Wow!

Well, It's been over a year since the last time I posted anything and almost a year and a half since I was posting regularly. I have no excuse. I'm lazy and I should be shot. Ok, that last one is taking things a bit far, but seriously I used to love reading blogs and posting to mine, but I can't even remember the last blog I read. Oh wait, I lie. I was looking at Christine's blog yesterday for the first time in forever after getting a notification on facebook from her. But other than that I can't remember the last time I checked one of my fave blogs....

Oh well, here's one post and here's hoping that I can get back into the swing of things with both reading and posting.

I won't go into long boring details of my life in the last year, because I'd end up writing too much, then I'd get bored and never finish the post. Instead I'll tell you about my year in point form. Too bad I don't have time or I'd do a powerpoint presentation and load it up..... heyyy..... that's an idea! No, No, Bad Christine. If I do this in point form I might actually finish it.

• Olivia started kindergarten last September. She loved it for all of one day before she started asking if she could sleep for "just 5 more minutes". Though she does still love school, she just hates getting up.
  
• I started working in mid September as a teller at the Bank in my town. (no names mentioned here) I've been there for 10 months and I don't hate it yet. I think that's a record for me. :)
  
• I haven't stitched more than a few dozen stitches since I last posted an update on my stitching. I seem to have lost my stitching mojo.
  
• I have been making more cakes lately and I'm really enjoying that.
  
• We finally got Rachel potty trained after many many MANY months of false starts. She had no desire for the longest time and I'd have to force her to sit on the toilet, but she's finally good, though we still use pullups at bedtime. We're not completely done with diapers yet. Soon hopefully.
  
• Rachel is finally old enough (3) to farm her out to the grandparents for sleepovers! (Can I get a 'Booyah' here? - Sorry, too much Kim Possible!) and she's had a few of them recently.
  
• I've been to the funeral home twice for two different people in the last week, so it's been a fairly sad week overall.
  
• My DH, Jason lost over 50 pounds in the past year. He even came in first place in a "biggest loser" weight loss competition at his work and ended up winning $500.00 in gift cards.
  
• We used the $500.00 to go towards a big swingset/Jungle jym for the kids.
  
• We had a bear in the yard a few weeks ago, now I'm scared to let the kids go out to play on their new swingset.
  
• I, unfortunately, haven't lost 50 pounds. I haven't even lost 5 pounds. :(
  
• I'm very excited that Torchwood will be airing in Britian starting next week and I'm looking forward to watching the new adventures of Captain Jack Harkness and his band of merry men, (god I'm such a geek. lol) even if it is only 5 episodes.
  
• I think I actually cried when I found out David Tennant will be leaving Doctor Who. *sobs*
• We got a new kitty at the Fredericton SPCA a few months ago. He's doing great. He has to be the most patient cat in the world to put up with my kids. He's a big Orange Long Haired tabby. The kids named him Fluffy, though Rachel couldn't remember that for a while and kept calling him Fuzzy instead.

I'm reaching at this point to think of anything else, so I think I'll end with a few pictures of some of the cakes I've done since I last posted some.

Olivia's "Totally Spooktacular" 5th Birthday Cake

October 2008

We had a dressup Halloween party for Olivia's 5th birthday since she's so close to Halloween and she decided she wanted a "Witch Barbie" cake. I ended up having to special order the Barbie off of Ebay because apparently Mattel only makes the Halloween Witch Barbie for "Target" each year at Halloween ... So, since there are no Target stores in Canada I paid WAY too much for the doll on Ebay.

Here is the second cake I made for Olivia's birthday. We rented the Bowling Alley and invited pretty much the entire class to the party and I didn't know for sure how many would show up so I made a second cake in case the first one wasn't enough for all the kids and parents who were there. I ended up taking 3/4 of it home. lol.

Rachel's "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" 3rd Birthday Cake

April 2009

This was Rachel's 3rd Birthday cake. She wanted a "Somewhere over the Rainbow" party. Do you know how freaking hard it is to do "Somewhere over the Rainbow" that has nothing to do with Wizard of Oz? HARD!

I managed to find items in rainbow colours instead of actual rainbow stuff for the most part. The rainbow on the cake is made of Royal Icing made several days in advance, the border is Smarties. (I had a huge bowl of pink and brown ones left over afterwards.) The rest of the cake is just blue buttercream icing and white buttercream icing.

But then look what the inside looks like!

This was pretty neat. Find the tutorial here.

I had taken the rainbow off the top of the cake when I was cutting it and I put it back on to take this picture of the inside. I didn't realize until later that day that it was on backwards with the broken side of the rainbow showing instead of the good side.

Johnny's "John Deere" 60th Birthday Cake

June 2009

My most recent cake was a John Deere cake for my Father-in-Law's 60th Birthday. This one is just plain Buttercream and a printed John Deere logo that I cut out and traced onto the white buttercream with a toothpick. I then filled it in with a #16 star tip and yellow and green buttercream icing I coloured myself. It came out pretty good except for the little wow in the front of the cake where it's not quite even.

Well, that's all for now. Hopefully this won't be the last you hear from me for another year.

(Side note: it's been over a year and I see Blogger still has the freaky formatting problems that drive me completely batty. I've already had to stop myself three times from throwing my mouse against the wall when trying to get the post looking right after I uploaded my pictures.)

Cakes and Cake Wrecks

My aunt sent me a link today to what has to be one of the funniest sites I've seen in a while. Maybe it's so funny to me because I've been doing more cake decorating of late than I have been stitching. It's a blog dedicated to finding the worst of the worst in PROFESSIONAL cakes out there. This doesn't count cakes that Moms like me make for their kids, but ones that people actually PAY professional cake decorators for. OMG I can't believe what some people will try to charge people money for. it's AWFUL!

Anyway, if you want to check it out it's called Cake Wrecks and the address is http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

Speaking of cakes I realize that I haven't posted anything much since January when I put up a picture of Rickey's cake. So, I've missed putting up Rachel's 2nd birthday cake and the Bridal shower cake I did for my friend Bridget just the other day. So, here are a few pics.

First, here's Rachel's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Birthday cake the morning of her birthday party before the kids got up. On top of the cake it says Happy 2nd Birthday Rachel in my in my "Oh-So-Awesome Icing Cursive"(TM).

The cake itself is a simple slab cake for the bottom layer. It's iced with plain buttercream icing tinted green, but I forgot that I had bought some green color spray so I wouldn't have to tint the icing. I decided to be smart and spray it over top of the original green anyway- since I had already bought the color spray and didn't want to waste it. *lol* (This will come back into play later in the story. )

The red dome for the clubhouse is made using half of the Wilton's Sports Ball Cake pan and covered in red marshmallow fondant. (known as MMF from now on)

The foot is shaped using yellow MMF and the hand is shaped using plain white MMF. The fingers were stuck on using toothpicks and laid flat to dry for several days. The black arm, leg and neck are made using a length of PVC pipe (bought at the local cake store(*1)) which was inserted into the hand/leg/head and then covered with black MMF for an inch or two below that point. I left enough PVC at the bottom for the head and hand that the PVC goes all the way down to the cake board for extra support.

The Head was made of three styrofoam balls (one 6" ball and two 4" balls) found in the floral section at Walmart and painted black. Here's a tip, don't try and use spray paint on styrofoam. It WILL melt the styrofoam. I found this out first hand two days before the party with no trips planned to go to Fredericton so I could get replacement foam balls. Luckily I always plan my kids parties for Sunday afternoons so that way everyone still has their Saturdays to do their normal running around, so I got my father in law to pick up a new 6" styrofoam ball (the last one in the store!!) and a small can of glossy black paint so I could paint a new one before the party on Sunday.

The fence is yellow MMF rolled out and then cut with a curved top using my pizza roller. The gate is just white with some yellow 'snakes'(*2) on top and then a little curve cut out of the top with my apple corer. Yes, I said apple corer... I also used it to cut the MMF circles that I used on Janice's birthday cake back in January.

I then tinted a small amount of MMF blue and made some windows using the blue fondant and a few black fondant 'snakes'. I also used the black to make the door frame and a small door knob.

*1 Note: I have no idea if there is a difference between PVC pipe you'd buy at the hardware store and the stuff sold for use in food, but just to be on the safe side I'd stick with stuff that you find marketed especially for food rather than take any chances.

*2 Snakes refer to when you used to play with Play-doh as a kid (or as an adult with your own kids) and would roll out the dough in your hands and make a long squiggly snake.

Here's a picture of the same cake at the party. Notice that it only says "Happy Birthday" instead of the original "Happy 2nd Birthday Rachel"??

Well I had forgotten that we had gone to the Disney Store the last time we were in Moncton and bought the small plastic Mickey Mouse Clubhouse figureines to put on top of the cake. Anyway when it came time to put them on there wasn't enough room for the figurines and the two candles, so I had to scrape the "2nd" and "Rachel" off the cake.

Now this wouldn't have been so bad, but remember my smart idea to use the green color spray on top of the grass? (even though I didn't need it) Well, the icing from the lettering dampened the color spray underneath it and when I took the lettering off, it took the extra green off as well, leaving the original green color of the icing underneath it. lol. I had to do a lot of frigging to get it looking half decent again. You can't really see anything wrong in this picture but in real life you could still see the lighter colour where the letters had been. Or, rather, I could still see it. I don't know if anyone else noticed it or if I only saw it because I knew it was there.

Oh, stop making fun of me... you know you do the same thing too!

In case you've never seen Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, here's a picture from the Disney Website that I scammed so I could make sure it looked fairly close. The only thing I left off was the blue slide on the side of the clubhouse.

Here's a more recent cake I did. It's a wedding shower cake I did for my friend Bridget just last weekend. It's done with white MMF and sage green icing (I used Wilton's Concentrated Paste in Juniper to dye it this colour) and a sage green ribbon I found at Walmart. The topping is just three roses I got at my local flower shop and arranged into a small glass votive holder that I then sunk into the top of the cake.

The cake was a 10" cake (3" deep) for the bottom layer and then 3 regular 8" cakes for the top layer. (It was Marble Cake per the bride's request)

Anyway, Hopefully I can get back into posting again, and it won't be nearly so long until my next post as it has been since my last one. (I don't actually count the "Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" post as an actual post... It's just a "go here before it's too late and you can't see it for free anymore" kind of post.)

Happy Birthday (party) Rickey

Today is my step-father's birthday. Well, not his birthday, that's not until Tuesday, but today WAS his birthday party. Mmmm... Turkey supper with all the fixins. Gotta love a FREE turkey supper.

Here was my contribution to the celebration. This "Maple Leafs" Birthday Cake!

Rickey is a HUGE Leafs fan, and has a rather large collection of Leafs memorabilia, most of which NEVER EVER gets used. The two coffee cups with the Leafs logos on them that we gave him for Christmas several years ago sit on a shelf in the kitchen. He won't use them. The Zippo lighter with the Leafs logo that my Mom got him for Christmas one year isn't even out of the package, and the rest is the same. So, when we walked in today with this cake he was pleasantly surprised, expecting just a plain Chocolate cake with chocolate icing. But he then proceeded to tell me that he loves it but "we can't eat it!" Lol. Well, too bad, there were four little kids running around that put a stop to THAT idea rather quickly.

Happy 4th Birthday Olivia!

I started this post on October 24th, but things have been pretty hectic lately and so here I am over a week later, finally getting around to putting up pictures from Olivia's Birthday, and in the next post some Halloween ones as well.

Here are a few pictures from Olivia's Strawberry Shortcake themed 4th birthday party.

"The Birthday Girl" Olivia

"Little Sister" Rachel

Getting ready to blow out the candles on her Strawberry Shortcake Hat cake.

(Yes, I made the hat myself *Tadaa*)

A close up of the cake before I put the candles on it.

The cake was made using a 9" round pan and half of Wilton's sports ball pan. I used regular icing from a jar and coloured it pink. The strawberries I made a few days ahead using Royal Icing (I got the recipe from the Wilton website) The red ribbon around the hat is just red fruit by the foot and the green ribbon is a real ribbon made into a bow.

Olivia and her party guests eating cake and ice cream.

Rachel eating cake and "i-beem". (that's what she calls Ice cream)

Rachel and Grammy (my mom) cuddling. I love this shot!

Olivia opening her presents.

A video of everyone singing Happy Birthday to Olivia.

Rachel's Birthday Pictures

I just realized when I was going through my old posts that I never had a post with the pictures from Rachel's First Birthday party (and my 30th *shhh*) So, even though it's a little late, here they are.

Here are a few pictures of Birthday Girl #1

Here we are opening up some of Rachel's many presents. She was so excited!

Here is Birthday Girl #2 (me) with Olivia and the present she gave me. (One of the Willow Tree figurines I collect -- this one is "Mommy and Big Sister" according to Olivia. I've already got "Mommy and Baby" and "Mommy and Daddy Dancing". Strange, I can't remember the actual names of them, only the names that Olivia gave them.

Here's Rachel helping clean up after the presents were opened.

Here's a picture of Rachel's first birthday cake. (With her little "smash cake" on the right.) I finished making it late the night before. I made the decorations from Royal Icing the week before.

And here are several pictures of Rachel eating her little cake.

Life and Wildlife

My blogging has been woefully absent of late, but blame it on the life altering internet revolution called Facebook, or as some call it "Crackbook" becasue it's (apparently) as addicting as crack.

I wouldn't know about the crack part, but Facebook is damn addicting I will admit that. Most of my internet browsing time has been taken up with searching around Facebook randomly. Checking out who is friends with who etc etc. But I was reminded today about my lack of posting on the blog when I was talking to my Aunt C on the phone. She reminded me that I haven't posted since April 6th, so I thought I'd better get my chubby little butt in gear and do a post.

I'm sick... again. We're all sick in fact. Everyone except Jason. Lucky bugger has dodged the flu/cold every time it hit our house this winter. Mind you it might be because he's the only one in the house who had a flu shot, but I gloss over that fact when I'm complaining about always being sick this winter. lol Hey, I'm a woman it's my perogerative. :)

Rachel's (and my) birthday party is coming up Sunday and Olivia has a Dance rehearsal and recital on Friday and Saturday respectively, so it's going to be a damn busy weekend. Not like this week leading up to it will be any less stressful. I'm making hand made Royal Icing decorations for Rachel's cake as well as the cake itself, and possibly some cookies too. We'll be cleaning and decorating for a first birthday, and to top it all off we've decided to paint the kitchen this week. As if we don't have enough else to do. lol. All this while Mommy and the two kidlets are sick! Not a fun time, let me tell you.

Yesterday I saw something I've never seen before. I've seen pictures, but never in person. Living quite close by our house is an Albino deer! They were in our backyard yesterday morning and I got a few shots through the window, but they mostly sucked because I've only got a 3x zoom on my camera and it was just far enough away in the woods that I couldn't focus very well on it. There was the Albino and 3 or 4 other "normal" deer wandering around looking for food.

At first I just assumed that they were just wandering by because we've never really seen a lot of deer in our area before. I mean I live with the woods all around me, so I know there's probably a few in there, but I just assumed because (not far) behind our house are a bunch of old clear cut coal mines, that the deer had gone to "greener pastures" so to speak. But today, just around dusk, Jason came to me and said that all the deer, including the Albino, were back. They were standing in our front yard looking for food when he opened the door to put out a garbage bag and they all took off running. I opened the living room blinds and one of the other deer was still there eating the little bit of our lawn stayed green(ish) over the winter. So off I ran to get my trusty (sucky) camera. I went to the side door, where I could easily see him and opened the window on the door to get a better shot. I set up my tripod and turned off the flash and got a couple of pretty good shots. Not professional by any means, but not bad.

Here they are:

The top two pictures are yesterday morning. You can see a white blur with some brown spots on it, That my friends is an Albino deer! and just to the right of it is another deer behind the tree.

The next four pictures are tonight out my side window. When I came to the window, he/she stood and stared right at me for a few minutes before (s)he went back to business. There's a few pictures of him/her grazing away in our front yard not 50 feet from our car. Then the last picture is one of it darting off into the bushes when an especially loud transport truck drove by our house. Hopefully they come back and I can get a few good pictures of the Albino to show.

Happy Birthday Olivia!

This really should have been Monday's post, considering it was her birthday, but I got distracted. We were actually quite busy all afternoon and evening.

My little girl is 3 years old. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. She's turning into a such a girl. I still think of her as a baby most days, but it's just not true any more, and it makes me want to cry.

We had her birthday party on Sunday with several kids around the same age attending. Before, we've always had family parties with only one or two friends her age attending, but this year only the grandparents were invited for family, the rest were her friends and their mothers. Including Olivia there were 8 children at the party (not counting the two babies that didn't really participate, Rachel and another baby just 2 months old.)

Here are a few pictures from the day, including the Max cake that I made.(from the Nick Jr. cartoon Max & Ruby) I've included the picture I worked from so those of you who don't know what Max is supposed to look like can see that too. ( Just realized as I uploaded this picture that I forgot to add max's Whiskers to the cake. I realize that's probably what was bothering me all this time about how it looked.)

Here's Olivia waiting for me to relight her candle so she can blow it out. As soon as I reached the table as we were singing Happy Birthday, Jenna jumped up and blew out her candle before I even had the cake on the table. *lol* I had to relight so Olivia could blow it out.

Here's a picture of Rachel and Grammy.

More pictures to come later. Real life calls...

Birthday Pictures

Here are a few pictures form Mom's birthday Supper.
Olivia and Mom are both blowing out the candles on Mom's super fabulous Strawberry Cake!!

Strawberry Cake... Yum!

Well, Tomorrow is my mom's birthday. (I won't disclose her age, though it's much younger than many of you out there are probably thinking, considering she's got a 28 year old daughter.)

Anyway, we're having her and Rickey (her bf) over for supper. Nothing fancy, just Homemade Pizza. But I'm also making her birthday cake. I make a (from scratch) Strawberry cake that is just to die for!!!

So I stopped at the store and picked up some fresh strawberries on the way home from her house this morning. I've got one baggie full of frozen berries from last summer which works fine considering they need to be mashed anyway. I just make sure to drain off the excess juice that comes with thawing them. But I like to have fresh berries to decorate the cake with.

If anyone is interested, I thought I'd post the recipe here for all to enjoy:

Fresh Strawberry Cake

1/2 cup butter or margarine (softened)
1-1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsp sour cream
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup mashed strawberries
1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
250ml Nutri whip

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x13" baking pan. (I use 2-8" round cake pans instead.)

In a large bowl, cream together 1/2 cup butter and the white sugar. Add the eggs and beat for 1 min. Stir in vanilla and salt then add flour.

In a small bowl, stir together the sour cream and the baking soda till the soda is dissolved. Add small bowl to the large bowl and beat well. Stir in mashed berries.

Pour the batter into prepared pan and bake for 30 or until top springs back when lightly touched. Let cake cool then completely.

ICING: whip nutri whip per package directions until peaks form, then add icing sugar and whip another minute or so.

TIP: I also mash and use any extra strawberries I have and mix them in with the Nutriwhip Icing. It gives a MUCH stronger strawberry flavour. I only tried this the last time I made it, but I absolutely loved it!! If you decide not to do that, you can add a drop or two of red food colouring to my icing to give a pretty pink colour. I also slice fresh strawberries in 1/2,1/4 and 1/8 and decorate the cake with them, makes it look and taste delicious.

YUMMY, YUMMY, Enjoy!

(I'll try and remember to take a pic of it once I've made it and I'll post the pic here as well)