Recent (and not-so-recent) Cakes

This was the cake I made for my niece Abigail's baptism.

I don't remember if I ever did a post or not with a picture of it.

I loved this cake! Simple white cake with buttercream.

This was a cake I made for a baby shower.

A baby girl name Cori was expected.

I think i did one tier French vanilla and one tier

chocolate, all with buttercream.

Here was my original plan for Griffin's 1st Birthday Cake.
It didn't work out so well... The cake was too flimsy,
even with support dowels.

This was the final product. Chocolate cake with chocolate and buttercream frosting, the filling was graham cracker crumbs mixed with marshmallow cream.

Evan turned 7 this year and went with a Simpsons theme.
Homer is his favorite, so I highlighted him.
Big Boys' cakes aren't quite as pretty,
no flowers or embellishments...

And our little mermaid turned 4 last mo,nth.
She wanted Ariel for her party. This was actually a
very easy cake. I didn't have to smooth out the frosting
since it was supposed to look like under the sea.

She requested rainbow chip cake.

So I love to make cakes for special occassions. It's a hobby and in no way do I think they look "professional" but I like the task of making a cake to match a party's decor. It's funny that I don't really even like cake. I would much rather eat pastries or pie, but that doesn't give much of a focal point at a party!

The baby shower cake with the 'C' on top was a first for me - someone paid me to do it!! That made it nerve racking! I did not ever see the decorations for the party, but was just told turquoise, pink, and orange for a baby girl. It turned out cute and I think that the shower hostess and the mommy-to-be liked it. Echo's friend, Heidi, was the one who asked me to do the cake (See her blog link on Echo's page, C-Ho's... She just had a new baby of her own!!) Heidi was sweet enough to send a thank you note and let me know that everyone liked the cake. I hope so. That was the scariest part of making a cake for a group of strangers - I didn't want to disappoint!

More cake pics are in my Photo Albums list.

Wow!

I was really behind on uploading pictures to Kodak! I have added new albums to my list over on the right, so check them out (and I added pictures to the existing album titled Griffin's Birthday Dinner - so if you already looked at that album, you may want look again.)

Do I have cute kids or what!? :o) And nieces and nephew, too!

Arizona

April 18th we left for Arizona to find some sunshine!

Here we are all ready to leave for the airport.
Here is Kyle and the kids running to board the plane.

Even though we were very early, they decided to go on a walk and then had to run when they called us to board. He did the same thing with the kids on the way home, too!!

Finally swimming! The pool was great.
Horse rides for the kids. Sophia chose the smallest pony for her ride.
She is our cautious girl. :O)

Griffin had his turn and loved it!

He loved the cowgirl, too!

We drove to Sedona for the day, and silly me.... FORGOT our camera!

I had to buy a disposable for these shots!

And the classic end-of-trip shot...

Just exhausted on the way home from the airport!
Griffin couldn't even hold his binkie in his mouth.

It was a really fun trip and we all got nice tans!

Our little Cherokee babies get tan even with SPF 50.

We love vacation and are already dreaming up something for next year!

Where should we start...

I know it's been forever since I posted. Sorry! Let's see, April and May are always busy months for us, but it seemed especially so this year. Griffin had his birthday party since my last post. It was really cute, we did a cowboy theme. Fried chicken and all the fixins served up in a tin (like cowboys would do at a camp fire), everyone had fun wearing bandannas and boots, and I made a cowboy boot shaped cake to keep in theme with the festivities. Lots of fun and I'm so glad we could celebrate with all the family. I tried to keep it small this year since it was indoors, but we still had quite the crowd!

Some of the Hussey Gals

Kyle and 3 of his Sisters

Aunt Ris (our photographer) and the Birthday Boy

A tired little cowboy taking a snooze on Sandy

Happy Birthday, Big Boy!!

I can't believe our little guy is already a year old. Wednesday Griffin had his birthday dinner at Falls Terrace. He loved dessert!

He's getting very brave and walking all the way across the living room now. Right after I took this picture he walked from the chair in the living room to the front door!

Sophia was excited to wear their number shirts. I made these a few years back when my nephew Carson was 1, Sophia was 2, and my niece Lauren was 3. I don't have any other numbers. So after we get back from vacation, I will have to get painting! Carson is turning 3 next Friday, Lauren will turn 5 mid-May, and then Sophia will be 4 at the end of May.

Happy Easter

Sophia helped set out the Easter baskets so that Peter Cottontail could fill them with goodies. She was sooooo excited that she laid in bed singing and talking from about 8:00 until 10:30 p.m.! Who can sleep when the Easter Bunny's on his way?

On our way into church. This was the only group pic I snapped all day!

Marisa took some great pictures once we arrived at Grandma & Grandpa's.

Soph's had an Easter Egg hunt in the backyard all to herself.

Happy Easter 2010! I have more pictures that I'll upload to Kodak.

Excuses, Excuses...

So I haven't posted in forever - SORRY! Here are some of my excuses (and what we've been up to lately).

I like to take on multiple projects at one time, which makes all of them take longer.

1) I've been organizing the house garage, which means purging, sorting, rearranging, buying storage accessories, etc.

2) Joe had spring break and we had a few sunny days, so I stopped the garage project for a bit to get some landscaping projects done with him as my helper. We also had concrete poured which consumed a day or two for me as well.

3) Stalking a guy that owes us a lot of money... Long story - total loser.

4) Kids

5) Preparing for Easter, Griffin's 1st Birthday, and vacation this month and thinking about all we have to do next month as well.

6) "Homemaking" - way too time consuming... :O)

So what's still on my list? Basically all of the above. Nothing is ever finished. Well, Easter is. But now we need to put away all the Easter decor and put up party stuff.

Oh yeah - one more excuse. I have been using my new laptop all the time (and love it), but I don't like to do pictures on it because it doesn't have all my photo software. So I haven't been down to the desktop computer in forever to do pictures and postings.

Okay, excuses done. I will try very hard to get pictures up in the next two days. Promise.

A New Playmate!

We are watching my friend Victoria's little boy today! Lincoln is 6 months old and such a cutie! Griffin was literally shaking with excitement when Link came over this morning. He loves babies!

Getting Excited for Vacation

We are headed off to find the Sunshine mid-April. This year we are going to a resort in Arizona called Cibola Vista. They have a family friendly pool, horseback riding, cowboy cook-outs, other fun activities, and a fancy spa. I'm excited!

Spring Cleaning

So being home for basically 5 days is making me feel swallowed up and claustrophobic! And I'm usually quite the homebody. So I have a plan to organize the garage much better (I need to buy a Gorilla rack from Costco and then have Kyle move the Chevelle into the shop first), and I just loaded 4 bags of toys into the back of the car for Goodwill. Yay! I know there will be some major meltdowns once Sophia realizes all the junk she's missing (my mom will probably be irritated too while she's looking for all the missing dollar store crap), but I'm willing to deal with it.

Note to Grandmas... No more toys. PLEASE! Clothes, great. Special events and special play time, great. Donations to savings accounts, great. Toys for our house - NOT GREAT!

I know this might sound bratty, but if anyone has been to my house lately they would see that I have a hard time managing too much stuff. So help me help myself. :o) I've got to purge before Easter baskets and birthdays.

Quarantine

So we are basically keeping ourselves quarantined. We have all had a bout of the flu this week. Griffin had a some watery poo starting lasting Tuesday night and lasting about 4 days, and it's still not back to normal. Sophia started a vomit-fest last Thursday night and all day Friday. She is now down to just puking every evening around 10:00 - in bed. She doesn't quite get it in the bowl no matter how much we practice... I wanted to curl up and die between vomit sessions all day Friday, and then Kyle was down for the count on Saturday. We had hoped it was a 24 hour thing, but Sophia is still showing symptoms and still has a low-grade fever. And our happy little Griffin seems clingy and needy... Ugg.

Well, I better sign off. I just heard the washer finish. Vomit is not something you can let linger in the hamper. The smell will never come out!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!