Grandma Betty Visits - March Continues

Our third visitor for March was Grandma Betty. It too was a quick visit and it too included the zoo. Lucky for us, Logan never gets tired of the zoo. Of course, we don't usually see much of it. We spend a ton of time running, feeding ducks and looking for the train. Honestly, Logan prefers to run over seeing the animals. I like it because it is a fairly safe enclosed area. No cars to worry about, which is a big fear for me. Poor Logan will never be allowed to play in our front yard.

We always feed the ducks.

Checking out the wombat.

We made it to this little amphitheater by the rhinos. Had not been there in a long time. Well, Logan found a way to let go of even more steam by going up and down the stairs with Dad. Poor Kyle never gets a break.

Here Logan is showing Grandma Betty his latest puzzles. He really got into puzzles for a time. He still loves them, but there was a time when it seemed like that was all he wanted to do, besides running.

Another project of the month was trying out a homemade deodorant. It isn't an antiperspirant, which is hard to get used to, but I like the smell, and I like that I had all of the ingredients on hand. We'll see how it does during the hot summer days.

Marching on

March brought us some visitors. The first lucky person to come visit us was my niece Dagny. It was her college spring break. Like we do with so many guests, we made her take a walk. We took her and Grandpa Keith to our neighborhood arroyo in search of some bunnies. It was also her first time to see Logan. I'm sure she was smitten.

Spring is here!

These three spent that night and the next morning playing canasta.

Our second visitor was my Dad, Grandpa Jay. He drove all the way from Phoenix to visit us. Since we already did the arroyo, we figured we better do our other favorite outings. Off to the aquarium and zoo! 

Look Grandma, a stingray.

Loves running in circles!

He really just loves to run.

It was Grandpa Jay's birthday while he was here so, of course, I had to come up with something. Pinterest to the rescue! He loves movies, so these cupcakes seemed perfect. The popcorn is made out of marshmallows.

Grandpa Jay tried to teach Logan to say "Primo" for yummy things, but Logan decided to rename Ice Cream to Primo instead.

Logan loved riding on Grandpa's walker. He took advantage of that every day too.

Kyle was able to take his lunch break at the zoo with us. Inevitably, when Logan and Kyle and are together, running ensues. This visit was no exception.

We finished up the zoo at the kid's play area.

Our visits were too short, but we were so glad Dagny and Grandpa Jay came to see us.

More of March to come.  Until then, here are some miscellaneous photos of down time at a park:

Let the cake decorating begin - March continues

In March my friend, Rebekah, asked me to help her make her daughter's Frozen birthday cake. We started out by scanning through Pinterest to get some ideas. Rebekah chose what she wanted to do, and the night before the party our families gathered at Rebekah's house. The guys and the kids played together, while Rebekah and I went to work. We had each baked part of the cakes the night before so all we had to do was the decorating. Rebekah did learn first-hand that you have to modify the cake recipes for high altitude. I had sent the directions to do the modification in a separate email, but they didn't make it into the cake baking process. My bad for not putting everything in one email. Let's just say that one of our cakes was a little on the flat side. Still super yummy though.

Here was our inspiration:

Here is our cake! I think it turned out fantastic. Rebekah did a great decorating job. I just showed her a few tricks along the way.

When I first saw what Rebekah wanted to do, I wasn't sure how we would do those trees. I emailed the original cake designer, but didn't get a response until after we had completed the cake. I thought play-doh would work. So I made us some play-doh and did some trial trees before we got together.

We made our trees for the cake.  Then the original cake designer emailed me. She told me that her trees were plastic. They had come from the kit of Frozen toys on her cake. I was so proud of our homemade trees.

My dear friend Rebekah.

I had such a great time doing this cake with Rebekah. Of course the best part was how much Aurelia loved her cake.

We had a great time at the party too.  It was fun to take part in a little girl's birthday party. I'm guessing Logan's parties won't have so many princesses in attendance.

A few random photos from March.

Here is Logan testing out all of the vehicles in the toy store.

He is helping me plant our seeds for our garden.

I thought we might have some fun if we put streamers up for the day. We spend so much time running around the house, I thought this might spice it up a little.