Marla's Visit: Crepe Edition

While Marla was visiting we made several trips to Historic Downtown Liberty.
Mostly because it is only a mile from my house and it is so quaint and wonderful.

One day we went there while on a walking tour of the old homes and buildings in Liberty.
Another time it was to eat yummy frozen custard.
Another time it was to browse at the local Farmer's Market.
And finally it was to enjoy dinner at a new restaurant called "Crepes on the Square."

The experience at the restaurant inspired a crepe filled week.
Here we are ready for our crepe obsession to begin...

Isaac and Summer ready for their culinary adventure in crepes.
(That's just a figure of speech. Summer didn't actually eat anything but her bottle.)

They did great at the restaurant and Isaac loved everything that he tasted.

For dinner I had the Monte Cristo crepe:
Grilled chicken, ham, cheddar cheese, and sweet raspberry sauce.

For dinner Marla had the Greek crepe:

Spinach, Olives, Tomatoes, Mozzarella, Feta, and glorious pesto sauce.

For dessert I had the S'more crepe:
Nutella, Marshmallow creme, and Graham crackers

For dessert Marla had the Baked Apple crepe:
Baked apples, butter, cinnamon, brown sugar

Are you drooling yet???

These crepes were absolutely divine.

We were hooked!

We decided to experiment with our own crepes at home.
We made crepes not once... not twice... but FIVE times while Marla was visiting!
I told you we were obsessed. :)

Our dinner creations included:
Mexican crepe: turkey, cheese, sour cream, salsa, tomatoes, avocado, cilantro
Pizza crepe: tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, tomatoes, and spinach
Ranch crepe: turkey, ham, swiss cheese, ranch, avocado, and spinach

YUM.

Our dessert creations included:
S'mores crepe
Berries and whipped cream crepe
Cinnamon Roll crepe
Cheesecake crepe

Oh - and we made crepes for breakfast one morning as well. :)
Good thing we also enjoyed going on walks and running together!

Well... that concludes Marla and I's wonderful time together. It was so sad to see her go!! I hope that we get to see each other again sooner rather than later... and thank goodness for cell phones and g-chat and facebook to keep us connected in the meantime.
Love you Marla!!! We sure miss you. :)

Marla's Visit: Historic Liberty Jail Edition

We live less than a mile from the Historic Liberty Jail.
It is a historic landmark for members of our church because way back in 1838 our prophet Joseph Smith was imprisoned there for 5 months on false charges. During that time he pondered and prayed and received some important inspiration about Christ and how He wanted the church to be organized.

Believe it or not... we have lived here for 3 months and our trip with Marla was our first trip too. And this was the only day during her visit that Jeremy was with it - so we decided to take advantage of the opportunity to go. We have been meaning to go - but it's like how my family has lived in Arizona for 9 years now and I have yet to see the Grand Canyon. Anyway...

It was (of course) a wonderful tour of the Liberty Jail. It was interesting to learn more about the history of the area and the history of our church. We look forward to going many more times with all of our other friends and family who will come and visit us... right?

Here is some photographic evidence of our tour.
Isaac pulled this G.Q. pose all on his own. And then he said "take picture Mommy!"
Yep. That's my son.

Our little family in the waiting room before the tour began.

Jeremy and Summer during the tour. Summer did great - she behaved just like the little angel that she always does.

Me and the two year old during the tour. He behaved just like any self-respecting 2 year old should. Really, he did great and was excited to see everything. He just LOVES to talk and really struggles when he isn't supposed to talk (like during a guided tour). So I had to pull out all of my tricks to keep him quiet. Sure love him. I wouldn't have it any other way.

With Marla in front of the Liberty Jail replica.

Us again. :)

After the tour Isaac was given a picture of Jesus - which pretty much felt like Christmas to him. And Jeremy took the kids home and put them to bed while Marla and I went to the historic downtown Liberty and walked around and ate yummy custard. Mmmmmm. That made it pretty much like Christmas to us too. What a great day.

Marla's Visit: Fondant Cake Edition

Have you ever thought that you had a hidden talent?
All those hours that I spent watching the Food Network Challenge and Ace of Cakes... I was just sure that cake decorating had to be my hidden talent.
I was interested. I was passionate.
I figured that all of my creative genius juices were just waiting to be discovered.

Unfortunately, I now know the truth.

Let me be the first to reassure you - cake decorating is NOT my hidden talent.

While my sister was visiting, I knew that we would be stuck at home in the evenings after the kids were in bed... so I wanted to come up with some fun things to do.
And I figured that now was as good a time as any to experiment with fondant cake decorating.
I should mention: Neither of us have ANY cake decorating experience.

Day 1:
We had a lot of fun dreaming and scheming and working and planning...

We baked 3 - 9" cakes.
We made a batch of butter cream frosting.
And we made and dyed homemade marshmallow fondant!

The fondant started out as a meaningless pile of powdered sugar (see photo above). Marla and I were both a little skeptical that the pile could be turned into fondant. But as we kneaded and kneaded all of a sudden we looked down and... as if by magic... it was fondant!!

That was a good moment. :)

A moment of success.

Then we kneaded and worked and kneaded and worked to turn that beautiful fondant into 3 different shades of pink and 3 different shades of green.
What a workout! It was fun.

Day 2:
We layered and crumb coated the cakes. We decided to make 2 cakes.
Good thing we did.

The fondant proved a little more difficult to work with than we had anticipated.
I had imagined us happily creating our masterpieces as if we were carefree 4 year olds working with play dough. Not so. I wanted it to look beautiful and I was getting frustrated as the fondant cracked and tore and refused to create the perfect images in my mind.
Arrgghhh.

Here's cake #1...

... in all it's glory.
Not so much fun.

And here's cake #2.

By the time we had gotten to cake #2 we had pretty much thrown in the towel. It was late and we were tired and all of our dreams of a perfect cake were out the window and we just wanted to get it DONE. So... we just cut out circles and rolled balls... and even though there are lots of flaws... we decided to just call it good. :)
That part was fun too.

The moral:

Maybe my dreams of being an amazing cake decorator could come true if I worked at it. But I've decided that I simply don't want to - at least not right now. I need stress free, calorie reducing hobbies... and it wouldn't be lady-like of me to divulge the amount of cake and frosting and fondant that I consumed during this cake decorating adventure. :)
See deep inside I am too much of a perfectionist to be able to be relax and enjoy the mediocre cakes that are part of the process when you are learning something new... and then I would naturally have to eat those cakes because they would be too homely to give away... thus - cake decorating is not the ideal venture for me during this phase of my life.

It was fun to try something new. I really did enjoy it! And it was especially fun to try it with my sister. It was also fun to gain more respect for the amazing cake decorators who are out there. And now I feel perfectly content in my heart to only decorate my children's annual birthday cakes for the next many, many years.

Cute Isaac Anecdote:
We let Isaac have a piece of our cake after dinner one night. He was so excited when he saw the cake. His eyes lit up and he squealed, "Happy Birthday Isaac!!" He enthusiastically sat down to devour his piece of cake. But before each bite he would continue to exclaim... "Happy Birthday Isaac!" in delight.

So cute.

And thus concludes Kendra and Marla's adventures in fondant.

My Sister Marla Came To Visit!

My darling, wonderful, amazing, fantastic sister came to visit!!
Like the ANGEL that she is... she timed her visit perfectly.
She came July 26 - August 3.
She stayed with us for 8 days... which just "happened" to include the 2 days that Jeremy traveled to Jefferson City, Missouri to take the Bar exam and the following 5 days while Jeremy went to Arizona to welcome his younger brother home from his mission (more to come on that later). I was SO grateful to not be alone while Jeremy was gone and even MORE grateful to have her visit to look forward to and ENJOY.

We had a great time!!

Mostly we talked and ate and ate and talked. :)
We also watched the Cosby Show, made 8 frozen dinners, played with the kiddos, experimented with fondant cake decorating, took care of the kiddos, went running, made crepes, went out for ice cream, went swimming, toured the Historic Liberty Jail, explored Liberty on foot, played cards (she kicked my trash at California Speed!), and talked and talked and talked! She even babysat for Jeremy and I to go out to dinner the evening that he got home from taking the Bar exam (before he left for Arizona). What a fun, nice sister I have!

Isaac LOVED having his Aunt "La La" in town. He still talks about her.

I cannot express how grateful I was for her help and love and companionship and service and friendship during that week. It is REALLY hard for me and the kids to be away from Jeremy - let's be honest - I am a complete wuss about it. But having Marla here with me made the time fly by and made it enjoyable and memorable and happy for us all. And I was grateful for the unique opportunity to get to spend time alone with Marla and get to know each other better. She just graduated from high school and is gearing up for her freshman year at BYU. She's even planning on going into nursing. We had lots to talk about. Ah... great times.

Magnadoodle Update

Our budding artist is STILL hard at work.
He is still obsessed and will draw for long periods of time (just not ALL day EVERY day).
But look... (I love this photo!) here he is drawing absentmindedly WHILE watching tv. He really is almost always coloring.

Here are some of his masterpieces...
below: A baseball game. Complete with people hitting balls with bats and running bases and other people sitting in chairs and watching (according to Isaac). This is probably an example of his more "modern" artistic interpretative style. :) But I LOVE how he draws whole stories sometime... not just one object - but he is imagining a whole experience. LOVE it.

below: The whole family in a boat. (including his cousins and aunt and uncle)

below: A person holding a bat.

below: His cousin Michayla.

Now if that's not a legitimate stick figure... then I don't know what is.
We have been so impressed with his diligence, hard work, and focus as he learns how to draw and practices this skill tirelessly.

By the way...
Just yesterday Jeremy decided to teach Isaac how to draw a house. We'll see how that goes! Who knows what these little people in our lives are truly capable of!

The Best Dollar I Ever Spent

This summer I discovered a beautiful little thing called "Mother's Helpers". And I fell in love!! "Mother's Helpers" became a saving grace to my summer.

It all started one Friday afternoon when I was trying to cook a lot of freezer dinners all at once. I had hypothetically figured out how to accomplish everything during nap time... but as life would happen (and it often does)... the kids naps didn't coincide the way that I had planned. And here I was - staring at a bored (read: whiny) Isaac. So - I called to see if Blake (Isaac's 7 year old cousin) would be willing to come over and play with him. And I offered him a whopping DOLLAR if he would come play with 2 year old Isaac for two hours.

He came. Isaac and Blake played together happily. I paid Blake $1. And it worked like a charm.
I sighed in relief and said enthusiastically, "That was the best dollar I ever spent!"

Soon I started having Blake and Michayla each come over one morning a week to play with Isaac. This gave me a chance to clean the kitchen, work on laundry, and play with Summer. It was lovely! It was great to know that Isaac wasn't bored - he was having a great time playing with people who loved him - and I was able to get some things accomplished so that I could focus more on him later in the day when my "Mother Helper" had gone home. Later in the summer I also had two girls in my ward (ages 10 and 12 - who live just down the street from us) start coming over on occasion as well. And that worked out perfectly. We sure loved our summer-time Mother Helpers!!

Isaac Sandwich

Isaac is a cuddly boy.
He loves to be held and give us lots of hugs and kisses. He will spontaneously climb into our laps and lay his head on our shoulders. He will cuddle and snuggle. He loves family hugs and regularly dotes on Summer through out the day, showering her with tender hugs and kisses. The more togetherness in our family... the happier this boy is. He says the word "together" really well - and his face glows with happiness when he is able to say "Daddy. Mommy. Isaac. Summer. All together!"

Tonight after Summer was asleep we made an "Isaac Sandwich". He was SO happy. Luckily the camera was close by to the capture the precious moment.
See the joy on his face?
We couldn't agree with it more. We love being together.
We are a happy family.

The 4th of July

This is the ONLY picture I took of the 4th of July this year! Lame.

Anyway, we had an enjoyable... yet understated... 4th of July this year. The 4th fell on a Sunday. And Jeremy was busy with bar preparations. And I had just started my new job. And my Grandmother had just passed away - so Summer and I were headed to California to be with my family. Thus... needless to say, the 4th of July unfortunately nearly got lost in the shuffle.

However... Saturday evening (the 3rd of July) we headed over to Brent & Michelle's house for a BBQ with some friends. We had a great time and ate yummy burgers, watermelon, corn on the cobb, and dessert... the things the 4th of July is made of. :) After-wards Isaac and I went to a special Liberty 4th of July event at the community center. (Jeremy went home to put Summer to bed and study more). Anyway - the event was wonderful. The Community Choir and a children's choir sang patriotic songs. There were bands that played and dancing and speakers on patriotism and the history of the area. I would have thought that Isaac would have been bored... but as usual - he amazed me! He LOVED it... or at least he LOVED the part when bands played or the children's choir sang. His cousins Michayla and Blake sang in the choir. And Isaac was so excited to watch them. They waved little American flags while they sang... and Isaac talked about it for weeks afterward. "Isaac watch Blake Michayla wave flags sing. More Blake Michayla wave flags sing!"

On Sunday we went to church, took a lovely afternoon nap, and then headed over to spend the evening with Brent and Michelle. We ate another yummy dinner and dessert... and just chatted and hung out. We opted not to keep our kids up for the fireworks, so we put Isaac and Summer to bed at their house at 7 pm and then waited for the fireworks to begin - which we knew we would be able to see from their front yard. Unfortunately just before the fireworks were supposed to start - it started raining! So... it ended up just being Michelle and I standing together out in the yard under and umbrella watching the fireworks. No one else was interested in standing out in the rain! Awesome.

It reminded me of the Johnston family trip in 2007 when we drove through Niagara Falls on our way to Up State New York. And no one wanted to get out of the car to see the Falls except for Michelle and I... so the two of us jumped out of the car and ran to see the Falls while the rest of the family drove around the block in the van. Ha! Good memories.

It was still a fun 4th of July. But next year will be more eventful... I promise. :)