Kylie Bug Turns ONE!!!

Although Kylie's birthday is tomorrow, we had a little party for her today. My friend Carmin was nice enough to come over last night and this morning to help teach me about cake decorating so we could make these cakes. It think they turned out pretty dang cute, how about you?



Kylie enjoyed opening her fun presents- whenever Macy would allow her to touch them. And she also loved eating her cake. Macy was a bit timid to dive into her first birthday cake, but not Kylie. She was in pure heaven. I will have to put the video up some time because she was such a doll. She knew she was being funny so she kept playing it up. She regularly would look up and grin to then face plant into the top of the cake and suck on the frosting. I definately believe that every one year old needs a three tier birthday cake. Thanks to Kara for the idea and for letting me borrow her pans!!!


This last picture of her so great with her looking stuffed and gloriously glutenous. She is quite the little sweetheart and we are so happy she is in our lives!

And serious props to Macy for being s good girl through all of this. Mostly. It was so hard for her to have to wait since yesterday to eat this cake, although she had more than enough frosting to make up for it. She also helped me wrap the presents when she just wanted to play with the toys so badly.

State Fair

Today I learned that there is nothing so wonderfully hickish as the Alaska State Fair held in charming Palmer, Alaska. We loaded up the kids, planning that they would sleep during the hour drive- they didn't- and drove up to enjoy a day at the fair. We walked around, checked out the vendors, ate extremely overpriced but incredibly delicious fair food, watched a lumberjack show, viewed the livestock and visited the petting zoo. Overall we had a good time but it would have been much better if Macy had slept in the car. Instead we had a tired, crabby two year old who refused to let me tie her balloon around her wrist and then screamed when it floated away. She did enjoy the livestock displays and she loved loved loved the petting zoo. I made Justin take her in because I am just not an animal person and you weren't going to catch me feeding goats and pigs out of my hand and touching them. My choice was confirmed later when a goat sneezed on Justin and got snot all over his pants. Thank heavens for the handwashing stations just out side the petting zoo.

Macy was happy as a clam to get to play with the animals and here are some great pictures from our day:

Te Amo, Freecycle

So I love love love freecycle. My friend, Kara, introduced me to it and I have become totally addicted. It is a yahoo group for the area where people give away free things to other people- just things they don't want or need anymore that they think others could get good use out of. My newest possession from this week was a sit and spin for the girls. All I had to do was go pick it up, scrub it down and we had a new toy that Macy was dying to play with. In this video she had just awoken from her nap and could not wait to play on it with Kylie.


Other spoils of the freecycle world:
A rain suit for Justin, two smokers for smoking fish or whatever, numerous toys and plastic drawers for kids stuff, clothes for the girls, shoes for Macy and this sit and spin. Don't even get me started with the free items I have claimed off of cragslist...

Finally... Blueberries!!!

Since we arrived in Alaska last October I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of berry picking season. What could be better than millions of free berries at our disposal??? Well, this summer was somewhat of a bust. With the cold and cloudy weather the berries have been taking longer than expected to make their appearance. We went on a hike with randy and Deb last week and lo and behold, we found a gazillon crow berries with blueberry bushes near by. I learned that where crow berries are, blueberries are usually close. Crow berries are eatable even though they are not nearly as delicious as blueberries. Unfortunately, only the occasional blueberry was ripe enough to eat but that didn't stop Macy. She loved picking the crowberries and blueberries and eating them like crazy. Randy tried to help her find the riper berries but Macy was content with the green ones.

We had great fun on our hike and the pure joy I felt at getting to finally get some blueberries will last me for a week! Plus, if you haven't figured it out by now, Alaska is the most beautiful place on Earth. Sorry Mom and Dad, we may never move back :)

Read this!!!

Hey all! Go here and read this blog so I don't have to do it twice:

All about Brie

I want everyone to know about this very inspirational and great gal!

Sunday Morning Shenanigans

K-Dawg Cruisin!

She's not too far off from walking on her own.
She is quite the doll. And here is our messy, but almost clean living room.