Nonnie and Papa's February visit

My parents came to visit in February. We did not take very many pictures. I am not sure why other than my parents took the kids to do things and Nathan and I stayed home and took a break!
Here is a cute picture of my mom and Everest. My parents and sister are in New Zealand right now! We miss you and wish we could be there. I don't know that the kids or anyone else on the plane would have survived my 3 kids! Next time!

My parents were here for my birthday and I made an amazing cake from The Smitten Kitchen. Her cake is sooooooo much prettier than mine. I don't care how it came out (very lopsided and goopy looking). It was amazing! If you like chocolate and peanut butter (sunbutter substitutes very well!), you have to try this cake!

Mom holding my big girl. She is already trying to feed herself. UGH! I am in trouble!

Everest broke one of their Madi Gras necklaces, but found a very good use for it. He made a bunny. Not bad!

He decided to make more shapes. This is his ghost. Gotta love the cheetah pants! They are from his Halloween costume. He wears them all the time.

Leaf had some blueberry pancakes....can you tell? We discovered something interesting when we made the pancakes. The frozen blueberries changed the batter purple. But when we cooked them, they turned blue. The kids were very excited by this discovery!

Birthday

This is the cake I really wanted for my birthday this year. I made it last year for Nathan's Birthday. It is from the Smitten Kitchen- chocolate peanut butter cake (we use sunbutter, but still very yummy!). I did not do the cake justice. But it was SOOOOOOO Goood!

Nathan and the boys, let me sleep in a little on my birthday. Thank you! When I came downstairs, they were flipping through my recipe book trying to find this cake. Everest decided he wanted to make me a cake. I have thought about this cake since last year. I would have loved to have had it on my birthday. I even bought the ingredients the week before. But the reality is, I will not enjoy this cake, in fact, as soon as I finish eating it, I will be sick. Eating anything makes me sick, but anything with sugar is ten times worse. I didn't want to go to all the trouble of making this cake and then not enjoying it. Don't you worry, I will make it for my birthday, it will just be in May when I feel better.
Everest really wanted to make a cake, so I let him pick it. We looked through the smitten kitchen and he found this chocolate caramel cheesecake.
Has anyone ever tried making caramel? I burnt the sugar 3 times before I got it right. And really, I have no idea if I got it right. Alas, here is our efforts. We did not get to enjoy it on my birthday because it takes 6 hours to chill and we started at 3:30.

Third attempt to make caramel....
Mixing the cream cheese and chocolate mixture. He had on his apron and chef hat, but not for the picture, of course.

Leaf wanted in on the action. Everest said, "Leaf job is to hand us the ingredients, thats all!" Luckily Leaf didn't seem to mind.The boys had a piece of cake Monday evening. We invited our neighbor, Doug, over for some too. Lisa was working so Doug took her a piece of the cake. Everyone said it was very good. I wouldn't know, I did not try it. We had extra batter so I put it in a canning jar and froze it for another time.