Taffy Pull

Wednesday night all the laurels came over to my house for a taffy pull. We had a good time attempting to pull taffy. We used my grandma nielsen receipe for honey taffy which I absolutely love! We also tried another salt water taffy which was pretty good. So while some girls were pulling taffy, some girls were in the front room writing letters to the missionaries from our ward. It is all boys that they know and they were having a great time doing it. One of the girls decided to write a "Dear John" letter to one of the missionaries that could take a joke. She sprayed it with perfume and kissed it and all. Pretty funny. So we had plans of mailing the taffy along with the letters to the Missonaries. The other day I came home and it was all clumped together in the bags....I was so bummed. SO I will have to send a little something else along with the letters to the boys. It was a fun time! Great activity!

Kade the punk rocker

Today while I was getting Kaden ready for school, he said some very funny things. I want to quickly write them down so I don't forget. Me and my forgetful mind....frustrating. Anyways I had just fed him some lunch and was in my bathroom combing his hair. He was watching my in the mirror very intently. He was giving me pointers telling me no I don't like my hair like that, or comb it like this. I was a little taken back because this has never happened between us. He usually lets me do whatever and is ok with it. All of the sudden he says mom I want to wear my hair in a mohawk. I was shocked and quickly tried to get him distracted with something else. Telling him no...that boys dont look cool with mohawks, but he wouldn't budge and started forming his hair into a mohawk.

I am not one that likes mohawks on little boys. I am not passing judgments on those of you who do like it, but I just don't like it AT ALL. I could quickly see that I wasn't going to win this battle so I finally said ok kade you can wear your hair like that if you really want. He just sat there and stared at himself. Finally he said I think I look pretty handsome. I laughed to myself. As long as he feels good about himself thats all that matters to me so I left it. I was thinking to myself am I just a big pushover with my younger kids. I would have fought and won this battle when my older kids were young.

Right before we were getting ready to leave Kade decided he wanted it combed to the side like normal with the front sticking up. Thank goodness! Thats when I realized that I don't need to control such things...he came up with it all on his own! I do love the love and logic principles...it is working great for me! I am a little sadened that kade is already so early wanting to be in control of himself....I was hoping it would be a few more years before his independance would set in...oh well...I love him anyways!

We had the best joint mutual activity last wednesday. Emily was in charge and she came up with the idea of a cake challenge. There are so many shows on t.v. right now that are so much fun to watch! They make amazing cakes! So emily decided to put this one together! She did an amazing job and is probably really sick of frosting right now! The kids loved it and really got in to it! I was a little disappointed with who won....but Bishop is always right....Right!


To start everyone was given a circle, square and rectangle cakes, with some cupcakes. Then a random bag of things....pipe cleaners, popcorn, spatula etc. Everyone got the exact same thing. We also had a table of fondant and sprinkles they could all use. Emily did an awesome job (as usual) planning this activity. It was quite the hit! I have to say....there was 1 group that their cake didn't turn out so well...It was the castle....they said it was the house built upon the sand! Too funny!






On your mark......get set........GO!!!!
















Here are the finished cakes! AMAZING!










Here are the lovely groups that worked so hard on their cakes!











Everyone waiting for Bishop to announce the winners......








And the winners are.......


4th place---Pac Man.....(What???? This should have done way better than 4th...but i LOVE pacman)

3rd place---Leaders with Jamaican Drummer........(Seriously? this beat pacman?)

2nd plcae----Scion car

1st place---Sponge Bob

I am still shocked the turtle didn't even get a mention???? I was pleasantly surprised how well all the kids did! They put tons of effort in which was awesome!


It ended thank heavens, with only a few minor frosting fights!!