Hello! This is Ainsley and I'm taking over the blog for today (maybe more)—I have been asking and begging my mom to let me do this for months! So I'll be posting about my family tradition of crepes and my school fun run for our school money raiser.

So here are the amazing crepes my mom makes every General Conference. 

They taste so good I ate at least 8! 

This is my class before the fun run (I'm on the right).

                                   

This is me and my best friends after the race and you can see from our red faces that we ran a lot.

     

 (from left to right) me, Lucia, Kaylie and Shayla. Thanks for reading!

—Ainsley 

Mom's Birthday and Valentine's Day

Belated guest post for February 13th and 14th, 2014. Actually posted on June 17, 2014.

Hello, my name is Ainsley. Today I will be talking about my mom's birthday and Valentine's day. It begins where Ellie and I made my mom a birthday gift—one necklace with shells and one necklace with charms. 

So, since we made her that gift, apparently she had to take a picture with us and the gifts.

We went to dinner for her birthday in Perpignan and we had delicious pizza and pasta there. My dad and Joey shared tapas. They looked disgusting.

Mom and Ellie posing for a picture, what an exciting event.

Here we are toasting mom with our glasses for a happy birthday.

This is on Valentine's. It's our family tradition to always get a new book on Valentine's, but since we were in France and all of the books were in French, we got it on our kindles.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to eat crepes, which is our other Valentine Day tradition, even though we were in France!!! Here I am, peeking at my book while the others are all posing for another picture.

I got a Nancy Drew book!!!

Here's Ellie, with her book, Writing Magic, because she wants to be an author.

Robbie got some boring book, which he says is Steelheart.

Here mom is with her book, which she bought for herself, because, well, she's the mom. It's called All There Is. She hasn't even read it yet.

Dad got a book about Paris, called The Greater Journey.

And here Joey is, with a book called Crime Travelers.

I hope you liked Ainsley's blog post.

The End.

V Day

This year I helped with the Valentine's party in Joey's class—I made scones, which were a big hit.

Here are the kids with their Valentine boxes. Poor Robbie, no parties, notes or candy in Junior High.

Luckily he loves our family tradition of books for Valentine's Day.

And crepes for dinner. New this year is a low carb recipe that I found on Pinterest—they're surprisingly good!

Bla, bla, bla...Blog Humbug

I'm actually posting this on February 16th, 2012. Yes, I've been busy, but mostly I've just had zero desire to blog. I'm hoping if I get caught up, I might be able to muster some. So here's the month of December in a nutshell:

December 1st:

I hosted a dinner for the Relief Society. It turned into quite the ordeal, since our power was out for most of the day. I farmed out the honey baked ham to a good friend who even offered her home if necessary. Luckily the electricity came on just in time to make the au gratins, garlic beans and rolls and warm up the house before the guests arrived. I was so stressed that I completely forgot to take a picture of the event, but here's one of Ainsley showing off the artwork that I took down in the cleaning process.

December 4th:

We invited Ralph, Judy and Jake over for dinner, and got one more use out of the fancy table setting.

December 9th:

It was our ward party. We had a dinner this year, with a simple, sweet and spiritual program—the nativity, and carols, performed by the primary kids.

December 13th:

A parent demonstration in Ainsley's ballet class—I forgot my camera. I took a few with my phone, but this one, by my friend Christianne, was my favorite. Ainsley, Duffy and Lulu:

December 14th:

Ralph and Judy gave us their front-row tickets to Annie, and I took the three youngest. We loved it!

December 15th:

Ellie's ballet class performance:

December 16th:

Joey's band performance at school. He and two of his friends played a song as a trio, since they're "the best musicians in the band."

December 17th:

We got a phone call in the early afternoon suggesting that we try to pull off a cousins photo to give my parents for Christmas. Here's how it turned out. Not bad for almost zero planning, 14 kids and an amateur photographer (me).

December 21st:

The school program.

December 23rd:

The Marsh family party. Details here. And the cutest presents ever, made by Melissa—see here.

December 24th:

We had what is usually our Christmas morning breakfast (ebleskivers)on Christmas Eve morning, since we knew we'd be scrambling to open presents and get to church. Yum.

And went to the Backman family party in the afternoon. Here's the traditional nativity re-enactment. Ellie was excited to finally play Mary.

The kids opened their new jammies and slippers, but I forgot to take a photo of them after they'd changed into them.

December 25:

I can't really pick just one photo from Christmas day, but I tried to narrow it down from the 155 + video that I took.

We always start with stockings, and the girls were so excited about the wands that they found in theirs.

Robbie was totally surprised by his new electronic drum kit. It was hidden under a huge plastic cover, and he guessed that it was a desk.

Joey and Ainsley both got iPod shuffles, so I think we own every color now. :)

Joey's big present was a Kindle. He loves being the first in the family to have an e-reader. He also got a new puffy coat, as requested.

Ellie got a new sewing machine and accessories, plus sewing lessons. She was very happy.

She also loves her microphone.

In addition to the iPod shuffle, Ainsley loved her Lalaloopsy doll and scooter.

We managed a photo with the timer on the camera before going to church at 11:00. It was a nice meeting. I love the focus on the Savior that comes when Christmas is on Sunday.

Ralph, Judy and Jake joined us for church and for lunch we had breakfast casserole, muffins, fruit, and the orange rolls left over from breakfast.

The kids opened their presents from Grandpa and Grandma. My mom and dad stopped by too, but didn't stay long enough for a photo...

Aww, aren't they sweet?

And silly...

Ainsley, aka Ginny, showing off her mad magic skills.

December 26th:

The fun continued, with the Riley family party. Since Cara hasn't been good enough to post for me, like Melissa did, here are a few photos:

We had brunch:

Ellie and Ainsley with cute Logan:

All of my siblings and their families were there, as well as my Grandma Clayton and Bus, Jan and Kaitlyn.

Joey was Mr. Cool, wearing his hat all day.

Robbie was fully engaged, like any good teenager.

And my parents loved the photo.

Grandma Clayton's party was that evening. She loves being surrounded by her great-grandkids!

December 29th:

We felt lucky to have our friends the Hydes come by for an afternoon during their trip here from Hong Kong. Wish they still lived here, but at least we see them every summer.

December 30th:

We finally took Robbie out for the steak dinner we promised for getting a 4.0 his first semester in junior high. After a great meal we went to see Sherlock Holmes.

New Year's Eve was laid back...I think we watched a movie.

Whew. I'm not sure how zero desire to blog translates into the longest post ever, but there it is. Finally.