Star Cupcakes some Stars

My best friend, Cory, inspires me. She is talented and often times just decides to do something new and figures it all out on her own. When she picks up a new craft/hobby, I will give it a try and she is nice enough to teach me. Just off the top of my head, she has introduced me to making purses, scrapbooking and now fondant and buttercream frosting.

Cory is the creator of Daniel's pirate cupcakes for his birthday party. If you missed the previos post, you can view them here and if you live in California and need a cake or cupcakes, you have to call her. She's amazing!

Okay, I digress. Anyway, here are my cupcakes with homemade fondant stars and buttercream frosting. I don't think they are too bad for my first try! Thanks Cory!

These are my practice run for cupcakes for Daniel's combined birthday celebration at school. They are the Sheila Tarr Stars.

Wow . . . Seriously

This new, longer trailer for New Moon is aaaaMazing. I hope it lives up to all the hype. I did notice at the end it is still not rated. Hopefully they don't make it into an R-rated movie. What a choice for the thousands/millions of members that are in LOVE with these books.

New Moon Trailer

The Place I Love

Labor Day Weekend was spent remembering my past.

My Grandpa Hirschi built a cabin in Brian Head forty years ago using left over materials from his construction jobs. It is still without water (due to the high cost of putting it in- somewhere around $20,000 the last time my grandpa checked) but even with the midnight trips to the outhouse, "spit" baths, hauling up water and hours spent boiling water to clean dishes, it is always worth it. One of my favorite things about the cabin is all of the work. I know, weird.

You can't have the fun without the hard work though. And whenever anyone stays at the cabin, work needs to be done as sort of a payment for staying there. This time we cleaned up cobwebs, fixed the sliding glass door, installed a new light in the sleeping loft, cleaned off the back porch and made a trip to the dump. What a great way to instill good, hard working values in our children.

Even with all the hard work and lack of modern inconveniences, I LOVE THIS CABIN. I have many memories and adventures in those woods from summer family reunions. It was fun to share those memories and activities with my husband and kids as an adult. I remember dreaming with my cousins about our future husbands while sitting out in the meadow. Fifteen years later . . . and those dreams are now real.

I suppose this year was the First Annual Baldwin Family Reunion and I had so much fun. We stayed up until 2:00 am almost every morning playing Uno with some crazy rules. One day we went caving at Mammoth Caves and another day we hiked to a pond. And of course, we did the traditional outside fire with s'mores and Hide and Seek and ended the weekend with a tailgate ride in the mountains.

We also had our share of bad luck- one of my nieces was sick, the other had an abcess tooth, Coral wouldn't leave my brother's dogs alone and one of them snipped at her and drew blood, Daniel threw up the first night due to altitude sickness so we had to bag up the sheets and clean them at home (remember, no running water), he threw up twice on the way home, my mom went to the emergency room and is now having to do physical therapy three times a week for loss of movement and a pinched nerve and that is about all I can think of right now. Whew. But I would go back in a heart beat!

Well, here are the pictures. Sorry about the wordy post!

A cute picture of the kids while loading up Grandma and Grandpa's truck with all the food and water for the cabin. You can tell we are still in Vegas because of the pink cheeks from the heat!

We stopped in Cedar City and had dinner at Wingers with some of my old college friends and their kids. I hadn't seen them in almost ten years! (Sorry I didn't get any pictures of all of us Tash and Enoch! I only had the camera out while we were waiting.)

Coral having fun on the stairs up to the sleeping loft.

Pulling the kids around the mountains. I know . . . I'm buff and super skinny! lol

While we were there, it rained, hailed (Carlo was running out in the hail) and ended with warm sunshine.

Our family getting ready to go caving. Aunt Jenny bought all of the kids head lamps! What a cool aunt!

Everyone that went caving minus me, the photographer. Carlo, Daniel (who loved caving), Coral (who wanted to love caving), my niece Haley, my sister Jen, and my niece Skyler.

Coral really wanted to go through this small part at the end. But, she didn't like that she couldn't stand, so I started taking her back and she screamed and cried to go forward with everyone else. In the end, Carlo came back and helped me get back out with her as I couldn't stand. Then we saw a bat that almost flew into my face! Scary, but cool. And poor Coral . . . she was so stubborn and wanted to go with everyone else. That's sums up her personality.

My two handsome cavers.

Daniel and Skyler climbing out of the end. He loved it so much, he went through three times and begged for more. Jen watched Coral so I could go through once and it was pretty close quarters!

Jen taking Coral in backwards at the end since she wanted to go so bad.

A hard day of caving for Dad and Daughter.

Coral with her hiking stick.

Savannah and Coral. They were so cute to watch together! Denise took some pictures in the meadow before we left and they turned out great- even with smelly kids!

Our hike to a pond. We had to do this one instead of our usual Crystal Falls hike. The trail to Crystal Falls washed out and is closed down for now. Denise caught Daniel in his fall. He fell so many times up there!

Daniel's favorite place to play up there - in the meadow.

The beloved cabin. Grandpa really wanted to build it back and away from the road and invisible to the passing eye. He did a great job. I love our seclusion even though there are others around us.

Imposterous and Cemeteries

On our drive home from Brian Head, I put my feet on the dashboard.

Daniel asked, "If we get into an accident, will you have imposterous legs?"

I asked him if he meant "prosthetic" and he said, "Yep."

Today I was telling him his grandma was taking him to the school cafeteria for breakfast tomorrow.

He exclaimed, "They have a place at school where they put dead people?!"

I laughingly replied, "Not a cemetery- a cafeteria where you eat food."

Obama's Speech to Kids in School

I'm grateful to my sister (and my husband) who keep me aware of politics. I had no idea until my sister sent me an email message about the upcoming speech President Obama was giving to school kids on Tuesday.

Here's a link to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune.

Read it, become informed and decide what is best for your child.

For the Previous Post

I felt I should explain my parenting in response to the situation from my previous post. I asked for thoughts about the post, but didn't write about how we dealt with it.

Carlo and I have been teaching Daniel for almost two years about our special parts (we do use the proper term in our home) and that it is not to be touched, shown, looked at, etc. We also reminded him of those things before school started as he is on his own with people we don't know every day.

After he told us about the kid at school, we calmly asked him a few questions about the situation (I know freaking out can cause more problems), reminded him of our previous conversations and I even asked him if he was okay if I asked his teacher about what happened. He said he was fine with me talking to her. And I, of course, told him once again that I love for him to tell me everything and to not be scared to talk to me- it's better to tell me than not to.

I am thankful we did discuss these things with him before as he was one of the kids to tell the teacher about what happened. I'm still not sure why he was scared to tell me. But I remember being that way as a kid too.

A family member made a comment the other day that really stuck with me, "We are not preparing our children for IF in this day and age, but WHEN."

I didn't expect the when to happen so soon.

Private Parts in Kindergarten

Yes, you read the title correctly.

I knew Daniel would be exposed to the world upon entering Kindergarten, but he was more exposed than I had ever expected! At least he is a boy.

This morning, Daniel told Carlo and I about a little boy who showed him his private parts at school the first week. Daniel was scared to tell us because he thought he would get in trouble. We had a little conversation with our son and then I spoke with the teacher before school started to get fully informed.

Yes, the first week of school she caught a kid pointing to his private parts and the kids told her he had shown them as well. She said she didn't doubt it and took care of the situation.

Seriously, the first week of Kindergarten? Wow. We really have to start teaching them things at a young age in today's world. Scary.

Thoughts anyone?