at all I am really hoping that happens. We actually went out tonight on a date it has been a little while but well worth it we went and saw Disturbia a movie with Shia LeBouf I think is how you spell it I am probably wrong Anyway it was a pretty good movie if you like them scary but not to scary which I do. I need to post this recipe because Jared asked me too:

homemade oreos (sort of)

1 box of German Chocolate cake mix

1 box of Devils food cake mix

2/3 cup of vegetable oil

4 eggs

mix together it will be really stiff

put about 1 tablespoon sized portions on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 10 minutes when they come out flatten them with a spatula or the back of a spoon. let cool

spread frosting on flattest side of cookie and add another cookie to make an oreo ( these might be good frozen I haven't tried it yet)

Frosting:

1 pckg. Cream cheese

1-2 cups of pwd. sugar

mix one cup and cream cheese together and add more pwd. sugar if needed

Just to explain the class Jared helps teach is some thing our stake does they have a bunch of guys teach English to anybody who comes to the class pretty much. All of the Teachers are bilingual in Spanish and English and so far all the people who come speak Spanish. They have the class on Tuesday and Thursday nights Jared only goes on Tuesday and DJ goes on Thursday. I took Harlan to the doctor today for his H&P (health and physical) which he is required to have before surgery. Anyway the doctor said he is very healthy he is in the 95th percentile for height and between the 75th and 90th percentile for weight in other words he is a big boy. I have finally figured out why Emery has been so incredibly cranky this past couple of weeks he got two molars in on the top one on each side he has not gotten any new teeth for about 6 or 7 months. Yesterday I watched Sher's kids while she and DJ went to see the new Harry Potter movie I think that they liked it at least I hope they did. We also had company come for dinner a friend of Jared's from work, so it was another busy day. Today is a sewing day at least for the rest of the day hopefully I will be able to finish my skirt and Gracie's dress we will see.

Yesterday I had big plans for what I was going to accomplish and I got a call first thing in the morning from Harlan's dentist saying that they had gotten our medical insurance to approve Harlan's surgery on his teeth. They are just filling cavities and stuff their is just so much to be done they want to put him under and do it all at once so that he won't be traumatized and stuff. So anyway they said why don't we do it this Friday so instead of doing all the things I had planned we spent the day running around getting him pre-registered and making sure I have the paperwork in order to have the surgery. So yesterday I still had to bake cookies for Jared's class like I do every Tuesday he volunteered me. And today we are having company come over for dinner and so the day shall be spent babysitting and cleaning may be tomorrow I will get to sew my dress oh wait Harlan has a doctor's appointment. this is most definitely a crazy week. One more interesting side bit emery has decided that most times he does not like wearing his diaper so I am constantly putting the thing back on and this morning he took it of in his crib and then went number two all over the crib what fun we have

Well the cake went pretty well i think. I didn't get a chance to talk to the bride but the rest of the family seemed to like it. I didn't get a picture because once again I forgot my camera I asked the mother for one but we will see if I get it. Well now that the cake is done I am moving on to centerpieces and dressmaking all for my sister's wedding on the 21st I am supposed too make the centerpieces (myaunt is helping me) sew a dress for Gracie and a skirt for me I am also making my sister's wedding cake and taking her bridal portrait oh and taking pictures at the reception and helping my mom anyway I can I am going to my parents house early to help out. So these next couple of weeks should be fun and after all that fun is over Jared is going on a week long backpacking trip and then we have a family reunion oh and I have to plan enrichment for August and have a planning meeting for our super Saturday I am not sure what we are doing yet any suggestions would be appreciated. I think that my life will just be crazy for the rest of the year maybe in the new year things will calm down or is that just wishful thinking.

I don't know if you can tell but Harlan is winking at the camera he does it really cute he and Gracie are putting together one of the puzzles she got for her birthday. Right now I am waiting for a cake to cool so I can take it out of the pan and go to bed. I am making a wedding cake 3 layers and two sheetcakes for a reception tomorrow hopefully it all goes well. The hardest part so far has been making some of the cake from scratch. It is alot of work and I don't know if I would want to do a whole cake from scratch so far I have done just one layer. We had a pretty good 4th of July. Jared had to work so that always puts a damper on things but the kids and I went to our old ward's breakfast our new ward doesn't have one. And since our town does absolutely nothing for the 4th we didn't do much else. except the kids insisted that i buy them each a flag and I made patriotic jell-o it's kind of a special family recipe not the patriotic part that was my own variation just the jell-o part. When Jared got home around five we had our dinner and then we waited and waited and finally set off the fireworks when it got dark. Harlan loved them Gracie was not so sure, and Emery loved them as long as he was on my lap and whenever they got loud he would put his hands on his cheeks it was really cute. oh and all my kids loved the sparklers of course. So hopefully I won't go crazy tomorrow I'll let you know how it goes

Princess Party

So this is one side of the pinata that I made took me like a day and a half to do in other words it took forever and there was ten pounds of candy in the thing I thought it would break when we hung it up but it was one tough sucker . It was a good thing we had some bigger kids there because the little ones would have never been able to break it.



















I did cup cakes for the party and a cake for the family party we had the next day. I really like how they turned out














We decorated crowns and made princess wands and the girls had alot of fun making a mess of all the stuff so in all I think it was a hit



















This is the other side of the pinata I made the girls loved it and had fun wailing on it
















McKay was a big help when it came to opening Gracie's presents. After every present she opened Gracie would tell everyone "it's mine okay" she is not at all spoiled is she. All in all I think everything turned out well

Some pictures

I found my cord hurray it was in a totally obvious spot so I feel a little silly but it is still found. So after downloading about 70 pictures I have some to show you. Emery decided to climb the ladder while mommy back was turned and Daddy was up on the roof.




And this is how our upstairs is coming along if you remember the before you can really appreciate the after
He is not asleep though it looks like it he is just chilling in his chair. this is up at mann's creek where we went camping. It was alot of fun.
We got a new tent for our camping expedition actually it was my sister's old one so we swapped around they took our little 4 man and we took their bigger 6 man and everything worked out great. We all went camping together and it was lots of fun for us all we even got to do a little dutch oven cooking which I had never tried before. probably because I didn't have a Dutch oven but we found a really good deal on one and now I can try to my heart's content.




Emery absolutely loved the pop that my sister brought and one time he was sitting in one of the camp chairs drinking some and he fell off rolled over onto his back and continued drinking . It was so funny he didn't cry or anything just kept drinking his pop