What we have been up to...

I can not believe we are more than half way through this year!!! What Septemeber already.. WHERE DID IT GO...

With Doug not working except occasionally we have had the opportunity to spend LOTS of time together as a family. One of our favorite activities is to play Guitar Hero, Sierra on guitar, Doug on Bass and I sing!

One of the most looked forward to events this year was in March during Spring Break Sierra got her Braces off!!!

Here is the BEFORE picture!




Here is the AFTER picture with her dentist! Whom we love!

The cake Doug made to celebrate!!!
Complete with removable braces...



In the Spring we planted some flowers around our back patio.










In April we catered a friends wedding for her oldest son.




Sierra saved the day with her catering talents by adding beautiful roses to the cakes that came bare.


Sierra's beautiful roses were the perfect touch...



Doug's tray were a plethera of colorful goodness...










Shortly after this experience Sierra had a catering assignment at a retirement party for 4 teachers. Her group was assigned an American theme...They served chicken tenders, meatballs, noodle salad,a melon basket and a chocolate cake decorated as a flag!




I love the ANTS!!










One of the perks of having your Mom come and "help" is that she can go get samples from all the other tables. There was a WESTERN theme with fried potatoes, baked beans and BBQ beef sandwiches, There was a GARDEN PARTY theme where they had cookies, cakes and little tarts, there was a CAMPING theme where they had hot dogs and smores and an AROUND THE WORLD theme where they had appetizers representing different cultures...chips salsa,taquitos (Mexico), sushi and california rolls (Japan) Creme puffs and rich pasteries representing (France) They also had a chocolate fountain to dip food into. pretzels, pineapple, marshmallows, fruit.. it was a favorite! This was part of Sierra's final and she passed with flying colors!!!


In May was PLAY IN A DAY... the kids from our church gather from all over the stake (consisting of 6 church groups) and they have a day to write a play and perform it for everyone the next evening. This year their theme was CSI and so it was a mystery??? The Theme is the Mutual Theme. Be strong and of a good courage!
Sierra's time line was STONEAGE(other themes were futuristic, Modern, King Arthur's Court, Western, Pirates) so they wrote a little play called "Rocky Relationship" in a nut shell... the King's daughter, Pebbles who is old enough to marry must chose a mate to rule with her and King Kronk and Queen Wilma decide the best way to decide is to see who can come up with the best invention, so 1 suitor, Bubba builds a wheel and the other suitor, Chad discovers fire... seeing their inventions the Princess Pebbles steals the wheel so she doesn't have to marry because she loves Pipen a poor handsome boy in the village... it was really cute. Sierra was the Queen (in Yellow of course)
They won 7 awards for their play, only 2 came with trophies. Best supporting Cast and Best Fight scene! The trophies consist of old toys mounted and spray painted.

It was FUN to be with the kids all day, help with props and see the result of all their creativity and hard work!