Holiday Happiness

The Children's Museum of Memphis is pretty cool, so when the girls asked if we could return there over President's Day I quickly agreed. They have enough stuff in this Museum to keep kids busy for hours (five hours to be exact for our kiddos). Even after five hours they have to be bribed to go home. My latest persuasion resorted to watching a movie when they got home. I know, that's awful, eh? I'm not big on T.V. either, so on the days I offer I think they realize that Mommy must really need a nap! It was a great day though and I find myself more and more grateful for holidays now that Ryley is in school and we're given those extra moments for her to join us on weekday outings.

Valentine's Memories

Did you know that Valentine's Day is one of my very favorite holidays? I love it. I love the candy hearts, the fun pink towels you proudly display in your kitchen and bathroom, and the fun card/candy isle at the store that is covered in all shades of red.

I love thinking back to Mrs. Koslkovich's first grade class where we made fun Valentine's Day heart pockets and hung them on the wall so that fellow students could put a Care Bear or Strawberry Shortcake Valentine inside. You would wait anxiously at your desk- not looking over at your own pocket because you didn't want to be disappointed, but hoping that it was filled to the brim with Valentine's wishes. Of course, it always was, for in first grade the rule is, 'only bring something to share if you have enough to share with everyone'. Ahh, the days of our youth. (I turn thirty this year so I actually have a right to make that statement!)

With my love of Valentine's Day our family continues to celebrate with excitement. We always make dozens of sugar cookies and decorate them with fun icings and sprinkles and then distribute them to neighbors and friends. This year we also tried some cupcakes so that we could display them on our fun cupcake holder that we recieved at Christmas (thanks mom).

Steven fondly remembers his Dad traditionally giving special Valentine's cards to all of the kids. With six daughters and a son it probably became a difficult task to not repeat cards! He must have done well, because Steven has proudly continued the tradition in our family ever since Ryley was born. We had a nice dinner and this year Steven got to celebrate the night on call (nothing says happy Valentine's day like orbital floor fractures). The girls and I attended a family Valentine's dance at the church. Ryley and Kadyn LOVED running around the gym and dancing the night away. I didn't even know they knew how to break dance until that night!

Isn't Four Fabulous

Sorry for the delay in posting. Our hope is to post something each week but sometimes time seems to go faster than we can keep up with. We'll keep trying though.

Last weekend was really great. Kadyn turned fabulous four on Saturday and therefore received the opportunity to plan out the entire day for our family. Steven had a mandatory weekend conference but played hooky on this special morning to enjoy breakfast together and watch Kadyn open her presents. Her "wants" this year were some Disney Princesses and the game of Checkers. Once cleaned up for the day we headed out to the new Incredible Pizza Factory, complete of course with pizza, and many other food options along with rides, games, and inflatable jumping houses. Thatcher stayed at a friends house due to my inability of juggling three children in an out of control and very busy environment. After arriving back home, and catching our breath, we attempted a trip to our favorite park but only lasted thirty minutes due to the cold weather that has recently settled in. ( Alright, alright, it was only 50 degrees, but that is pretty cold for us.) We came home to decorate her birthday cake and in between waiting for icings to set I attempted to teach Kadyn how to play Checkers. Daddy arrived home soon after and once our tummies were full of birthday cake and ice cream we put Thatcher to bed and snuggled up together to watch "Oliver and Company". It was a very fun day. Good planning Kadyn!

Game Day Grouchies

Our little ones have, unfortunately, been sick for the past few weeks. We taught them to share things so well that they decided to make us proud by passing on their illness from one to another. Now, I'm not complaining. If anything, I've realized how rarely they get sick and how blessed we have been this winter to be so healthy. Having said that, Ryley stayed home from school one day last week in efforts to recover, and in my efforts to keep them all happily occupied we had our first annual "Game Day". Those of you who know us well know we LOVE games. You can't beat a good game of Candyland or Hungry Hippos each day. It was very fun but I did find that by the end of the day I was a little grouchy inside. That feeling doesn't happen real frequently so when Steven came home and asked how my day was I honestly replied "I'm feeling a bit grouchy inside today". After going upstairs and seeing the room filled with games he said, "Well, if I played all those games in one day I would be grouchy too". That made me feel better, and the fun moments of our first annual game day made it all worth it.

FHE

Family home evenings are usually simple and direct at the Ballards, as our kids attention span wanders beyond 20 minutes. However, as they continue to grow we try to come up with interesting ways to keep their attention and get them involved in more meaningful ways.

Our last lesson attempted to recreate Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life. Due to my poor artistic skills, the tree more closely resembles a tree of death. I didn't have a fake tree, which would have worked much better. I wanted to hang pretty white lights along with carmel covered apples on my fake tree, but resorted instead to placing individual slices of carmel covered apples in baggies and hanging them off my drawing.

Steven commented that if we had wrapped Thatcher's blanket around the 'trunk' like Linus did in a Charlie Brown Christmas Special that it may have had some hope at being a tree of life. "It's really not such a bad little tree", he says, "all it needs is a little love." Anyway, enough about the tree.

I also took tubes out of the left over Christmas paper and made an iron rod that spanned the length of the living room. We talked about Lehi's vision and then Ryley, Kadyn, and Thatcher each had the opportunity to hold tight to the iron rod and make their way to the tree while Steven stood to the side and "tempted" them with worldly wants of littlest pet shoppe figurines and racecars.

Despite his efforts, they held fast- which Steven says shows either faithfulness or inattentiveness to their father depending on your point of view. It was a fun night, and luckily our kids still believe I'm the best artist on the block!

On My Own

Friday night was a solo mission on my part to create the next big treat from our cook book. Steven and Thatch showed more interest in Thatcher's race set, and the girls were too wrapped up in their imaginations to assist, playing something that included castles, horses, and pet shop animals. I couldn't quite make it all out, but then again this is coming from the mother who not long ago was told that her animal sounds are "not very good"; I have now been demoted to "castle door opener".

As I was on my own and we had friends coming over to play games I thought I would try something for a finer palate than the chocolate marshmallow disaster from last week: Orange Bonbon Cake. It was definitly fancy looking but not very yummy (maybe my palate is not as fine as I imagined). I'm starting to think the people who created boxed cakes knew what they were doing and that we'd better head towards the pie, cheesecake, and cookie sections of this book. I didn't want to post however without leaving a great recipe behind, so here is a pecan-caramel cake that is very easy and always gets high marks. When finished it looks very similar to the layered cake below, but tastes much better!

1 box vanilla cake mix
3 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup finely chopped pecans
20 soft caramel candies
1/2 cup heavy cream

Frosting:
1 pkg. cream cheese,softened
1/2 cup unsalted butter,softened
1 box confectioners sugar (powdered)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Coat two 9 inch cake pans with nonstick cooking spray. Prepare cake following package directions using the eggs, 1 1/4 cups water and oil. Stir in the finely chopped pecans. Bake at 350 for 25 to 29 minutes until cakes are brown. Turn out, cool completely. While cakes are cooling, melt caramels and cream in a saucepan over medium-high heat about 5 minutes, stirring constantly, until smooth. Let cool slightly. Using the end of a wooden spoon, poke 12 holes randomly in each layer. Pour sauce evenly over both layers and let stand for 1 hour. For frosting, beat cream cheese, butter, confectioners sugar and vanilla until smooth. Place one layer on a serving plate; frost the top with about 1 cup frosting. Lay down second layer and frost top and side with remaining frosting. Press coarsely chopped pecans onto side of cake. Refrigerate 1 hour before serving and keep in refrigerater at all times.

Which is Which

Each time we move I have the difficult job of finding a new hair stylist, someone who will do exactly what you ask for, especially when you show them a picture, nothing more nothing less.

You ladies know that this is NOT an easy task. Let's just say my last experience has brought me to a new resolution that during the remainder of our time here in Tennessee I will no longer be cutting my hair, with the exception of an occasional trim to keep it healthy.

Having said that I assure you all that I am NOT attempting to clone our daughters to look like their mother. At these ages, however, their hair is baby fine and needs some good trims to thicken it up. While I will admit I think it looks adorable short I promise to allow them their free agency to cut as they wish once it's out of the "fine" stage.
So. . . can you tell which is which?

Let's not forget Thatch. He got his FIRST hair cut this past week as well. I think he's pretty happy about it.