Valentine's Day

Since I took my cake decorating class in November, I've really wanted to practice and become good at cake decorating.  Good, useful skill.  So I made a cake for Valentine's Day.  

First - the inspiration:

Next, the results:
Not too bad, if I do say so myself.

Our family doesn't really love cake, so I wanted to make something that we would actually like to eat.  I went to Cake Central and looked up some recipes.  Many people talked about white almond sour cream cake, so I decided to give it a try.  Basically, it's a white cake mix with extra flour, sugar, egg whites, almond extract, and sour cream.  For the filling, I got some frozen strawberries that we picked this summer and added sugar and a thickening agent to make a gel.  And for the icing I used a cream cheese recipe.  I cooked it up in a 8" tall round pan.  I just bought this pan, and I *love* it!  You only have to cut one top layer off, so you get a taller cake.  Gorgeous.  I had a bit of trouble cooking it.  I cooked it for an hour like the cake pan said to, but it was still gooey in the middle, but perfect on top. I put aluminum foil on the top and cooked the cake for another 30 minutes before it was done.  I'm so glad it came out looking good.  

Then after it cooled, I cut off the top, torted it, put in the filling, and frosted the cake with pink icing.  Although I like the taste of the cream cheese icing, it is not a good decorating icing.  I had a hard time getting it stiff enough.  I think it was softening in the warm kitchen.  Plus, I could not get it smooth.  Again, just too moist.  I finally got it "good enough" and put it away for the night.

This morning I got ready to decorate it.  Again, the cream cheese icing was a failure.  I knew I couldn't make the roses with it, but I attempted the swirls.  There was only a short window of time that the icing was at the right consistency.  Then I'd have to put it in the refridgerator for a short while and work on it again.  But we got it done.

The roses were even more of a headache.  First, the icing was too thin.  So I had to dump it out of my bag and add more powdered sugar.  Then it was too stiff.  So I had to dump it out of my bag and add more water.  I finally got it down ok and made the roses and leaves.   I'm happy with the results, but boy, it was a lot of work!  Now I just hope it tastes good.

And as beautiful as my cake turned out, it could never match the beauty of my valentine's gift:

Aren't they beautiful?  A dozen white roses and 4 red roses (one for each child).  I have a great husband!

And now, in parting, a couple of pictures of Zachary.  James was playing with him and he was smiling, but I couldn't get him to smile for the camera.  Oh well, he's still darn cute!

This is what you get when you ask a boy who loves to read to set plates on the table.  Notice I said "plates", because he apparently didn't notice.

Just an update

I wanted to post some of our recent pictures.  Zachary was in his bed looking so sweet and peaceful, I thought I'd take some pictures. Unfortunately, by the time I got the camera, he started waking up.

Getting fussy....
Definitely fussy.
And a great big yawn.

Well, they're not the cute photos I was hoping for, but he's still darn cute!

And the basement is finally painted!
James has worked hard getting the walls taped and mudded.  It's painted in Belgian Cream -- that's fancy talk for white. :)  As much as I didn't want white walls, it just really looked the best.  Now we have to fix the carpet and put up and paint the trim, and the basement will be usable again!

Last night the girls wanted to sleep together.  So I took a picture of them before James moved Jessie back into her bed.

Why do we do it?

Children: The pain of pregnancy, labor, delivery, and recovery, the sleepless nights, the crying, the "will you please stop touching him!"s, the painful nursing, the emotional roller coaster.

And then the smile.

Priceless.

VOTE FOR ME!

Vote for me!  My friend Christy started a monthly craft challenge on her website christynelson.net. I was one of the lucky ones that got to do it this month. The challenge: she sends some materials, and you have to make something of them. So I was sent some fabric, cardstock, rubber bands, brads, embroidery string. Hmmm, I was stumped. But inspiration hit, when it usually does. At 3:00am, feeding Zachary, with nothing else to do but sit. That's where all my projects came to me when Eldon was a baby. Since then, I haven't had time to do any projects that come to mind at 3am, but I knew I had to finish this one.

So, here it is:

I must say that it was the fabric that inspired me. I wish I'd had more of it so that I could have a picture of each state. But I didn't, so there.

I started at 8:00 one night when the kids got to bed. I was going to see how long it took me to put together, but Erica kept getting out of bed, so it took longer than it should have. But I finished by 10:00, so it still didn't take too long.

First, I got some cardstock, cut it in quarters, and hot-glued some fabric around 2 pieces.

Then I cut the green cardstock (that came in the package) a bit smaller and hot-glued it on the backside of the fabric card I had just made.

Then I made the title plaque.

Poked holes for the brads.

Then came the rubber bands. In all my contemplating I couldn't figure out what to do with the rubber bands. After staring at it for a while, it hit me. I cut the rubber bands, then glued them around the title plaque. No one said the rubber bands had to be used like a rubber band.

I tried hot-glueing them, but they wouldn't stay in place, and the glue dried too fast to place them well. And my fingers got burned. And the glue oozed out the edges. So I peeled off the rubber bands and all the hot glue and tried a glue stick. I put generous amounts of glue on the fabric and on the rubber band. To my amazement, it worked.

I quartered some paper and punched holes at the top.

Then I threaded the embroidery thread through the covers and put it all together.

Ta Da!

So, now that you're so impressed, go and vote for me at http://christynelson.net/challenge.php! Or even if you're not impressed, go and vote for me! Tell your friends to vote for me. Tell strangers on the street to vote for me. Put fliers in local businesses. Whatever it takes. :)

A conversation

I swear, this could be a conversation between me and my son.

Erica's 6th Birthday

This is the cake that Erica wanted. I'm still not very good at centering the writing yet.


Erica wanted loops around the side. So I went online and had her pick out what exactly "loops" meant. This is what she picked - rosettes. Next time I might just pick something myself. They're not hard to do, but they're hard to do a lot of!


It was chocolate cake with chocolate icing, which is what Erica would want no matter how the cake was decorated. :)

Zachary

Just a few pictures to post of Zachary at 2 weeks old. We took him to the doctor today. He's still 20.5", but now he weighs 7# 13 oz, so he's grown about 1/2# since birth. As young as he is, he does smile occasionally. And not the gassy smile - although he does that too. But when he's looking at you, sometimes if you smile really big at him, he'll smile back. I was lucky to get this shot because I had just turned on the camera when he smiled. I clicked the button as fast as I could, so I'm glad it was on him and in focus. The smile was bigger than that, but the camera caught him as the smile was fading. The battery died before I could even take one more picture.