Amazing Race Cake

Lauren's friend, Ryan, had an Amazing Race birthday party and they asked me to make the cake. This is simple, but that's what they wanted. Thanks for the fun party Ryan!

Kiara turns 16

And who is Kiara? She is Maddie's adorable friend who used to be our neighbor. They've moved away, but those two have been able to find a way to get together a few times since the big move.
This summer, Kiara got to spend a month with us. It was a surprise for Maddie and what a wonderful surprise it was.

Kiara turned 16 while staying with us. She designed the cake and I made it for her. We had a party with some of her friends. Low key, but a fun get-together.

Over The Hill Cake

I recently made this cake for a friend, who's husband was turning 40. I got the spinner idea from a cake I saw online. It turned out pretty cute. I think it's time I took some real classes so I can figure out how to get the super smooth look. My cakes always have bumps and uneven spots. If you know the answers I welcome your comments.

Ellie's Baptism

Ellie was baptized last week. She was very excited. Some of that excitement may have been that she got to share the day with her BFF, Izzy. And thank goodness she did. Izzy's mom just happens to be really talented at putting together cute invites and programs and nice finishing touches that I usually don't even think of. Thank you, Izzy's mom. :)
It was very nice because my parents and Ellie's older sister, Ryan were able to come. We thought the other grandparents were going to make it too, but were surprised with a last minute realization that that wouldn't be the case. But, that is another story. Maddie was also absent as she was in a show that night.

Grandma M did make Ellie a nice little baptism dress though. It turned out very cute. Not only that, she made Lauren and Ellie each a new "Easter" dress. Lauren is wearing hers in the picture above. I made Ellie and Izzy's "baptism" dresses. They went to the fabric store together and picked their patterns and fabric. Their fabric is matching, just different colors. I made the cupcakes. The day turned out well. The important thing is that Ellie is now baptized and thrilled to be so. She's so excited to be working on Faith In God goals and trying hard to always choose the right. I'm so proud of her.

Flower Basket Cake

This is the cake I made for our Relief Society Birthday dinner this year. The theme was "Bloom Where You're Planted." I did a basket weave with Royal icing flowers. I did the flowers this way so that I could make them in advance and then just place them when I put the cake together. It turned out well.

Happy Birthday Lauren

This sweet girl (yes, I said sweet) is growing into such a kind-hearted, energetic as always, fun tween. She's finally 10. That means she got to have her ears pierced. She was so excited, right up until the very last moment when she suddenly decided she wasn't ready yet. I was able to convince her that she was, indeed, ready and would really regret it if she didn't go through with it. In the end she was glad she did. This is a girl of many eclectic styles and tastes in . . .well, everything. She is certainly destined for something that requires imagination and a free spirit. She has the ambition and energy to make things happen.

She wanted a "peace" cake. She wanted to get her ears pierced. She wanted a cool sled. She wanted to get her American Girl doll's ears pierced and get new stuff for it. She wanted to spend the day at Chuck E. Cheese. I talked her into America's Incredible Pizza. She was very happy with that choice. In fact, she took her best friend and we spent about 6 hours there. Who knew you could eat and play games for that long? She was thrilled and kept saying that it was the "best day of her life." Yay for best days! She also really wanted a motor scooter. She's been wanting this for about a year now. It just doesn't seem to ever happen. Maybe someday. Other than that though she was able to get everything she wanted. Happy Birthday, Beautiful Lauren!

Cakes

I auctioned off birthday cakes for the YW auction last spring. These are the cakes I made for the winners. I'm still experimenting with frostings and fondant and designs and stuff. But I really like making cakes. I get to be creative and then don't feel like I'm obligated to keep my creation. It soon disappears. And, if it doesn't turn out so great, oh well, it still tastes pretty good.

This little girl wanted a lemon cake. I would normally do a princess cake pink, or purple, or blue even, but didn't think either of those would be too great with a lemon cake. Also, the princesses were a little too big for the cake and had to be held in with wire. They do look like damsels in distress about to fall off the ledge. I would probably put this in the cake wreck category. I will not be happy, though, if I see it on there next week. Don't even think about it. Please. I couldn't handle the shame.

Maddie's Birthday

This post is late in coming, but Maddie has turned 16! No, she's not dating. No, she's not driving. And it's all okay. (Just thought I'd get those out of the way right up front because everyone asks.)
She had a fun party here at the house. Lots of friends came. They played games, ate food, listened to music, and sat around the fire pit. She got flowers (because I remember Ronda gave me flowers when I turned 16 and I thought it was so cool), cutie balloons, and a Twilight themed birthday cake. (It's supposed to look like Bella's cake. I fully intended to do a three-layer cake, but once I got started, realized that that was A LOT of cake. I couldn't imagine what we would do with all of it, so I stuck to just two layers. It's not an exact replica, but pretty good for a beginner. I still haven't quite figured out how to get the corners squared with the fondant. I bet I could have done a better job if my cake were styrofoam like the movie cake was. But this post is supposed to be about a birthday, not a cake, so. . .anyway. . .) Yay! Hopefully she will get a license soon and she can start doing some of the driving. She's so busy and that keeps me busy too. Aint she cute?

(I hired this nice lady to be a stand in Mom. She's a lot more photogenic than me. Thanks, Jacque.)

Fairy Cake

Here are better pictures of the cake. I couldn't get them to load before for some reason.

Ooey, Gooey Birthday Party

Hooray! Lauren is 9 and her party is over! Lauren has always been unique. . . individual . . . and proud to be so. While I love this about her, it also drives me crazy sometimes. She also LOVES everything messy; the messier the better. Well, it's party year at our house, so Lauren's idea of a perfect party is an "Ooey, Gooey Party". Can you imagine what this is? This is a party where you get together with 7 of your best friends and make things like Ooblek, and Glop, and play with Gak, Noise putty, silly putty, Floam, and a variety of other gooey things. Then, you watch a "scary" Goosebumps movie and sleep over. Then you get up and make name pancakes with everyone. Unfortunately I don't have a single picture. It was a full time, hands on job managing this event. Of course, Richard did his job by getting as far away from this as possible. . . all the way to Pheonix. Then, Maddie ended up being a huge help (NOT) by going to a movie with her friends. Thank heavens for Emma.
The kids all seemed to love it. They all wanted the recipes and declared this party as the BEST birthday they'd ever been to and many decided they wanted an Ooey, Gooey party this year. That made me laugh.
The pictures we do have are of the night before when we went to Red Robin as a family.
Just in case you want an ooey gooey event I'll post the recipes. I really don't suggest this as a sleep over. It's a bit too much.

Glop

4 oz. bottle of white glue
2 liter bowl
1 pt. distilled water (I didn't use distilled and it worked fine)
Borax powder
Food coloring

Pour glue into a bowl. Fill the glue bottles with water, shake and pour into the bowl. Add 1 C. water and food coloring. Stir. Add Borax 1 tsp. at a time and stir until glop starts to form. Take glop out as you see it forming and continue to add Borax to the remaining mixture.

This really is fun to play with.

Ooblek

1 1/2 C. cornstarch
1 C. water
food coloring

mix together and see the magic. Tap it hard and it feels like a solid, set your fingers on it and it feels like a liquid. Add extra water the next day and it's still lots of fun.

Lauren's Birthday

So, what does a girl who is petrified of dogs what for her birthday?





A PUPPY PARTY!! naturally.






The truth is that her original desire was to go to My Gym, a children's gymnastics center that also offers birthday parties. It truly is a fun place for a party, but when I checked out the pricing for the place I soon realized we wouldn't be offering that place up. So, I checked around some more and some more and some more and after looking into 13 different places I knew two things. 1) We probably would never do that kind of a party, and 2) I really need to go into business running one of these places. SHEEESH!!!





Anyway, so the puppy party was one of the options because we needed to find a party theme suitable to a boy or a girl since Lauren's very best friend is a boy named Manoah. He ended up being the only boy who came, but told me during the party that it was the "funnest party I've ever been to since my whole life." It really did turn out great. Her best friends were able to make it. We played fun games and did fun crafts.






Our opening activity was to make a dog collar for the puppy they each brought. Then we played fun games like "Dog Pound" (a variation of the popular Fruit Basket game), "Doggie, Doggie, Where's Your Bone",
"Over, Under Relay", "Sniff out the Treasure"-treasure hunt, etc. We had a couple others as options for good weather, but it was another rainy day here, so we weren't able to play the Jump Through the Hoop game or the bone on a spoon game. We did a freeze dance to "Who Let the Dogs Out" which the kids enjoyed far more that I thought they would. And of course, had puppy paw cupcakes and ice-cream.

and Puppy Chow with Dog Bones/Scooby Snacks
Richard's big job for the day was to scoop ice-cream and pretend like he was the chef.


When the party was over we all went out to eat to celebrate the birthday and also Maddie's straight A report card. Yay for her!!(This is Maddie being tres chic I think. I'm sure she will kill me when she sees this.)

Maddie chose The Spaghetti Factory (of course) so we went to the one downtown where the restaurant is in an actual old train station and the train goes right by it while you eat. We had a perfect view and let the kids go right up to the window when the train came by (They are standing about 10 feet from the train).

On her real birthday, which was on Monday, she got fresh donuts for breakfast and opened the gift from our family, which was all new soccer clothes and accessories. The real gift is that she got to sign up for soccer this spring. She has been wanting this for a while. I hope she enjoys it and is able to listen to the coach and follow instructions (her most difficult task in life).