Baking for the birthday boy...and other b-day celebrations

 Taber turned 34 last month and for his birthday he requested a homemade German Chocolate cake. I confess I am more of a Betty Crocker box kind of cake maker, so this was truly a labor of love.

 My super pro baking goddess friend Darby, gave me her recipe for German chocolate cake. It was, shall we say, rather involved...Way more ingredients than cake mix, eggs, and oil! It called for things like melting chocolate, separating eggs, whipping and folding in egg whites, (folding??!!) yeah, I was way out of my league with this one.

 Luckily I had my little helpers on hand to get through it all

 After making a ginormous mess, the batter was ready. We put it in the oven and started on the frosting which called for more involved stuff like chopping and toasting pecans, toasting coconut, separating more eggs and constantly stirring the pot for almost 30 minutes. 

When the cake came out of the oven I had serious issues getting the cakes out of their pans and one of the layers kind of got mutilated. I tried to salvage it as best I could but the end result was a 2 1/2ish layered cake instead of 3.

 I took this pic while the frosting was still warm and gooey. Wasn't the prettiest cake I've ever baked (thanks to mutilated top piece) but it was BY FAR the most insanely DELICIOUS cake I've ever made. Taber was a happy man : )

Here's another pic I took with my phone after the frosting cooled a little. Forgot to buy b-day candles so we improvised : )

 I did all the cake baking on Saturday (day before T's b-day) so once it was done we took the kids out for a nature walk.

 Taber loves the outdoors and so do the kids so this was perfect.

 We hiked around at Mine Falls and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

The next day as soon as they woke up, the girls wanted Daddy to open his presents. They couldn't even wait to eat breakfast first.

He got lots of fun things to play with outdoors from the kids, an apple gift card and a new BBQ cookbook from his parents, and I got him an iGrill device, which is a cooking thermometer that connects to your iPhone, iPod or iPad and notifies you via Bluetooth, when your meat has reached the right temp. It also tells you how long it will be till the meat is ready and I guess you can play some grilling games with it too. Anyway, I figured he loves grilling and he loves apple products, so perfect combo!

Later after church we had some friends over for Kalua pig and cake and ice cream.

 Some of the tasty b-day grub

 Great friends, the Ures, the Hoods, and the Silvestros. 

(random fun fact, Taber and Steve Silvestro served together in the same mission. Kind of cool to now be in the same ward, all the way across the country, 13 years later!)

 My two handsomes getting ready for cake and ice cream

And a happy family photo with the birthday and his labor of love cake.

Happy Birthday Tabes! Another year older and still hotter than eva! ; )

This is Living!

 When life presents moments of pure bliss, Taber likes to use a phrase he learned from his Dad: "This is Living!" i.e...Sipping pina coladas on the beach in Turks and Caicos = This is living. 

The other day when Taber came home from work we all went out to play on the trampoline. After a few minutes I had to run and grab my camera because it was that kind of moment. Here are some of the pics I took: This, my friends, is living : )

Sticks and Stones may break your bones, but the monkey bars will do it for sure!

Well we have our first broken bone. We made it 6 years into parenthood before it happened so you know, I feel pretty good about that : )

It happened on a Saturday. I was up in the mountains mapping out hiking trails in prep for girls camp, so Taber decided to take the kids to Teya's school to play on the playground there. Teya has been begging us all year to take her there so she can try out the monkey bars. You see, kindergartners aren't normally allowed on the monkey bars because the teacher says, they will break their arms.

Well apparently the teacher knows what she's talking about because sure enough, miss Teya lost her grip, fell and busted her poor little arm. The urgent care closes early on Saturdays (and I am a cheap wad that didn't want to pay thousands of dollars for the emergency room) so we had to wait until Sunday to get an X-ray.

X-ray confirmed our suspicions, broken arm, right by the elbow. They put her in a temporary cast and instructed us to see the ortho doc Monday morning.

Taber took her to the ortho doc and I guess everyone was pretty smitten with the cutie little kindergartner who broke her arm.

They were all out of pink casts so she went for her second choice, Red.

She'll have the cast on for 3 weeks, then they'll cut it off, take an X-ray, and decide if she needs one longer or if she can get by with a splint.

It has been an adjustment, but she has adapted surprisingly well and can dress herself, put on her shoes and socks, and buckle her seatbelt now with no problem. Best of all, she's been able to collect signatures from all her favorite people, including her beloved Kindergarten teacher Mrs. Plouffe, and the greatest superhero of all, Daddy : )

World's most supportive parents

We feel very blessed and grateful that Taber's parents and my Dad were able to fly out to see us perform in Savior of the World. (My mom would've come too but she's was watching my sister's kids so Rachel could be here : ) 

They sat on the front row, for every show, and it was great to see how touched they were by the performances. 

The first time my Dad saw it he cried through the whole thing. Afterwards he gave me roses and then worked the crowds, greeting people and proudly saying, "Hi! I'm Becca's Dad!" Several of my friends told me afterwards that they'd never seen such a proud papa ; )

They were only in town for the weekend, but it was awesome having a house full of family.  

(Cute pic of "The Boys")

 Grandma helping Cam eat his veggies

 We are especially grateful to Grandma Karen for making Easter so special for the kids. We were so busy all week with dress rehearsals and performances that we hadn't done anything to prepare for it. Luckily Grandma showed up with Easter games, crafts, treats, toys and even Easter dresses. She brought stuff to color eggs and brought plastic eggs for an egg hunt. Without her I don't know what we would've done. Thank you Grandma Karen!!

 Brinley dyeing eggs with Grandma

 Easter morning was also a lot of fun with the grandparents around. Papa Uda was sleeping in the play room where the Easter bunny had left the kids baskets. Silly Papa had stayed up way too late the night before and had only gotten a few hours of sleep when the kids came bounding into the room, jumping on his bed and yelling, "WAKE UP PAPA! THE EASTER BUNNY CAME!!"

He was a good sport and rolled right out of bed to join in the fun.

 The reason Papa was up so late? Playing on his new iPhone. The kids were pretty intrigued by it too. Check out Cam's face!

 Lots of smiles on Easter morning

 After the egg hunt we got ready for church while Dad, Rachel, and the Riggs all got ready to go to the airport. We took a few more pics before everyone had to leave.

 The girls looked precious in their Easter dresses from Grandma. Couldn't quite capture a pic of everyone looking at the camera and smiling (especially Cam who was really mad that we put him in a suit) but I'm glad we got some pics of all of us together. Thank you to all our family who came out and supported us in the play. We LOVE you so so much!

Cam's new smile

 Cam has a new "smile" he likes to show off every time we pull out a camera.

 Cheese!

 I'm smiling!

 The camera loves me!

Workin' it!

QUESO!

Best. Face. Ever.