Wordless Wednesday - Jack in the Box

Busy Week

Last week was incredibly busy. On top of our daily/weekly things that need to get done, I also had three cookie/cake orders to do....the most I have ever done in 1 week.

The first order of the week was for a family friend, for her high school cheerleaders. I made scalloped square cookies with their school logo and colors.

She packaged them up and hung them on the cheerleaders lockers.

My second order was for one of my MOPS friends. Her son was turning 5 and wanted a Super Mario Bros. cake and cookies.


I definitely channeled my childhood, watching my brother play Mario, while I was making this order!

Fondant star to put on top.

I stole this photo from her fb page, but this is the finished product. She added the star on location and the Mario & Luigi. She said her son loved it and squealed when he saw it!

The final order for the week was for some friends at church who's son turned 3.

This made me want to do a sports theme for one of the boys...I just loved the grass and balls. The balls are made out of royal icing and placed on top.

In total last week I made 140 rice crispy treats (for good news club), 10 dozen cookies, 2 dozen cupcakes and 2 cakes. I loved making them all, but was very tired when the last order was picked up....and our kitchen was in major need of cleaning!

For Rasc

When Rascal died, Karter wanted to make something for him. So we took an old field rock and made a headstone for him.

Karter decided we should paint it red, because that was Rascal's favorite color of course!


Karter took great pride in his red rock!

I painted Rascal's name and dates, and then Karter decided that we needed to put something on it so Rascal would know it was from us. Not included in the picture above, but our finished rock has all of our hand prints on it in white....so Rascal knows it's from us!

What a sweet way for our boy to remember his puppy!

Wordless Wednesday - Two Cute Boys & Farm Cookies

Saying Goodbye, Much too Soon

Last week, we had to say goodbye to our sweet puppy, Rascal. It happened very suddenly and unexpectedly, and we are still recovering from loosing him. Tuesday morning he was acting perfectly fine and did his normal routine with Kristoffer, then around 8:30 when I was about to leave the house he wouldn't stand up or eat his treat in the kennel (one of the biggest red flags!). I worried about him all through bible study and rushed home to check on him. Unfortunately, he was actually acting worse. I took him in the vet, who was baffled by his behavior, and he braced us for the worse. It was a quiet night at home, but we kept thinking about Rasc. I called the vet a couple of times on Wednesday morning, but he was in surgery (not with Rasc) all morning. He ended up calling around 1:30 and let me know that Rascal had passed. The vet was very curious about what had happened to him and wanted to do an autopsy. When I went to pick up his body, he told me he had found a tumor on his spleen that had ruptured and Rascal bled to death.

We got Rascal in May of 2006, just 2 days after we moved into our Minnesota house. We fell in love with our sweet Rascie from day 1!

From the beginning, Rascal and Kristoffer had a special bond. Rasc was definitely a Daddy's boy!

Rascal went on many trips with us...camping trips and countless trips back to Indiana. I'm sure he much preferred the trips we made before he had to be sandwiched between two car seats, but however he traveled, he just liked to go where we were going.

Once we had Karter, Rascal became even more of our protector.

He always had to know where the boys were. Sometimes it was just so he could avoid Kaden crawling all over him, but mostly it was to protect them. He really put up with a lot from them, but he never growled or got mad at them.

Rascal is missed SO much around here. It is strange to get adjusted to a new normal without him. It may be silly to some, but he was part of our family. We miss the jingle of his tags, the tapping of his toenails and I even miss his barking at people at the door. It is nice to no have him barking when we have guests, but the silence means he is not here....and I would rather have him here!

Our vet sent a condolence card, and we really liked this prayer that was printed in it...

"Heavenly Father, Creator of all things,

thank you for having entrusted us with a loyal pet.

Thank you for letting it teach us unselfish love.

Thank you, too, for the memories we can recall

to brighten our days for the rest of our lives.

Finally, in gratitude, we return our beloved pet to You."

Goodbye Rascal Bo Bascal...we love you!!

Wordless Wednesday - Construction Worker

Kaden's Construction Party

Kaden has a thing for dump trucks, well any truck for that matter, but he has a favorite dump truck book that we have all read many, many times (thanks Butenhoff's for the hand-me-down book!). So when it came time to plan his party, it was pretty easy to pick a dump truck/construction theme. To set the tone for the party I mailed out some hand-made dump truck invitations...although, the day I mailed them out we found out that we were going to the Super Bowl on that day and had to call everyone to change the date! We rescheduled for this past Sunday, the 12th.

I love being crafty, so I made a lot of little decorations for the party...pin the nail on the hammer game, road table runner with speed limit sign and a banner with different road signs. For each of the kids, I made them a tool belt and personalized a hard hat for them.


Kado's birthday cake! I made the cake during the boys nap on Saturday, and when Kaden woke up and so it, he said "my cake COOOOOLLL!"

Cookies with personalized tags for each guest.

I actually thought about NOT making cookies for the party, but I'm so glad I changed my mind and made my boy some dump trucks!

Dump truck cookie cutters were sold out all over the internet, so I had to improvised with what I had.

We have a lot of truck around this house, so I used one for the cups and a really big one to hold the plates and napkins.

Karter and Jonah really enjoyed the hard hats and tool belts.

Our handsome birthday boy!!! I had this vision in my head for his shirt, but when I went to the fabric store I couldn't seem to find what I needed. So I used a shirt we already had and dyed it orange and then sewed the two on the front.

Karter kept a running count on how many presents Kaden had.

We borrowed some building blocks from the church and had a "work zone" behind the couch for the kids to build towers.

Such a cutie!!!

I just love this picture of Grandma Lois...she looks so happy and beautiful!

Speaking of beautiful...our two grandma's, my Grandma Ellen and Kristoffer's Grandma Lois!!!

Our first kid's table!!

No party is complete without a spread of food!!

Our handsome nephew, 4 year old Jonah!

For entertainment, we played pin the nail on the hammer.

Then Karter decided it was my turn!

Then it was time for presents!

At first we thought we would be there until his next birthday, as he was just tearing one tiny piece at a time. He finally caught on and went a little faster!

"Yay, a box!"

Excited for some Veggie Tales.

Uncle Kamaron and Aunt Anique sent a book for the birthday boy...which they LOVED hearing Kamaron and Anique's voices.

Not sure how this picture got down here, but I'll just leave it!

The big boys wasted no time listening to the story.

This is so cute of Olivia and Grandma Ellen.

Cake time!! Kaden loved having everyone sing to him!

Happy boy!

Love him :)

I tried something new with the cake, and I really liked the way it turned out!

It was such a great party, thank you to everyone who helped us celebrate our special little man!!