Every day life #1

Some times you just want to post a few pics of every day life. So I'll just call them Everyday life & # them from now on.

This made me nervous but Trip seemed to love it!Little Corn eater
Pushing babies with mommie
My little blue bell boy
This is Trip's blue steel pose with peas on top

Joss caught taking off her make up

Weekend Fun

Caden's 2nd birthday party. (thank you Monica for these beautiful pics!)



Joss waving at her Lolly (Kelli)
On the steps (in the wonderful shade)
Joss in Trip's floatie
Luke & I before Brittany & Matt's wedding Sunday night.

So this weekend was packed! Just the way I like it-makes for good naps on Mondays. We headed to Austin & Kelly's on Friday night for fajitas & a baby fix. Baby Cade is too precious-already growing & changing. I got to swaddle him up & get him put down for the night. (I can't locate my camera at the moment so I'm missing out on good pics. Ugh.) Then we had Caden Wardlaw's birthday party on Saturday morning. We had such a good time visiting with old friends. Monica Higgins was there with her camera (and precious baby Luke) capturing all the best moments. Check out her blog or facebook to see more of her incredible photos. Saturday afternoon we had a swim day with my family. Joss was quite the fish in her new suit with the built in floaties. Then she got over it & decided to go nude for the rest of the time. Crazy girl! Sunday night was Brittany Stull & Matt Vinson's wedding. It was beautiful, an intimate setting & great food. All around a good weekend. Oh except little Trip who's skin is awful right now. Poor itchy little guy.

Joss' Birthday Party

Come one, come all! Joss' birthday party will be here soon. I have created an invitation & decided to use the convenience of the internet to save monies. The cake will be yummy mint chocolate chip (from scratch of course & with home made fondant-my new obsession). We will all be in our swim gear so wear yours too & don 't forget floaties, sunscreen & hats for the little ones. There is an excellent kiddie pool as well as a large 3 foot to 4.5 foot pool for older kids & parents. We're so excited to see everyone & celebrate Joss' big day.

Le Tour

Not being able to watch the Tour for the first time in 8 years is tough. We cancelled our cable to save a few dollars..... Well that may have been a mistake (not really in the big picture). Most of you probably don't really care about the worlds longest race. I do.....

This years tour is headlined by the comeback of one of the greatest athletes of all times - Lance Armstrong. This guy is amazing. He already has the record for the most Tour de France wins and after several years in retirement he has come back to the sport he loves pro bono! That's right he is not getting paid by his team, Astana, he is riding for free. Well, he's got Nike, Oakley, Trek, and a few other major sponsors but still, he is not drawing a salary. He is doing it for the love of the sport and to raise awareness for his booming cancer research organization, Livestrong. His dedication is amazing.

He is on one of the best teams in cycling with 3 guys that could be contenders to win. Alberto Contador won the tour 2 years ago. Levi Leiphimer was runner up last year. Andreas Kloden has always been a solid rider. This year it will be hard to tell who the winner is going to be. The mountains will decide over the next few days. Imagine riding your bike over 100 miles then doing an all out sprint for 1000 yards. You'd be pretty tired the next day right. Well these guys are doing it 21 days in a row covering over 2,200 miles, with only 2 rest days.

Tune in and watch history in the making. Will Lance be able to beat his teamate Alberto Contador who has a 2 second advantage right now and more than a decade less wear and tear on his body. The next few days will tell. I'll be watching.

Someday the Thorkildsen family will go to France to watch this race. Until then I guess the TV will have to work.

Cade's Shower

Cade's shower seems like it was months ago! The anticipation of his arrival is getting to be too much to bear! Kelly is very busy with pedicures, floating in the pool with Jossi, resting up for the coming days & of course shopping! She is going to be an amazing mom & I cannot wait to see her in action & to meet this lil buckaroo.

The shower was at Julie's parents house-thanks so much for being amazing hosts! Spec worked really hard by staying out of the way & playing video games all afternoon. Janet saved our chocolate dip from certain demise, so then we had to eat it until we were all sick. Julie did what Julie does best: looked good, made unsweet tea for Kel & told us all what to do & where to go. ;) Kasey was super sister this day coming in with food & gifts & the whole nine yards. Trip was well entertained by friends of the female persuasion. Kelly looked beautiful & of course DeeDee was giddy & Coach was tearful, hiding behind his camera. The food was in abundance, the house was wonderful & the people came in droves. Here are some pics of the day of fun. (Debbie, Kasey & I made the diaper cake. I made the wreath & the little cactus party favors-it was such a fun theme!)

Julie & Trip
DeeDee & Trip
Lil cacti with a prayer for Cade
Western Cowboy Cake (yes I can/will make these for your showers too!)
Wreath (new idea I found on online-so fun!)
Yummy chocolate muffins with whip cream & raspberries. These sadly withered before the shower began. :(
The girls
Austin had a big honey do list at the end of this day. Good work daddy-to-be!

the cake

The finished cake
The mess
Home made vanilla strawberry buttercream icing
Dyed fondant
Marshmallow fondant

How could i forget the most important pic?! The cake!

April's Birthday Bash

Moment of hilarity
Ole buddies
cool guy


Chris in one of his finer moments...
Yummmmyyyy!

Colorful drinks-we all tried something new. Except prego of course.

Well I think fun was had by all this weekend in honor of April's birthday. Here are a few pics. Some how I didn't get any pics of Sunday night except for the cake. Bummer. I always seem to do that. I loved the cake. I searched around online for ideas, found a fantastic fondant recipe (that actually didn't taste bad), made the cake & icing from scratch & did all the art work myself. I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. It was a really fun learning experience & I've been dying to play with fondant for a while. I think over all I use 6 pounds of powdered sugar. 6 sticks of butter, 3 pounds of marshmallows & a big bottle of tums. Ha! I didn't even eat any of the cake at the party. I was so sick of tasting & testing I didn't even want to smell it. Although I must admit it smelled pretty nice. It was a vanilla layer cake with strawberry preserves between layers and vanilla strawberry buttercream icing between the cake & the marshmallow fondant. Whoa! Make your tummy ache thinking about it? Me too! Well April adores her birthday & looks forward to it all year & I love that about her. She always has a way of making holidays so special & I am inspired by that. So Happy birthday April-hope it was a good one!