Finally!

I like how it's almost April and there are photos in this post documenting Christmas. That's neat.

When we left off, my sister and her family were just getting ready to head home to Pennsylvania after a long stay in Utah. :( It sure was fun to have them here! Here's a photo of my (orphany-looking) kids with their cousins:

December also brought us a six-year-old! I told Amanda that I wanted her to start aging backward now, because six is WAY too old. She was not amused.

As I mentioned before, Amanda requested a CandyLand theme for her birthday party. We started out making some candy necklaces:

played candy Bingo:

had party favors:

and, of course, had cake! I asked Amanda if she wanted a flat cake or a tall round cake. Tall round cake was the winner...

The moment of truth...

I must say that creating all these layers was a bit of a painstaking process. But when we cut the cake and a squeeeeeal rose up from all the little girls when they saw the rainbow on the inside...well, it was totally worth it.

The eventual success of the cake wasn't accomplished without casualties. Rest in peace, green layer of cake.

I know I already shared photos of the nativity re-enactment at my family party; we also do a nativity pageant at Logan's family's Christmas party. For unknown reasons, Lily was adamant that she should play the part of Joseph. It was a very...um...progressive Christmas for the Toones. At least our baby Jesus actually was a boy this year. Good job, Max!

Benson got this racetrack for Christmas and couldn't tear himself away from it.

It's always good when we get enough snow for Logan to make the traditional giant snowman with the kids. We had to get a little creative on the accessories (nobody has a top hat this big).

The Christmas break would also not be complete without Logan undertaking some huge home improvement project at my request. For many moons now, I have been less than satisfied with our family room. It certainly wasn't as bad as when we had the southwest print couches down there (I should be more grateful; the couches were free). Still, it's difficult to make a room feel inviting when the walls are the color of cold oatmeal.

I wanted to put up some faux wainscoting to add some textural interest, and also repaint the area above the wainscoting to match the wall color in the rest of the house.

Here are the after photos. Much better! Thanks, honey. That one required a lot of late nights. I don't care if I never see a caulk gun again...

Our Benson turned three! Can you believe it? Here he is wearing the special birthday hat (it belongs to Grammy) and making a wish. He asked for cars cupcakes. I've been volunteering at a local bakery for the last few weeks, so good cupcakes aren't hard to come by...

Here he is on the bike he got from Grammy and Papa. He doesn't seem to mind the cold! You ought to see him tearing around the neighborhood on this thing...

Lily the chef! This is really neither here nor there, but Lily's preschool class was learning about different careers and made these darling hats. I couldn't resist a photo!

Amanda had her very first piano recital a couple of weeks ago. She did a great job, and we are so proud of all her hard work! Here she is receiving a rose from her teacher at the end of the recital:

It had been about six months since I took photos of the kids. They change awfully quickly...

My parents took Amanda and Lily to Wolf Mountain for some spring skiing. Amanda had been once before with my mom, but this was Lily's first time. If you think Lily was the youngest/smallest one there at age four, you would be totally wrong. However, if you think that Amanda and Lily were the cutest little skiers there, you would be absolutely right!

As a sidenote, Benson was very jealous. Since the skiers in this family seem to get progressively younger (Amanda was five, Lily was four), maybe Benson will be the first three-year-old skier we've had. Time will tell...

So here's some exciting news (well, it's exciting to me): one week from today, I'll be flying to Pennsylvania with my sister Krista so we can visit our big sister Lisa! This trip has been in the works for months; it's finally almost here, and I'm so excited! We're spending a day in D.C. and a day in New York...so pretty much it will be like "Sex and the City -- MORMON STYLE!" (This means that there will be no sex, no drinking, and much frumpier footwear.) Stay tuned...

P.S. Many thanks to my loverboy Logan for revamping the blog. Here's how it works: I tell him how I want it to be, and he makes it happen. Pretty much the pattern for our life, now that I think about it. Love you, hon!