friesenfam.net

Friesen family blog

February 18, 2011
by janette
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a night on the town

We started off Ellie’s actual birthday with the traditional birthday donut.

Surprisingly when I feed my children donuts for breakfast, I don’t have to keep telling them to eat or we’ll be late. Hmmm….wonder why they don’t eat their normal breakfast that well.

It was a big day at school that day – a parent program for Ellie’s class…complete with a visit from grandparents.

And that night…

a night out with mom and dad.

We got a sitter for Evan and took Ellie to paint pottery. She was confused at first why Evan wasn’t going with us – shows you that she hasn’t had a lot any alone time with mom and dad since he was born. We explained that we thought it would be fun to just hang out with her and not Evan and how painting pottery and 2 year olds don’t really mix. I think she got it when we told her it was breakable.

She picked an alien to paint…and painted him wild, crazy colors.

And then she got to pick where we ate. She decided she wanted a hamburger, so we went to Toads. I love Toads. It makes my tummy happy, so we didn’t argue. Can i just say I love Iowa’s smoking ban in restaurants. I love being able to take the kids anywhere and not worry about their little lungs.

But before swinging over to Toads, we shopped for one more birthday surprise.

Scratch Cupcakery in Cedar falls. A tasty way to end our night out.

We still have yet to pick up our pottery. This week has been crazy! But we’ll get there…and then I’ll post a picture of the alien that will take up residence at our house, and the Christmas tree ornament that I painted. After all, I couldn’t let her have all the fun!

February 17, 2011
by janette
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onto the next birthday

My big girl is 5!

She’s excited, I’m excited.

She’s excited for things like Kindergarten.

I’m excited for things like the end of whining. Okay – wishful thinking. I was hoping it would shut off like a switch when 5 hit. I bet you can guess how that worked out for me.

When I asked her a couple weeks prior to her party what she wanted for a cake, we debated between buzz and woody and the little mermaid. Toy Story is one of her favorites and has been for years, The Little Mermaid she’s seen maybe 3 times. I don’t know what prompted her to choose it, but she finally came down on that side. Lucky for me, I had a set of Little Mermaid figurines in the basement. For all of you who saw the pictures and thought I bought them for her, you were mistaken. I’m not afraid to admit it, they are mine.

I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do around the bottom. I don’t like the way unfinished edges look…but am not good at creatively solving this problem. I thought once about putting pearls around the bottom – but couldn’t find any that were edible, or that weren’t holy expensive when i was just going to use them for the cake.

So, i started looking online at fondant cakes. I love google images. I found this edge and thought it looked kindof like waves – perfect for the ocean theme!

For the star, i just used a star cookie cutter – pampered chef i believe – and then squished and pulled the points to look uneven. The purple sea plants are just circles rolled up into tubes, and the grass is green fondant cut with a pizza cutter.

All in all…a pretty good cake, i thought. I was just happy to get it done…because you know i didn’t start decorating it until 9:30 the night before.

She knew it was going to be rainbow…but she still got pretty excited when we cut into it.

Can you say sugared up?

She got lots of great gifts…and she loves them all. So does he…

especially the pretty pretty princess game. (I only wish this picture did it justice)

February 14, 2011
by janette
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daddy’s birthday

So, the last post showed you my awesome baking buddy…

Well, it didn’t stop with making the frosting…he wanted to help frost the cake for daddy and decorate it too.

He started out eating the sprinkles out of the bowl,

moved nicely into putting some on the cake…

and then moved right on into enjoying the frosting.

I’m betting this picture was taken shortly after daddy found out what he was doing. Just look at that face!

Next up…more birthday posts from our other February birthday!

February 1, 2011
by janette
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baking day

I had a helper in the kitchen today…

We were busy, busy…making treats for daddy’s birthday, the cake for cakeballs, and frosting for Ellie’s birthday cake. Whew…a lot to get done in one afternoon.

Good thing I had good help.

I’m not sure if this was his favorite part…

Or if this was.

My favorite part…his giggle.

And when he said “I getting messy mommy”

January 31, 2011
by janette
2 Comments

Nathan’s Grandma

I was going through pictures today and found this one of our most recent visit to Nathan’s Grandma.

I love this woman.

I remember the very first time I met her. It was Nathan’s graduation from Wartburg. We’d started dating about 6 weeks before that, so I got broken in very quickly. I met his parents, his sister, their foreign exchange student, and his Grandma all at the same time. Over dinner, if I remember correctly.

I was nervous.

She was lovely. Still is.

I knew from this very first time that we would get along famously.

We share many similar tastes. Among them, a good piece of chocolate and books (some of the same authors too).

She is one of my very favorite people on this planet. She’s kind, generous, funny, gracious, and always…always loving.