I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream for Ice Cream Cake!

It was John's birthday yesterday. Because I am a most awesome wife and I love him, he got my first-ever homemade ice-cream cake!

I started with pouring only half of the prepared cake mix batter into a round cake pan. Once it was fully cooked, I let it cook on a wire rack, then placed a wax liner in the pan before kindly placing the cake back into its home.

I 'frosted' the top of the cake with slightly mooshy ice-cream, then covered it with plastic wrap and placed it in the freezer overnight.


The next morning, I microwaved ice-cream #2, then whipped it up in my Kitchen-aid, then frosted the second layer of ice-cream over the top of ice-cream #2. I froze that, then decorated it with whipped cream right before eating time. Oh, and I melted some chocolate chips and with a decorator's bag, did the writing.

Can you say YUM-M-Y? Yes it was.

I grew up with a Baskin-Robbins ice-cream cake for my birthday every year, but as most of you all know, I prefer homemade cake, so let me just say, this homemade version is far superior to what I can remember. Though that is not to discount how much I enjoyed my birthday cakes every year, because I did, immensely.

Now for picture catch-up since my last couple of posts were missing the best part of reading other people's blogs:

Alicia loves, loves her baby sister, and is always taking care of her (sometimes more than she or I likes), but it is times like this that are precious. Megan woke up with a fever one morning, so while I was getting breakfast for Natalie, Alicia came over and snuggled with Megan before school.

Kimberly was in a play at school - The Ugly Duckling - as a member of the geese clan. Here she is with her best friend, who was also a geese. (or a goose. or gossling. pick one).

And last but not least, here is troublemaker #1 and troublemaker #2:

I had just gotten them dressed in clean clothes for the day, and before I knew it, they were in the backyard playing in the sandbox, which usually isn't a problem, but we'd had some mega rainstorms during the night, so when I discovered where they had gone and called them back in, yes, you can imagine, they were a disaster. This picture really does not do it justice.

Thank goodness for the nice laminate flooring where I piled all of their clothes and sand, mud, dirt, etc. Until next time...

My Favorite Things

I was thinking this weekend about some of my favorite things, of which I just so happened to enjoy this weekend - so I thought I would share them with you:

* Basking in the sun. Now that the sun has finally made an appearance in Utah land after all that rain, I sat, and sat, and sat some more on my back deck just drinking in the sweet, sweet feel of sunshine.

* Waking up to my hubby in bed with me. After many long weeks of business travel, he is finally home again - sadly, he has a couple more small trips before the month's out, but I am cherishing my time with him. I am luxuriating in his nearness and feel like all is as it should be with my other half finally paired back up with me.

I also enjoyed, well perhaps enjoyed isn't the best term, but... listened to the kids bickering downstairs knowing he was within earshot and could remedy the situation rather than knowing that I, yet again, had to deal with the situation by myself. I even ran off yesterday afternoon for ...wait for it...3 HOURS to go clothes shopping with Kimberly with nary a worry about getting home anytime soon! It was deliciously wonderful.

* Watermelon. It is my ultimate favorite fruit. I have changed up my eating routines a little bit and replaced my evening bowl of popcorn - slathered in butter, oh-how I miss you - with watermelon, and it is delicious.

* That part of night when all the kids are asleep, all the lights are out, the phone is quiet, the street noises outside dimmed, and the type of weather where I can open my window and just lie in bed before going to sleep, basking in the sounds of nothingness and listening to the luscious night noises while relishing the days events and thanking my Father in Heaven for the gift of life and my many sweet blessings. My absolute favorite time of day. May you all relish in your favorite things too.

The Apple of My Eye, Quite Literally

So, for mother's day, I was thinking how my kids are definitely the apple of my eye, only this particular mother's day, I do believe the apple left behind one of its apple seeds, leaving a nice little crater in my eye.

Thinking it was just a painful scratch in my eye last night, turned into a massively painful, red, and swollen eye this morning. I desperately called my optometrist, who thankfully had an emergency phone number and graciously met me over at his office early Sunday morning. It was definitely an emergency indeed, because I could barely open my eye this morning due to a cornea ulcer. Who knew such thing even existed? Apparently for contact wearers, it happens on occasion.

Well, thanks to some lovely, and rather expensive prescription drops, my eye feels a titch better and on the road to recovery.

I know, happy mother's day to me, huh :) I am extremely thankful though for good doctors and good medicine. I'm glad I wasn't a pioneer mother.

Blah, Blah, Blah...

I have the blahs right now - nothing fabulously interesting has been going on here of late at the Rimington household, but I noticed it's been over a week since my last post, and since I usually try to post at least once a week, I'll share a few pictures with you of Megan.


Natalie keeps commenting on how Megan's hair is like "sand" and my hair is "dark, dark, dark." So then I ask her what color her hair is, and she says, "brown." We definitely have a mix of brownish hair in the family.

Isn't she just so dang cute? She loves giving out kisses. I absolutely adore this age - 18 months really is one of the most perfect ages. So cute, sleeping through the night, eating with the family instead of nursing every 2 hours, and it's right before they start throwing massive two-year-old tantrums, so I'll enjoy this stage while it lasts.

Okay, so I shouldn't say the week has been entirely blah because I've gotten to do a few of these too - for those who have been asking how to access my stories, here it is...

http://www.standard.net/authors/dana-rimington

Due Time

We have a couch. An old, flowery, comfy kind of couch.

Purchased in the year of 1997, just days after we returned home from our honeymoon so we would have something to sit on in the living room of our rat's nest apartment (which now that I think about it, is a whole separate blog entry).

Trust me, floral patterns and bright colors were the in-thing back then. I promise.

I was thinking it was due time to get a new couch to get with the new style. The thing is, it really is a perfectly good couch in perfectly good condition. Not, however, like our family room couch. That is in dire need of replacing, but that will have to wait for another year.

Anyway, for my birthday I found this couch cover that looks fantabulous! I think it definitely looks better, don't you think?

We bought a cover for the bright green chair, but it needs a few modifications, so until then, here is a picture with the very outdated bright green chair -

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On a whole separate note, for those of you who aren't facebookers (if you are, disregard below pics), here are the pink fluff skirts I made for the girls:


It was a gloriously beautiful Easter Day.

And now I have a gloriously beautiful couch to go with it.

Now You See It, Now You Don't

The timing of this incident is just impeccable, given the last post about swapping clothes with the girls.

So I bought myself a fabulous new dress a week ago. Even wore it to church feeling oh-so-cute, with even my girls commenting on the dress's cuteness. Definitely a winner for my wardrobe.

Today, I hucked the cute-new dress into the washer, then pulled it out of the dryer, and found a MINI-cute dress. I was speechless. As I went to put it in the basket, I noticed instantly that the dang dress was several inches shorter than it was 60 minutes prior to its fateful soaking.

It is now Kimberly's cute-new dress. To say she is excited is a mere understatement. She did tell me she felt bad that I had only gotten to wear it once. Cheers to thoughtful daughter!

Can I also just add that my sadness extends to this simple fact -- that she is old enough for a women's size large dress (granted, a shrunken large, but you get the idea). P.s. She is only 2 women's sizes smaller than me in shoe size. ...and she is already just shy of 5 feet tall.

I heard someone say once that time goes really slow when you have little ones because the days seem to just drag on. and on. and on. But once they start school, it goes by really fast. I can certainly testify to that.

Now I am in the market for a new-cute dress.

Freaky Friday

On Friday, Kimberly and Alicia had a mother/daughter achievement day activity where we had to dress up like the other, you know, like the Freaky Friday movie.

I gave the girls free reign to any and all of my clothes and I tried to squeeze into some of their clothes. No such luck. Next best idea was trying to find something somewhat teenybopper in my closet. Success! The girls approved of my outfit, and I did eventually find one of Alicia's vests that fit me (sort of).

Kind of funny seeing my clothes on a curve-less version of me.

Also of note this week was Natalie's 4th birthday.

John was pleased to find out Natalie insisted on Blue frosting. Even after her older sisters tried to talk her into fabulous pink frosting, she was not deterred. And she wanted the castle cake, which Kimberly so kindly helped me with.

I have spent my free time whipping up this fort for Natalie. Isn't it cute? I remember having one when I was little and we played in it all the time (it's just one of those forts that goes over a card table), so when I got a sewing machine and found a cute tutorial online, I knew I had to make one.

It's a hit, thank goodness.