Busy, Busy, Busy!

I am still furiously working on that sock. And then, of course I still have to knit the other one--which is the problem with socks...you have to make TWO! And I'm not yet finished with the scarf, and I haven't started the hat, AND I've decided that a beret would be an excellent gift for a birthday party that the girl is going to on Sunday (they are quick and easy...really, they are). Oh yeah, and I'll need to be educating the children too. In other words, I'm a tad swamped over here--or buried beneath a pile of yarn--whatever.

So I thought I'd just post some pictures of things you all missed while I was, um, NOT blogging.

I knit my very first cardigan! Believe it or not, I made it for MYSELF! If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you may be able to see that on the yoke are two little longhorns knit right into the fabric. I found out how to put designs into the fabric like this while browsing through a book, so I plotted some longhorns on graph paper and added them to my sweater...they just seemed to belong on a burnt orange cardigan. :)




I also designed my first ballet shrug. It is seamless with thumb holes so even the hands can stay warm in when it's cold in the studio. I also knit a matching hat with a ponytail hole in it. This design was something I saw on one of my knitting programs on DIY network, but I added the ponytail hole.

And because I know you miss the cake pictures....I made a few cakes! I'm not going to post all that I did over the past 6 months, but I did do another wedding, and the cakes were rather unique.

The bride's cake was 4 tiers of alternating flavors--vanilla and chocolate. Yum!For the groom's cake, all I was told was to put a motorcycle on it. So I came up with this. I found a bride and groom cake topper with no heads, and I made helmets out of fondant and gumpaste. Then I made a "Just Married" sign for the back of the motorcycle (which you can't see in this picture) and tied little tiny Coca-Cola cans to the back.

The cake was Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Buttercream icing....DOUBLE YUM!!!!!

Now, I'm off to finish a sock...oh, and teach the kids some stuff!

I Actually Baked a Cake...Imagine That!

Not the best picture of it, but I made this for a pink and brown baby shower. Couldn't get all fancy because it is my famous "Margarita Cake" and the icing on that particular cake is all light and fluffy and can't be manipulated like buttercream or fondant. The bow I made out of chocolate fondant and gumpaste, and the ladybugs and butterflies are gumpaste that I molded and then painted pink and brown. And now I must go clean up the giant mess I made while baking and decorating said cake!

Hey There, Remember Me?

Well hello there strangers! I know, I know, I've been MIA for a month! When I last posted, I told you we were all sick over here. We were sick for 2 weeks! BLAH! Then, once we started to feel better, I was spending all my time trying to catch up on schoolwork and housework around here. Then just as I began to see a light at the end of the tunnel, we got hit with another virus...UGH!I'm telling you, my kids are rarely sick, and never for more than a day or two, but this winter has been awful! I know there's a lot going around, but good grief!
Anyway, I decided it was time to at least poke my head in over here and check in with everyone.
Besides being sick, we have been extremely busy around here since Christmas. I've drastically cut back on the number of cakes I'm doing because life was getting out of control, but I did do this one for my church friend's 40th birthday surprise party. She loves flowers, so I was able to put to use that gumpaste flower class I took 2 years ago. :) Unfortunately, this was right after I had burned my thumb and I found it really difficult to form the roses, so there aren't nearly as many on here as I would have liked.

I made another cake for a wedding shower during this time, but I don't have that picture on this computer, so I'll have to post that another time.
Both the girl and the #2 boy had birthdays at the end of January, and while the boy wanted nothing special, and no fancy cake, the girl had other ideas! She had her first-ever sleepover party with two of her friends.


There was lots and LOTS of Disney's Sing It on the Wii.

After they were all sung-out, they all got in their jammies with popcorn and their new Knifty Knitters (party gifts) and watched The Game Plan.

And of course, there was cake. Mmmm, chocolate microphone!

And then, in my spare time...lol...I've taken up knitting! It started as a way to avoid snacking while I watched tv with the family, and has ended up a passion. I started with hats due to the fact that the girl and I needed stocking hats with ponytail holes in them. I mean really, have you ever tried to wear a stocking hat with a ponytail...it looks like a tumor growing out of the back of your head! So I made a few hats and scarves, and then I made a couple of shoulder shrugs for the girl. Then, I got an invitation to a baby shower and decided to try and make my first baby blanket. I've got to find out how to take those really good pictures that show the detail of the stitches, but for now...here you go.
And that should pretty much catch you all up on life around here lately. We are heading toward the Spring Dance Recital for the girl, and she will dance 10 times in this year's recital! So that's going to be a blast, and the boys are off this weekend for another motorcycle event. They all got trophies at the last one, so the year has started off well for all of our extra-curriculars...now if we could just quit getting sick...2010 will be a MUCH better year!

Once Upon a Time, in a Galaxy Far, Far, Away...I Baked a Cake

R2D2 is vanilla cake with Rice Krispie Treat Legs and everything is covered in a mixture of Fondant and Modelling Chocolate, and painted with petal dust and finally steamed to make it all nice and shiny! :)

The response when I delivered it? "Wow, it's so much better than I expected!" Which is what I like to hear! It's so much better than, "Wow, I expected it to be better than that!" :)

Babies and Cakes...What More Could You Ask For?

A few weeks ago, I was asked to make a birthday cake for a girl turning 16. She was getting her driver's license and a new car for her birthday, so we decided on a driver's license cake for her.

I obviously had to cover up her personal information, but I wanted you to see the cake. :) I copied as much of the detail of my own license as I could do with icing to make it as authentic as possible. The funny thing was, on my way home from delivering the cake, I stopped by the mailbox, and my new license was waiting for me... it is completely different from the old one, so her brand new license looks nothing like the cake I made! Fortunately, I don't think she has hers yet, so hopefully, her dad still has the old one, and that was her point of reference also. :)
[Besides, the new format wouldn't have looked as good as a cake!]


This past Wednesday was a very busy day. I made a cake for our church's youth group "Holly"ween party. Every year they do some sort of themed party and all the youth have to dress according to that theme. This year it was a Hollywood theme as well as a murder mystery night. So, the cake order was for an elegant cake with a Hollywood/Movies theme. I got the idea from a cake I saw online, but I changed it up and added pictures of the youth group during some of their mission trips to the film reel that is unwinding around the cake. The entire thing was edible. The film reel was cake and gumpaste, the film was chocolate, and the cake was a black and white cake--each tier being one layer of chocolate and one of vanilla.


And while I was making the "Holly"ween cake, my niece was having her baby. Now, when you consider that she's been working on that new little grand-niece for the past nine months, that obviously took longer....but when you just look at the labor part, the cake took longer than the labor....by several hours. Obviously, I'd rather be decorating a cake than being in labor, but I must admit, that when I was all finished and the cake was delivered, all I was left with was a dirty kitchen and a pile of dishes. Alyssa, got this...

I think she wins.

It Was a Beautiful Wedding...

...the bride's colors were a lovely shade of aqua blue with hot pink accents. All the bridesmaids were dressed in aqua blue strapless dresses with a wide hot pink band at the empire waist level. The accent tables were covered in aqua blue with a wide hot pink band around the top. The tables that had white cloths had hot pink roses on them.

And this is the groom's cake she had me make...

That's right, a red and black Texas Tech themed cake! Fortunately, she did use white rose petals on this table so there was no immediate clashing going on. :) (You can click on the picture to enlarge it if you need to.)

The original idea came to me because she was planning to decorate the groom's table with pictures of she and her man at Texas Tech University...where they met...and fell in love. She thought that a Texas Tech cake in the center would be fitting. But, she wanted cake for 75 people, and seriously, I love my niece, but a Texas Tech cake that big goes against every Longhorn bone in my body. :) So I came up with the idea of making a Texas Tech yearbook, and adding photos of the two of them in the yearbook...that way, all I had to do was put a little Texas Tech logo in the corner--it gets the point across without being too offensive. :)

So, she sent several photos for me to choose from, and I picked what would fit on the cake, and that I could come up with catchy-yearbooky-phrases for.

It really was a beautiful wedding, and the bride was gorgeous. I'll try to post more pictures from the wedding later in the week, but the girl is out of dance class now, so I've got to get home and get supper on the stove for the family.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you all about "The Great Christmas Bowl"...

Surprise...Another Cake!

I have 2 friends at church, who I actually met when I was about 11 or 12 years old, but we became reacquainted recently when they began coming to the same church I attend.

Anyway, the husband is an amazing artist and he makes the most magnificent banners for our church sanctuary. So when his wife called and asked me to make his birthday cake, I knew it was going to have to be something different than I've ever done before.

We knew he'd like a cross and lots of bright colors, but as far as a design, there was no plan. I remembered in the back of my head that I had seen a cross cake done in what looked like stained glass before, and I thought that might be a good way to use all those bright colors without using flowers and other "frou-frou" decorations.

When I mentioned the idea to his wife, she told me that he actually MAKES STAINED GLASS items himself! Can you say, "PERFECT!"?

So, I hit the internet looking for a picture to use as an example to get me started, and I came up with this design.
The cake itself is red velvet with a bright white buttercream icing. The "glass panes" are made with colored piping gel and outlined with black buttercream mixed with silver petal dust. The bright white buttercream allows the gel colors to remain pure rather than cloudy or muted. I piped the "beads" with the bright white buttercream mixed with an edible pearl glaze to help them stand out just a bit. The scroll work was also done with this mixture. The dove is painted in black buttercream on a fondant disk that was allowed to dry until firm.

Oh, and pay no attention to the dates on these pictures...my son changed the batteries in the camera for me, and I forgot to tell him he'd need to reset the date! I only just noticed that when I posted the picture! :)

Another Diaper Bag Cake

Are you getting sick of cake posts yet?

Well, I actually have a couple of different things I want to post, BUT this has been a crazy weekend full of activities, so I just popped in today to post a picture real quick for those who had asked to see this cake.

Two years ago I made a diaper bag cake, and I was fairly happy with it. Not completely, but I thought it turned out pretty good. But when I made that cake, it was for a baby shower I was attending, so I just purchased a baby bottle and a few toys to stick in the bag and those were part of my gift to the expectant mom.

This year, I didn't know the mom, and was not attending the shower, so I decided to make all the toys and baby bottle edible. (Don't get too excited, I use molds for most of it, and just paint on details. I'm not very good with scuplting things!) :-) This time I was much happier with the final result.

The cake itself is french vanilla with buttercream filling. (I stay away from the fruit fillings with cakes that are stacked like this as they tend to slide around when they get tall like this.)




Next time I promise to post the goodness that is Vidalia Onion Casserole! Yummm.....

Virtue is En Vogue!

Last year my friend Linda got me involved in making cakes for the annual Virtue En Vogue Event that is put on by Vicki Courtney's Virtuous Reality Ministry. Last time, if you recall, I made this "fashion show" cake with real working lights along the red carpet.


Last year, however, they had an additional 150 people buy tickets at the door, and they ran out of desserts! And no, I was not the only one bringing desserts, I was merely one cog in a machine of bakeries and organizations and individuals that were all donating. So this year, when they were again asking for volunteers to donate desserts, I enlisted the help of my local cake supply/bakery All in One Bake Shop and they were nice enough to donate 100 cupcakes to the cause. I also asked my friend from church if she would help out since she is also a cake baker, and is known throughout our church for her yummy cake balls. She jumped on the band wagon, and along with other volunteers/bakeries we had plenty of desserts for the almost 500 guests this year!

And since my daughter was old enough to attend the event this year, she and I took our daughters with us and we all had a great time!

My struggle this year was in trying to decide what to make for the display cake. Last year, I made the above cake for the main table and then just made plain cakes to be sliced and served and therefore didn't require any fancy decorating. My inspiration for this year's cake came straight from the flyer promoting the event.

I decided to make this girl standing on top of a simple 2 tiered white cake with pink lettering.
I made her out of gumpaste that I colored black and then used pink icing to make her waistband and black icing to add dimesion. I totally forgot my camera, so I had to take this one with my phone, but hopefully, you'll get the idea!


We all had a great time at the event, and are looking forward to next year....but I think I need to start thinking now about an idea for NEXT year's cake now!

If you want to know more about this annual mother/daughter event, you can check out Vicki's Blog, Virtue Alert.

Hi Vanessa!

Hello there everyone, and especially Vanessa (because she told me last night that she clicks over here every day, and I never write anything any more)!

Well at least I've been productive while I was gone this time...

Here are my latest 3 cakes, and believe it or not, I have more coming up! So, if nothing else, at least I'll have cake pictures to post! :)

This one was for my great-nephew's 2nd Birthday...He's a big fan of "Wow Wow Wubbzy" (and after doing my research for the cake, so is my little Dave!) It's a little tough to see from this picture, but the reason there is only 1 candle on the cake that is on the cake (confused much?) is that the pink bunny, Widget is holding the second candle and is about to add it to the cake....just wanted to make that clear. :)

As for the particulars square cakes on the bottom are chocolate, the circular cake is white chocolate, the whole thing is covered in buttercream and then covered in fondant. The Wubbzy and the "kickety kick ball" on the top were formed out of rice cereal treats and then covered with a combination of fondant and modeling chocolate.


This is just a white chocolate cake with raspberry filling covered in fondant with a chocolate fondant bow for a friend's baby shower. Sorry, I took the picture before I brushed off the extra powdered sugar off the bow...I'm a true professional aren't I? :)


And finally, this was a chocolate cake with raspberry filling and iced in buttercream. The butterflies and dragonflies I made out of gumpaste and then painted with food coloring mixed with lemon extract. It's hard to see in a 2D picture, but they were all on sticks, so they stuck up from the top of the cake as though they were flying above it.

And that's it for now. It's been a long week, and another long day tomorrow, so I'm heading off to bed for now. But hopefully, I made Vanessa smile when she clicked on here today! :)

I Have No Title Ideas....

***Update: I wanted to stop in and let you all know that my surgery will be this Thursday at 8:00am...ugh! I know I'll be miserable for awhile when it's all done, but I'm looking forward to feeling better soon!***

I just wanted to stop in and explain to you all why it is that I'm not here...this time. :)

As you recall, I mentioned that I do have some kidney stones, and the doctor told me that he would remove them when they started causing problems. Well, they are now causing problems....sigh. I'll be calling the doctor this week to try to set up the surgery, and of course, I'll update you all when that happens, but in the meantime, when I'm not feeling too sick to get out of bed, I have lots of things to do around here. When I'm sick, things get out of control, so when I'm feeling better, I have to spend my time catching up! When I'm stone-free and have reclaimed my house, and my kids' schoolwork, I'll be back.

In the meantime...I did manage to make a couple of cakes that were already scheduled before the sickness started.

This one was for a First Communion...duh!
And this one was for a high school graduation. It was supposed to represent all the things that he really enjoys...reading Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, writing with an old fashioned pen and ink, and on the paper is a favorite Tolkien quote. The ink and pen are chocolate, and the books are chocolate cake and fondant. The paper is rice paper...so the entire thing was edible. This was one of the most fun cakes I've gotten to do so far.
Okay, that's it for now. I'll be in and out with updates over the next few weeks, and then hopefully I'll be all better and back to my normal bloggy self! :)
And this

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

I really cannot think of a title for this post, so I went back to what I learned from Mary Poppins, "So when the cat has got your tongue, there's no need to dismay, just summon up this word and then you've got a lot to say! But better use it carefully or it can change your life..."

I don't think anything life changing is going to happen, but hey, I have a blog-post title where I had none before!

Have you ever walked into say, your kids' room, and the chaos was so great that you didn't know where to start? That's where I am with this post. I've been out of it for so long, I'm not quite sure how to jump back in...

So, I thought, I'd get back to the basics...the cakes! Part of the reason that I've been in and out so much (mostly out) over the past two months is the number of cakes and cookies that I've done for my friends and family. Baking and decorating all of them and then trying to keep up with the homeschooling and general life activities around here, didn't leave me much time to stop by and chat with you...much less post pictures. So I have come here today to do just that. Post pictures. It's a small step, but it's a step nonetheless. May the drooling begin!


I made 2 dozen of these cookies for my nephew's birthday. My niece called and wanted cookies for him, and she said "All he cares about is bowling, can you do bowling cookies?" So, here you go...bowling cookies.

Then, one of my favorite kids (whom I did NOT give birth to) was turning 6 and wanted a football cake. You can't tell from this picture, but the chocolate fondant was textured to look like an actual leather football. :) (By the way, the reason I like him so much is that he said I'm still pretty skinny for being so old!)

Another friend of mine had a brother getting married again, and he asked if I would make a small cake for a wedding at his house on Valentines day.



A few weeks ago, I was asked to recreate a baby shower cake I had made previously for a baby boy shower...but this time for a girl. I never like to do the same cake twice, so I did change it up a bit with some ideas I got at the Cake Show earlier this month.

On that same day I did a wedding cake for the daughter of our church's worship leader. It was a very simple cake, so I figured I could do both in one day....honestly, the baby shower cake took longer than the wedding cake! They didn't want any topper on it, but it was supposed to have a flower on the top...the florist forgot that little detail, so they just had me continue the leaves and vines on the top of the cake.

And finally, just this past weekend, I was asked to make a cake for a friend's niece who was getting married. The cake was for a couple's shower for both the bride and groom. They both play guitar and lead worship at their church, and the sentiment on the cake was what was written on their wedding invitation. In case it's tough to tell from the photo, the cake is a double heart....not a set of bongo drums. :)
Okay, so now you are all caught up on my cake and cookie world, and I'm hungry! Talk amongst yourselves while I go find something to snack on...

Odds and Ends...

Since I went missing for awhile there, I thought I'd take this opportunity to catch up on a few things that I never posted here on the blog. But first...

I went to the mailbox today, and look what I found waiting for me from Patsy Clairmont!


I'm not exactly sure why the picture is sideways, it was straight when I uploaded it...Anyway, I'm so excited, and David has been begging me to read the "Basil and Parsley" book to him ever since I pulled it out of the package!

Thanks Patsy!!!

And I made a baby shower cake, and a cookie bouquet awhile back, and I don't think I ever posted the pictures. So, here you go!

And the last thing I have to share with you all today, is a very, very short video that Benji and I made for his youth group meeting this week.

He said that one of the youth leaders asked him to make a 30 second video of some of the "extreme sports things" that he does. We weren't able to take videos of his trials bike events and jumps, or of his trampoline acrobatics on such short notice, but we did find some video that we had taken this past summer of some of his bicycle stunt riding. The video ended up being about 1 minute and 12 seconds because we just had to include the bloopers at the beginning...but the youth group agreed that the bloopers were totally worth the extra 42 seconds! He's was so proud to take the video for his friends to see, that I thought I'd share it with you all as well.

Christmas Doughnuts....mmmmm

Last night, I made this cake for a Ladies' Dinner for my church. (red velvet cake with vanilla-peppermint buttercream icing)



This morning, I decided to make doughnuts for the kids, and since I had some crushed peppermint candy left over from the cake, I decided to add a Christmas flair to our usual doughnut flavors.

They are very simple, and all the kids were able to help! Here's how we made them:

Ingredients:

• Texas-Size Canned Biscuits (if you don't live in Texas, they are probably just called "jumbo")
• Powdered Sugar
• Cinnamon Sugar
• Vanilla Powder
• Crushed Peppermint Candy (you can either crush them in the blender, or buy them "pre-crushed"

Directions:

1. Heat shortening/oil either in a pan on the stove or in a fryer
2. Place biscuits on a floured surface and press them out just a bit bigger than they are and cut a 1 inch circle out of the center
3. Fry them in the oil until golden brown on both sides
4. Repeat with "holes" you cut from the center
5. Remove from the oil and let cool on a plate covered with some paper towels to absorb any excess oil
6. Add 1 cup of powdered sugar to each of 3 paper lunch bags
7. Add 1/4 cup cinnamon sugar to one of the bags, 1/2 teas. vanilla powder to another bag, and 1/4 cup crushed peppermint candy to the third bag, and shake well.
8. Place a doughnut in the bag of your choice and shake a few times.
9. Remove the doughnut from the bag and shake off any excess sugar.
10. Send all the children outside to play and curl up on the sofa with a cup of coffee and your doughnuts!
11. When you've had your fill, you can invite the children back in to have a few themselves!

This is David

I have a list in the other room that is half a mile long...and I'm not supposed to be on the computer until a bit more of that list is completed...but I realize that I've been missing for a couple of days, and the twitching was really getting to be a problem! So I decided to just pop in and show you a quick picture of the cake I did this weekend for a woman about to have her first baby...er, babies. There are THREE babies in there, my friends, THREE!!!

So, I figured, I couldn't turn down the request to make her cake. This woman deserves a very special cake, don't you think? Now, I should post a picture of the shower invitation before I show the cake, because it would make more sense...but the batteries are dead in the camera, so I can't take one. However, since she is having two girls and one boy, the invitation simply had a pea pod shaped like a hammock with bows on the ends and a blue pea sitting in between two pink peas in the pea pod. Very simple, and very cute...

...I added some personality to the "Sweet Peas"...


This has gone down as one of my favorite cakes of all time. I just love those little peas!

Okay, and because many of my friends and family read this thing...I also thought I'd share this little video clip from Thanksgiving. Benji turned on the video camera and turned the screen around so that David could see himself...he found himself quite entertaining, and even started to sing "Halleluia--Praise Ye the Lord" right up until he discovered the bouncy ball was in the background...then all was lost.



Why he resorted to baby talk, I don't know...and as for those dirty hands? Well, he is a boy. And he was outside. Enough said. :)

Hey look! I took pictures!

I haven't edited the video or all the photos yet from the first two Nutcracker Performances, but I thought I'd show you just a couple quick ones. :)

This is the entire cast. This is a special demonstration at the schools, it's not the full production. They all have to stay like this for at least 15 minutes while all the classes are filing in and the director gives the opening of her speech...talk about dancer's discipline!



This one is mine. She's a snowflake...and a lovely snowflake indeed! (Not that I'm biased or anything.)
I took several photos today while the girls were dancing, so I'll put together some sort of slideshow soon.

These are just some Christmas cookies I made for a party. Yes, David ate one and I had to remake it 3 hours before delivery was scheduled...sigh. What I'm wondering is why he chose to eat Bert's cookie, when there was one clearly marked, "David"? At least then he could have claimed he thought it was HIS! :) Oh wait, he doesn't read yet...nevermind.

Okay, that's all the pictures I have for your enjoyment today! I did get my hair cut and highlighted today, but I don't have any pictures to post yet. :( I know, you're really disappointed aren't you?

What I do have is today's Jesse Tree lesson! We're finally caught up and we're having the right lesson on the right day! So, here you go.....
****************************************************

Day Five

Genesis 12

Abram Journeys to Egypt

1Now the LORD said to Abram,
"Go forth from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father's house,
To the land which I will show you;
2And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing;
3And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."
4So Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
5Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.
6Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in the land.
7The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your descendants I will give this land " So he built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him.


Sometimes God asks us to do things that are hard to do. God asks us to obey when sometimes it seems like disobeying would be more fun. There are things He wants us to do that we don’t want to do, and there are things He wants us NOT to do that we really, really want to do.

God asked Abram to leave his home and go on a long trip. Abram did not want to leave his home, but God promised him that He would be blessed if he obeyed. Abram did obey and he went left his home. Sometimes along the way, he made bad choices and forgot to listen to God’s directions, but God kept all of the promises that He made to Abram. The best thing God did was to call Abram His friend.

Can you imagine having the God of all the universe call you His friend? Guess what? He DOES! When He sent Jesus to us, He offered us His friendship for life! He asks us to obey Him, and He promises to be our friend, but even when we forget our side of the deal, He doesn’t forget His. He keeps His promise to never leave us, and He forgives us over and over again.

[discuss ways that God shows us what He wants us to do]

(pray together that God would help us to obey and do the things that He wants us to do)

*Hang packed car ornament on the tree. (This one I bought because I thought it was a great reminder of God asking Abram to "pack up his household" and go. The kids agreed, and will never forget this one!) :)

When all else fails....post pictures!

It's been ZiCam central around here lately. Ben started it and stayed home from work on Friday. Then it was Maddie and me, and now it's Dave and I think Jon...although he won't admit it. Hopefully, we all got it at a good time, and we'll all feel better by Thursday. It would really stink if we couldn't taste our turkey and pumpkin pie!

Anyway, it's been awhile since I posted any pictures for you...mainly because I haven't been making any cakes! But as you know, we had a wedding here last weekend, and I did make the wedding cake. The weekend before that, we had a baby shower for a very good friend, so I broke my "No Cakes this Month" rule for her, and I made the cake for her shower.

The shower was a "Rubber Ducky" theme, so I made a "Rubber Ducky holding onto his blankie" cake.



Then of course, there was Wedding Week... The preparations for the cake went really well, everything on schedule etc. (Dave did get into one of the cake layers while it was cooling, but he only destroyed the part that I cut off for leveling anyway, so....whew!) The big issue was that it was 80 degrees here when I baked the cake, iced the cake, and covered the cake in fondant. Then, I took the cake to the venue the night before the wedding and left it there to be stacked and decorated the next day. Overnight, the temperature dropped into the 50's...big problem for the fondant. As soon as I started stacking the cakes, the fondant started to crack. I was able to turn the layers so that the cracking was all on the back side of the cake, and it didn't show from the front, but I was so disappointed! It all turned out okay I guess, but not what I was hoping for. I've done 5 wedding cakes and three were fondant-covered. I've never had this happen before, so I didn't realy know what to do about it. The other two fondant cakes were in the summer, so perhaps that was the difference. I did figure out some things that could be done to prevent this problem again...I just wish I had known to do them before...sigh.



On a brighter note, I also supplied the flower-girl for the wedding, and she turned out beautifully!

Finally, we had our annual Thanksgiving dinner at church yesterday, and for the 2nd year, I was asked to create cookie bouquets for the kids' tables. The idea is to have something fun for them to look at, and then when dinner is finished, they each get a cookie from the bouquet. So, I made 4 of these arrangements...

...for the younger kids who still sit with their parents (and we didn't really want to arm with sticks!), I made separate cookies and individually wrapped them.
It has been a long weekend, and obviously with the holiday on Thursday, we'll be busy this week as well. So today, we're taking it easy and trying to nurse our colds so we can all be better and back to work tomorrow! All prayers are welcome...as always! :)

Oh, and I'm still looking for Thanksgiving songs, so if you know of any, leave them in the comments please!