Coral Roses

Tonight was my last Fondant and Tiered Cakes class - here is my finale cake. The bottom layer is four batches of rice krispy treats, which, by the way, I LOVE working with. It was super easy to make it the perfect shape, and sticking the roses in was easier than the top layer, which is real cake. I made the fondant myself - it is marshmallow fondant that you make in your microwave. It tastes a thousand times better than the Wilton packaged fondant. The roses are fondant too - the whole thing is edible! Except for the toothpicks - OUCH. Anyway, my instructor was surprised at how my roses turned out and she kept saying how proud she was of me. I think I almost dare to do wedding cakes now, as long as they are simple like this. No five-tiered cakes with all kinds of string work and fountains. My next class starts next week - Fondant and Gum Paste.

Today was insane. I had the cake to do and I realized I needed more krispy treat to fill the pan this morning. HELLO - I had already gone through 5 bags of marshmallows between the fondant and the krispy treats. So I used some rainbow marshmallows I had in the pantry for the kids to make a little more, and the pan was finally full. Also a girl I visit teach had her baby the other day and I agreed to take dinner over today, not realizing what a hassle it would be to have dinner and a wedding cake (basically) ready by 5:30. So my standard of living was 'survive' today. Now I am finally sitting down. I keep sighing and Sean keeps asking what's wrong. It just feels good to be on my butt and off my feet!

Slideshow Below

Here is the fruit of my 4 lilac bushes for this year - but at least they bloomed!


Here are the Royal Icing flowers I made at my class last week. They aren't that impressive, but my second attempt was better than the first.


Here is Dodger Dog.


There is a slideshow below of our weekend in Richfield. We went down for my baby brother's high school graduation. So here are a few pictures of our fun! My grandpa having a tea party with my kids. It is so fun to see him with them. He was sitting on the bed at first for the tea party and then he moved into the kid chair, saying he wanted to get on Emma's level. I am so blessed to have my grandparents a part of my life. There happened to be a carnival in Richfield this weekend too, so we took the kids. The last picture of my girls is after they had stopped crying that they weren't getting a stuffed animal or cotton candy. We paid $20 for 30 tickets - which got the girls 3 rides and then the three of us a ride on the ferris wheel. I suppose we could blame the inflation of carnival tickets on gas prices? We went to Sandie's Drive Inn with my family (the Johnsons and Clarks) just before the carnival - that is a picture of my dad (Steve) holding Spencer. There is also a picture of my uncle Cory playing on the floor with the kids. On the way home we stopped at two graves (both grandmas of mine) to put flowers, and then we came home.

Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day. First I got to sleep in! Then Sean and the kids (okay, let's face it - just Sean) made breakfast burritos. My mom called to tell me Happy Mother's Day and Sean told her she needed to come for the day and stay for dinner. So it was an unexpected surprise to have her here. Then my friend Sarah came over for dinner, and Sean made us bbq chicken, pasta salad, and grilled zucchini on the bbq (which, by the way, was fabulous, and I don't think I'll ever eat regular old boring steamed zucchini again). Sean did a great job pampering me on mother's day, as he always has.




Here is the cake I made last night! I was scared to work with fondant but it is so easy. It doesn't taste as good as butter cream frosting, but it's better than a kick in the pants. I think next time I would put a regular thick layer of frosting on and then super thin fondant. (They tell you to put a thin layer of frosting on, and thicker fondant.)

And here are the fondant roses! They are super much easier than the icing ones, but don't taste as good, and I wasn't as proud of these as I was of my icing roses. It takes a lot more skill and technique to get the icing ones to look good. But these are easier!! I told Emma that by the time she gets married I will be ready to do wedding cakes. Hopefully.

The Caped Avenger

So Spencer has finally been christened into the girls' favorite pastime, DRESS UP. At least it's a cape and not a dress. Not yet, anyway. The girls said he is their prince. Now they don't have to take turns being the boy!

Here are the ladies in red, Mackenna and her friend Malary. Four-year-old playdates are so not as fun for me as six-year-old ones.


I had to take a picture of Spencer in this outfit; Emma wore it as a baby.




Today Emma came home bursting with excitement wanting to give me my mother's day present she made at school.

The flower is like a job wheel, with things like vacuuming, sweeping, setting the table, etc., and when I want her to do one of them I just tear off a petal and cash it in. She told me she made the petals blue because it is my favorite color. The pink book is a class cookbook. I opened it and read this poem. I only made it to the second line before I couldn't see through the tears.



I am on a total junk food run lately. This morning I made Amish Cinnamon Bread, and just now I got a mad hankering for brownies. My pants are fitting tighter. Dang it.

nothin' special

Not even any cute pictures. Just a couple tidbits from my day. Mackenna and Spencer have officially started fighting. Today Spencer was holding Kenna's pony house trying to heft it into the baby doll stroller, smacking Kenna with it in the face on the way. Our sweet four-year-old doesn't yet understand that his coordination isn't quite there yet, so she took it from him and hit him back with it. NICE. As if he hasn't been crying for 3 days anyways. He has a cold or something and is ornery as a bear after winter. On the upside he has decided he likes hot dogs again, but now, interestingly enough, has a newfound aversion to cup-o-noodles, which he used to eat at least once a day.

This may sound weird, but I was so thankful to actually get to sleep in this morning.....clear until 7. Our kids have always been early risers, but usually the girls play in their room when we wake up, and as long as they're quiet Spencer will sleep in a little longer. Since Dodger came to our family that is a thing of the past. As soon as he hears the first stirrings of life upstairs he starts yipping and yipping. He does sleep all the way through the night (sorry Heather!), so he needs to go potty first thing. It would be nice though, if he would go back in his kennel to sleep after! Since we got him we have been up between 6 and 6:30 every morning. This morning Sean left for work at 6. He took Dodger potty and put him back in his kennel, and I laid in bed half-tense, waiting for the onslaught of ankle-biter yips and yaps. I found myself praying, actually making a deal, that if I could just sleep until 7 I would be willing to do almost anything. I started to offer that I would not yell at my kids all day, and then I thought "get real". So I promised to try and stay positive and not let my mood get into that downhill plunge it takes so often, and also that I would spend 1:1 time with each of my kids today. So I read to Emma for a while today. I walked around the house with Kenna finding things that start with "J" for her sound box, and I put my book down (The Other Boleyn Girl)to hold Spencer, play peek-a-boo, and tickle him.

Tomorrow I get to start my next Wilton course, Fondant and Tiered Cakes!