New Blog

Well I have officially run out of photo storage space on this blog and since I am so far behind anyway I am just going to start a new blog! So head on over to eldredgefamily2013.blogspot.com to see our new family blog! It's under construction but I do have a few posts up there now. Hope to see you there!

My Niece Emma's Cake for her 14th Birthday

My Niece Emma decided she wanted a Popcorn themed birthday party since she got her braces off last week so I made her a popcorn "cake" made out of Rice Krispy Treats and then they will decorate cupcakes at the party to go with it.

                                                                                             

                                                                            

Cupcakes

Russell's school is having a Halloween Carnival tonight so I volunteered to make cupcakes for it since it's a fundraiser for the different departments of the school. Thanks to pinterest I found some cute ideas for Mummy's, Frankensteins, and Bats, and then I made up my own Spider ones. They were super fun to make!

 Bats

 Frankensteins

 Spiders

 Mummy's

All 48 Cupcakes

Birthday Boys!

       I absolutely love that Russell and our cute nephew Nate share a birthday. This year Russell decided he wanted to celebrate his birthday the Sunday before so we invited the Mildensteins to come celebrate with us. Since it was Nate's birthday also and Aaron was going to be out of town during the week it worked out perfectly to celebrate them both that day.
      Russell decided he wanted an ice cream cake for his birthday so I decided to attempt it. It turned out really good for a first attempt but I will definitely do some things differently if I make it again. It was a chocolate cake, with chocolate swirl ice cream, crumbled cookies, carmel, and ganache on top!
     Emma made a pumpkin cake for Nate. I didn't get a chance to try it but I hear it was delicious!

Happy Birthday Boys!

1st Cavities Filled

We took Kennadee to the dentist last week and they discovered that she has 4 cavities! They are "kissing cavities" meaning that she has touching cavities between two sets of molars. Today I took her to get the first set filled. It was so great. She didn't wince or cry or anything. She just sat there and let them fill the cavities. She told me afterward that she really was scared and that she was shaking. I'm very proud of her that she kept her cool and didn't freak out.
   While we were sitting waiting for the numbing medicine to take effect she was watching Phineus & Ferb and it was the episode with "Meep" the alien. She tried to say "meep" and it came out "meepfh" with a little farting sound and she was laughing so hard. After she was all done I had to get it on video! It was hilarious!

 Waiting for the medicine to kick in

 All done and super numbed up!

 I love her mouth in this pic! It was so funny watching her laugh!

 The video starts out sideways but then I remembered you have to turn it the other way!

I also had to have a couple cavities filled. She insisted on taking a picture of me!

Piano Lessons

   This year we decided that Kennadee was ready to try an extracurricular activity so we asked our sweet friend Valerie if she would be willing to give Kennadee piano lessons. Kennadee could not wait until the day she finally got to go to lessons!
    Hopefully she will keep it up and be an excellent pianist!

First Day of School: Second Grade

I say this every year but I seriously can't believe my kiddo is in 2nd grade!! She is getting so grown up I can't believe it. She is in Mrs. Horvath's class this year. I think she will like her teacher. I am looking forward to seeing her progress this year!

Losing Teeth

    Kennadee lost her first tooth on March 6, 2012. Four days after she turned 7. Her tooth was loose for what seemed to be FOREVER! Finally we told her that I was going to pull it out. She threw a big fit and wouldn't let us anywhere near it so we told her that the next day I would be pulling it out no matter what so she should prepare herself.
     The next day we sat down and I told her to let me pull it. She opened her mouth and using a tissue I grabbed the tooth. She jerked her head back out of fear and pop! The tooth was in the tissue. She laughed and laughed and laughed that she had made such a big deal out of nothing. The tooth fairy brought her two dollars. She was so excited!

    Her second tooth was not such a treat. She lost it July 2, 2012. It had been loose for awhile and I thought it was ready to come out so I got a tissue and twisted to pull it out and it made this tearing sound oops! She cried and cried. I felt so bad! After it was out she was excited afterward so I didn't feel so bad. 

    She lost her third tooth August 13, 2012 right when we got home from vacation. We had wiggled and jiggled it since the last week of school and it just took forever to come out. I had told her that since the last one had been so traumatic that she could pull this one out by herself. She waited and waited and I told her that if she didn't pull it out before school started that I would be pulling it out. Well that night she woke up in the middle of the night and the tooth fell out into her hand. Luckily she caught it so it didn't get lost. 

   

Vacation Summer 2012

     This year we decided to take a looooooong vacation! We found out that my cousin was going to be getting married in Montana so we decided to try to make it to that. Well you can't plan on going that far north without visiting Utah and Idaho as well. So we planned it out and decided to do all three states! Russell had to go to his annual New Tech conference for work in Michigan so he left a few days before we did and then we all met up in Montana. This trip was so fun that I just didn't have time to take out my camera and take very many pictures.
The Road Trip:

   Since Diana and Aaron and family were going to Montana for the wedding as well Kennadee and I hitched a ride with them.

 We left really early in the morning so we could make it to Denver for the first leg of our trip. The kiddos fell back to sleep pretty quickly! Yes Kennadee's asleep she just never closes her eyes all the way LOL! I was glad she was able to fall asleep though because just before that she had thrown up due to car sickness and she doesn't get as sick when she sleeps.
  We got to Denver and stayed in a really nice hotel. It had two bedrooms and a kitchen and livingroom it was great for 11 people!
   The next day we continued onto Montana! Luckily Kennadee didn't get sick that day but unfortunately Gabe did. It was so sad!

In Montana we had lots of fun! Still not very many pictures though! We played and got reacquainted with all our Montana cousins and their kiddos. We attended Nanna and Grandpa's 90th Birthday combined birthday party! We attended the wedding which was so much fun! We danced the night away it was great! Unfortunately I was really sick with a bad cold and suffering with some major back problems so I didn't get to have near as much fun as everyone else but all in all it was a great trip!

The Beautiful Bride and Groom!

 Cole and Ashtyn dancing

 Kennadee waiting to catch the bouquet

 The hubs actually let me take a picture with him! 

 The wedding party dance!

 The have a cute tradition where you pay a dollar to dance with the bride or groom. Kennadee chose to dance with Birch. It was so cute!

 Nanna and Grandpa married 60+ years! So cute!

 Getting to dance with Grandpa!

Nanna, Uncle Carl, Law, Jessica, and Cole getting their groove on!

It was such a fun reception! We had a great time.

The last day of our trip we visited with Nanna and Grandpa over at Breeze's house. It was so good to see them again. We haven't seen them since Kennadee was like two years old!

Russell, Kennadee, Mom, and Pete and I headed to Utah. We stayed with Grandpa Mote for a night and then headed down to the Utah Valley. Since I was having back problems and still sick and I had been sleeping on an air mattress for a week Russell and I decided to get a hotel in Orem for a couple of nights so we could get some rest. Kennadee and I are avid fans of the show Cupcake Wars on Food Network. There is a bakery (Sweet Tooth Fairy) in Utah that was on the show so we just had to go have a cupcake there. Kennadee was so excited!

We visited my Dad for a little while and just spent some time as a family getting some rest. We drove around looking at places that we are interested in moving to then we headed to Laura and Ben's to stay a couple days. Laura and I attended our cousin Nikki's baby shower and the later that day we had our Crandall family reunion. It was so fun to see everyone! There wasn't near enough time to visit with everyone as long as I would have liked but we had a great time! We stayed through Sunday with Laura and Ben and had fun visiting and spending time together. Kennadee loved being with Evan, Dillon, Kaylee, and Owen. 

   Sunday we headed up to Idaho to spend time with Russell's family. We went camping at Anderson Ranch Dam. We love it up there. It was so peaceful and beautiful and not too incredibly hot. I was sad though because when I went to take some pictures my batteries were dead and I didn't have any replacements with me (I found out later that my mom had packed some for us in the trunk!) So I didn't get any pictures of the camping trip. We spent a lot of time at the lake. We played in the water and took turns riding the tubes pulled by his brother's boat. It was really fun. I think I got a bit of whiplash from the tube though. My neck hurt for days! We also got to spend time with his Aunt's and cousins. I really enjoyed hearing stories about his Mom growing up and family history. It was great! We stayed for four days and had great food, fun, and conversation!

   Thursday we headed back to Twin Falls and spent some time with Dan and Heather, Russell's Mom, and our awesome friends Dustin and Marren. We also ended up running into our friends Aaron and Louisa and got to catch up with them a bit. We also got to go to the temple with Dan and Heather. It's a beautiful temple.

     We headed back to Utah to spend some time with my Mom and Pete in Richfield. Mom made cinnamon rolls for us and we ate those for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Jessica and the kids came to spend time with us also and we spent time at their house as well. We went to the county fair and had fun watching the shows and playing. It was great fun!

 We headed back up to Salt Lake on Friday so we could fly out the next morning. We met up with Grandpa and went to Temple Square and The Church History Museum. It was so nice. Kennadee had fun playing in the kids section.

    

     After we went there we headed over to meet with Johnathan for dinner at Coachman's. Yum-O! We had a great time visiting with John and Grandpa. 

     

  Then we flew home. It was the first time we had flown together as a family. Kennadee and I had flown together before and Russell had flown by himself but never as a family. It was so nice to be together. 

    We had a great trip all in all! We were so glad to be home though!