The Big Cheese turns 45!

The Big Cheese turned 45 in August...

We made this yummy cake our neice Ava had made at a family BBQ that is so Easy and so good

1 Angel food cake mix

1 Can crushed pineapple WITH the juice

Mix and bake and pour in 13x9 pan

Bake @350ª 

not sure how long.... think we started with 15-20 min and just kept checking til it was done

After it's cool-

Cover with cool whip

(She used Cool Whip pourable frosting but we didnt' have any. Both are yum!)

And top with any fruit that sounds yummy.

We used strawberries.  

We stuck a star candle because 45 candles just take WAY too long to light and when I tried 40 candles a few years ago, it actually set off my smoke alarm... and sang him the Happy Birthday song

but....

he was looking at it like Why would you make this for my birthday....

It's not HIS favorite

He got a big smile on his face when

I came in with a single slice of bday cake I bought at 

The Chocolate

Their Madagascar vanilla White cake is "to die for" and he LOVES store bought white cake.

He is always so fun to watch open presents.  

He makes the kids grin as he makes a big deal out of opening their presents.

All the kids LOVED the fruity angel food cake. 

They were sad when it was all gone-

and said next time, I should make 2!

Catching up: June Birthdays

Rachel turned 17 in June...

Again.... 

birthday celebrations were overshadowed by wedding and school. 

It seems like there were 10,000 things going on that week and we tried to fit in some celebrating and 

why we ended up with 2 lone pictures is a mystery...

I am losing my bday celebration touch.

She had more than that little cupcake-- 

We actually made a strawberry bottom cheesecake but it's hard to stick candles in that.

she is always my nontraditional bday cake girl.

We've made rice crispy treat sushi with gummy worms...

fruit bouquets...

and strawberry pie

All hard to stick a candle in.

She's been busy since turning 17~

She had a couple weeks off in between track season ending and cross country season starting but starting in June she would leave the house at 7ish to go running, get home between 10:30 and 11:00 with enough time to shower and get ready and hopefully get something to eat before heading to work from 12-4 at Response (a telemarketing place)  It wasn't her favorite job but it was the same time every day and not too long of a shift and gave her mornings off for cross country and evenings off for YW, family stuff and hanging out with friends. The first month she pretty much hated it.  Carly worked there too until she got marrried and so they drove over together during June but after she got the hang of it, it wasn't so bad.  It will never be her favorite job but she'd do it again she said.  She quit when school started because it is just too hard to work and train.

Her hard work in cross country has paid off.  She is better than ever this season.  I think staying in shape for track helped and she learned some other techniques for shorter distance that have helped her build up speed. She's been placing in the top 5 at most of her races.  She is the 2nd fastest girl on her team.  She is currently ranked 16th in the state on a website that tracks all high school cross country runners according to race times.  There is a University xCountry coach talking to her and trying to get her to join his team for next year-  but it's not a school she had on her "I wanna go there" list but maybe that will change.

She is crazy busy and its hard to find time to even say hi to her sometimes.  We're all way too busy over here!

Carly got the best birthday celebration of the season and it was her wedding causing everyone else's birthdays to be lackluster.... 

Hmmm.... Something seems a little weird here....

I guess we were all feeling sentimental and wanted to send her off with a big Happy Birthday Bang.  She turned 19 in June and wanted a "Little kid birthday party" since it was her last kid birthday.

She chose a dragon birthday cake to reminisce about her 5th and 6th grade "dragon phase".

We're all pretty grateful she came out of that one unscathed-

Not that there's anything wrong with a dragon phase but you know... 

I have just seen too many adults who never leave it and walk around the mall with giant pewter dragon necklaces and when I see them- I just thank my lucky stars, that's all...

She really got into the cake and helped me shop for the candy accessories and besides the gold covered chocolate coins, we had purchased a bag of those Hershey Treasure mini chocolate bars and chocolate w/ toffee and Chocolate with almonds that are wrapped in Gold and Silver foil wrappers but...

in between the purchasing and the actual dragon cake I had a few of those "I NEED CHOCOLATE BECAUSE I HAVE A TEST TOMORROW AND MY KID IS GETTING MARRIED WAY EARLIER THAN I EXPECTED" moments...

You've had those right? 

and pilfering your daughter's birthday chocolate is totally acceptable right? 

She wanted party hats and party blowers and all the trimmings

So- That's what she got

It was actually pretty fun-

She wanted the quintessential  kid party party game....

"Pin the tail on the donkey"

They didn't' have it at the dollar store- 

but they did have pin the skull on the pirate ship

so we played that instead

A good Time

was had

by all!

Catching up... May birthdays

Mason turned 10 in May.

He still loves making bday cakes together.

This year he wanted a ninja cake.

This doesn't look as fabulous as it did in Family Fun but... 

he was happy

so 

I was happy...

He's really into BYU right now so he was happy to get a new BYU tshirt so he can be just like DAD during Football Season, wearing his shirt on Game Day

My kids are easily pleased.

Their own package of Goldfish crackers is a dream come true!

A new Football from Grandma and papa

Treats form his brothers and sisters

   

Samantha & Jacob splurged and got him a lego pack

I am always surprised and pleased when they spend their hard earned money on each other.

They don't get an allowance so they don't have oodles and oodles of their own money on hand all the time.

When they are generous and thoughtful with one another it makes me proud.

Samantha turned 12 in May as well.

We have terrible pictures- not a good one in the bunch!

 I put Jacob in charge of picture taking and made

the discovery that he is an AWFUL picture taker so Poor Samantha will always wonder what her 12th birthday was really like....

It was really her turn for a bday party this year... Mason too

but Carly's wedding and school overshadowed and I just couldn't make it happen.

Samantha also broke tradition this year with her cake...

When her big sisters turned 12 we made a "beehive" cake, something to signify her move into the Young Women's program but she wanted nothing to do with my beehive cake ideas..

It was another ice cream and oreo frozen cake for her this year.

I have 2 springform pans, a big one and a little one so they get their VERY OWN ice cream cake made in the small one and the rest of the family shares the big one.

Happy Birthday to my 2 littlest Boca's who are getting bigger and bigger and are so patient with the going's on in 2013 that overshadowed your birthdays.  

Thanks for understanding!

I will make it up to you someday

in a BIG way!

Just wait....

I am now the Mother of a Teenage son. gulp.

He's been taller than me for a while...

He has been eating like a teenager for a while but he didn't officially become one until late August.

Every year the poor boy has to watch all the other kids have birthday celebrations in May and June and then wait til the END of the summer for his.

When he was a sunbeam in primary the primary presidency spotlighted different children each month.  They would have their moms fill out a paper answering lots of questions: favorite book, favorite food, favorite scripture story, etc.  

To the question; "What do you want to be when you grow up?" he answered...

"I'm not sure but I'd like to be able to watch TV while I eat my breakfast"

Well- here he is... a laid back summer birthday breakfast of fried potatoes and fried eggs while he watches TV.   Guess he's on his way to being grown-up. 

Back then his favorite scripture story was "anything with Lamanites and swords".  He still likes the action stories.  He likes Captain Moroni, Teancum, Ammon and the like.  

Mason knows this about his brother.  He is pretty creative and found some scrap wood lying around and got my steak knives and began working on a birthday project for his big brother. I wasn't so happy to see my knives being used but thought he was pretty creative.  He needed a little help connecting the pieces and we found that the glue gun worked pretty good.  

All the kids get pretty thoughtful and creative at birthday time.  Some give gifts with the little money they have saved up which always impresses me with their unselfishness.  Some give gifts of service like "I'll do your dish job three times this month".  It always makes me feel so good when they are kind and generous to each other.

And when it is appreciated!

Do you know I hate licorice! My kids were so shocked to discover that a couple years ago.  They still offer me pieces and look at me in astonishment when I decline.  I am not tempted in the least.

Samantha sent him on quite a long treasure hunt....

We need to make rules about length I guess.

He was a good sport.

(His dad.... not so much!)

This year he chose a Mint Chocolate cake.  I searched Pinterst and came up with a few possibilities and this one was the winner.  It tasted as good as it looked.  So so good.  It's on my "Tried it and..." board if you want the recipe.

The frosting tastes like mint chocolate ice cream. 

yum!

I did make a few changes. I added mint extract t to the ganache and I used a chocolate cake mix doctored up with a cake doctor recipe for Big Bad Chocolate Muffins.

He helped me make it like usual.

Making a wish.....

Hope it was a good one!

Yum!