Max's Wedding

On Saturday, April 21st, Max was sealed to Emily Soloman for time and all eternity in the Sacramento LDS Temple. They were so happy, which made the rest of us all very happy, and of course she looked absolutely beautiful in her dress. The event was pretty simple. They were sealed in the morning, then took pictures, and then a small luncheon at The Spaghetti Factory for close family and friends to meet up and celebrate the happy couple. Emily is from Sacramento, but they met last August in Provo. It was a bit of a fast romance, which made us all a little nervous at first. Max headed to Hawaii in September while Emily continued to work in Provo, but the distance didn't keep them apart. They got engaged in October when Emily went to Hawaii to visit. By January, they were back living in the same state, they both moved back to CA to be together. Over the course of the next few months, Max and Emily were often our weekend visitors and we loved being able to get to know Emily and them as a couple. We are so glad that Max found someone he loves so whole heartedly and that they were able to be sealed in the temple. Emily is a smart, spunky girl who will definitely keep Max on his toes and in his place...which is no easy task! Welcome to the family Emily!

Max spent the night at our place the night before, and Spencer and Ryan did a great job decorating his room. The next morning, before heading over to the temple, Ryan, Spencer, and Max's friends that drove from Provo had a bros toast with Root Beer to wish Max well with his marriage.

Max and Emily were on a pretty tight budget, so they asked Katie and me if we would make their wedding cake! Of course I was a little intimidated, but I was also excited to be able to help and to have a new project to tackle. I did a small practice cake Easter weekend, and then I spent the entire week before the wedding baking the various layers. It was a 3-tier square cake. The bottom was a 2 layer 12" topped with a 3 layer 8" topped with a 2 layer 4". They were all chocolate with a DELICIOUS homemade chocolate frosting in-between the layers. Each cake was then frosted with homemade butter cream frosting and then topped with homemade marshmellow fondant. Needless to say, it was quite the undertaking! Katie was the fondant queen while I was in charge of the actual baking and frosting. It was a team effort to decorate, especially the bottom and top layers that we did with a stencil using the butter cream. Each layer had a ribbon around the bottom and since peacock feathers were their "theme" we had those decorating around the base of the cake and the top. I was so busy assembling that I forgot to take a picture of the finished product...but I'm sure someone has one, so when I track it down, I'll add it to this post.  The cake turned out really pretty good though for amateurs! It tasted AMAZING! Several people told me it was the best tasting wedding cake they had ever had. The presentation wasn't perfect (especially since there was a minor mishap driving the 3 cakes over that morning when Spencer didn't see a stop sign but still decided to make a complete stop!). But overall, I would consider it a success. Emily and Max were really happy with it, so that was the most important thing.

the middle tier

 

 

All 3 tiers freezing before putting on the butter cream frosting.

The bottom tier ready for fondant

Katie rolling out the fondant. She had bruises on her hands the next day from so much rolling!

It took a couple of tries to get this piece big enough!

Decorating the middle tier. I used a roller to make indents and then butter cream to make little pearl dots.

 

 

 

 

 

All 3 tiers, ready for transport and assemly. (I think this was at about 2:00 a.m.)

 Katie and Spencer stayed at our house over the weekend, and Justin loved having his cousins around to play. He and Ryan were really good buddies and actually played really well together. Plus, it was great weather all weekend, so we were able to have a lot of outside time. We had a great day at Fairytale Town on Monday, after all the cake making was done. We hope they come visit again soon.

 

Easter 2012

     We had a nice, quiet Easter this year. I was in charge of conducting choir on Easter Sunday, so we went to church in the morning, and then headed out to Walnut Creek to spend the afternoon with my family. The ward had a fun Easter activity on Saturday, and Justin had a great time. I wasn't sure how he was going to handle the Easter Bunny, he wasn't a huge fan of actually getting close to Santa Claus, so I thought it might be the same. I couldn't have been more wrong! At first, he wanted me to go with him while he checked the "Easter Rabbit" out. Over the course of the next 15 minutes, as he watched other kids and families climb up and take pictures, he got quite comfortable with the "rabbit" and soon, I had to pull him out of every....single....picture! He was completely enamored. It was really cute.

The Easter Egg Hunt was fun. Justin loved running around picking up the eggies! Over half of the ones he picked up fell out as he ran to the next one, but he didn't seem to mind at all.

     It wasn't until we got in the car to go home that he realized that there were "cannies" in the eggs! For the next couple of weeks he had a great time hiding and re-finding his eggies and putting them in his "bastett." He especially LOVES anything with marshmellow or chocolate, so Easter was a big hit with Mr. J!

Tahoe Trip

     Even though this was a while ago, I figure it is better to post late than never. After all, one of these days I'm going to do a blog book, and it will serve as our family scrapbook. At the end of March, we were lucky enough to be invited by the Bonners to go to Tahoe and get to use their time share with them. It was a perfect weekend. Ryan and Steve went up early on Friday morning and skiied for the day, and Leah and I were major troopers and drove up with all the kiddos Friday afternoon. Getting all 3 carseats in the back of the car was pretty impressive! (Thank you Leah for driving a little bit extra to come pick us up!) So we got checked in Friday afternoon and the kids had a great time playing outside in the little piles of snow that hadn't melted yet. Saturday morning, Ryan and Steve took Carson and Justin sledding, and despite a minor accident that Carson had going down the hill, the boys had a great time. There wasn't a lot of snow, and it wasn't too cold, which made for perfect kid conditions. Early Saturday afternoon it was getting pretty windy, but we all had fun just hanging out and letting the kids climb around on the big boulders and things right behind the condo. By late Saturday afternoon, there was all of a sudden a major snow storm! It was great though. The kids LOVED seeing the snow fall, and it made for some great sledding the next morning. The down side...with snow, the temperature majorly drops making it harder for everyone involved to stay outside for too long. Needless to say though, it was a great weekend, and so fun to be able to do something like that with really good friends. Thanks again Steve and Leah, we had a great time.

Steve with Justin and Carson

Justin, Carson, and Luke all in the tub

With a preggo tummy, it was pretty amazing that my both my pants stayed on and that there was enough room for Justin on the sled with me...I wasn't going to miss out on his first sledding experience!

Climbing behind the condo

Typical Carson...climbing to where no one could really reach him!

Our mini snowman. (I promise he was having fun!)

Packing a snowball to throw at Mommy!

         

Smarty Pants

The other day I noticed Justin was holding his tummy. The conversation went as follows...

Me: "Justin, is your tummy okay?"
JR: "yea."
Me: "Are you sure? Is your tummy hurting you?"
JR: "yea." (pause) "Mommy, I need a strewdriber."
Me: "You need a screwdriver? What for?"
JR: "To fits my tummy. I need some tools, Mommy."

He threw up a little bit later.