Gus Gus

Christmas Day 2002

This is embarrassing to admit and kind of gross so please don't judge my parenting from this post!

Jaco got this huge stuffed dog for Christmas when he was 3 1/2. Aunt Janae made him for Jaco and he fell instantly in love. The dog is named Gus Gus after Aunt Miranda's huge dog Gus!

10-13-2005

For 8 1/2 years Gus Gus has been slept with nearly every night.3-12-2004

For 8 1/2 years Gus Gus has gone where ever Jaco goes; long road trips, campouts, and even movie night at the church.
We had to cut one of Gus Gus's ears because he got stuck in Justin's tailgate and we could not open the gate! Jaco had to have his dog with or without a whole ear!

In these 8 1/2 years Gus Gus has never had a bath.
8-29-2007

He has been wiped down and febreezed but never given a good soaking bubbly bath.
Yesterday as I was stripping the beds to wash the sheets, I decided it was time.
I pulled open a seam on his back and pulled out all the stuffing.
I was quite amused to see the stuffing keep the shape of the dog!

Without the stuffing, the shell was easy to wash! Then I re-stuffed him and sutured the large surgical wound closed!4-27-2010

Jaco was a little upset that I washed his bedtime friend but he was pretty happy to get him back whole and not so stinky and dirty!

Easter 2010

Our Easter started with the making of Bunny Buns on Thursday. YUMMY! Then on Friday, the Davis kids came over to color eggs with us. Jaco decided 10 years of coloring eggs is enough and chose not to dye any this year. The girls had fun because nothing makes them happier than when mom says it is OK to make a mess!

Care Bear La-La Connor

Saturday morning we went to an Egg hunt. Instead of braving the insane city sponsored egg hunt, I coordinated one with friends from church. I asked everyone who wanted to participate to bring me 2 dozen filled plastic eggs before Saturday morning. We ended up with a big crowd of kids and 360 eggs to find! It was so easy and much better than doing it with a crowd of strangers. We will definitely be doing it again next year!

Easter morning, the kids woke up to baskets of candy and summer toys. Balls, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, kites, and of course chocolate! They each also got a game. Jaco got the Rubix Magic and the girls got card games. La-La's is a cookie recipe game and she was kind of disappointed when she realized it was just a game and not actual cookie recipes; although she did attempt to make one of the recipes! Care Bear's is a sandwich building game which we play almost daily!

Saturday night, Care Bear started running a fever. She said her throat hurt and her tummy and head. We had to alternate the advil and tylenol to keep the fever down but by Sunday afternoon, neither medicine was helping and she was a hot 104.5. Finally another dose of tylenol helped and she cooled down a bit.

For Easter dinner, we had a newly baptized family over to watch conference and then have B-BQ'd chicken, potato salad, asparagus, cheese cake and this funny looking bunny cake!

Kitty Photo Shoot

We were cleaning up the yard this evening and I found Princess Aurora hiding in the grass. While I ran to get my camera, I hoped that she would stay put. She listened! I love how blue her eyes are compared to the green grass! Onyx, her son had to share in the glory and be a part of the photo shoot. It still amazes me how black he is compared to his momma!

Princess Aurora

Onyx

Momma cat watching out for her son!

Onyx and Aurora are both the most loving sweet kitties ever. They get dressed up, wrapped up, and pushed in strollers and never complain. I always thought I was a dog person but now that I own both a dog and two cats, I would take a cat any day!

Spelling Bee

Jaco at 9 months intently studying a book

I knew I was in trouble with Jaco when he was just 2 years old and wanted to know what the word professional meant. He was never a child who asked why why why about everything. Instead, he has always wanted to know what this word or that word means. Can I tell you how hard it can be to define words to a 3 year old? Jaco has also LOVED books from day one. Before he could even walk he would sit for hours studying picture books. We would read the same books over and over until he basically had them memorized. "Horton Hears a Who" and "Horton Hatches an Egg" were two of his favorites as a toddler. His reading skills exploded in kindergarten and now as a 5th grader he reads at a 12th grade level.

Because of his obsession with words and reading, Jaco is an amazing speller. Not once have I practiced his spelling words with him yet he aces his tests every week. Frequently he gets a pass from taking the Friday spelling test because he earned a 100% on the Monday pre-test.

Down to Jaco and Lacy. These two are in a constant "smarts" competition!

Because of this, I was not surprised when he was chosen to compete in the school spelling bee. The first bee was a competition for 9 5th graders; 3 from each class. Jaco was the ONLY boy! There was a line of 8 girls and then... my son. He easily won this round and was especially happy to beat out his rival, Lacy. The next day was the school bee. Kids from all grades competed against each other in a written test. It came down to a tie between Jaco and Lacy so a sudden death match was set up. Jaco managed to beat her again and was chosen to represent his school in the district bee. He was frustrated to learn that Lacy was eligible for the district bee also.
5th grade spelling bee champion!


11 of the 12 finalists.

The finalists were given a long list of "possible" words to study in preparation for today's district bee. We had to look up lots of these words because we had never heard of them! 12 kids participated in the spelling bee, 2 from each elementary. The bee was given like a spelling test where the administrator said the word, used it in a sentence, and then repeated the word one more time and the competitors wrote the word down. After spelling 30 words (which only 8 of these words were from the list), we waited while the tests were graded to see who won. A 5th grade girl from another school won the bee and much to Jaco's dismay, Lacy took second and was the runner-up. Having a rival beat you can be a very bitter pill to swallow as Jaco learned today. I could not be more proud of my boy. To think that he was one of 12 out of about 2,000 that competed today truly humbled me. Jaco has a great head on his shoulders and I have no doubt that he will do amazing things in his life!

April Fool's Day

I wasn't planning to do anything for April Fool's day. That is until I went to my favorite blog cakewrecks. They showed some beautiful cupcakes that were actually made from meat and mashed potatoes! I figured I could do that so my first April Fools Dinner menu began to form in my head. Instead of meatloaf, I made shepherd's pie cupcakes with beautiful pale pink mashed taters for frosting. Then I took pound cake, sliced and toasted it and put american cheese colored frosting in between two slices to make "grilled cheese" sandwiches. For the drink, I made strawberry jell-o and put it in the kids regular cups with straws and let it set up.

I called the kids to dinner and had a hard time not giggling as I watched them sit down to eat. As soon as they could not get anything up their straws, they became suspicious about their meal. La-La poked her "cupcake", licked her finger and discovered it tasted good but not sweet. She was the first one to try her sandwich too and was pleasantly surprised as her taste buds told her it was sweet! Jaco and Care Bear watched her try dinner and then they decided it was safe and dug in too. Daddy was not home when the kids ate and he was very skeptical of the pink frosting. It took quite a bit of convincing to get him to eat dinner. He likes food as long as it looks the way it is supposed to. Once he tasted it, the familiar flavors convinced his brain that it was safe and good!



Hmmmm....Do I dare try it?

My straw won't work!

See! It is jell-o!!
Dinner was a success and a ton of fun! Now I have to figure out what to do next year. I won't be able to make this menu again!

Justin has quite the history of being able to successfully pull really good pranks on people. He was scheduled to attend summer training with the National Guard one month after our wedding. He called my mom and I on April Fools Day and convinced us we would have to move the wedding up a month because the Guard had changed the summer training dates. My mom and I both took the bait and stressed for a few hours about how we were going to finish all the plans in time! Then he got me really good when we were pregnant with Jaco. We had just found out we were having a boy. He had a friend from school call me pretending to be the nurse from the Dr's office. She said she was confirming my next appointment and also said congratulations on finding out our baby was a girl. I told her that we found out it was a boy not a girl. She said she was looking at an ultra-sound picture from my charts that looked an awful lot like a girl. I argued with her and said the picture we were given looked very much so like a boy! She managed to keep it going and told me to bring my picture to my next appointment and we would compare them. I hung up the phone and was so confused! I was so excited to be having my Jaco, but I also really wanted a girl so this prank really pulled on my heart strings! He got me good!

Bunny Buns!

Bunny Buns are orange sweet rolls that I grew up eating every Easter. They are tasty and one of my favorite Easter traditions!


What you need to make your own Bunny Buns!

1 package (TB) dry yeast
1/4 C water
1 C scalded milk (good and warm)
1/3 C sugar
1/2 C butter
1 tsp salt
5 - 5 1/2 C flour
2 eggs beaten
1/4 C fresh squeezed orange juice
2 TB grated orange peal

Soften yeast in warm water. You can add a sprinkling of sugar to the yeast to "feed" it and help the rising process.
Combine the next 4 ingredients: scalded milk, sugar, softened butter, and salt
Stir in 2 cups of flour with a wood spoon. Mix well.
Add eggs, mix
Stir in yeast and water
Add orange juice and peel
Add 2 cups additional flour 1/2 C at a time until dough is thick and sticky.

Knead dough for 10 minutes until it is smooth and satiny. Put dough in greased bowl, cover with towel and let rise for 2 hours. Punch air out of dough and let it rest for 10 minutes. Separate dough into 31 golf ball size chunks. Roll 30 of these pieces into long ropes with pointy ends.

To make bunny shape, cross end over end.

Cross end pieces again.
From the 31'st ball, take small chunks and roll into a ball for the bunny tail. Place rolls on cookie sheet, cover with towel and allow to rise one more hour. Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes. Check at 12 minutes.
Glaze
2 C powdered sugar
1/4 C warm orange juice
1 tsp softened butter

apply glaze to warm rolls

Enjoy these tasty Easter treats! They are great with fresh orange juice and hard boiled eggs!