Halloween!

Although it will almost be Thanksgiving when this post is published, I had to post it.

This Halloween was fun.  The girls are starting to get out of their cutesie wootsie phase and into their "dark" phase of Halloween.  This year CJ was an evil fairy.  She used a ballet costume from her 2011 recital and we found wings that matched.  I played with her hair and makeup and she looked AWESOME! 

Avary had found a costume at our thrift store, but they didn't have her size so we went to a costume store and found one there.  She was a spider countess.  It was super fun to do her hair except for her complaining.  ;)  I teased her hair and put plastic spider rings in her hair.  After she was all made up she looked pretty AWESOME too.  I didn't realize how fair skinned she was until we put dark makeup on her.  She looked so pale, it was spooky.

Spencer found a pumpkin costume for Reed at the thrift store.  He was so dang cute.  I wish I could describe fully how cute he was when he went trick-or-treating, but words just can't describe it.  When he walked the bottom of the pumpkin costume would waddle the opposite way.  Just, you needed to see it.

Spencer also found a Pharaoh costume at the thrift store for himself and he got super excited about it.  Spencer NEVER dresses up for Halloween and this year he went ALL out.  Even eye makeup.  Well, since he was going to be a Pharaoh then I had the idea of being Cleopatra.  Well, that made Spencer even more excited.  I found a costume and that is how we went to our trunk-or-treat and Chili cook off.

So I had a firm belief that the chili cook off was rigged.  The same people have been winning in the same categories since we moved it.  Well, I always make some sort of hot soup and this year I decided on a turkey chili.  I had no expectations to win.  Well, I won best non-traditional chili.  I am STILL shocked.  I was happy how it turned out, but like I said, I didn't expect to win.

The pumpkins we carved this year really turned out awesome.  Reed even designed his own pumpkin.  We took a drawing of his and it looked like eyes and a mouth and so Spencer carved it into a pumpkin.  It ended up being my favorite.  Avary's pumpkin had feathers coming out of the head.  My mom's was pretty traditional with the slanted eyes and triangle nose.  Spencer's were two little pumpkins as eyes.  He used pie pumpkins and ended up having to use his power tool to carve because it was too hard to do by hand.  Mine had the eyes all askew and the mouth wide open and Reeds is the one with only one pupil.  CJ didn't get to carve her idea because she had kicked Avary (CJ has problems with that).  So, Spencer took her pumpkin and did a vomiting pumpkin.  It was sad that CJ didn't get to do it because she had an AWESOME idea.  She wasn't too happy about it, but she needed to understand the seriousness of her being violent.  Unfortunately she inherited my temper when I was her age.  :(

For dinner we had mini mummy dogs with bloody fingers (lil' smokies in BBQ sauce), garbage salad (coleslaw with blue cheese dressing), fried worms (Cheetos), fried skin (Funyons and Doritos), and witches brew.  For dessert, mud pie with worms.  The only sad thing about Halloween was that everyone and I mean EVERYONE was done by 8 o'clock.  Halloween just isn't what it used to be.  We had too much candy left over.  It was fun though.

CJ informed me when I was taking her hair out after trick-or-treating that next year she wants to be a vampire....I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!!! 

Family Trip and Wedding

So, Spencer's little sister Cami got married the first part of October to Chris Oliphant in Rexburg, Idaho.  I had the thought of maybe taking a little longer to get home and taking a slight "detour" to Yellowstone for a little family vacation.  He thought is was a great idea and the girls were SUPER excited to go.

So, we stayed in Idaho Falls because Rexburg didn't have anything available.  The day after we got there I finished the cake in the hotel room while Spencer and the kids swam.  Our hotel room was AWESOME!  I had  originally planned on driving the 30 miles from Idaho Falls to Rexburg and finishing the cake at Cami and Chris's new apartment, but when we walked into our room they had granite counter tops and the flat screen TV was sitting on a nice big granite top table.  Spencer had the idea of taking the TV off and then I could use that.  It was SO nice!  It was super cold there too so the cake was preserved in the car overnight and it kept chilled near the window in the room while I worked on other tiers, PERFECT!  After I had finished the cake we took showers and decided to go sight seeing.  We visited the Temple and saw the "Falls".  They were not falls.  They were spillways.  Shoshone Falls are FALLS.  I got some nice looking pictures of water anyway.  I especially love the fact that they were doing a ton of road work around the temple so in the pictures you get the lovely orange barrels to keep cars out.  Pretty funny if you ask me.



Cami had such a beautiful wedding.  She asked me to do her cake and I was so honored.  It turned out so beautiful, but it didn't even compare to the bride.  Despite it being super cold, it was a REALLY nice day.  They had a Nauvoo theme going on for the reception, thus all the sunflowers.  :)



We left from the reception and drove to Yellowstone.  I will NEVER do that again.  WAY to much driving for my taste that weekend...ugh.  We got to Yellowstone about 11:45ish in the PM.  The kids were out when we got there and it was SO cold!  We stayed in Mammoth Springs in the hotel there.  It was interesting.  We had to share a public restroom because they didn't have bathrooms in the room.  It was an old fashioned hotel which is what I loved about it, but I missed the luxury of our own bathroom.  We had a wonderful buffet breakfast the next morning and we set off on our VERY cold adventure through Yellowstone National Park.  I had been once before when I was little with my dad.  I had remembered the pathways, Old Faithful, and the smell.  That was all. 

We saw so much wildlife there.  When we woke up in our hotel we looked out our window and there was a herd of elk just grazing and laying around right outside.  They were all over the place.  We saw a wolf on the side of the road.  We saw tons of buffalo.  One so close that all I had to do was cross the road and I could have touched it, but they advised us to not get too close so I took the picture from the car.  We saw more elk as we drove through and we even saw a bald eagle.  We stopped at Roaring Mountain.  We saw Dragon's Mouth Spring, which by the way sounded JUST like there was a dragon in there and it LOOKED like there was a dragon in there because of all the steam.  It was hard to see a lot of color in the springs because it was so cold all we could see was the steam coming off of the water.  But we had fun nonetheless.  We saw the BEAUTIFUL Yellowstone falls, upper and lower and THOSE are falls.  :)  They were BEAUTIFUL!  We saw Steamboat Geyser  and we sort of ended our adventure at Old Faithful.  We got there just in time to see it go right before they closed.  They had predicted the time and then said +/- 10 minutes so we got there for the -10 minutes.  Of course it was +10 minutes so we sat there in the freezing cold with a screaming Reed for 20 minutes while the geyser teased us then it finally blew.  It lasted so long too, I didn't remember it going off that long, but it was worth it.  The girls were so fascinated and poor Reed just was freezing. 

After Old Faithful we headed our way to the Tetons and realized that it was too late that we wouldn't see them because the sun was going down.  There was one stop that I wanted to see and the was the Great Prismatic Basin.  Of course we couldn't see the beautiful colors not only because of the steam, but also because of the sun setting.  Oh well.  We'll be going back some day, but we will definitely go back in the SUMMER!  We left Yellowstone and drove straight to Little America, Wyoming.  It took FOREVER because the speed limit through Yellowstone and the Tetons is 45.  We got to Little America around 12 midnight.  Like I said, WAY too much driving.  We were ALL SO tired by the time we got home.



It was a fun adventure and the kids really enjoyed it.  I'm so glad that we took the time to spend with each other.  It was the first time the girls saw an actual waterfall.  Love priceless moments like that.  :)

Birthday Week!

Well, it happens every year.  Starts with my birthday, then to my mom's, and then we finish with Avary's.  Except this year my mom decided to spend her birthday, and mine actually, in Utah.

For my birthday we went to Texas de' Brazil for dinner.  We took the kids and they were just in awe over all the food and how they bring it.  It was SO yummy, but We won't do that again...too expensive!!  Anyway, a birthday present to me from Spencer and myself because I requested it was a ticket to this years Time Out for Women.  I wonder why I had never heard of it before last year and I am mad that I didn't know because I had SO much fun.  So much in fact that I told my sister and my mom to save the date for next year and my sister needs to fly here so we can go together.  It was so wonderful.  It was nice to be out with friends and being spiritually uplifted.  Can't wait till next year.  My dad came for an overnight visit as well.  It was too bad it was on that weekend because I wasn't around to spend time with him, but it was nice having him here for a day.  Another present that I got from Spencer was a brand new 16 gig Nexus 7.  Oh how I love that little tablet.  :)  It makes preparing my lessons for Young Women's so much easier.  It's too funny though because it was on Spencer's wish list until recently when they released the new Google android phone.  NOW he wants that instead.  Funny how he works.  ALWAYS changing his mind.  :)  Anyway, that was my birthday!

Avary had a week long birthday I swear.  My mom came home a day before Avary's birthday and Avary flashed her puppy eyes at her and got us all dinner at Cheesecake Factory.  That child will get whatever she wants from my mom because of those eyes...it is pitiful.  So, we started with dinner there.  Then that Saturday we had her "Rock Star" birthday party with all her friends.  She wanted a guitar cake so I made her a guitar cake.

Then, she was kinda' acting a little "funny" like sick, so fifteen minutes before all her friends got to the house for the party we found out that she had a fever.  CJ had been sick earlier in the week and then the day of her party, Avary got what CJ had.  I gave her Tylenol and told her she would be OK and she was until right after the party and she CRASHED!

For her party we had the kids decorate their own guitar.  Spencer cut out cardboard guitars for all the kids and they all colored them the way they wanted.  Then Avary and I had put together a "Rock Star Birthday" CD with music that Avary picked and I approved of.  We had made CD's for all the girls and they got to decorate their own CD cover.  Friends of ours from the ward whose kids were there tell us that their girls listen to the CD ALL the time.  (Tee hee)  After decorating we had cake.  All the kids were really into the cake.  They all loved it.  Avary was so happy with it and that made me happy.  After cake she opened her presents.  She got so much stuff.  She even got identical "Spa" dolls and ended up giving one to CJ instead of returning it to the store and getting a different "Spa" doll.  She got a "Blingles" set.  If you have ever seen a teenager with "bling" on their phone or purse or whatever, that is what it is.  She makes her own bling.  She even made me one for the case for the Nexus 7.  It is really cute.  After presents we did freeze dance.  We used the music off of her CD and those kids danced and danced and danced.  It was no wonder that Avary crashed after the party.

 
She had a good time even though she wasn't feeling good. 

First Day of School 2012

I can't believe that my girlies are growing up so fast.  I say that a lot because it is TRUE!  This year CJ is in 4th grade, the grade that I first got in trouble at school, and Avary is in 2nd grade.  They are really enjoying school so far this year.

CJ loves her teachers and her teachers really love her.  They just wish she would confide in them more.  Poor thing struggles with bullies at school.  Of course I turn into momma bear and want to go shake the kids and ask what their problem is.  Another issue is that when she has problems out at recess she tells the teachers out there and they seem to just brush her off.  I worry about her because she seems to not have any self esteem.  We don't know what to do about that because no matter how much praise we give her the people outside the family seem to trump it.  I REALLY "dislike" the principal there.  I can't wait until she is done.  CJ struggles a bit with homework, but Spencer and I have decided to hire a tutor that will come to the house to help her out.  We just get too frustrated with her because she tends to "give up" before she tries with us.  Then she thinks she is in trouble when she isn't and then she just shuts off to everything that has to do with school.  Some days it takes about 5 hours to do her homework with her and that shouldn't be the case.  She is SO smart!  All she needs to do is apply herself.  She is really excited to have a tutor though.  We think it will really help her

Avary on the other hand is doing so well in school.  The only thing she has trouble with is being responsible for giving us things that need to be signed and returned.  She loves her teachers and her teachers love her.  I don't worry too much about Avary.  I guess the only thing I would worry about is if she is being challenged enough, the kid is smart as a whip.  It gets pretty annoying because she argues with us CONSTANTLY!  She thinks she knows everything and it causes problems at home.  I haven't heard anything from the teachers about her "know it all" complex, thank heavens!

It is so interesting to see these girls coming into their own.  They are starting to set themselves apart from everyone else and it is fun to watch.  I just don't care too much for the mood swings.  ;)

YIKES!!

So, I woke up too early because I forgot about daylight savings.  Then I thought I should start updating my blog.  I had NO idea how backed up I was!!  I knew I was backed up, but....WOW!  So, here I go again, starting another catchup week.  I apologize for being so flaky and bear with me while all these posts start a floodin' your inbox's and my Facebook page.  :)

I will start with the end of July and August since the last time I posted was the first part of July.  I got pretty busy with cakes there for a while.  I had already posted some that I did, but these are some that I did in July and all of August.

I did a birthday cake for a dear friends son.  He was turning 2 and she wanted a Cookie Monster cake.  I had a LOT of fun with this cake:

In our ward we have this phenomina.  We have pregnancy waves and this last wave was a doozy.
We have this AWESOME couple in our ward that have been trying for SO long to have a baby.  They had tried invitros that didn't take and fertility and everything else you can think of.  They were finally blessed with invitro twins and as soon as I found out I offered to do the cakes for her shower.  I had SO much fun doing these cakes.  The dad has red hair and mom is a brunette.  Since they aren't identical, neither are the cakes.  :)

Some friends and I hosted a baby shower for a friend of ours from the ward.  She was having the girl in the midst of ALL the boys that were coming.  It was a really nice shower.  I wasn't too happy with how the cake turned out, but in the end it got some "oo's" and "ahh's".  ;)

I did this cake for another friend of mine who served in the Young Women's with me.  She was having a boy and I had this idea for a cake.  Spencer and I worked REALLY hard on this cake.  We think we might just do it differently next time....if there is a next time.

And now the final cake up through August.  I was asked to do the 17 year birthday cake for one of my Young Women.  I can still call her mine because when I was called to be the Mia Maid adviser she was still a Mia Maid.  :)  Her party was cow themed and she wanted a cow cake.  I LOVE this cake!  Except for the fact that after I had taken pictures and delivered it to her, I realized I didn't finish the outline of the cake.  It still bugs the TAR out me when I look at the pictures.  My eye goes right there to the unfinished site.  :(

Well!  That does it for the rest of July and all of August cakes, except the cow cake was done towards the end of September.  Baby showers are fun, but there were SO many this year.  Love the babies though and the twins are just about as precious as they come.  :)

4th of July Fun and Other July Randomness

We had such a fun 4th of July this year despite not having any fireworks.  We have some friends from our ward that live on Buckley Air Force Base that invited us over for a swim and barbeque.  It was so much fun.  We started the day of with a new breakfast that I tried out.  We had these AMAZING crepes!  they were filled with a cream cheese and lemon cream and then we had strawberry compote and blueberry compote over them.  They were SO good!  Although next time I think I will make bacon to go with them.  :)

After a pure American lunch, PB&J, we went to our friends house on base.  They have a pool there so we started with a nice swim.  This was the second time we had taken Reed swimming and he enjoyed it SO much more the second time around.  We had issues keeping our hands on him because he wanted to go and swim on his own.  Boys.  The girls were so excited to get back into a pool.  They haven't been swimming for about 6 months now because of some issues with their swim school.  CJ was ESPECIALLY happy because she doesn't enjoy running through sprinklers as much as Avary does.  This was the first time CJ has gotten drenched this summer.  Sad. 

 

Anyway, after swimming we headed back to our friends house where we had hamburgers, potato salad, and fresh veggies.  Afterward, we dug into the dessert that I had made.  This dessert was something I hadn't had for years.  I kinda grew up on it.  It is something kinda like cheesecake, but it is made in a 9x13 and it bakes quicker.  It was so good.  We enjoyed some great talk and laughter.  It was really nice to just relax with some great people.

I made a cake for our piano teacher/friends baby shower this month.  This is her second baby and she is having another boy.  With her first baby I was going to make her shower cake and I got SUPER sick the day before her shower and I couldn't make it.  This time I was determined to make her baby shower cake.  About a week before her shower I sprained my right pinky really bad.  CJ was practicing piano and I lifted my hand to point to something on her page and the keys of the piano went between my ring finger and pinky and bent the pinky back and off to the side.  It hurts....bad, but I worked through it and with a TON of help from Spencer and my mom, I was able to get the cake done.



The top tier of this cake is pina colada and the bottom tier is applesauce spice cake with cream cheese icing,  She was SO happy with it.  I was SO happy that I was able to do this for her.  Spencer did the cute little fondant baby on top.  I have a GREAT husband.

For Family Home Evening this week Avary had the treat.  We had a lot of fruit that we needed to use so I kinda forced her to do a fruit pizza.  She did such an amazing job that we had to take a picture of it.



I think I might have some competition soon.  ;)  We found out not too soon after we ate it that CJ is allergic to raw kiwi.  After she ate her slice, her tongue started to itch.  I gave her some Benadryl and that helped her.  She feels pretty special right now because she is allergic to two things, penicillin and kiwi.  Avary was so funny.  After we determined that CJ was allergic to raw kiwi, Avary started complaining that her "neck was hot" and that she thinks she is allergic too.  I laughed and told her that the reason her neck was hot was because her hair was down and it was a hot day.  I told her to get a scrunchie so I could put her hair up and that fixed it.  She is such a silly little girl.  It tasted really good though!  Reed ESPECIALLY liked it.



Speaking of Reed, we have been trying this new thing with his naps.  He was starting to fight us when we would try to put him down for a nap and our pediatrician told us to just let him go until he crashes, so we have.  He has fallen asleep in the CUTEST ways!  He had slid off the Luv Sac in this one.



I LOVE how his arms and legs are in this one.



This next one is my favorite so far.



He had put his head on the pillow and was out in about a minute and had "crashed" on the sofa.  He is so stinkin' cute, sometimes I can't even stand it.  He is becoming our comic relief.  When we put the girls in time out we have them stand against a wall with their noses to the wall.  Reed has now started to go over to the wall when they are in time out and put his hands and nose on the wall standing next to them.  It is SO hard to stay serious when he whips around with a cheesy grin on his face to make us ALL laugh.  What a cutie.  We are going to have to find a different way of punishing him when the time comes because now he thinks it is funny.

June Randomness

June went by SO fast! I can't believe how fast this year is going. Reed got his first fat lip this month. He fell face first onto the floor from the couch. It didn't last very long. It was gone the next day, but it was sure sad to see him with a fat lip.



The girls had their ballet recital in June. This year, CJ was in two dances because she's taking ballet and beginning lyrical. They did such a good job. We're so proud of them both. As busy as I was with CJ in two dance classes, I can't imagine what the parents of all the others who are in the company go through. I'm glad she only has two classes.



I'm the Mia Maid advisor for our young women, and our Beehive advisor just had a baby girl. I was able to do the cake for her baby shower. It was really fun and refreshing to finally be doing a girl cake. So many boys are coming into the world in our ward! I was super happy about how it turned out.



CJ was in summer school until the end of June, and for the last day they had a field trip to the water park by our house. My mom, Avary, Reed, and I decided to meet her there, especially since it was such a hot day. This was the first time Reed has gone to the water park. It was really cute to see him explore the different water spouts. He sure had a lot of fun, and it was fun watching him have fun. CJ, on the other hand, refused to go into the water, so naturally, as her mother, I would grab her and carry her into the wettest part of the park. She laughed and seemed like she was having fun, but I couldn't get her to go by herself. Avary was completely opposite. I couldn't get her out of the water. Crazy kids. The water was blasted cold, but it felt really good.



I'm glad that we have this water park so close. It is such a relief on these blistering hot days.

May Madness

Boy, May was a busy month for us and it just hasn't slowed down yet.   I guess first things first.  Mother's Day.  I had such a great Mother's Day this year. Spencer and the girls made breakfast for me. We had eggs, bacon, muffins, and they even made their own edible arrangement for me. Better than store bought! It was really yummy. Then, after church, Spencer made cornbread, that I requested, and tried to surprise me with a strawberry cheese cake. I say "tried" because I found it in the refrigerator thinking it was the leftover fruit from the edible arrangement. Oh, well. Maybe next year he can surprise me.



Later that week, before we left for Utah for our niece Myriah's wedding, Avary lost her very first tooth! She was really excited for the tooth fairy to visit. Of course, being the first tooth, the tooth fairy left five dollars. Since then she's lost another tooth. She loves losing her teeth!



I was asked to do the cake for Myriah's wedding, which became an honor. It was such a beautiful wedding, and the bride was beautiful beyond words. I was really happy how the cake turned out.





She asked for Red Velvet cake. The top tier is all cake, because she wanted to save it for their first anniversary. Then the rest was fake except for a 4x4 inch corner on the bottom tier that they could cut into. This cake has become one of my very favorites. She also had me do 6 sheet cakes for serving at the reception.

Aside from a little dispute with an unnamed person it was perfect. Special thanks to my Aunt Reida for letting me take over her kitchen. It was fun. And, special thanks to her for letting us stay there.

When we got home, we only had a couple of days before we had the opportunity to have the Schumanns over. It was Memorial day weekend and they drove all night to get here. It was a special request by Aunt Addie to go to the zoo. This was Reed's first zoo trip. It was really fun, despite the heat. But luckily, there was a slight cool breeze to help things. The kids really had a lot of fun. It was fun to spend the time with the Schumanns. They hadn't seen Reed since last August.



May was a lot of fun!

Latest Cake Projects

WOW!!!!  I have been SO busy with cakes this last month or so!  It has been AWESOME!  I will start with February.

A friend of mine has a little boy who just turned 2.  He LOVES Elmo.  She asked me if I could do Elmo cupcakes and of course I said yes.  They turned out SO cute!!!



These I did while we were shut up in our house with that 2 day snow storm that came to us in February.  It was nice, because I just opened the sliding door to our back yard to chill them.  That way I didn't have to find room in the fridge.  Sure made the kitchen cold....sure felt GOOD!  They were all chocolate cupcakes.  I used buttercream icing to ice them and then I used orange jelly bellies for the noses and an Oreo for the mouth.  Too cute!

Also in February I did a baby shower cake for this really sweet girl in our ward that lost her baby last year when I was pregnant with Reed.  She was having a baby boy and I REALLY wanted to do the cake, so I did.  :)

 
 I LOVE this cake!  It turned out SO cute!  I did a chocolate mold for the bear on top and then, since this girl is such a chocoholic, I made chocolate cake for both cakes, but the top layer had raspberry filling with cream cheese icing and the bottom layer had chocolate butter cream filling with chocolate ganache poured over the top.  SO yummy.

In March, of course there was Reed's birthday that I made the monkey cake for and the cupcakes (pictures posted in an earlier post).  But then the next week I had a cake to do for the Relief Society birthday party that our ward had.


The theme of the party was "POP", Perfecting Our Potential.  They were having a carnival type of atmosphere so I had the idea to do a Topsy Turvy cake.  This was my very first actual Topsy Turvy cake, the one I did for my graduation was Styrofoam.  Anyway, the bottom layer was chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream filling and vanilla butter cream icing.  The top two layers were yellow cake with almond icing filling and vanilla butter cream on the outside.  Then I candied some popcorn the colors they told me they were decorating with and had my mom help me string them on wires.  I had some left over sugar from the candying and I made some red swirls with the sugar that I placed on top with some popcorn "popping" out of them.  It turned out so awesome, although the next Topsy Turvy cake I do, I will construct it COMPLETELY different.  :)  This was definitely a learning experience.  I got a lot of compliments on it.  I'm so glad that they were happy with it.

After the Relief Society cake, I got 5 more cake orders and they were all for the same week, the week after the Relief Society party, which brings us into April.  :)  It was fun.

I was hired by our Stake Young Women president, who is also a friend from the ward to do a large sheet cake for the Stake Young Women in Excellence fireside like thing that they had.


The youth theme this year is "Arise and Shine Forth" and they wanted that on the cake as well as a rainbow of all the value colors.  This was a fun cake.  I then made it shiny.  :)  It is half chocolate cake and the other half vanilla with strawberry filling through out and vanilla butter cream icing.  I used this stuff called "Disco Dust" to color some gel to make the gold writing to represent Virtue.  I was happy with this cake, although next time I do a rainbow I will do it differently....another learning experience.

That weekend I was also hired to do 36 Mickey Mouse cupcakes for a friend of my friend Kim (the one I did the Elmo cupcakes for.)  Turns out this girl was at my friend Kim's little boys birthday party and flipped over the Elmo cupcakes and then wanted me to do Mickey cupcakes for her son, I believe also turning 2.



I was really happy with how these turned out.  The cupcakes are vanilla and chocolate with cream cheese icing.  I cut the Mickey's out by hand in fondant and then drew the faces on with fondant writers.  She was very happy with them too.

Then, the next day I had a cake for another friend in the ward.  Her husband was turning 30 and she was having a big scavenger hunt for his party.  It was centered around puzzle pieces and she liked what I had done with the popcorn for the Relief Society cake and wanted that done for his cake, so I did!  :)


He wanted carrot cake this year so I made my yummy carrot cake with cream cheese icing.  I glued puzzle pieces on the ribbon that wrapped around the base of the cake and overlapped them, she liked that feature.  Then I had Spencer glue puzzle pieces together with wire so that I could stick them out of the cake.  I like this cake.  It is different and I like how it turned out.  I later heard that he really liked his cake, which makes me so happy!  We swapped my cake for her pictures that she will be taking of Reed, I hope soon.

The same day that the puzzle cake was due, I also had a half sheet cake for my dear friend Katie whose daughter was born just a week and a half after Reed.  She had bought my services for a cake at the Young Women's goods and services auction the year before, but then she moved out by the temple.  With her daughter, Paige's birthday coming up I offered to do a cake for her, she totally jumped at the chance.


It was also her son Sean's birthday the week before so he was also included on the cake.  I did a demolish cake for Paige that turned out super cute!  The half sheet cake was a lemon cake with raspberry filling and cream cheese icing....YUM!  The lady bug demolish cake was vanilla cake with just the red and black butter cream icing.  We delivered the cake to the party, it was fun to see their new home.  Wish they lived closer though, we sure do miss them.  She has a daughter CJ's age and a daughter Avary's age and they miss them something terrible.  Just a side note, the same day that the puzzle cake and these two cakes were due was also the day of this years Young Women goods and services auction, of which I offered to make some desserts to auction off along with bringing a salad for 20 people.  I was a little tired after this week.  I think I slept all of Sunday, but my kitchen was clean again.  :)

At the auction I also put up 4 separate cake services that were all bid on.  One of my ladies that I visit teach, and also am good friends with, has a son that was turning one!  (We have waves in our ward about 6-10 women having babies around the same time of each other.)  They purchased one of my cakes and she hired me to do her son's birthday cake.  I was SO happy with how this cake turned out!


I used a bundt pan to make the shape of the caterpillar with chocolate cake.  Both cakes actually are chocolate with vanilla butter cream.  The orange is the demolish cake that I offer for free for first year birthday's.  Every kid needs their own cake for their first birthday.  The only thing I wasn't too happy with on this cake were the antennae, notice how I really didn't show them in this picture.  :)

Back to my friend Kim (Elmo cupcakes) and her friend Melissa (Mickey cupcakes).  So, Kim was hosting a baby shower for Melissa and asked me to do the cake for the shower.  She had posted a picture of a cake she had found on my facebook page and asked if it was possible for me to do one like it.  Who am I to say no, so I said yes.


The bow on top is made entirely of fondant.  I then used a square cake dummy (Styrofoam) and covered that with fondant and cut out the fondant monkey by hand and used a cutter for the dots.  I used brown fondant for the other bow and then the cake is red velvet with cream cheese icing.  The cake store was completely out of red food coloring so I had to use a cake mix for this cake.  I hate cake mixes.  Anyway, it turned out really cute.  I was up until 2 in the morning finishing this cake and CJ's birthday cake seeing how they were both for the same day.  In addition to this cake, Kim had also asked me to make some monkey bread like I did for Reed's birthday party (she was there).  She's keeping me busy and I'm loving it.

Last but CERTAINLY NOT least, CJ's birthday cake.  I mentioned this cake in an earlier post, but I thought I would post a better picture of it seeing how the one I posted earlier was in a collage.


Pink swirl vanilla cake with strawberry filling and cream cheese icing.  Pink rhinestones wrapped around the outside with silver "Disco Dust" writing and green beads strung on wires, of which I also had Spencer do for me.  :)  I found a green boa like ribbon at Joanne's and I glued that around the base of the cake.  I love this cake.  It was SO simple and it turned out WAY cute!!!

Now on to my nieces cake.  She is getting married in May and I can't wait to do her cake.  In the meantime, I am catching up on sleep, especially since I came down with another sinus infection right after this last wave of cakes.

S'n'O Much Fun!

So, I am EXTREMELY late in posting this, but hey, better late than never, right??  Well, back in February we got quite the snow storm.  It snowed non stop for about 2 days, it was awesome.  When the sun finally came out we decided that we would go out in the front yard and let the kids play in the snow.  We all had a lot of fun.  Reed even got all dressed up and went sledding for the first time.  We got out our sled that we bought on clearance one year and Spencer did the towing.  They all seemed to have a pretty good time.  Here is a video of Reed's very first sledding excursion:



Spencer made use of a pile of snow at the end of our driveway and Avary had a field day!

CJ tried it too, but she has absolutely NO padding on her bottom and her fun came to an abrupt halt when the sled landed.  After the sled jump we started on our own snow cave.  The girls were quite impressed with what daddy could do.  He made a real nice cave too.  Big enough that even he could fit inside and lay down with the girls.




It was funny to see Spencer climb in there.  I opted to NOT post that picture.  :)

While Spencer was building the snow cave, the girls and I tried to get started on a snow man.  We didn't make it too far because the snow would fall apart.  Leave it to Spencer to apply his sculpting abilities and make the girls a cute little snow bunny:



That bunny lasted a long time!  Although it wasn't too long until a dog came and peed on it.  It was a really fun time in the snow.  I even got in it and made a snow angel.  I forgot how fun snow is.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!  Yes, I know, another late post.  This Easter was pretty fun.  The weather was absolutely perfect and the kids were VERY cute!  The Easter bunny was really good to them. The girls got matching outfits:
 
 

and Reed got his very first tie.
 
  Boy he was a catch in that thing.

The Easter bunny also left some books for each kid, CJ got the next book in a continuing chapter series that she is really enjoying and she got a new chapter book that is a little more challenging.  I know when she is reading books that are too easy when she finishes them in one day, like the series she's been reading.  She loves them though. They sure have been good chapter books for her to get used to. Avary got two new chapter books from two different series, and Reed got a couple of board books.  And of course, all three got a new stuffed animal.


For dinner we had ham (of course), funeral potatoes, rolls, deviled eggs, salad, and raspberry jello....YUM!!!  Reed LOVED the jello.  :)  For dessert we had strawberry shortcake.  After we picked the ham bone clean, we of course gave it to Jersey which in turn gave her some really bad "disturbances" that would "disturb" her late at night and made her want to go outside.  We were afraid she had an obstruction so we took her to the vet, which in turn left us with a lecture and her feeling better the next day or so.  Every year since we have had her we have given her the ham bone.  This years ham though was extremely fatty and I think that is what gave her an upset tummy.  She's good though and she is now quiet through the night once again.  All in all it was a really good Easter.  The kids had a good day.  Reed especially had fun dumping out all the plastic eggs.

Happy 9 Year Birthday CJ!!!

I can't believe that CJ is 9 already.  Time is just flying by way too fast.  I like the fact that she is maturing, but does she have to grow up to mature???  Ugh, SO not fair.  :(  Her birthday was on a Tuesday this year, so we waited to have her party on the next Saturday.  For her actual birthday though we took her out to dinner.  She got to pick the place and of course she wanted somewhere that had crab legs.  Ugh.  After a long debate and calling around to find out prices (of which we could NOT afford right now due to an upcoming wedding we have to make it to this May), we finally struck a deal with her and her Aunt Analee that the next time she comes to visit us, she will bring us crab legs.  She seemed alright by this and then picked Outback Steakhouse. *gulp*

This year she wanted a "Sweet and Sassy" party.  There is this store for little girls to go and get makeovers, pedicures, have runway shows, shop, etc. etc.  The party girls even get a limo ride in the pink "Sweet and Sassy" limo.  The girls are in love with that dang store.  Anyway, after looking into their prices Spencer and I decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to subject her to that kind of venue??  ;)  Instead I made arrangements for a couple of my Young Women and a dear friend of mine to come to our house and we would have our own "Sweet and Sassy" party.  I think it went well.



CJ and Avary made the station signs.  We had a make up station, a nails station, a hair station, and then a photo booth where the girls could get their picture taken after their make over.  I had set up a little jewelery station that the girls could make their own jewelery while they waited to go to the next station.  It seemed like it went real well.  I was happy because CJ was happy how it turned out.  CJ's cake was in turn a "Glam" cake.  I had some fun with it and her eyes lit up when she saw it that morning.  She wanted a vanilla cake, but wanted it pink.  We settled for swirled pink.  She was fascinated with that one, tee hee.  She then had strawberry filling and cream cheese icing.  It turned out pretty good.

I love my CJ.  It breaks my heart that she is growing up so fast!

A Few Odds and Ends

CJ had a project for career day at school this last month for a "Wax Museum".  It was so stinkin' cute.  She memorized a little speech and made posters to post.  The career she chose was paleontology.  She did so good, we were so proud of her.  They had these red "buttons" (circles of paper) that said "Push for English".  When we push the "button" they start with their little speech.  I made a recording of her doing it, but you can't hear her because of all the kids doing their sh-peals. 

She is doing so much better in school.  Although she will be doing a month of summer school this year to keep her on track.  Her teacher is worried that she will slip during the summer.  Spencer and I think it is a good idea.

In other news, Reed is learning more tricks!  He likes to go up and down the stairs, climb on the couch, throw my phone and the remotes behind the couch, and he likes to crawl backwards.  It is pretty funny.



He is also starting to take his first steps!  It will be nice when he is walking, it is too easy to trip over him right now.



He is getting more and more brave everyday!