'Tis the Season of Projects

Well, it's time again for projects to run amuck because Robert has begun harvest and it will not end until the end of October. So tonight at the drop of a hat, I decided to whip up some cupcakes and use my leftover fondant and gumpaste to decorate them for our RS president. This lady is so sweet to everyone and is crazy busy with ten children and a husband who has been having back problems on top of being president and I just thought it would be nice to express some thanks to this amazing woman for all she does! I learned a few things while doing this project and let me share them with you: #1 - the large circle cutter for my gumpaste/fondant class is NOT big enough to cover cupcakes. #2 - everything takes longer than you plan and #3 - sometimes it is the smallest thing that makes all the difference (in this case, the little flowers with the white centers added quite a punch for personality) Hope you all have a great weekend!!!

Fun & Fantabulous Cake!

Tonight was the last night for my Fondant and Gumpaste class at Michael's, so we were to bring a cake to complete using what we had learned throughout the course. Thankfully, my visiting teacher had her baby so I have someone to give a cake to, but I also had a specific purpose in mind to guide my creativity.

This is the cake I was going to do, but after getting the stripes and ball border done, I decided to take a different direction, especially since two other people in my class were doing the exact same cake! This baby is #6 in the family and the fifth girl and with the chunky ball border that reminds me of the Flinstones, I decided to go for a really cute little girly style instead of something so formal. Do you think I accomplished that? I really hope she likes the cake. I know I am really proud of my design and I am just bubbling with ideas for more cakes, I just need to fine more occasions/people to make them for so I can get better! :)

Friends to Play

Yesterday we had two friends, Fox and Adam, over to play - it was crazy to say the least to have three little boys runnng around attempting to share toys nicely! :)

Adam had to go around lunchtime, but Fox hung around a bit longer. It looks like they are asleep here, but they are actually just watching a movie to have some "quiet time", aka "mommy's sanity time" :)

I had to help Sam in the bathroom for a few minutes and when I came back, sweet little Fox had fallen asleep! He stayed there for almost two hours just sleeping like an angel. Sam, of course, fought me tooth and nail to go down for his nap, but eventually he went to sleep.

Family Visit

We had such a great visit with my family this weekend! On Saturday it was supposed to get up to 95, so we decided to head out to the splash park in Rexburg. At the splash park there is also a carousel that only costs $1 to ride, so after swimming the boys and Oma went for a spin.

Daniel always does crazy things when he knows you are taking a picture of him!

My little cowboy looking off into the sunset. I was so happy when he demanded to ride the horseys; last year I couldn't get him to stay on with me holding him.

Sammy loves his Opa!

Daniel and Matt were great at taking Sam on the splash park and down the slides. It was amazing that there were hardly any people there, but we enjoyed it!

Sam's favorite part of the park is this wheel that turns the water on and off. He would turn it on, come and tell me and then go back and turn it off and come tell me and on and on and on :)

Cake Craziness

I promised my Mom that if she came up to Idaho, I would make a cake special for her. Well, the family is here, so we have another cake. I like this one alot. I took some ideas from a cake in my class book and changed it up a little. The cake is french vanilla and has a raspberry jam filling. Then I tried out almond flavored icing, which I think of most of us liked alot, and went to town. I missed one class of the first course where we did these drop flowers, so I decided to give myself some good practice. All in all, a pretty good cake.
Yesterday we had fun playing with each other and the adults took turns going out to do their "fun stuff", which for the guys was fishing and for the women was lunch and shopping. Today is supposed to be super hot, so I'm thinking we will try to go swimming somewhere and then tonight all the adults are heading to Jackson Hole for the Bar J Wranglers dinner and comedy show, leaving the youngsters home with a sitter - should be a great day!

Baby Shower for Tasha

An idea I came up with since the shower was an open house, we didn't really have any games planned, but these questions were on the table to help if there was a lull in the party. But thankfully they were not needed - all of us were friends, neighbors or family.

The pre-party set up. I think it all flowed fairly well and the guests enjoyed the munchies.

My adorable little cupcakes turned out so fun and I was told were delicious, which is the most important part anyways. Although you need to be careful where you share your talents because now I have been volunteered to help with a YW activity teaching the Beehives some cake decorating skills. We'll have to see how that one goes.....

The welcoming table that turned out getting fairly ignored, but oh well. I had this set up so people could offer sentiments or advice in writing and then we would put it in a book for Tasha, but I think it would probably work better for a first-time mom who needs tons of advice.

Thanks to all those who came and made the party a success. And thanks to Tasha for allowing me to throw the party - we all enjoyed getting to celebrate your soon-to-be-new-arrival with you!

Gumpaste Flowers

Sorry this is a little out of focus, I had to turn off the flash so you could actually see the flowers and that of course just screws up everything else. These cute little daiseys are so fun, easy and quick - I just love them! And the green leaves just make them pop! These and the mums below are going on devil's food cupcakes filled with raspberry jam and frosted with chocolate buttercream for the baby shower I'm throwing tonight. The colors are baby blue, brown and cream, so I think it will go nicely!

And the fun mums. I realy like this sky blue color! The original plan was to make all mums for the cupcakes, but they take alot of time (six layers for each flower) and half of my bases broke on the way home from my cake class last night (argh!) The bases have to be made ahead of time and allowed to completely dry before doing the flower and then allowing the whole thing to completely dry, so I opted for the daiseys.

This is the diaper cake. I don't know how I feel about the stuff I got to put on the cake, but it is only my second one, so I'm still learning what works and what doesn't.

I thought I would share what my workspace looks like when I get out my stuff to work on gumpaste flowers minus the baby shower stuff in the back. Quite daunting, isn't it? This is exactly why I do it only when Sam is alseep, otherwise.......well, you can imagine! Tonight we are doing a baby shower for my good friend who only has three weeks left, yay! I'll post pictures probably tomorrow to show you how it all comes together, if I can get everything done! :) Have a good one!

You Just Gotta Laugh

Even though Sam has been potty trained for nearly two weeks, he is still struggling with the putting his underwear and shorts back on part. As frustrated as I am with him not able to grasp this concept, when he comes out of the bathroom looking like this, I can't help but just laugh!

Not only are his pants on completely backwards but he also can't seem to remember which way his underwear go on, so he ends up with them painfully on sideways and backwards with his waist in one leg hole and his legs out the other leg hole and the top. (And look how proud he is!) Hope this brightens your day just a little!

Gumpaste Flowers

Tonight we finished the rose, the carnation and did the calla lilly and I think I am the most satisfied with my rose. I love the color and it looks way better than my roses from the basics class. It just really bothers me that I couldn't get the middle covered completely, but the petal shapes look pretty good. More practice on these this week, though just to get it down nice and pat and to practice doing buds and smaller roses, too, I think.

To say the least, it was oobers of fun (and yes, oobers is a real word!)

Yeah, my carnation needs work, but that is why I have seven more bases to practice on this week - they are kind of an acquired skill is what our teacher talked about, but everyone else's looked fine, oh well.

K, don't ask me why the stupid camera wouldn't focus on the lilly, but oh well. This one turned out crummy because my gumpaste was too thick and also very dry, so I will attempt some more later this week and may post those for comparison. For my final in this class, I am thinking of doing a pastel color in fondant covering the cake with a pile of these on top, what do you think? Something to try that is simple, yet elegant.

For My Sister

Tonight we are hosting the monthly family dinner (at Elaine's house, though) and I decided to make a cake in honor of my older sister, Corinne's, birthday today. It is a white cake with homemade cream cheese frosting and fresh strawberries on top. We wish we could be with you today, Corinne! For dinner we are having a yummy tortellini casserole similar to lasagne with rolls/breadsticks and salad provided by the others attending, it should be yummy! Happy Birthday to Corinne and happy, restful sabath to everyone else!

Getting to that Stage in Life

Today I realized we are getting close to that stage in life with Sam when he will be starting to get into real trouble. Not the "it's not funny but it is" little kid trouble anymore, but bigger trouble. Let me share with you what I mean. Yesterday during dinner, he decided to try sticking a corn kernel up his nose as far as he could push it. This ordinarily would not be a problem, except no matter what or who tries, we cannot get him to blow his nose. Great! Then today when it came time for his nap, I discovered that he had locked his bedroom door and shut it, leaving him locked out of his room. Thus the fun is beginning.

Fourth Anniversary

Yesterday was our 4th anniversary. I cannot believe it has been that long already!! I remember when we used to think those who had been married for more than a year had been married for a LONG time! :) So it was a typical day with playing at the park with lots of fun friends and then I worked hard on making a nice cake and special dinner. But of course as all things important go, things fell through tremendously and I called Robert at 4:30 nearly in tears as I realized the ham I had bought for dinner was not already cooked like I had thought. But being my husband, he quickly came up with the solution that we would go out to dinner with Sam and then he and Sam would hang out during my two hour cake class and then we would go home. While I was in class, my boys went and picked out these gorgeous flowers for me because Robert knows how much I love flowers and how often he doesn't get them for me :)

The cake was kind of a disaster, too. I tried to use the frosting left over from our class last week, but it was old and gooey and I had already ripped off one border, so I decided to just leave it as was. The comforting thing about the stuff I make is even though it may look crazy/weird, at least it tastes fabulous, which was exactly the case with our cake. It is a two layer triple chocolate fudge with coconut pecan filling and chocolate buttercream on the outside.

And these are my little creations from my fondant/gumpaste class last night. It was really fun to start getting into completely, totally new stuff! There IS kleenex stuffed in my ribbon loops to help them dry open, so don't worry, those are coming out! Next to the bow on the spaghetti are the buds for a rose and a mum and the other frilly looking thing is the base for a carnation. We just did the buds and will finish them off next class.

Day Project

A friend of mine asked to have one of my boxes from when we got our new TV in March. When I asked her what she wanted with a long, skinny box she told me she had an idea for a bean bag toss for her son. On Saturday we had one of those random, not-very-often (thank goodness) shopping trips where we didn't have anything in particular we needed and we just went wherever. On this shopping trip we found an amazing deal on a great wheelbarrow.

Looking at the long, skinny and quite durable-looking box, I was reminded of my friend and thought "I can do that!" So at the store today, I found a cute blue remnant that was 50% off, making it less than a dollar and more than what I would need for my project (YES!!!) While Sam napped, I whipped up nine bean bags out of the bright blue fabric and when he woke up we spray-painted the box with some leftover from another project.

As you can see, Sam thoroughly enjoys his new game, although he has figured out how to cheat quite quickly! :) (see picture below) But at least it is something fun, new and cheap!! Plus he can play it outside or inside and I can play with him. I purposefully (or tried to) cut shapes as the openings so that hopefully we can start working on learning those soon!

In other news, we did go talk with the big boss and were given a raise - hooray!! It wasn't alot, but we were also offered to start on the short term bonus program, which most salary employees are not offered until their third year (we have been here for a little over a year and a half), so we have the chance to earn a bonus up to ten percent of our salary based on performance at the end of the year.