parties, puddings, pirates.....oh my!

{ PARTIES }

I was asked by a good friend of mine who lives in Springville to make a cake for her daughter's birthday! How could I say no! Now when Vikki throws a party, she throws a party! I am so excited to see how this whole Balloon Olympics is going to be! I hope parents can participate too! (hint hint) Vikki gave me the idea of what she wanted and in true awesome Vikki form told me that I had complete artistic reign! Here is what I cam up with! I think it turned out pretty darn cute and it's my favorite cake recipe, chocolate. I cannot wait until tomorrow to take this to the party. I hope Erica likes it.....eek!

{ PUDDING }

Do you ever get a craving for something that lasts for days...weeks....months....? I have been craving rice pudding so incredibly bad. So, when we were little and would make rice pudding, it was very simple: leftover rice, milk, cinnamon, sugar, heat in the microwave for a few minutes, and enjoy!. But last night I thought I might try a real rice pudding.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

It was AMAZING! Basically it was the same ingredients, but it just took more time, and the use of the stove. I also added raisins to mine. Caitlyn actually tried it and liked it and ate more than one bite... (WHAT ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!) No, I kid you not she did! (WHAT THE GREAT SWIRLING ONION RINGS!!) I know! It was wonderful. Anyway, try it! Great way to use up that extra rice! So low fat! ( ha ha ha )

{ PIRATES }

Joey and Heather invited us and the Campbell family for a night with pirates! It was so much fun! I wasn't even bothered by the poor British accent from the hostess! (it was really bad, I mean worse than mine bad) The place was decked out from wall to wall, floor to ceiling. I felt like I was in Disneyland again. They have a really nice menu too, I was so impressed. The play area for the kids was amazing, and once those kids had their fancy balloon swords, they were in heaven! A battle broke out amongst those cousins that will go down in history. It was hilarious to watch them run up and down that ship hitting eachother with those balloons!

Here is Taylar giving a perfect reanactment from "ELF", remember that! BWA HA HA HA HA

It was horrible! Blood, guts, popped balloons...oh the HORROR!

It was so much fun, and so nice to get to know the Campbell's better! What a cool family! I hope we get a chance to go again soon!

toot sweet **~

So I guess blogs aren't about how many comments your receive....right? I am just going to enjoy posting things and be happy with that, or try. Self esteem failing.....needing comments to feel good about me.....instant happiness in a few little words.....!!! Okay, so my joke about my two readers is no longer a joke, I am ok with that. (sob) On with the shooooow........

:: Here are some of my latest cakes ::

This was a fun one, although I cannot take full credit, my sweet knees cut out all the fondant for me whilest I was cooking for the shower. I had our amazing decorator at work make the cake and cupcakes, she matched the color perfectly! So although I designed the cake, I had others execute it! (thanks guys!!) This was made for my sister in law for her baby shower. Her last name is Hooton, so owls are the thing with the family! So I ran with it. I had my sister make some sweet invitations, she is so talented. She made exactly what I wanted! The shower was such a success, Heather had an amazing turnout and received some really nice things.

I haven't had many opportunities to make cakes for the Williams side of my family, except for sweet little Taylar - these are usually my favorites to make, she really keeps me on my decorating toes! So I was thrilled when I was asked to make a cake for my mother in law. It can be really hard to decide on an idea when you have a million going through your mind. One day I came up - well perhaps inspired since I was in church - a PEEP, she loves those darn things. Everyone seemed to like it, so I made a gigantic PEEP. Other than the tail needing to be longer, I was very happy with it! And it tasted amazing! Thanks to two new recipes that are DEFINITELY keepers.

Oh Elise! You put it perfectly when you said you love how each year your cake matched your current obsession! If you can get past the upside down Star Trek insignia, you can probably guess what is on the wall for this year. SCOTTY ie. SIMON PEGG. So what else but a wedding cake for Elise and Scotty. She wants her wedding to be in the colors of green, white and black. This cake gave me a chance to practice some henna cake art. It was fun! And I can't wait for another chance to better my skills. There are some gorgeous henna cakes out there, if you have a minute check it out.....wait don't....you will laugh for hours about how ridiculous my henna is.....just enjoy the simplicity of my cake! This one was fun and I was thrilled with her reaction, which was perfect of course!

{ adu }

P.S. Elise is not engaged, sorry for any confusion!

..fame..

LOOK! My cake is on a website!

http://icingimages.com/info.php?link=sc&menu=m

playing catch-up

Loads of pictures coming up!

A few weekends ago, Curtis' cousin invited us to his restaraunts grand reopening! Who can say no to good Mexican Food and getting together with family? NOT THIS GIRL! So we met up with the Hootons and enjoyed a delish meal and a little superstar from Taylar. Then we all slipped into our jammies, grabbed some snacks and met back up at the drive-in movies to see "UP". Who doesn't love a drive-in movie? And why are things so much better when you are sharing them with your kids?

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Our 4th was nice and relaxing. I love holidays like this. Good food. Good company. Lots of laughs. And fireworks of course! Caitlyn made friends with the little neighbor Kelvin next door. They ran and ran! We had our Driveway of Fire 2009, it was awesome!

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If I were to look back at my cake posts I think I would probably start each one with "this is my favorite cake so far". Not wanting to break any kind of tradition I will say that this is my favorite cake so far. Since I received the sweet call from my little niece asking me for a shark cake for her birthday I have been so enjoying coming up with plans for this little beaut! I put a few ideas together for the end result. I.L.O.V.E.I.T......so much. Somewhere in the move I have misplaced my round cake pans, but I was able to pick-up a new and improved pan that gives me the results I really want. I can't wait for Taylar to see it! EEK!

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{authors note}

I must add a HUGE thanks to my sweet husband who spent over an hour cutting out each individual shark silhouette from fondant and molding each shark fin. They truly make the cake what it it. Also, the topper of this cake is made from a special paper that you feed through your computer printer with special cartridges that make it totally edible. I am doing another cake next week with this same technique, I cannot wait, it has been such a fun new toy!

:: one hundred :: (i made it)

I don't know if anyone out there has seen the 100th episode of Blue Clues, but they sing this really cute song and it has been going through my head all morning as I have been getting this post ready.

.:I finally hit my 100th post:.

And that of course means GIVE*AWAY time!

"they call me give-away bob 'cause i'm just given 'em away"

So in lue of Caitlyn's birthday post I am wanting all those who wish to participate to share a gooooooood birthday story! It can be one you hosted, one you attended, one that was given for you, anything really, as long as you were somehow involved! The winner will be sent a wonderful prize in the mail! Good luck!

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Caitlyn has started showing an interst in sewing. "Sew" with a few helpful ideas from my friend Viki, I made some simple shapes on some leftover fabric I had and let her go! She had so much fun! And I thought she did very well for her first time. She is now working on a little cat, she is very excited to be a big sewing girl!

Mom and Dad are always so gracious to share their home with us for our parties. It just works better since all our family is up in Salt Lake.



Mom made this sweet doctors jacket for Caitlyn and even had her name embroidered on the front so she could be completely official! She loves it!



Caitlyn requested a Handy Manny cake for her party. This is about as good as I could do. I was going to be brave and make all the tools from fondant, but time just ran out. But on the plus side I was able to complete her tool set. She is a HUGE helper around the house!

These are some photos from her actual birthday. She wanted Mac n' Cheese for dinner with fruit and corn on the cob. YUMMY! After opening her presents we played Pictionary Man. If you don't have this game, get it! It such a fun game.

The soundtrack to Kung Fu Panda. For those of you who do not know, Caitlyn is a Kung Fu Master and if asked to demonstrate her skills, she is more than happy to oblige!

To see some of her skills click {here}

...boring old tissue paper...

a little pixie dust

{ fairy flowers }

...boring old front room...

a little pixie dust

{ a fairy garden }

I was totally burned out from the Handy Manny cake so we made some fairy cupcakes with little butterfly clips for the little fairies to take home. In the end this was really a smart thing for me to do, most of the little fairies ate about two or three bites of their cupcakes and then ran off to play. I am glad I didn't spend hours on a Tinkerbell cake!

It was really hard to cut back on all the pictures I wanted to post of her party! Really hard! I am opting for journaling instead! Caitlyn and I came up with a few games to play, one of which was "Fairy, Fairy, Troll " aka "Duck, Duck, Goose". Most of the little fairies loved it! Some just wanted to play in Caitlyn's room. We also planned a scavenger hunt. I made up a story that the Fairy Queen needed items for her Fairy Ball and had left clues for the little fairies to find. They had to find small pebbles from her garden that some squirrels thought were nuts and had hidden them away for winter. A large red button that was the door knob to her fairy house and without it she couldn't let her guests in. Her new party wings and headband she had misplaced. And of course her tiny bottles of fairy dust. After they found the last item they were to put them on the window sill where the Fairy Queen would pick them up. I had Curtis sneak into the room and replace the items with the gift bags from the Fairy Queen. I was planning on making up that I had heard a noise in the art room where the bags were, but Brooke saw them and got all excited screaming "Look everyone! Look at that!" It was PERFECT! The little fairies all went running and couldn't believe the Fairy Queen had left them something! Curtis even went as far as to open the window so it looked liked she had just flown off!




I found some really cute fairy wands at Joann's for a dollar! A DOLLAR! They had little butterflies which went perfect with our Garden Fairy Party. They all had a lot of fun designing their butterflies, but I think the little fairy who was the most proud was Aunt Heather!!

And what is a party without opening gifts! It was so nice to see how well all the little fairies were with sharing and giving! And Caitlyn too! I was worried about her, but she has become so much better in the last year. I was very proud. After the gifts were opened they all just ran around and played until their parents came. I feel pretty good about my first friends birthday party. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was really fun! And a little tiring! I am glad birthday's come once a year!

I bought a car - turned out to be an alien robot. Who knew?

HURRAH! I can finally post my latest cakes. The party is over, the presents opened and the cake is being digested!

Aaron and Curtis both have birthdays in January so we starting pairing the two together for a joint party. Such good sports, if they were 20 years younger they would probably be throwing fits! This year I made a double cake, each had their own half. I was lazy and made a simple King Sized Chocolate Cake. (I am begging everyone, if you have an amazing chocolate cake that comes out of the baking pan, puh-lease share!!!!) So the cake itself wasn't anything amazing, but I am loving working with fondant. Caitlyn has requested a Handy Manny cake for her 5th birthday....talk about challenge. Curtis - bless him - in convinced I can do it....pisha! I think if I add his amazing artistic skills to my meager ones we may be able to come up with something! We shall see!


On with the show!

This little beauty was a wonder for fondant....my new best friend in cake decorating!

Caitlyn always, always goes for my couplers when the cake boxes come out. She play Alex from Madagascar for the rest of the day! I am not sure what this face is....but when I try and take pictures of her for whatever reason she looks away from the camera....!!?? Christmas pictures with Kamee were hilarious!!

Something I hate about decorating with fondant and those oober concentrated colors.

{ Curtis' Side }
Transformers...more than meets the eyes
Transformers...they have metal thighs

{ Aaron's Side }

"Germany had declared war on the Jones boys"

Caitlyn put the legos together for me and then did a wonderful Broadway Musical of Indiana Jones. The songs she was singing were so funny! I wish I recorded them. One went something like this....

*cough cough*
Indiana Jones is saving his daaaaaaaad so they can go on an adventure to saaaaaave the day!

P.S. The cake tasted amazing and Mae even ate the fondant!

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My friend told me about this blog and I can't stop looking at it! Pages upon pages of ruined, funny, ridiculous, and gorgeous cakes. If you have an hour or two to spare, check it out!
Here is the latest post from cakewrecks . . .

Why Little Suzy Needs Therapy!

"Mo-ooom! Have you seen Giselle?"
"Suzy, what did I tell you about leaving your dolls lying around?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know? So you're telling me you don't remember any of the HUNDRED times I've warned you about leaving your toys strewn around the house?"
"No."
"So you don't remember what I said yesterday? About what would happen if I found your doll on the floor one more time?"
"Ummmm... Maybe you said something..."

[silence]

[whining] "But I want my dolly! You HAVE to give her BACK!"
"Oh, don't you worry, honey. I'm sure she'll turn up after dinner."

the aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball

Saturday was Dad's B-Day! HURRAH!
Melissa did an awesome collage on her blog
**click me to see it**

This is the puting green cake I made for my Deddy. I totally used a cheater cake, but it still tasted good! But it made me feel good that my family could taste the difference from a cheater and my recipe! This thing took forever to make. I wish I knew an easier way to smooth the sides of cakes

(HELP ME ERICA)

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We had our ward Christmas party on Saturday, it was a lot of fun! I really enjoy being on the activities committee. We put together these delicious breakfast casseroles and had fruit slices and gigantic muffins from Sam's. After breakfast we had a little performance of "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry. It was done beautifully. We decided not to have reading lines, Melissa's husband Jamie just read the story as the actors played it out. We then divided everyone into groups and sent them to different stations to learn new family games and traditions. Curtis and I volunteered to be in charged of the kids room aka the nursery. We had some fun coloring pages and snowman puppets. I wanted to have a little game for them to play, so I thought a snowball race would be fun. My Wal*Mart has recently renovated itself and has cut down on A LOT of the craft items they carry. I had a really hard time finding just some plain foam ball and I didn't have time to run into Orem. I am making little pom-poms for my gift toppers this year and thought they would make perfect snowballs. Caitlyn and I made some on Friday and spent 1/2 hour before school having an AWESOME indoor snowball fight! They were perfect, soft so they didn't hurt, but heavy enough that you could really lob the things! I had a lot of people ask me how to make them, so here are the instructions, I hope they are clear enough.

Make a bunch and have a ball!!!

{ step one }

pick out your yarn

{ step two }

.wrap it around your fingers

.the more fingers your wrap it around
and the more times you wrap it
around the bigger it will be

.I wrapped it around all my fingers about
50 times to get a good snowball size

{ step three }

slip it very carefully off your fingers

{ step four }

tie a small piece around the middle

{ step five }

slip your scissors into the loops and cut on both sides

this is what it should look like

{ step }

.now just fluff and trim it

.I found that if I roll it around in my hands
it does an excellent job of fluffing

:: fin ::

KayLynn gave me all these really neat sticks, they're all curvy and intertwiny! I want to do something with them, but I have no idea what! Perhaps just throw them away.....but I can't!

They are just too fun!

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to help me with ideas!