Great News!

Eric answered the phone at Bakery and it was Fox 31 wanting to come and do some video in the bakery then have Eric come to a gluten free cooking demo. They plan on airing it the second week of January! When we find out more we will let you know!

Aiden's Reaction to Christmas

Santa brought Aiden a Buzz Light-year action figure and Lily a pink little people bus. We thought Aiden would have gone crazy for Buzz but he ended up playing with Lily's present. Enjoy!

Mermaids Bakery

Eric has been doing his co-op (internship) at Mermaids Bakery for the past month and there are some good things coming out of it! He has been teaching the owner about gluten-free baking and he changed her original recipes into gluten-free ones! The own has been interesting in gluten-free for awhile now because so many people have came into her bakery asking if they did it and now she just launched her new website!

mermaidsbakery.com/

Here is the website and if you click on the "Introducing Mermaids Gluten-free cakes and cupcakes" it will take you to more information about it. And that was where we found a really nice sentence about Eric! I had to keep reading it until it sunk in because it is true!

"We brought in an award winning gluten-free pastry chef, and tested dozens of original recipes until the cakes were so good, and so moist, that it is comparable if not better than our original flour recipe!"

Eric brought home a piece of chocolate cake for me to try and I could not stop eating it. It was the best tasting cake he has ever made!

The owner and Eric are now working on making cake mixes to market and put into Whole Foods.....we will see what happens!


(Gluten-free is taking wheat out of the recipe and replacing it with other flours...any nut or bean can be a flour. Eric just had to find a balance of different flours that would react well with the other ingredients.)

Pumpkin Patch- Late I know!

Late post but oh well!

The Friday before Halloween we went to the pumpkin patch with Eric's aunt, uncle and cousins and here are the cute pictures they got of the kids.

Lily is One!

Ok she has been 1 for almost a week now but we had her party this weekend.Eric was going to make her birthday cake at the bakery that he is doing his co-op (internship) at but they had issues and it didn't happen. So I got all of the ingredients together and Eric mixed it and the next morning he only had time to make Swiss butter-cream for me then he had to go to work. So I had about 2-3 hours to make her cake, finish a carrot cake for Eric's uncle that was turning 50 that did not want a princess castle cake (i don't blame him one bit),and make garlic bread. Then in the middle of all of the baking Eric's grandma locker her keys in her car during tithing settlement. So we went to save her (not bad at all only about 20 minutes outside of the kitchen). So warning: the cake is nothing of what we planned on and Eric still wants to make her cake but we will see.

Overall her birthday was great. She was fun to watch open presents once she figured out what to do. We have decided since she has learned this new trick of opening presents they will not be under the tree until Christmas eve. She was really cute eating her cake, she was very cautious and no where near as messy as Aiden. Their personalities are so different!

At age one she weighs in at 24 pounds! (Lets just say Aiden is currently at 28 pounds) And is in size 18 month clothes but some are already 24 months)
She loves food! She is a social eater meaning if someone is eating she has to be eating too! We really have yet to find a food she does not like. I guess she was born into the right family!
Her current nicknames: Lil, Lily-Bug, Big Bug, and Fat Girl (Aiden's favorite)
She is working on walking which she has been working on for about a month now. She is just very cautious about it, and crawling is faster anyway!
Her first word was Dog and that was just a few days ago!
She loves to follow her brother around and drive him crazy!

Happy Birthday Lily-Bug!

Living Room Before/ After

Before
































After- We added the stair banister, added walls so the banister could go into the wall and not the ceiling. We painted walls, trim and ceiling!

Future: We are putting hard wood through out the downstairs and we are gutting our kitchen!

Dinning Room Before/After

Before










After- We added a door to our garage and added a pantry. Painted the walls, trim and ceiling!

Wedding Cake!

Eric and I made Kevin and Jessica Mithcell's Wedding Cake! It was a chocolate cake with raspberry filling. We hand rolled all of the pearls and had to put each one on individually. The roses were made by Eric out of Marzipan.

The Grooms cake was a human heart that was really Boston Cream Pie. The story behind this cake is their first Christmas together Kevin gave Jessica a cow's heart saying he was giving his heart to her. So Jessica gave her heart in cake form to him!

The Past Few Months...

The past few months have been really rough on our family, and it has been mainly caused by me. Dealing with Eric losing his job, a miscarriage, my grandfather's death and my father forgetting my birthday completely brought out a lot of issues I had never dealt with. I went into a very depressed state where Eric and I were questioning me seeing a doctor about it.

That was when I started to figure thing out on my own. I have always compared my worst self to everyone's best. I always felt not good enough. I would set such high expectations for myself that hardly anyone could reach. Through that past few months I have been slowly learning a lot of stuff about myself and letting things go.

Looking back on these few months it makes sense for why Eric didn't have a job. He needed to be home so I could go through this. I have grown to love myself for once! A few weeks ago we went to the temple and I remember hearing all of the blessing that are promised and for once I felt I am one of those people that are talked about. Before I felt they were talking about everyone else.

I also had a hard time with thinking that I had no great talents and that the ones I did have were just ok. I have come to realize I have a very big talent and I have a whole paragraph just for it in my blessing. That is strength. And I am fine with having "ok" talents too because I am a well rounded person.

I figured I should share this because sometimes on blogs it is easy to say things are fine when things are not. Oh and Eric starts his co-op (internship) on Tuesday!

Kids Room!

Here are the before and after pictures of the Kids Room. This stripe took forever but it turned out! And no more pink walls for Aiden!

Grandpa Paul

Last Thursday my Grandpa was given 1 week to live after being in diabetic coma, a heart attack and a seizure all at the same time. We were able to go up and see him on Friday with the kids. Grandpa was stubborn as ever and would not eat.The kids brought a smile to his face which was nice to see.

On Sunday I felt I needed to go up and see him. This time it was just Lily and I. He was only about 25% there mentally. My plan was to go up on Tuesday but I just did not feel like I was meant to go that day. On Wednesday Morning about 7AM my Dad called to tell me he passed away at 1AM. And also Tuesday would not have been a good day to go up. He was not mentally there and was just repeating everything that was said in the room.

He was a sweet little old man that loved life. He worked for GM as an experimental engineer. He also served in the Military. My Grandparents were married for 54 years. He had 2 children, 8 grandchildren (6 biological) and 2 great-grandchildren.

Not everything is Perfect

This semester Eric was to start his co-op (internship)for Pastries. But the person that was communicating to the students and the businesses quite and wrong information was given. Well Eric already had his notice into the country club and they already had him replaced. So we are currently jobless.

Oddly enough we have felt really good and calm about all of this. For some reason it kind of feels like this was suppose to happen this way. Since I am in school too we get Financial Aid which always exceeds the amount of my schooling and books. And this time around was a lot more than expected.

Another thing that we have had to deal with this past week was a miscarriage. We were about 3-4 weeks along. I was really emotional due to hormones but Eric was a trooper. He had to deal with me crying over the stupidest things. The good thing was we were not attached yet since we were not very far along.

Kids Sleeping

The other night I went to check on the kids before I went to bed and this is what I found.....














Aiden climbed in her bed with all of his blankets, stuffed animals and pillow. And yes they do still share the same room. Aiden would rather have her in his room than have his own. Works for us we get an office for now!

PS. I did not paint the pink wall! That is changing...pictures to come soon.

Children's Museum

Last week we went to the Children's Museum with the kids. They both had a blast!













He loved the trains!





He loved going shopping and naming all the food!







Lily loved the underground crawling place where you can dress up as an animal. Lily mainly liked climbing the part that were like stairs. I was surprised she could do it by herself but she did it twice!




















Aiden liked dressing up like a mouse!















But Aiden loved the fire truck most of all!

Denver Zoo

A few weeks ago the kids and I took Uncle Trent to the Zoo! It was a little cold but just enough that there were not a lot of people. So Aiden got really close to a lot of animals!

Day Three: Gettysburg

We first saw the film, the Cycorama, the museum. Then we headed over to the Soldier's National Monument.






























The on our way back stopped in Strasburg, PA one of Eric's Areas.

We drove through Intercourse, PA. This was another one of Eric's area's on his mission. A lot of Amish live here. It was really cool to see people in buggies.

Day Two: Downtown Philadelphia

We saw Independence hall were they signed the US Constitution.






























Then we saw the Liberty Bell and to end our downtown trip we got a Philly Cheese Steak!

Day One: Hershey, PA

We arrived a day earlier then the rest of Eric's family so we decided to drive down to Hershey and take the Hershey World tour. This is the only picture from that whole day! Lily liked the tour more than Aiden, they had dancing cows.

Our Family at Alicia's Wedding

Eric and I

Aiden with Aunt Michelle
















Lillian with Grandma













Lillian eating flowers!