Training

We have a little chef in the making around here.

But first, let me back up and say Sean and I have a business we like to call Gafner Catering. Seriously. Have our own personal business liscesce, website, and car sticker that all say Gafner Catering. After 9 years of doing caterings for people on the side and 9 years of building up our name and business, we finally decided to go official with it. Feels good. Its something we love to do and have found are pretty good at. Pretty conveniant having a chef for a husband and all. We do mostly weddings, but have also done special events. Well, something happened (something like the Lord really blessing us), and we are booked one a month through the summer. Sean and I had talked a while back and had decided one a month is PLENTY with kids, and our already busy schedule.

So yesterday we had a wedding. 300 hundred people at this wedding. Just tons of desserts and chocolate fountain goodies. So what do we do when catering a 300 person wedding with nothing but cakes and chocolate and candy bars, and rice krispies, and strawberries, and cheesecakes? We bring in the kids! Perfect time to start training up the ones behind us. Skylar came in did AMAZING! (I think it was the apron I specially made for her for her big debut as a caterer)...I was sooo impressed! 5 hours of work, from a 5 1/2 year old and not one single complaint. Encredible. She washed and cut and skewered, and ate, and nibbled, and skewered, and nibbled. Impressive. She wants to be in the family business as a caterer when she gets older :) I love it. We will soon need to change our name to Gafner Family Catering!!! So proud of my daughter, proud of my amazing chef of a husband, just proud all around :)

Lost

I lost my baby....I am having such a hard time with this miscarriage for some reason. Maybe it has just been this season in particular thats been hard thats making it seem harder....I don't know. Its been such a tough, emotional week. As shocked as I was to find out I was pregnant, and as crazy as it seemed to be pregnant with my back as jacked as it is, I was really excited about it...

.....I've just been so sad. So lost. Not quite sure how to be, what to say...not really wanting to say a whole lot, or be a whole lot....

But today I feel like a little more me. I have my kids home, my husband home, and am emmersed back into life. A busy home, busy kids...these things make me happy. Being with Sean makes me whole, watching my kids play and make up stories, and musicals, and slam balls all over the house, and ram monster trucks into anything in their line of sight. These kids, this Husband, this life, is good. Its been a rough week...rough few months, but I feel like I am on the up-swing.....up-swings are good....

Whats new?

Whats new???....well, I'm pregnant with baby #4, I have a protruded disc in my back, and I am ordered to 7 mo. of bedrest. Need I say anymore??.......you have got to freakin be kidding me....

Rice Krispee Houses

The older the kids get, the more fun everything gets. Every year I pass the gagillion packs of Gingerbread houses lining the isles in every grocery store I enter in to....every year I sit and look and ponder whether or not I want to dive into that big of a project, cause its not as happy and clean as the little happy kids look on the cover. Its a huge undertaking! It literally takes over the entire kitchen....crumbs, icing, stickiness, candy galore....so every year I just keep walking. This year, however, I saw on TV kids making a Rice Krispee house. And I stopped and thought, now this I can do! So we did it. I loved it. Being one who really doesn't enjoy cooking with her kids....this was fun. I let everything go and dove in. I had NO idea what I was doing. My Mother-in-law is here and she is like, sooooo, whats your plan? and I was like, I have NO idea.....and we're all just sitting there looking at this huge blob of rice krispee and marshmellow....so I grab a ball off and start molding and my Mother in law, literally thinks i'm crazy...and she says again, "so, is that your roof?" and I;m like, "Roof?....ooooh, sure, yah, its the roof, uh-huh...." ...I hadn't even thought of a roof. The kids are going crazy wanting to dive in and i'm trying to keep them from eating up the entire house before we even start. So, we dove in and totally flew by the seat of our pants the entire time (I was peeking over at Caleb and my Mother in laws house the entire time copying there ideas, but shhhhh, don't tell them). This is what we ended up with. They turned out so cute!! We had so much fun! Priceless memories with thier Grandma :)
Skylar and My house:Caleb and Grandma's house:

Boo-Yaw!!!

You picked the wrong house to mess with Rats!!

Family Pictures 2009

I love when your really good friends have really good talents. Alyssa is an amazing photogropher and I've been meaning to get our family pictures done for a while. So when you fuse the two of those together, this is what you get:

These are amazing, thank you sooo much Alyssa. We love you!!

Rats

Day Yesterday

Picture: Sean- fresh out of surgery with arm in sling, Me-gimping around with a ridiculous back, go up to cut down Christmas tree in Lassen. I point out tree, Dad cuts it down, Dad loads it up. We drive back to Redding (painfully). Have two guys meet us at the house and unload tree, to stand, to house. Have two able bodied guys get down our Christmas decorations from rafters and bring them into house. Able bodied guys leave. Sean and I unpack Christmas decorations. Find Christmas decorations covered in rat poop, inside the bins. Find Christmas decorations had been eaten at by rats. FIND MY HOMEMADE CROCHETED (by me) CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS CHEWED THROUGH BY FREAKIN RATS!!

next step: find rats and kill rats.