Kayla had her birthday, so she is now 14. Yikes. She had some cake and showed her true teen self!

We had manicotti for dinner, and of course that means pulling out the shakey cheese! Caleb was so excited! (Sorry about the angle, I turned the camera and so the video is sideways!)

We are sending all of our love and prayers to our East Coast family.

Could I let this day past without a post? We even had a little celebration this morning at 9:26AM. Kayla had her birthday sleep-over last night with some friends, so they all helped at 9:26AM. I made special pancakes this morning (I would have made pie, but we had a Pi party to attend this afternoon and had plenty of pie then). Ashley decorated hers:

The party was held at the house of Ashley’s Wednesday night sensei. He has karate family parties, and we are invited. He made a pizza with smoked pulled pork and a woven bacon lattice on top. Kevin posted a picture to his Facebook page if you want to see it. We brought mini shepherd’s pies (or cottage pies as they were made with beef) and little Pi’s made out of chocolate, white chocolate, and butterscotch chips. It was a lot of fun!

We have also continued to have fun with food! We had cupcakes one night. Can you guess what they are made out of?

The veggies probably gave it away. These are meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potato frosting!

Tomorrow is a big day for Kayla. She will be recognized in church for her confirmation as a member of the church. She also has a birthday to celebrate on Monday! She recently got the happy news that she was accepted to Woodlands Academy for high school. They sent her a cookie in a fancy box.

Kayla has also been taking art this quarter. One assignment was to find a picture of an animal (not cartoon), and use the grids approach to sketch it on paper. No surprise what animal she chose. She did a really nice job of transferring the photo into the pencil drawing!

Ashley continues to be herself, crazy and silly! Here is a video of her from last night.

And here is the video of the girls opening their birthday package from Aunt Tiffanie.