This One is For my Homie....

So, four years ago today, my best buddy, mentor, friend-who also happened to be my dad, got "promoted" to the other side. I miss him so much. I can't wait to see him again. Our brother-by-choice, Perry Smith, wrote a song about Skeet...it's so beautiful. It's called "Answer Me from Heaven." You can listen to it here ...or read the lyrics below. I can't ever listen to it without balling but I love to listen to it. :) Anyway, just thought I'd give a shout out to my Pops.






Answer Me from Heaven
Not sure if God let’s you look down and see what’s going on
But things they haven’t been easy here, since you’ve been gone
You always had the answers when it seemed nothing made sense
You loved without condition anyone who needed a friend

I, I think about you gone and I cry, missin’ you
If you can answer me from heaven I’ll be here, listening

Rachel's baby girl came early, I met her the other day
She’s got her daddy’s goofy grin, her name's Olivia James
As I looked at her I wondered what this life’s all about
I used to see so clearly, but lately all I see is clouds

I, I think about you gone and I cry, missin’ you
If you can answer me from heaven I’ll be here, listening

Don’t get me wrong now, things here will be just fine
But it’s 2 am on this quiet night and I can’t get you out of my mind

I, I think about you gone and I cry, missin’ you
If you can answer me from heaven I’ll be here, listening

If you can answer me from heaven I’ll be here

A fun week....

So I pretty much figure I will be playing catch up for the rest of my life. So here is just another run at it....this is what was going on the latter half of last week....

August 21st--I met the nicest woman, Ashley Franscell--she is a photo journalist from the Provo Daily Herald. She came over and visited and snapped some photos for a story she is going to run it after Labor Day about the Sweet Tooth Fairy. Reagan and Bryan were over watching the kiddies so I could have some sanity while Ashley was there. And sweet Linds and DarbyLoo came over to snap some shots of Ashley snapping shots of me.

August 22nd - After Eth got home from work, he made a pit stop at home and went and had a BNO (Boys Night Out) heehee. They went golfing and hit up a lil' Korean restaurant next to Honk's in Provo. (I just like any excuse I can get to refer to Honk's---who names a store that?) Anyway, when he got home, we made a cake for lil Tav's third birthday party. He is obsessed with flags so this is what we came up with.


August 23rd-- Happy Birthday Lynie! It was my mom's birthday and for her birthday, I took Mimi to get a pedicure. It makes sense in some circle-of-life type way. Look how cute Mimi is.
And look who happened to be getting a 'pedi' the same time we were there....cousin Jeremy! :)
We also went to Tav's Birthday party. It was way fun---there were bounce houses, slip n' slides, pools, water balloon fights, etc. Speaking of which, it's pretty hilarious to me what happens to a grown man when he has 'access' to water balloons. Just try it...you'll know what I mean.

At one point, we found Jack just chillin' "on guard" with Bailey...it was really sweet. He gave us thet 'everything is ok' wave.
Jack experienced a Slip'n'Slide for the first time. Ready....set...gooooooo!



And then Eth and Jack had to get in a lil' Father/Son ride down the slide...

Reportedly, Tavish really liked his flag cake. Knowing that makes my job as the "Sweet Tooth Fairy" all worth it.

August 24th--Churchy times. Uncle "Sleepy Time" came down for a few hours. Tay and OJ are back home in California so he just rolled down to chill. We love it when Jeffy is here.

Interview with Cupcakes Take the Cake

Click here to read an interview I did with the famous ladies of Cupcakes Take the Cake.
Fun times!

Seriously, SO BLESSED

When you have some free time and need a good laugh fest, do yourself a favor and read this blog:

http://seriouslysoblessed.blogspot.com/

A MUST read for you fellow Mormos out there. It is HYSTERICAL and the author is a complete and utter genius.

She and I are now eBFFS. We've exchanged several, several emails trying to figure out a way for her identity to remain anonymous but for me to get some Sweet Tooth Fairy treats to her. Keep your eyes peeled for our banner on her site too--we're gonna buy some advertising space on it. She gets over 1000 hits a day!

For background on the blog, read this article.
http://www.mormontimes.com/MITN_newsmakers.php?id=1563

la pièce de résistance

So here is the Cupcake Wedding Cake we made for EJ and Danny. We were granted full artistic liberty which was AWESOME. Their colors were obviously black and white. And EJ's bouquet/flowers were just all different shades of pink, so we chose to accent the black/white with pink. It held about 150 cupcakes all together. Eth did an amazing job of engineering the thing. And they LOVED it--which is the most important thing. It was really flattering to hear the comments the guests made about it(the table we sat at was literally right next to it)

The 4th Happiest Day of My Life...or something like that...

So, with the exception of the day I married my best friend/sexiest man alive, the day I bore our son, JAck, and the day I bore our daughter, Bailey....Saturday, August 2nd was one of the happiest days of my life! Why? You ask. Because my best friend EJ got married!!!!!! Woohoo! In February, Ethan orchestrated a blind date w/ EJ and one of his coworkers, Danny. All four of us went to Carabas Italian restaurant in Orem so the 'blind date' would be as comfortable as possible. Dinner was a blast, and well...the rest is history. I am so incredibly stoked for EJ--she has been such an amazing friend to me and to my family over the past 8 years. We've been through life's ups and downs together....college, divorce, joblessness, deaths, marriages, break-ups, new jobs, etc. You name it, we've been through it. Her husband Danny is so awesome and we just couldn't be more happy for them. Here are some fun pictures ...

above: the happy bride shaking her groove thang!

above: Danny and EJ cutting the cake (we made it for them...I'm dedicating an entire post to the Cupcake Tower we built for them)

above: BFF's. Whoda thunk such an amazing friendship could blossom from a conversation sparked almost 8 years ago in a Family Life and Home Ecomonics class?

above: 3 generations of Faulkner girls (and Castleton and Brown too)

above: my two favorite boys EVER

above: the cutest lil' thang

above: 2 of the prettiest girls in the world

above: Jack and Uncle "Nonny"

above: Me and Jack trying to get at least one good shot

above: a family shot....hard to get these ones these days

Strawberry Resevoir

I just realized I never published this post. Last weekend, we went to Strawberry Resevoir with our good friends, the Cords. This was the closest thing I've had to a vacation since our honeymoon.

We had a blast .The boys shot guns and went fishing most of the time while Linds, DarbyLoo, Bailey and I just sat around and chatted and ate like we were pregnant again. It was so relaxing and we were barely gone for 24 hours. Here are some pics---I stole these off Linds' blog. heehee.