Tiny Things

 My mom found miniature chocolate chips on clearance one day at the grocery store so she brought us over two bags.  Just a few days later, I read a recipe for miniature chocolate chip cookies so I decided this was exactly what we needed to do.

How cute are they?  As a warning, this is the kind of situation where you then end up eating 5 cookies at a time.

Sunset Walks and Signs of Spring

 We've had an incredibly warm winter this year.  It means that it may be late February, but you can easily convince your kids to go on a sunset walk with you and only need sweatshirts.

It also means that you show up to the temple and everything is covered in daffodils.  In February!

Boy's Best Friend

 Sometimes you just want your stuffed dog to take your place in family game night for you, so why not make him look even more human?

I really do love Elliott's devotion to his stuffies.  He's the first person to check if you are feeling sad and if maybe you think a stuffie would cheer you up and then bring you then stuffie ASAP.

Elliott: A Belated Retrospective

 So, I posted these pictures to Facebook for Elliott's 10th birthday.  I've done this for all three kids, and then I assumed I also put them on the blog.  I went to look at them with Miles and realized, more than a year later, that no, I had not in fact put them in the blog.  Here they are now!

He was such a mama's boy as a baby. 3 months old.

6 months old at the National Postal Museum.  He was one of the only babies we saw in D.C. that whole week!

Little Jedi and his dad at Miles's 7th birthday party. 15 months old.

He loved rocks SO much. 20 months old.

He took his "Yightning" and his "Sadness" everywhere. 2.5 years old.

Dinosaur Day at the PG Rec Center Toddler Gym. 2.5 years old.

Super Dino!  3 years old.

It's the dimples that get me, every time. 3.5 years old.

With Dino on his 4th birthday. 

He LOVED the rockets at Lindon Days. 4.5 years old.

Happy boy reading books at the Provo Library. 5 years old.

Harvey Park is always fun. 5.5 years old.

Happy 6th birthday to an excited little boy!

He was so proud of this Grinch he drew for his teacher's birthday. 6.5 years old.

Hiking Little Wild Horse Canyon. 7 years old.

My little bat at Timpanogos Cave. 7.5 years old.

Making a blanket fort for snow day homework. 8 years old.

Beyond thrilled to be at Disneyland. 8.5 years old.

Long line at the Manti Temple, still having a great time. 9 years old.

This picture makes me happy every time. 9.5 years old.

KPOP Laser Hunters

Our local planetarium has been advertising a KPOP Demon Hunters laser show so I decided to get us tickets.  While no one was initially thrilled, everyone loved it when we got there.  There was so much detail in the show and the level of audience participation was great.  In fact, I'm certain there was more singing along than there was at the singalong show we went to in theaters!

It's VERY hard to get a great sense of it with photo and video, but here's some to get an idea!

Davy Jones' Locker

Molly got to go to her friend Drew's murder mystery party again!  This year was a pirate theme and she was asked to play a flamboyant mystic named Esmerelda.

She was not the murderer.  She did, however, get placed under a love spell, got engaged, and staged her own kidnapping, so that's fun!  We spent a long time searching and finally found this very cute pink peasant blouse at a local thrift store, along with the big dramatic earrings.  We paired it with her own white skirt, a singing time scarf repurposed as a hair scarf, and a lot of my college jewelry. She really looked so cute!

Golden Doors

It's been a long time since we've been to a MOA event opening party!  They recently had a party for their giant replica Ghiberti baptistry doors. I've seen the real ones in Florence in high school and these are a really convincing replica.

They had little panna cotta for the treats.  

We got to gild refrigerator magnets in honor of the gilded doors.

The doors are truly enormous!

Elliott really liked the puzzle where you got to put together the doors yourself.

Welding Skills

One of Miles's youth leaders is the shop teacher at a local high school, so he took all the teenage boys to learn welding.

It was a lot of fun!

Rainbow Days

 It has been the dryest of dry dry winters, but we finally got some rain and it was followed up a huge, complete rainbow! We also finally got some snow the day after, which of course all hit at the exact time Miles had to drive home from school and I needed to pick up Molly.

Milan Olympics Party

Another year, another Olympics party.  I made way, way too much food for my sister's family to be in Idaho so we had leftovers on some of the food for a week (and it would have been longer, but I froze half of the meatballs).

These are baci di dama (tiny hazelnut cookies with chocolate between them).

And these are Italian ricotta cookies.

I made two big pizza al taglio with two flavors each.  This is Roman-style pizza that's basically focaccia crust with toppigns.  I did a mascarpone with arugula and Parmesan, a potato and rosemary, a pesto and mushroom, and a classic pepperoni.

A big gorgeous array of Italian antipasti.

Little panna cotta with toppings inspired by the Olympic rings.

Meatballs in marinara and Parmesan risotto.  We also had gelato from my mom!

Valentine's Day 2026

Here's this year's Valentine's Day celebrations!  We made crepe paper flowers for our ministering sisters at a Relief Society activity.  Molly and I go to a mom and her three teen-to-young adult daughters, so I made two of the first pink poppies and then a white rose and a pink rose.

I didn't buy any of these expensive heart-container berries but I thought they were so, so cute

Elliott wanted a Kirby Air Riders box.  He also needed that box to have a moving element.  This means that I did the art direction for the star and the Kirby face, and Gerrit helped him engineer the arms.  He gave out mustache valentines with the leftover mustaches from Miles's Halloween costume.

I ran a Mad Libs station for the 5th grade party.

I wanted all of the family to have a Valentine, so I gave everyone a love note and some of their favorite candy.  I love celebrating Valentine's with kids in particular!