{6 in 9}: February 2014

Friday, February 28, 2014

Chocolate Month!

My dear friend Erin took me out to brunch for Restaurant Week at my favorite chocolate restaurant in Washington DC!

We started with chocolate drinks with homemade marshmallows, had a chocolate truffle appetizer, chocolate and cocoa infused entrees and chocolate desserts! It was a wonderful morning out for us.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

I entered Grace into our local Chocolate Challenge baking contest. It was located in our little downtown area and she made her grandma's panda bear cupcakes. It was a great experience for her and we had a lot of fun together. She made a practice round the week before with a little bit of help from me. But on the day before she entered her cupcakes, I did not help her at all.

The cupcakes are a family recipes with a chocolate cake with cream cheese and chocolate chip filling. They are 100% made from scratch. Because they don't look as ornate as some decorated cupcakes, we ordered panda bear cupcake toppers off of Etsy and special polka dot cupcake liners. The stand had special black and white dot ribbon around it. These cupcakes tasted amazing though!

Grace didn't win (but she would of if they had a child portion of the contest!!) She was up against some pretty amazing creations as you can see. We had so much fun going on the voting day and watching the public look at her cupcakes as they walked by. Many people said, "Look a 9 year old made those!" And we even saw some people that voted for her as "People's Choice." We donated the cupcakes to a silent auction and we know that the bids started very low and the final bid on hers was $40 for 2 dozen. That made my day.

We went to the Chocolate Festival with some friends the day of the actual voting. We bought tokens and then the girls could choose what to spend the tokens on - everything chocolate!

Competition

Vote for #2!

This was hilarious. We stopped by the hardware store and they had a wheel where you could win chocolate prizes. Every single one of us won chocolate! This is Grace's friend's mom from school.

Monday, February 24, 2014

Colonial Day and Homecoming

In fourth grade at school, the kids have Colonial Day. They dress up and get to have a whole day doing unusual activites like writing with feathers, making candles and learning! One of the things they do is a dance called Virginia Reel. This day was a snow day so Ellen, Clara and I stopped by the school to watch the fourth graders dance. It was so precious.

To see Grace dancing you can click on this LINK and you will see a short 1 minute video.

Because they go to a school that is K-12, they had a Homecoming Game (basketball). The kindergarten teacher made goodie bags for all the kindergarten students that went to the game. It was so fun because they were in the snack bar area and Sam had to go and "order" his bag. It was full of treats just for them!

Rita and her buddy Ethan cheering on the basketball team.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Don't Ask Don't Tell Vol. 42

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Betsy and Peter's Wedding

We had a weekend that we will never forget From January 2 to January 5.

The highlight: Nate's sister Betsy got married to Peter in the coldest weekend of our lives in Michigan. We drove up on Thursday and came back on Sunday. The days in between were full of time with family and friends.

The weekend started out for us before 5 am on Thursday when we piled in our minivan for the 15 plus hour car ride. I am so thankful that we got there safely after a close call on the highway in Ohio and many, many jack-knifed trucks along the way. We stopped at a rest stop for an hour and ate some expired chips - that was a first! (The stopping part, not the chips!)

The best photos of the weekend are from the professional photographer but I took a few on my camera here and there. I have a random assortment. Here is a few photos of Saturday morning. My girls all got to have their hair done. This was very special for them and a treat for me to watch. They loved their hair that day.

This is the only photo I got of all my kids with the bride and groom. Clara was whisked away about 5 minutes after this to a babysitter for the rest of the day. We were all in the wedding.

Betsy arranged to have fur coats for the bridesmaids to take a photo outdoors. The cold was very intense! I remember thinking that my smile was going to freeze. We went inside very shortly after the photo. They also picked out plaid ties for all the groomsmen.

This cake was really good.

Their wedding was big - I think over 200 people so every piece of it was gone (I asked).

Welcome to our family Peter. And off we were on our ride home. If you are interested in seeing more photos from the wedding click on this LINK below. There are much better highlights there from our her professional photographer!