How Many Cupcakes is Too Many or Ode to a Funfetti Cupcake

So last week when Cody has his party I made Funfetti cupcakes with sprinkles for him and his friends. Huge mistake! Since then we have made cupcakes 3 more times. No, I have not eaten all of them. Some got eaten at the party, then Cody made some on Sunday but they were really little so eating 2 was only like eating 1 ( he only filled the liners partly full so those cupcakes did not even raise over the top of the liners). Then I made some more on Tuesday because I felt like it and then because there was not quite enough Cody made another batch yesterday because his Teachers group came over last night so I could get them all started on 2 merit badges. Of course we had to have a treat for them so we needed more Funfetti cupcakes with sprinkles. I am a good mom! But seriously, should you eat a cupcake for breakfast and how may cupcakes is too many to eat in one day.? So how many did I actually eat yesterday? If I tell you I'd have to kill you. One more question for you to ponder-is it considered breakfast if you eat a funfetti cupcake at 6:00am?

Single Parenting

Don is in California this week. He left Monday and will be home tomorrow night-Friday. AARRGGGHHH! He has to go somewhere every week for 5 weeks straight and they are not just overnighters like he tries to do. Some of his trips are at the least 2 nights away but then like this week there are others that are the whole week long. It has been a long week but the kids don't have school tomorrow so that is good. We can all sleep in! Hooray!!

Good Thursday Morning

So it is 7:10am and I don't have time to shower before I need to get the boys up so what else could I do? Hmmm I know I can blog again! Who needs to do laundry-not me that can wait! I got up with Cody this morning at 5:30 and as unusual as it seems I did not go back to bed after he left for Seminary. I swear if this early morning seminary thing does not kill me (or him) it will be a miracle. I really should stay up after he leaves in the mornings because then I have plenty of quiet time to read and study my scriptures. Our Stake President has asked everyone to read the Book of Mormon all the way through by our next stake conference which is June 1. I printed out a schedule from LDSScriptureTools. com (thanks mom) so that we could stay on top of things. So far its worked. We have missed probably two days and those have been Fridays but we have caught up on Sundays. It seems to be working-I really am putting President Benson's quote on the Book of Mormon to test. "There is a power in the book which will begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book. You will find greater power to resist temptation. You will find the power to avoid deception. You will find the power to stay on the strait and narrow path." That is from the January 1992 Ensign. Also I try to remember what President Hinkley said when he asked everyone to finish the Book of Mormon by the end of the year 2005 "Without reservation I promise you that if each of you will observe this simple program, regardless of how many times you previously may have read the Book of Mormon, there will come into your lives and into your homes an added measure of the Spirit of the Lord, a strengthened resolution to walk in obedience to His commandments, and a stronger testimony of the living reality of the Son of God." I am holding them to their word!

Hooray For the Red White and Blue Or Mitt Romney for President

So Saturday was the Nevada Caucus. "Hmm what's that?" you say? Well don't ask me but I did my civic and church duty (we were asked by our Stake President to participate) and went up to the high school Saturday morning to "vote". The guy in charge was basically clueless and was totally unprepared for all the people that showed up. He was told to plan on only 10% of the registered voters to attend. Boy were they wrong! "Who are they" you may ask well I don't know that either but they are obviously "the powers that be" and the guy that was in charge was GOP-whatever that is. We were all herded into the library like cattle to stand in lines to show our ID to whoever was sitting at the table with "the list". After wards each precinct was sent to a different room because there was not one room big enough for everyone. Our precinct went to the auditorium. The GOP sent only one guy to run this whole shindig and so he had to run around from room to room trying to run things, answer questions etc. They did not have enough ballots-people in one room were seriously tearing them in half so that there was enough for everyone to vote. Then after the "voting" he asked for "delegates". Apparently delegates are people who go to the County Republican Convention in Vegas to, and here is where it gets more murky-find those who feel the same way that they do about whatever issues are important to them and then once we have determined who is the best speaker out of them all-they get to go to the State Republican Convention and then the same thing happens and those who are chosen go the National Republican Convention later this year. Apparently we are not talking or pushing for the candidates but "the issues". Guess who is a delegate from Moapa Valley-yes yours truly along with a few of my friends-one of whom was the instigator and the one to convince us all to go. We are actually alternates but we were told that we definitely would be going because once all the slots are filled from here then they start looking at the slots in Vegas which will probably not get filled up and so then we go as delegates from those precincts that are short. Who knows-I don't understand the whole thing but Don said maybe I could get a new outfit for the day-and shoes and a purse:) My friends and I are all going to ride in together and go to lunch and stuff so it should be quite entertaining and hopefully a little more organized then out here. By the way in the voting Mitt Romney blew everyone else out of the water. Go Mitt!!

Party like a Rockstar (or else a bunch of teenagers anyway)

Steven Abbot the funny one, Daniel Gourdin who won the Do You Know Cody game

Dinner, and Daniel and Sterling who are all the tacos!

Snow Tunnel Cake and Funfetti Cupcakes

Megan and Allison, and Sterling (behind paper) and Ryan

Cody and mom, Cakes and candles

Light em up and lots of presents

Cody has his 15th birthday party on Friday night, January 18. He invited 12 friends but only 10 of them could come. Darn! The other boys went to grandma's house so as to not disturb or irritate the teenagers. The festivities started at 5:30 with a "Do You Know Cody" game. I made a little questionaire with multiple choice answers about Cody. His good friend Daniel who has been friends with him the longest of the bunch got the most right. He got a bag of dums-dums for not being a dum-dum as his prize. Then there was lots of food-pizza, chicken wings, mini tacos,(I think that Sterling ate almost all of those) chips and soda. We ordered 2 huge pizzas from the pizza place here in Overton-yes there is one and they actually delivered the pizza. The pizzas were 24" across-take your arms and hold them out in front of you making a circle and don't touch your fingertips together. Leave about 10 inches between your fingers and that is how big the pizzas were. I forgot to take a picture of the pizzas. Oops! After the kids ate ( and Don and I listened to their bizarre conversation-Don had to keep his back to the crowd so that they would not know that he was laughing at what they were saying) After the food fun we sent to kids on a scavenger hunt around the 2 neighborhoods. WE gave them glow necklaces in an attempt to keep them safe. They ended up throwing them at each other later in the night and when Caleb and Cayden came home they collected them and I ended up with some in my bed through the night. It was pretty cold outside (yes I know that cold is relative) and some of them did not have jackets but noone complained and they all had a good time. I made up the scavenger hunt and had points for different items and whoever got the most points at the end would win. It was pretty close so I gave them all bags of candy. They did say that alot of people at the houses that they went to said--arrgghh this happens every weekend-meaning the scavenger hunt thing. That is technically not true only the last 2 weekends. If you don't like it then don't live in a subdivision. Noone was rude to the kids so I was glad about that anyway. After the scavenger hunt Cody opened all his presents-cash and gift cards from his friends, XBox 360 Live, Scattergories (they like to play that when they get together), Die Hard and Bourne Ultimatum DVD's and some clothes from mom and dad, then he blew out the candles on his snow tunnel cake (tradition) and we ate that and Funfetti cupcakes. Then the kids played Pictionary for an hour and a half. The things to draw on the cards from the actual game were really hard so I spent that whole time writing down different words for them to draw while Don kept time on the little hourglass thingy. It was pretty funny and they had a good time-side note for my family-do you know that Celebrity Jeopardy is on You tube? I did not know this and these kids are quoting different lines from the show while they are guessing what is being drawn-"a leather glove", I'll take Charleston Chews for $2000", "Mr. Connery", "a number between three and five-threve" and so on. Cody has this one friend-Steven-who is a hoot. He is quite clever and quick-He calls me Mrs. Cody Adams' mom ma'am. Anyway I thought that they would get bored of Pictionary pretty quick but they didn't. At 8:45 I told them that I was braindead and could not think of any more words to write down for them to draw. The original plan was for them to watch Transformers but it is over 2 hours long and it was getting late (party to conclude at 9:59) so they just watched the new episode of Psych. At 9:59 I asked who needed rides home. Party over! Cody said that he had a great time and he was sure that his friends did too. They are all good kids and there was not one naughty or inappropriate thing said or done all night long. They talked about seminary and being mormon and stuff like that. Even the girls were not all goofy and stupid around the boys like grouping together and whispering and giggling and stuff. Cody asked if we could have a party again this week here-um no your birthday is over-go to someone else's house. It was a fun night and they are still talking about it.

A Scouting We Will Go

Thursday night was Cub Scout Pack Meeting. Connor was awarded his Webelos badge and about 10 activity pins, the Faith in God patch and a bunch of belt loops. He had the most awards for the whole night! Go Connor! He has been working very hard to finish up his Cub Scouting stuff because last week he turned 11 and will move into the 11 year old scout group. He will be having his Arrow of Light Ceremony in March probably. They were going to do it this time but there are 2 other boys whose birthdays are in January. Those two are not quite finished with all the requirements and they wanted to do the Arrow of Light for all of them at the same time. Connor has had a great scout leader for Webelos. It is my friend Susan Waite whose husband died in July. She did not want to be released from Webelos and she still has continued doing a great job even in the midst of her huge crisis. Webelos is the hardest of the cub scout areas to do everything and takes a lot of work. She did it though and I am really impressed with her.

Caleb earned his Bear badge and 1 gold arrow point this time. Caleb does not turn 10 until June but he has earned his Bear badge already so everything else is just gravy. I am the Bear leader and I worked hard with him and my group to get as many boys their Bear badge as possible. Two boys in my group left in December and so we had to hustle to get it all together for them. I was only put in in October so it was alot to do. Some parents (one of these boys in particular) think that the den leaders should be totally responsible for their (these parents I'm talking about) kids earning all the stuff in Cub Scouts. I don't think so. Especially in the Bear den where alot of stuff you have to do at home specifically. It makes me crazy that there are those who think like this and in the church no less ( and she actually said this to me)-"the other leaders just did not do anything and did not keep track of what he was doing in scouts and I knew that we were getting close to his birthday and so I wasn't sure if he would get it all done". Whatever! I don't think so-it is not my job to move your kid through scouts all be myself-I have my own kids to work with. Yes I am the Bear leader and I hold den meetings but even if I did it every week of the year there still would not be enough time to get everything done not to mention the fact that there are numerous things to be done with the family. We were having scouts on Monday's because that seemed like the only "free" day because of sports and stuff but Monday's are just a nightmare for me especially if I try and "keep the Sabbath Day holy" Trying to get the house back into shape from the weekend, all the laundry, phone calls, and FHE is alot to do anyway without throwing 9 9 year olds into the mess. There really is not a good day to do scouts because there is basketball and gymnastics that alot of my scout boys are in and my kids have lots of stuff and of course everyone has a million kids going a million different directions so it is hard to figure it all out. I wanted to do it on Thursdays but this week is ward temple night so what do I do? AAARRRGGGHHHH
(Stepping down from my soapbox now)

Connor and mom, and Caleb and mom at Pack Meeting after their awards. (They each got to pin the mother's pin on me)

Connor's Birthday

Madden 08 for XBox 360, Connor and Caleb at Red Robin for the birthday dinner, mom and dad at Red Robin-note the Wrangler's gear on mom.

The actual Red Robin singing Happy Birthday to Connor with some of the staff, Connor and Caleb with the Red Robin, Connor at the hockey game with the treat that Duke the mascot "stole" for him.

Go Wranglers! and the mascot Duke who is a green bull with yellow horns. Kind of hard to see because he is so far away. He ice skates and throws Tshirts and comes into the crowd.

Friday Connor did not go to school on Friday because there was a field trip that he did not want to go on so he spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa's, had birthday pasta for lunch and then came home to open his presents. He was so excited about his presents that he did not want to wait until dad got home but mom made him wait. He got Madden 08 for the XBox (a football game for all those who are not up to speed) a wind breaker vest-camoflauge color to match his hat. He said he wanted to wear it hunting. He got some other clothes, and another game for his DS. We left for Vegas about 4:30 to go to dinner and then to the hockey game. Cody stayed home and took care of Cayden. Last year we took a bunch of his friends to dinner and to the hockey game and it was crazy. We have decided that we will do friend birthday parties every other year. He could not decide where he wanted to eat but really did not want to be late to the hockey game because the teams practice up until 20 minutes before the game starts and then they leave the ice. 2 minutes before the puck drops they call out the starters and they run onto the ice to set up. Connor always likes to cheer for them coming out. Anyway so he decides on Red Robin because it is pretty close to arena. We get there and order our food and Connor tells the server that it is his birthday-we know what that means-singing! After we had finished eating we were waiting for the check and guess what-the actual Red Robin-of which we did not know even existed-came out with a group of servers. They gave Connor an ice cream sunday and they sang to him. You should have seen his face when they came out and stopped at our table. As we were leaving the Red Robin was sitting by the door and so we stopped and got a picture of him with the boys. We drove to the arena and went to get our seats. Mom stopped to visit the ladies room while dad and the boys headed to their seats. When mom got to our seats Connor was all smiles. As they were walking around the corner they saw Duke the Mascot at the cinnamon nut shop. Of course Connor ran over to see and said " Hey Duke! Today's my birthday and the Wranglers are gonna win! Yeah Duke!" Then the Duke put his arm around Connor, reached over and grabbed a bag of nuts (very sneaky like the people running the shop could not see him sneaking Connor the nuts) and then he patted Connor on the head. Connor was thrilled. To further make his night the Wranglers won the game in a total shut out 5-0 and because they scored 5 goals to spell the word TACOS we all got coupons for a free taco at Del Taco. Dad also let him and Caleb do Chuck a Puck. That is where you buy soft hockey pucks that have numbers on them and during one of the period break they let everyone throw them onto the ice. Whoever gets closest to the target in the middle wins an autographed jersey. We did not win but they had fun chucking their pucks. Of course, they got lots of junk-popcorn and nachos and soda and mom's cinnamon pecans. It was a great birthday for Connor. Thank you to everyone for the gifts. He appreciates it!

This is Connor freaking out when the Wrangler's scored their first goal or maybe it was the second. Grandma Dottie called right in the middle of the mayhem and got an earful I think! You may want to turn down your sound!