Remember...

Always wash your hands...

And always try to make people smile! :o)

Check out my February album in the list for more silly pictures!

Snow Day!

Splish Splash

Silly Talk

Sophia just informed me that she needed to take off the ring she was wearing because it was giving her blizzards.

In other news... Griffin has a new word this week. "Mine." Yuck. I do not like hearing that.

Baby Jake's 1st Cake

Wow - I'm kind of on a roll with the new posts! And the cakes! So I did this cake for one of my preschool mom friends. Her little guy turned one and had his party the same weekend as the bumble bee baby shower that I did the cake for (posted a few days ago). It was a busy weekend, but fun to do these cakes for such special people. Jake's mom was very appreciative. In fact she came and visited and watched a little while I decorated. Such a great lady! I was so busy chit-chatting, though, I forgot to take pictures of the cake before I sent it off with her. She shared these photos with me, though. It looks really cute! She did the toppers herself, which saved me some time on my busy, busy weekend.

Happy Valentine's

Hope everyone had (or is still having) a nice Valentine's day. We had a lovely day (despite the ridiculous amount of rain and my horrible chest cold). My Valentine's actually started yesterday when Kyle surprised me with a card and some calla lilies, my favorite. He brought home a balloon too, but that was more for the kids, and it had a hole in it by bedtime. Anyway, I saved my card for today since the flowers were an early surprise. I returned the favor and made him some chocolate chip cookies.

This morning Sophia had preschool. We took Valentines for all her classmates. They had a fun little party at the end of class. Then we had a lunch date with her friend Isabella, who also does ballet with her. The kids had a nice little play session, then it was time for ballet. After ballet we headed home. Kyle got home early (well, 4:30 - but that's really early for him these days) and we all opened our gifts. I got the kids some new bath towels and few treats, Kyle got a big container of licorice and some sweet tarts, and I opened my card that went with my lovely flowers. I broiled some steaks and we watched Charlie Brown's Valentine special, and that was that. It was a long day, but very fun! Now I'm excited to watch some TV and have a little down time. Happy Valentine's Day, hope it was filled with love.

Lana Koopman Digital Design

Lana is one of the preschool moms that I visit with quite a bit. Her daughter is also in ballet with Sophia, so we have lots of visiting time. Today we got to chatting about cakes, parties, invitations, and such and she told me about her shop she started on Etsy. She is doing digital design and selling her "pages" on Etsy. They are really cute! Lana had mentioned a lack of sales, so I asked if I could advertise for her a little on my blog. Please check out her blog and her shop on Etsy to purchase and download any of her printable designs for your next crafty paper project. (And pass it along to your friends, too!) The picture below is a sample of her work!

Lana Koopman Digital Design Blog

Etsy Shop

Toy Story Cake

My friend's little boy is having his 2nd birthday party tomorrow and she asked if I would do a toy story cake. Originally I was thinking I would have to try to draw a picture of Buzz Lightyear (that's the little guy's favorite). And I had done Homer Simpson and Sponge Bob successfully in the past. But those are pretty simple characters - the more I looked at Buzz the more worried I became. So I changed my mind and went a different route.

Here is what I ended up with. Yellow cake with buttercream, nothing difficult. I focused the bottom layer on Buzz and then the top layer is the classic Toy Story look. I am really happy with how it turned out. The lettering isn't perfect. I tried my at hand at fondant for the lettering, thinking it would be a nice neat look, but the alphabet cutouts I have were not looking like the right font. So I mixed up a little colored frosting and piped it on. Maybe in the morning after the cake chills all night (and I am fresh) I would try to smooth out the yellow frosting on the lettering. I don't know. I'm kinda done with it, I think. ;o)

Bumble Bee Baby Shower

The weekend before we left for vacation, my best friend Sandy "hired" me to do a cake, invitations, and a banner for a baby shower she was co-hostessesing. I love doing anything crafty so I was excited to help out. It was a gender neutral shower so Sandy thought bumble bees would be a cute little theme.

I thought it would be fun to also include the chocolate dipped marshmallows!

Here is the gorgeous expectant mommy, Cara. She is the sweetest person ever.

She's due any day now!!

The little banner...

And I went a little nuts with the theme and matched my gift, too!

A Few More Hawaii Pictures

Here are a few more of my favorite pictures from vacation.

The kids could have played in the sand all day for the whole week! We decided on our last full day to ride the Sugar Cane Train. It took us from Kanaapali to Lahaina. It was a lot of fun.

We had lunch in Lahaina at Bubba Gumps. Yummy shrimp!!

Sometimes it's just so hard to stay awake!

And then you wake up and you're on the train again!

Yahoo!

It was a great vacation. The kids did awesome on

the plane ride there and back. We want to go back already.

I have my pictures uploading to Kodak right now, so

the link will be over with the rest of the albums shortly.

Enjoy!