Ouch!!

Anton just left to take the kids to his parents' and what's the first thing I did? Dragged a chair over my toe and flipped my toenail up. It bent over halfway down my toe and I had to flip it back down. I think the grossness of having to flip my own toenail down was worse than the pain. And since I know you all want to see it (except my dad) I made sure to take a picture of it.


Now that you are all cringing and have tingles going down your spine, have a happy Sunday night!

This Makes Me Sick!

Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death by Customers

I sure hope that Wii those people bought was worth it, because it cost a human life. The greed of the general American populace makes me sick. I hope those of you who went shopping this morning showed a bit more decorum than this!

I made another Thomas cake.

I haven't gotten to make a cake since we moved. Anton's nephew's birthday (does that make him my nephew-in-law???) was last week, and I volunteered to make the cake. He was having a Thomas birthday. If you remember, Alex had a Thomas party for his birthday this year too. I had the hardest time coming up with a good train themed cake for Alex's party and ended up with this monstrosity:

And no matter how many people tell me it's a cool cake, I'm just not going to agree. I know what my mental image of this cake was, and it was nothing like this. So you're just going to have to nod your head and smile and say, "Yes, Amanda, it was a HORRID cake." Thank you. Let's move on.

So when my sis-in-law told me her son was having a Thomas party, I had a moment of panic. I've been through this before!! How am I ever going to make a decent cake for him!?!

And then I had a moment of what I can only call divine inspiration. Why this didn't pop in my head for Alex's birthday is beyond me. And this cake, I am very pleased with the end result. Here it is:

Now for those in the know about Thomas, I know his number is not 4. That's how old the birthday boy was. I made the cake with a sheet cake and one round. I cut the sheet cake into all the various pieces, frosted them, fondanted them, and assembled. The cake was white almond sour cream with coconut buttercream. I was going to post the pattern for the cake, which pieces to cut out and such, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. If you are interested, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

So there you go. My first Washington cake.

Toffee Testing

My dad is good friends with some people who run a chocolate company. He helps them with their business from time to time. The company is getting into selling toffee online, and they needed people to be shipping and tasting guinea pigs. Not one to ever turn down chocolate in any form, I readily agreed.

The package arrived in pristine condition with the toffee inside looking super delicious.

Ella so kindly provided the artistic background.

This toffee is of the dark chocolate variety, and it didn't take long for the box to go from the above, to this:

Sinfully good, just ask my hips.

And if you want to get in on the toffee action, you now can. Their website just went live. You can even order a free sample as long as you pay the $2 for shipping. Check them out here. It's good stuff. You won't regret it. I know a few court reporters that will be getting it for a Christmas gift. They will love me forever. Though after eating a full pound box of this stuff and stepping on a scale, they may not love me so much any more. Why is it that you can eat a pound of chocolate and end up gaining 5 pounds? Life mysteries that will never be solved.

Where have all the fishies gone?

A couple weeks ago we went to some locks near here to try and see the salmon swimming upstream. We walked through a park on the way there and they had little metal circles set in the sidewalk with a fish pointing the way to go.

The kids had more fun searching for the next circle than anything else the whole day, I think.

Another fish!!

We made the kids wait to see the fish so we could watch some boats go through the locks.

The kids thought this boat elevator was a bit too slow. but I thought it was pretty cool. Then we took a stroll over the dam.

They've had to build a special fish ladder so the salmon can swim upstream since the dam blocks the way. They have a viewing area underground where you can see the fish all swimming by.

We saw one fish. That one there. He hung out in that spot the whole time hardly moving. I'm convinced he was animatronic and put there just to entertain the tourists.

It's a good thing the kids didn't seem to care, real fish, tile artwork fish, it's all the same to them.

Afterwards we started to have a picnic, and then it started raining just a bit too much. And while I may live in Washington, I've not yet acclimated myself to doing everything in the rain, so we left. And that was our fun fish adventure!

Anton's Last Race

Anton had a good time being on the school's cross country team this quarter. He wished the races were a bit longer since that what he had been training for, but he enjoyed having other people to run with.

A couple weekends ago we went to his final race, the regional finals. Since he goes to a community college, this is the highest level of race there is. It rained the whole time we were there, which made for a muddy race, but the runners didn't care. They lined up at the start, and they were off!

There he goes! They did a few loops so we were able to stand in one place and watch him come by a few times.

Ella got really good at yelling, "Good job!" and "Keep it up!" It was cute.

Go, Anton, go! While he was on the back side of the loops, I was taking pictures of the kids.

Is he cute or what!!

They were both having so much fun playing with their umbrellas.

And then while we were waiting by the finish line I was playing with my camera getting it all ready to take pictures of Anton coming in for his big finish. I happened to glance up, and there he was!!

I almost missed getting a picture of him. Oops. He improved his time yet again. Great job, babe, we're so proud of you!!

October In Review

So as I continue to be a blog slacker, you are getting another catch-up post. Here are the things we have done in the end of October:

We finally finished picking the last of the apples from Anton's parents' tree.

We are set for at least the next year on all things apple.

We went with the cousins to a pumpkin patch.

After which we had a pumpkin carving party.

Anton and I are usually crazy pumpkin carvers, but this year we were big slackers and only helped the kids do theirs. Then I cooked the uncarved pumpkins and we ate one and froze the other. The kids were very particular about what they wanted their pumpkins to look like.

Circle eyes, triangle nose, and a smiley mouth. That was Ella's request.

And since that's what Ella wanted, guess what Alex wanted too? Yep, circle eyes, triangle nose and smiley mouth. We carved their names into the backs to tell them apart.

In a fit of madness I decided it would be fun to do a Halloween craft with the kids. We made egg carton bats.

Alex thought painting the paper was more fun than painting the bats.

Ella liked starting a bat but not finishing. Guess who did them all? Me. But I think they turned out pretty cute.

We hung them off the back of our car for the trunk or treat at the church.

Ella dressed up as a princess and Alex as a dragon. If it seems vaguely familiar to you, it's probably because that's what they were last year too. Though Ella did break from the norm to be a ballerina at the party we went to on Halloween. Sadly, I took no pictures.

We made sure to buy just enough candy to last while the kids did their rounds of the cars at the trunk or treat, then when they got back to the car we handed all theirs back out. Well, at least the gross stuff like suckers and laughy taffy. We kept all the chocolate.

And that's about it. We've been doing the usual working, schooling, etc. I got called to be the Enrichment Leader in the ward at church right in time to plan the December activity at the last minute. We'll see how that goes. So yeah, that's it.