Cake

I made this cute cake for a baby shower for a friend.  It was a hit.

Happy Birthday Connor

Yesterday Connor turned 8 years old!  How did that happen so fast!?  He had a pretty special day!  He had a "day of  treats" so he says.  I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast as requested.  He got donuts in his last Senator meeting for the year (he's a Senator for his class in the student council).  Then we brought him treats for his class.  I made little cheesecakes with  blueberry and cherry topping look like a flag since his birthday is Flag Day, that was a big hit!  He got shrimp, his favorite food, for dinner and of course cake and ice cream. 

 I slaved all day over this cake!  It was my first try with fondant and I made the fondant myself too.  I think it turned out pretty good.  It's a charm book with a Gryfindor scarf, sorting hat, golden snitch, wand and Hedwig around and on it.

 Tristan and Haydn chose an awesome Harry Potter lego set to give Connor.  They painted and drew on a bag to make the wrapping paper too.

 I don't know why I don't have a picture yet of what this was.  This was his favorite thing.  We decided to give him a Kindle since this boy can't STOP reading.  He LOVES it.

 Blowing out the candles...Happy Birthday Connor.

Connor will be baptized on June 30th and 5pm here in LA if any you don't know that yet and want to be there.  We are going to bless Archer at the same time too.  Connor is so excited about this and we are so proud of him for all he's done these last 8 years!

Haydn's 5th Birthday

Haydn is official is officially 5 years old. I can't believe it! He wanted a "beach party", something he's never been able to have before since his birthday is in February. Unfortunately all our plans to go as a family to the beach didn't work out because it was a little too cold but we will go soon in his honor. We filled the day with a yummy waffle breakfast, presents, games, a trip to the park and pizza, cake and ice cream later. He loved everything he got for his birthday and he was so fun to watch open presents because he was SO EXCITED and thankful. Sweet boy!

Here he is with his presents...

An awesome ship that can turn into a bunch of little ones and has a shark to catch too.

Anakin Skywalker Alarm Clock

Slinky from Connor-just what he wanted!

Angry Birds game! So awesome!

Sand toys for all our sandy parks and the beach!

Here are the boys trying out Haydn's new boat and Angry Birds...


A beach cake! He wanted a cake that tasted like cinnamon rolls and looked like a beach. I made a pound cake with cinnamon swirls and apples in it topped with cream cheese frosting and candy fixings to make it look like a beach(cinnamon toast crunch sand, pretzel and laffy taffy palm trees, whopper coconuts, a laffy taffy campfire and goldfish fishes swimming in the ocean)! It was yummy and he was happy.

Happy Birthday to YOU!

One of Haydn's birthday wishes was for the baby to come on his birthday! It didn't happen that way and I'm glad since I wanted them each to have their own day. We are still waiting around for baby boy #4 to show up. He will be evicted on Feb 16th if he doesn't willingly come before that.

Christmas at Grandpa's House

We took off after our Christmas morning at home to visit my at my Dad's house. We had a blast hanging out with them. The kids got more presents from their Grandparents. I got to see my sister Susie too. It was even worth the blizzard we braved to get home!






I made a fabulous new dessert...a red velvet cheesecake! YUM!!!

Soccer Team

I coached soccer again this year and Saturday was our last soccer game. I had to get a picture of my team! Go Speedy Turtles! I think we won every game, not that that matters!

Heritage Makers Projects

Check out some projects I've already made through Heritage Makers! It's so fun and easy to use.

Here's a look at a little swatch book(it's the perfect size to go in my purse!)


and here's a look at the big canvas I had printed of my boys!

My NEW Business....

I take TONS of photos of my adorable kids and our adventures as a family and I'm always thinking of new ways and places to display them. They are, after all, the most important thing in my life. Last weekend I was introduced to a business opportunity I just COULDN'T pass up. When I saw the products I was just in love and so I signed on to show others how awesome this is. Heritage Makers is a business that allows you to turn your pictures into awesome projects like photobooks, storybooks, playing cards, calendars, canvases, greeting cards and much more. But it's not your ordinary digital scrapbooking. They are the leaders in the industry and designed the ideas that make it all possible. Think you could never figure it out? They allow you to upload your photos and save them as you make your projects with THOUSANDS of templates and art pieces to guide you. If you think you aren't creative enough to write your stories, NO PROBLEM. You have access to story maps (questions that guide you in writing your stories), and cute and memorable quotes that you can look up by topic. You can edit pictures and change out anything you don't like simply with a drag and drop system. IT'S SO EASY! Can you tell I'm excited!? If I've intrigued you just a little, check this out...
What it's all about
and how to do it
The Business Opportunity

Here's my website. Click around and see what you think.

Because I'm a new consultant I get some awesome deals to get friends and family started up so let me know right away if your interested. You can get started as a client and I can help you through some projects or you can host a party and get your friends involved and earn products for yourself or you could even sign up to be a consultant like me and get some pretty amazing commission and products as well. I can even meet you in a "webinar" (online seminar) to tell you all about it if you don't live close to me. I'm so excited to show you this...Be the Heritage Maker in your family!
You can e-mail me at jenn@simplypreciouspictures.com or call (860)281-9311.

Fall Fun

We've been having a fun last few weeks. On Veteran's Day Scott took the day off work and we spent it at the zoo which was a real treat. At home we've been trying to spend every half warm day outside playing. We had a lot of raking to do since we live on a .75acre lot. The boys were more than happy to help with the raking as long as they could jump in the leaves afterwards...what help!






We've been riding bikes a lot since Connor learned to ride on 2 wheels like a pro. I even got a bike trailer so I've been giving the kids rides too.


Tristan loves to watch his big brothers play. He likes being outside a lot. He doesn't even mind me bundling him up. He's so talkative these days. He doesn't laugh much, instead he does delightful squeals of joy. It's super cute!

Soccer Finale

Today was the last soccer practice/game of the season. It was so fun to be the coach for the Red Dragons! The kids were GREAT and everyone of them got better and better as the season progressed so I wasn't totally useless either. I got to hand out medals to them today too. I'll miss my little soccer team.
Here's all the kids that played (all teams) this season...

Connor showing off his medal...

My team: (left to right)Samantha, Mackenzie, Fineas, Olivia, and Connor

Pennsylvania Vacation

We just spent a fabulous week in Pennsylvania. Scott had a conference there and my aunt Monica lives there so we went to visit with her and her kids. It was quite the adventure. We went to Six Flags and started off going through a drive through Safari. We got to drive right next to all kinds of animals. A giraffe even licked the top of our car. It was seriously awesome!!! We had fun riding roller coasters too. The kids spent most of the day in the Wiggles area of the park that had tons of kids rides. They LOVED it and managed to stay up til about 10pm before giving out. Nate and I were the only ones BRAVE enough to ride the Kingda Ka(the tallest fastest roller coaster on earth)! It was so fun. One day while Scott was at the Conference and everyone else was working or in school I took the kids to a cute little village where they had a scarecrow festival going on. We looked and all the scarecrows and then stopped off in a little arcade area they had there. That was fun too. Our favorite was the spider scarecrow and Snoopy killing the crows too. We took a little hike down to the river that runs right by Monica's house too. We had to climb down a bunch of rocks to get there. The boys liked climbing it so much they would have done it all day if I let them. The last day of the conference the kids and I waited for Scott to be done in the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia. It was an awesome children's museum. Anyways, I chose some favorite pics of our trip and here they are for your enjoyment! Thanks again Monica for letting us come and making the trip so special.

A Baby Story

So...I know not everyone wants to hear the gory details but for posterity sake I want to write it down. Tristan was very comfy in my tummy but wasn't growing at a steady rate inside. I measured small like always, my belly stops growing at 33cm. So my doctor, being very thorough, did a few ultrasounds near the end. The baby wasn't growing steadily and actually declining from 69% to 44% to 20% within 4 weeks. So, he decided based on that and the convenience of scheduling that he'd induce me Thursday night July 16th. We got the the hospital and around 11pm I was 2cm+ and they gave me cervidell. The next morning, around 8:30-9, I'd made little if any progress and wasn't having contractions either so they broke my water and started pitocin. Things picked up from there. Scott helped distract me by watching a movie with me and then we played phase 10. I decided to go for a walk around the halls hoping it would speed things up. By then things were getting more intense. I made it walking for and hour and around noon I asked them to check me because I was in a lot of pain. They practically broke my heart when they told my I was 3cm. I knew I couldn't handle much more and so I gave in and opted for an epidural. That was over with within the next hour. When asked how it was helping, I told him I was still feeling a lot. He insisted it was pressure and not pain that I was feeling. I could tell it definitely took the edge off what I had been feeling so I believed him and hoped it would get better and better as time when on. No such luck for me. It got worse and worse and within about 40 min I felt as bad as I did before and started feeling like I needed to push. The nurse checked me and said, "oh, your and 8 or 9!" and called my doctor to get him on his way. She asked me to try pushing to see how it felt, and as soon as I tried she and Scott in sync yelled, "STOP!" They baby was pretty far up but apparently was coming down nicely and after huffing and puffing away the urge to push for about 10-15 min my doctor was finally ready and with one contraction baby Tristan was born. Needless to say I felt EVERYTHING (minus a little of the edge off the pain) but thankfully he came fast. He was perfect! The hospital was kinda hectic right at the moment I delivered and so my nurse was like a one woman show helping my doctor and taking care of the baby. It seemed like forever until she gave him to me to hold. He was a feisty little thing. He cries so cute! When he gets real mad he makes this squeaking noise we think is kind of like a guinea pig. He was 6lbs 9oz. The boys came to meet him that night and they love him. Haydn is very gentle and sweet with him and Connor is already a pro at holding him. Today Connor said, "The reason I wanted a baby was so I could show you how gentle I can be." Bringing the baby home today was so surreal. I can't believe he's here. In the car Haydn said to Tristan,"I bring you to our home and I show you your room Tristan." Then in a mock Tristan voice he followed with "OK!" It was really cute. Welcome home little guy!
For fun here's a pic of me the day before I had him, 37 weeks 2 days, and then here's more pics from after the delivery and the boys meeting him for the first time.