Kathleen O'Keefe

My Grandma is a pretty wonderful lady.  She's that one that I call when I have good news to share and she's who I call when I'm having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

On Easter Sunday, we had a chance to sit down with her and have our picture taken.  Some grumbled (**my dad**) and some refused (**my sons**), but I'm glad we did it.

High School Musical Cake

I was asked to make a cake for the cast party of High School Musical at the local elementary school.  The cake was a 1/2 sheet and I also made 2 dozen cupcakes to match.  It was a lot of work, but I heard it was a huge hit with the kids!

Thing Two Turns Two

An awesome Dr. Seuss theme party for my awesome two year old.  Pin away!

The Decorations

Happy Birthday Austin Banner

Lorax Mustaches For Everyone!

Even Darren and I got in on the silliness.

On the Menu

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

 
Green Eggs and Ham

Good Bread, Hot Spread

A Wish for Fish

 
Gluely-Glue for Chewy-Chewing

 
Treats from the Fiffer-Feffer-Feff

 Ten Apples Up on Top

Truffula Tree Punch

The Festivities

 Thing 1 and Thing 2 Cupcakes

Happy Birthday Big Boy!  I am in denial that you are already two.

Road Trip from Down Under

My trip to Spokane for Time Out For Women, was wonderful.  Although the trip was short, it was good to see my sister-in-law and my niece and nephews.

The drive home was to opposite of wonderful.  In fact, it was horrible.  Miserable even.  We should have stayed one more night and driven home in the morning, but we didn't.  We left Spokane at 8:30pm and didn't arrive home until 2:30am.

Austin is sick with a fever in the 100s.  He kept waking up every 45 minutes the whole way home to cry "hold you, Mommy" which means "hold me".  Having not slept much the night before I was exhausted and a long drive at night didn't help.  I had to pull over several times for a 15-20 minute nap.

Just before midnight we had to stop in Ellensburg to get more Tylenol because Austin's last dose had worn off and his fever was back with a vengeance.  Let's just say that the trip inside the store did not go well and I was a broken woman in tears at midnight in a Super 1 Foods in the middle of no where (sorry Ellensburg) with two children who desperately needed to be at home in their own beds and not at the grocery store.

When we finally pulled into the driveway, Darren helped me carry the kids inside and we all went to bed.  At 5:00am Austin awoke with a raging fever again.  After some medicine he just cried, "hold you, Mommy" and reached up for me.  Instead of getting him out of bed, I got in bed with him and that is how Darren found me in the morning.

Time Out For Women: John Bytheway

The Parable of the Marinade

thoughts from a talk given by John Bytheway

Have you ever marinated chicken?  The flavors of the marinade infuse with the chicken and it tastes better than the chicken or the marinade would on their own.  When the marinade has the right mix of flavors, the chicken is delicious.

We are all marinating in something all the time.  What are you marinating in?

• Are you marinating in sin, rebellion, grudges, hard feelings, and self-loathing?

• Or are you marinating in love, in service, in compassion (for yourself and for others), and in charity?

The truth is, regardless of your original intention, you will become what you surround yourself with.  You can't play with a skunk and not stink!  If you want to be good, you have to surround yourself with good and hope that it rubs off.

Fortunately for us, we are not pieces of chicken.  Chicken can not refuse to be affected by the marinade, but we can.  There are times in this life when due to circumstances beyond our control we are forced to marinate for a time in less than ideal circumstances.  The great prophet Mormon was at war with the Lamanites from the time he was 15 until his 74th year.  And yet, despite the constant death and desolation he was surrounded with, he remained ever faithful to Jesus Christ.

We need to surround ourselves with Christ.  Life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.

The Vertical Garden I Built

I saw in a magazine an idea for a really cute vertical garden.  I thought to myself, "I can totally make that!"

And so I did.

Rafting the Cedar River

Last time we took Trevor rafting on the Cedar River he was 7 months old and he slept the entire way.  It was a lazy float on the 4th of July.

The day before his second trip, he and Austin helped Darren get the boat all ready for the trip.  Trevor even took a moment to practice his paddling commands.

This time down the river was not a nice easy float, there was whitewater and Trevor loved it.  He had all the right gear to keep warm and safe, a wetsuit, river shoes, splash jacket, a helmet, croakies for his sunglasses, and a PFD (aka, life jacket).

Here is a short video from Darren's helmet cam of us running the biggest rapid on this section of the river, Double D rapid.

Niamh's Princess Party Cake

What is more perfect for a 5 year old's princess party than a pink and purple cake with a gold crown on top?

Easter Celebrations

Darren and I decided to do Easter differently this year.  Trevor is getting to an age where he will start to remember our holiday traditions and the holiday won't feel the same without them.  This year we wanted to make sure that our Easter celebrations and traditions were in line with what Easter is all about, the Savior, Jesus Christ.

•  The Eggs

We dyed eggs with the boys cousin, Devin and had a lot of fun.  It wasn't part of our Easter celebration, in fact, it's something we do a few times during the year because the boys really like eating hard-boiled eggs.  (Even the yolks.)  Dyeing them helps us tell which ones are hard-boiled and which aren't.

• The Bunny

The Easter bunny did visit our house, but instead of bringing candy he brought strawberries, blueberries, baby carrots, and pistachios.  For this reason more than any other our home was more peaceful than it has ever been before on Easter Sunday.  I never once had to raise my voice and threaten to take away their Easter baskets.  As far as I was concerned they could eat all the fruits, vegetables, and nuts that they wanted.

•    Resurrection Eggs

On Easter morning, the Easter Bunny hid 12 plastic eggs.  Each one was filled with a scripture and item recounting a different part of the story of Christ's ministry, betrayal, crucifixion and  his subsequent resurrection.  Trevor and I (Austin had no tolerance for the sitting and listening part after the eggs had all been found) sat and for 20 minutes or so read from the New Testament.  We talked about the Sacrament.  We talked about Judas.  We talked about Gethsemane.  Trevor was confused about why people would want to spit on and hurt Jesus.  We talked about the nails and him dying on the cross.

But then, we talked about the best part of all.  We talked about Jesus' resurrection.  We talked about how after three days Jesus came back to life and because of that we will too.

(Now lest you think that my boys were totally deprived, I should add that they had their fill of fun and candy after church with my family.  In fact, Austin's bag was so heavy he couldn't even lift it off the ground.)

 And Trevor didn't make out too badly either.

BIll's 60th: BMW Z4 Cake

Last year Bill was jealous that I made his wife a birthday cake, but not him.  He mentioned that he would love to have a cake that looking like his beloved BMW Z4.  Unfortunately for him, I was in Hawaii on his birthday last year and instead of a cake, he got chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.

Fast forward to this year when I was invited to his surprise 60th birthday party.  I knew exactly what I had to do. 

He loved it and I loved making it for him.  He definitely deserved it.

He loved it so much he didn't want to cut it.  We made him do it anyway.

 

Easter Egg Wreath

Remember when I blogged about the cool calendar Trevor got in the mail back in January?  This month we got the supplies to make an Easter Egg Wreath. Ours turned out so cute.

Instead of writing out the instructions here, just click in this link to find the directions someone else has already typed up.  http://www.creativehomemaking.com/holidays/egg-wreath.shtml