Jacob's Birthday Cake!

It's Jacob's birthday on Tuesday and I wanted to make him a cake like he's never had before.....worth 27 years of waiting for. Not only is this my first cake, it's my best. It's banana cream cake with cream cheese frosting and chocolate flakes sprinkled on top to show off the five layers all made from scratch. Jacob was overjoyed. Every year I'll add another layer to his cake.

January 20

Heather reminded me of a family tradition that my mom started around the time my oldest brother went on his mission. We chose a day and recorded what everyone did that day. So, here's what Heather and I did on January 20th.

Heather rolled out of bed (helped by Jacob) at 6:59am after a long night of tossing and turning, which had been interrupted frequently with bathroom breaks. While Heather got ready for work, Jacob made breakfast - French Toast. Heather went to work (as a dental assistant at Synergy Dental Group), while Jacob started getting ready for the second day of his last semester in school. He is getting a master's degree in mechanical engineering at Arizona State University. After going to math and institute class, Jacob returned home for lunch and to study. In the afternoon he went back to school to be a Teaching Assistant for a class. He then returned home a second time. Heather looked in people's mouths all day.

Just before Heather got off work, Jacob started warming up the chicken enchiladas that Heather had made the night before. Boy were they delicious. Heather does a lot for being 32 weeks pregnant. After quickly eating, Jacob hurried off to another class at ASU and Heather got ready for mutual. Heather is an advisor for the Beehives and Jacob is a counselor in the young men's, over the teachers' quorum. After Jacob's class, he hurried home to make it to the last 30 minutes of mutual.

We got Chickens!

Here Jacob is making the coop out of scrap wood we found in the back yard. The only thing we bought was the chicken fencing and screws.


We decided we wanted to get chickens for a few reasons. Chickens eat bugs including scorpions. They also lay one organic egg a day. Every morning they march together out of their coop and eat from their feeder then graze the yard the rest of the day. When the sun goes down they march up into their coop until the next day. We've only tried to catch them once before we realized they would go back into the coop by themselves. They are fast! As soon as you stop chasing them they immediately start pecking the ground again.


We named them all "Lady" because we can't tell them apart.