Easter weekend recap...a picture marathon...

i worked from home on Friday...the kiddos were out of school on spring break, & the daycare was closed for Good Friday...thankfully, my punks did a great job keeping themselves entertained most of the day...it was a gorgeous day outside (in the 80s!), so they spent a lot of time outside enjoying the weather...& as soon as quittin' time rolled around, i joined them!

we'd planned to dye our Easter Eggs...we'd gotten 2 different kits this year - a tie dye set & a set to make the eggs all shiny & glittery

the tie dye kit worked the best...u used droppers to add tiny drops of color to ur egg, while u held it in a baggie...then add another color (or 2) & roll the egg around to swirl the colors together

they came out brighter & the process was quicker than old fashioned dipping

we went ahead & colored all our eggs, then left the shiny kit for the next day since the eggs needed to be dry to add the shine

Rocket joined us outside...he kept watch, making sure that evil cat didn't come around to bother us ;0)

here are our finished eggs after we added the shine effect on Saturday...we were super proud of how they turned out!

another critter that caught Rocket's attention while we were outside dying eggs was this little mama kill deer bird...

she would sit out in the grass with her hubby, just squawking away - trying to keep our attention on her, & not her nest...but finally, i found the eggs...& it was a good thing too - she'd literally laid her eggs under where my brother's hauling trailer had been parked...she was lucky he didn't run over her eggs when he pulled it out...or that he hadn't returned it yet & backed over them

& check this...when i went back out to peek at her eggs on Sunday, there was one more!

i went ahead & surrounded her nest with markers so it wouldn't get run over...i'm just hoping that once the babies hatch, their parents are good at keeping Night away...i'll probably cry if that killer cat gets a hold of them!

Jaden went to bed that evening with a migraine...bless his heart - we knew he didn't feel well when he was only able to take one bite of his pizza, then asked for medicine & decided he was going to bed...thankfully, he woke up just fine on Saturday! that day was pretty chill...i had a wedding cake consultation that morning, but mostly we just hung out & soaked up all the sunshine!

of course Sunday was Easter...& the Easter Bunny sure enough found his way to our new home (Jaden was worried about that)

this was the first year that the kiddos picked out their own Easter outfits...the girls, completely on their own! Jaden only cared that his clothes were blue...i helped him with finding something appropriate ;0)

Easter Sunday service was the children's Easter performance of a story called 'Good News from the Grave'...

Jaden had a solo & the girls sang a song with 2 other little boys...they all had speaking parts as well & everyone did great! once again, they made us super proud!!!



Jaden's solo:
24 hours was all Jesus had
with His disciples, He met to break bread
showing His love, He washed their dirty feet
"I have to go now, but you cannot come"
that's what He said when the end had begun
as they left singing, their music was bittersweet

after church, we ran home to change, then went over to Nana & Grandpa's for a cook-out & outside fun!

& of course, we had to have Easter egg hunts! this year, we skipped the candy altogether (since all the kiddos got plenty from Mr. Bunny already!) and loaded the eggs with one dollar bills & quarters...the kiddos loved it!

the men had the job of hiding eggs...

Scooby says "what egg?!" ~lol~

no Joe, no one will ever find that one! ;0)

let the hunting begin!

& u know we couldn't hang out at the grandparent's without riding 4-wheelers & riding the flyers...we had a great time & left with full bellies...it was definitely a fun, blessed day!

& that's not all!

we'd also promised the kiddos a campfire that night...Curtis was off (very rare on a weekend evening) & the weather was perfect!

while we got the fire going, the rugrats tried out their new bubble guns that the Easter Bunny had brought them...

& daddy got some sticks ready for marshmallow roasting ;0)

we made lots of s'mores & relaxed by the fire...

swinging as the sun fell behind the mountains...

the perfect way to end such a fun weekend...

interesting facts about the world & technology...

thanks to my friend BC at Sincerely, B for posting this to her Facebook page...how unbelievably interesting! especially for those of us with small kiddos - imagining what their futures may hold...things that make ya go hmmmm, right?!

well on her way to becoming a fluent reader...

recently, one of Jaden's special education teachers asked if she could pull Corinn out of class one day for a literacy assessment project she needed to do for her graduate program...she needed a beginning reader, but didn't currently have any in the special ed program...she said Corinn came to mind & wondered if it would be alright to do the assessment on her...she promised to share her findings with me, so of course i said yes...this is probably pretty boring for most of u, but i found it fascinating...& i'm sure our family will too, so i'm sharing it here

Corinn is a 6 year-old kindergartner who enjoys playing Hide-n-Go Seek with her brother, sister, and cousins. She moved into a new home with her family this fall, and she enjoys her yard where she and her siblings play around a certain tree they call their clubhouse. Corinn’s brother is in third grade, her sister in first, and her home is a loving, supportive environment where the children are encouraged to think independently and enjoy creative activities. Both of Corinn’s parents work outside the home, and she and her siblings spend mornings and afternoons in daycare where Corinn says she has fun. Corinn reports that her favorite day is “summer,” and she drew a summer scene of her favorite tree to share with me. Corinn was interested in reading “Spot” books aloud to me, including Where’s Spot? and Spot Bakes a Cake. While she had not yet mastered every word in either of these books, she enjoyed lifting the flaps in the illustrations to show me what was underneath. Corinn’s teacher describes her as creative and cooperative and notes that Corinn is “an excellent student.” Corinn was very willing to work at every task with me and clearly wanted to please with her cooperation and interest.

Individual Alphabetics subtest scores follow:

Subtest 1, “Letter Identification” Corinn confidently and easily identified 26 lower case alphabet letters, correcting herself quickly when she identified “x” as “k.” She enjoyed pointing to each letter with flair, using a decorative pencil.

Subtest 2, “Letter Production” Corinn wrote all 26 letters readily, interspersing capital and lowercase formations and needing little time to consider each letter. She reversed the following letters: j, h, r, f, and z.

Subtest 3, “Letter-Sound Production” Corinn willingly used her decorative pencil to point to each of the uppercase letters listed as she verbalized the sounds. She identified 25 of 26 letter sounds correctly; her only error was identifying “th” as /t/ as in “top” which she corrected when asked a second time.

Subtest 4, “Phonics/Spelling” Corinn was comfortable with the spelling assessment because, as she stated, “We do this in my class every week!” She spelled three letter words with ease and confidence (van, pet, rug, sad). As the first word with a blend was called (plum), her confidence wavered a bit as she said, “I don’t know that word.” After encouragement, she wrote what she heard while she verbalized the word several times. The assessment continued in this manner (chip, shine), and when “skate” was called, Corinn’s face lit up. She said, “That’s my name!” and quickly wrote the word with the “s” on the end to make her last name. She sounded out “float” and “treat” for a total score of 31 of 40 possible points.

Corinn’s total Alphabetics score was 108 of 118 possible points, indicating that she has a firm grasp of letter recognition and letter sounds. She is fairly strong when working with blends and digraphs. She may soon be ready for instruction in long vowel patterns.

Word Identification, Subtest 1, “Word-List Reading” Corinn read the preprimer word list confidently with the exception of “with” where she paused for several moments before saying, “I don’t know this word.” When asked if she wanted to take a guess, she shook her head no. She correctly read 18 of 20 words. Corinn was much more hesitant with the primer word list, preferring to say, “I don’t know” rather than making guesses, and correctly reading 6 of 20 words.

Word Identification, Subtest 2, “Concept of Word” Corinn cooperatively participated in the activities for Sand Castle even though her ability to read over 15 preprimer words precluded her from this subtest. (She agreed in order for this examiner to learn how to administer the subtest.) As expected, Corinn achieved a perfect score of 16 out of 16.

Word Identification, Subtest 3, “Word Identification in Text” Corinn was eager to read both small books for this portion of the assessment. She stopped at the second word in Sam, “has,” and said, “I don’t know that word.” I supplied it, and she continued through the rest of the book, pointing to each word accurately. She substituted “what” for “out” and scored 28 correct words of 30 possible for 93% accuracy. Corinn jumped into My Huge Dog Max eagerly and again read with accurate tracking. She was more willing to guess at words in context, substituting such words as “this” for “that’s” and “in” for “under” and scored 65 correct words of 72 possible for 90% accuracy. She enjoyed investigating the similarities between the illustrations in both books and suggested, “The same person probably drew both of these!”

Corinn’s writing sample consisted of beginning and ending consonant sounds and several correctly spelled sight words. She reversed the letter “j” as she had when she wrote the letters out of context, but “just,” “like,” and “and” were spelled correctly. Corinn used a capital letter at the start of her sentence and an exclamation point at the end. Her sentence described her love of warm weather—“I just like spring and summer!”

Results of the Book Buddies Assessment for Emergent Readers, Second Edition place Corinn at Preprimer level 3 overall. Corinn is moving from the emergent reading stage into the beginning reader stage with age-appropriate skills. Effective instruction for Corinn at this point will include the following: 1) development of a personal word bank, 2) reading of books at Reading Recovery levels 7-8, 3) introduction of context clues strategies to assist reading of unknown words, 4) primer sight word practice, and 5) encouragement for practice and rereading of familiar text. She is well on her way to becoming a fluent reader!

guaranteed to make you smile!

bringing ☮ peace ☮ to the world thru music...beautiful!

read more about Playing For Change---->>>here

(almost) wordless Wednesday...uh oh...

am i one of those dog owners that strangely resembles their pet?
~lol~

weekend recap...

our weekend was pretty chill...we did go see How to Train Your Dragon with the kiddos on Saturday...of course, Jaden started counting down to the release date (which was last Friday) as soon as they started airing the trailers a few months ago...so he wasn't gonna let us forget that it was out! we all went & had a great time - it was a really sweet movie!

of course, 2 days after we get a dog, it starts raining & doesn't stop! well, it's stopped a little here & there, but mostly it's been raining continuously since Friday night!

luckily, Rocket is the BEST DOG ON EARTH! he totally tolerates letting me towel dry him off each & every time he comes in from the rain...he actually kind of enjoys it...he's got such personality! he's very obedient & super sweet to all of us...he does awesome in his crate & hasn't had any potty accidents yet...he's fitting in with us perfectly - i'm so glad he found his way into our home! :0)

we did get in a little outside time Friday evening before all the rain hit...

i think Spring is officially here!

& look what showed up on our sidewalk Saturday morning...

u're guess is as good as mine!
i'm thinking maybe Night found a nearby fish pond?

weekend cakes...

Saturday, my sweet hubby got up super early to deliver this cake for me...it was designed by (now) 12 year old Tony...he was inspired by the original 13 things cake i made some time ago...except he went with his high school colors of blue & white...

he then chose the 12 most important things to him...his PS3, gifts, an iPod, Percy Jackson books, football, namely The Steelers, a laptop, Facebook, money, a NintendoDS, his cell, & a pizza...

both numbers were white cake, iced in buttercream...i made the 12 items from fondant

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next up was this cake...also inspired by a previous design...

this cake was chocolate (top tier) & marble (bottom tier), all iced in buttercream...i made the bow, stars (the wires are not edible), dots & birthday banner from fondant

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lastly, was this cute little cow cake...

2 year old Camden LOVES cows, so that's basically all he wanted on his cake...

the cake was fudge white chip, iced in buttercream...i made the cow from fondant, the little hay pile is buttercream & i made the fence out of gumpaste


thx for looking!
♥
sharon

look at him now!

remember this tear-jerking story?

well get ready for more...
the return of J-Mac

related...
autistic teen picks perfect bracket

3...2...1...blast off!

when Jaden was about 4, he started asking for a dog...he was very specific too! he wanted a big black dog & he would name him Sloopy

we weren't quite ready for a dog back then...so we told Jaden that when he got older & was more responsible, we'd consider getting a dog that he could help take care of...he wanted to know how old...we said something like "oh, i don't know...when u're about 10 or so"

well, if u know Jaden...then u know that he NEVER forgot that conversation! every few months or so - when he'd see a cute dog, or we'd be walking around looking at the pet store - he'd mention..."boy, i can't wait til i'm 10 & can have a dog!"...this has gone on for almost 6 years! we'd gently remind him that we didn't exactly say he'd definitely get a dog when he turned 10, but that anything was possible

well, Jaden turns 10 in July...
i know...double digits people!!!

& we really think that not only is he ready, but the girls are ready too...they've shown that they can solely be responsible for feeding our outside cat, every day...& picking up around the yard after her...we've had several conversations about how important it is that they keep their rooms picked up & take care of their things, cause if we get a dog, we'll have to watch that he doesn't chew up toys or find things on the floor that he shouldn't...we've talked about how the dog will need lots of daily exercise & attention...how the kiddos can't be fighting all the time & making the new dog nervous (hello i've-gotta-pick-on-my-brother/sister-every-waking-moment-of-my-life stage! ugh.)...& they've actually shown some big improvements

so anyway, i figured i better start the search...we have very specific requirements for a dog & i figured July would be here before we knew it!

last week, i began searching adoption sites...hunting thru Craigslist, & researching different breeds...our number one requirement was that the dog doesn't shed! u know...cause of the cakes? even tho the dog won't be around my cake area, i still can't take the risk of dog hair floating around in the air...the 2nd requirement is that it NOT be a puppy! we really didn't want to do the house breaking thing...or deal with the chewing, or the getting up in the middle of the night...or u know, any of that jazz...we've already raised our babies, & don't want to start over again! plus, there are tons of adult dogs out there that need a good home...i was sure we could find one that would fit well into our home...& of course what ever dog we get, has to be great with kids!

well just the other day, i was literally refreshing the pets page on Craigslist & an ad pops up...

Black Standard Schnauzer
his name is rocket he is 2 years old and not neutered. need to find him a good home. he is a purebred, he is a very excited and playful dog, house trained, and loves to cuddle. for anymore information or to set up a time to see him, call...

i already knew that Standard Schnauzers were in the non-shedding dog category (i know, all dogs shed...but these type of dogs shed very little - kind of like people)...he's black - Jaden's preference...& his name is Rocket? ok, how perfect is that?!

i immediately called!

one of my first questions was about the shedding...the owner says "oh, Rocket doesn't really shed at all!"...score! i ask about how he is with kids - turns out excellent, they have 2 small kiddos themselves! they're a young couple who live in a single wide trailer...they also have a dog that the man has owned for 10+ years & his wife just had surgery...2 small kiddos & 2 dogs are a lot for anyone to take care of, but she really wasn't able to do it all while being laid up & living in such a small space...they really didn't want to have to get rid of him - she went on & on about what a sweet & well-behaved dog he is - but they decided he had to...they wanted to make sure he ended up in a great home tho...so Curtis & i arranged a time to go meet Rocket

& oh. my. word.
he had us at hello!
~lol~

he was of course excited to meet us...he jumped on us & licked us - even barked once to say hello...but after i gave him some love & he checked us out thoroughly, he quickly laid down beside me & relaxed while we chatted with his owners...he's more gray, than black...& a little on the small side for a Standard Schnauzer...but omg, he's so sweet! & soooo lovable! it didn't take us long to realize that we were head over heels in love...& that he'd fit into the Skates household perfectly! ;0)

meet "Rocket Sloopy Skates"...

the absolute best part was surprising the kiddos! of course, they had no idea we were even looking for a dog...their reactions were absolutely PRICELESS!!!



yeah, it's definitely a super early bday present for Jaden...but he doesn't care - all 3 are in absolute heaven with the new addition to our family...& Rocket seems to be feeling right at home too!!! ;0)

wordless Wednesday...welcome Spring!

weekend recap...

in between delivering both cakes on Saturday, i had a special meeting that afternoon...i haven't officially announced anything here yet, but my Twitter & Facebook friends already know about my exciting news...

i get to tackle a pretty huge cake job in June...our local hospital is rebuilding at a new location - & they've asked me to not only create
an exact replica of the new hospital
for their 3-day grand opening event, but also
5,000 cupcakes
for their employee celebration day!

oh. my. gosh!!!

i couldn't believe it when they asked me, but i'm super psyched now! thankfully, i have tons of help around me if i need it...& boy, i think i'm gonna need it! ;0)

can u believe i have to make a model of this?!
(well, minus the bulldozers)

my brother is on board to help me out with the replica project...he's an artist - & way better at the architecture/engineering aspect of things! he & i got to go & tour the new hospital Saturday...we took lots of pics & mostly just stared at the building with our mouths hanging open...we're not sure what we've gotten ourselves into! ~lol~

the rest of my weekend was pretty chill...i'd promised the kiddos a campfire Saturday night...& since i was super tired from working on cakes the night before, i figured i'd better get the fire going before it got too late...or i may end up having some disappointed kiddos when i pass out on the sofa & can't drag my butt outside to build one! ~lol~

so even tho it was still light outside, we went ahead anyway...& it was really nice!

we had mid/high 70 degree weather all weekend...so it was already awesome enuff! but hanging out around our 1st campfire of the year made it even better!

we picked up some BK for dinner & had ourselves a little picnic...

& of course, we played...

Night is always nearby these days...keeping a watchful eye on her family ;0)

or playing too...she LOVES the kiddos & all the attention they give her!

Sunday, we had a cook-out at my brother & sister-in-law's house to celebrate my mom's birthday...anytime we can get all the grandkids together to play is fun!

& eat too? count me in!!! ;0)

hope u had a great weekend where u are! i'm soooooo happy that Spring is officially here...we're looking forward to many more weekends outside!!!

weekend (of girly) cakes...

first up was this butterfly cake...the birthday girl decided, just the week before, what design she wanted...not in enough time for me to get rice paper (edible) to make butterfly wings...i usually use royal icing, the rice paper & food color gels to make edible butterflies...instead, i found these feather ones at Michael's...

they're on wire, so inserting them into the cake gave the feel that they were really fluttering around it...i love how this cake turned out & i might try to talk more future folks into letting me use these butterflies instead of the edible ones! ;0)

the cake was 2 tiers of confetti cake...all iced in buttercream...i gave each tier a border of buttercream grass, & accented the cake with flowers i made from fondant

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i also made a castle cake for Miss Carley this weekend...

she wanted 2 tiers of marble cake...i iced it all in buttercream (u can't tell very well, but i gave the buttercream walls a cobblestone texture too - click on the pic to enlarge)...then i added cardboard tubes & inverted sugar cones (all covered in fondant) to make the towers...the grass & vines are piped from buttercream, & the door/windows & tiny flowers are made from fondant

thx for looking!
sharon

ARF!

Thursday night, the girls performed in a play called "Arf" at school...

all of preK, kindergarten & 1st grade was in the play...& the girls had speaking parts!

they were Alfie & Allie Afghan...the only kiddos that didn't need to make paper ears - their pigtails made perfect furry ears! ;0)

they remembered all their lines & did a GREAT job reciting them loud enough that we could all hear!

well, except for Jaden - he'd already seen the play at school earlier that day, so he stayed busy looking at a Star Wars book with a friend ;0)

here's a video of the last song they sang in the play...

happy birthday Ma!

we love you Nana!