Fun with Flour, Sugar and Creativity!

We are having fun with learning to decorate cakes.  I love using my College art classes to bring a smile to people's faces for special occassions.

We call this little cake Bubba.  He was made to brighten the day of a friend who was throwing a baby shower to welcome a new little soldier to a military family.  He turned out so cute and we all enjoyed watching him come to life.

As you can see this is the "Cars" birthday cake that I made for Bryant's birthday.  I loved learning how to marble fondant and put all of the little signs and finding the perfect cars to ride the roads.  It was an absolute hit with the Birthday Boy. 

Finally, this was the cake that was requested by Brooklyn for her birthday.  She just loved all of the little white flowers and yellow background.  I think she wished it would have been about 5 tiers, but when all of her friends showed up she was beaming with pride over what we had made together.  Her favorite part was blowing out the candles, though.   She is really excited to be six!

Baby Sister Smiles and Smiles and Smiles

How can you keep yourself from smiling?  I know as you see this sweet little face that you are smiling right now.  She is now 7 1/2 months old.  Pretty soon the adoption will be final and this precious little girl will be sealed to our family for Time and All Eternity.  We are so grateful that Heavenly Father sent her to our home.  We are so blessed.

Bristol is now crawling everywhere, and has been for about a month now.  She has now decided to pull herself up on anything that is taller than her and try to figure everything out.  We don't know where she finds all of that energy, but she is definitely a go getter. 

Cute Cowgirl

Braelynn had a lot of fun modeling today.  Isn't this a cute

cowgirl in her hat and glasses! 

I love this little girl.

Mother's Day 2010

Well, today I was definitely spoiled.  As you can see, I had a formal dinner prepared by my Knight in shining Armor.  He woke up this weekend and was very sick.  He had the children take me to a movie last night and he stayed home with the little ones.  He then was so ill this morning when we were getting ready for church that he stayed home.  He thought of what I would really want and he spent the weekend doing laundry and organizing all of it.  He would put in a load and then fold a load and then rest in between loads.  It was the most thoughtful gift ever.  He also purchased the beautiful roses in the pictures, the lei to wear to church, and he is purchasing me a cake decorating video that I have wanted for awhile now.  Dinner was an amazing meatloaf and we used our fine china that we received from our wedding.  The children spoiled me by not fighting (most of the day) and by doing most of the things that I asked them to.  All in all it was a wonderful Sunday.  I am so grateful for my little family!

Broken Bones

Here is my beautiful Bethany modeling her newest fashion.  Yes, Bethany broke her arm.  On Wednesday night Bethany took a nosedive in the laundry room and hit her arm really bad.  I immediately knew something was wrong and I loaded her into the car to go to the Wahiawa Emergency Room.  They said they couldn't see anything, but the Dr. suspected it was her growth plate.  (Evidently, you can't see a break on a  growth plate, only the pain tells you it is broken.)  So the next day we spent the day at Tripler Army Medical Center going from room to room and Doctor to Doctor.  Finally, the fracture clinic Doctor finally did the impossible and she knew it was broken when Bethany almost went through the ceiling, upon being touched on the growth plate.  So now we are decorating and enjoying the orange cast.  What a cutie!!

Cake Contest at the Elementary School. YIPEE!

So we had a lot of fun the past few days.  We started on Wednesday by cooking all of our cakes and putting them in the freezer, but not until they were layered with lots and lots of yummy buttercream icing.  We put them in the freezer so that we could carve them on Thursday.  Well, as you can see we carved and assembled and painted and had so much fun making a huge mess out of the kitchen, but it all paid off.

WE WON!!    Yes, we won the contest as the BEST CAKE THAT DOESN"T LOOK LIKE A CAKE.  The competition was stiff (the litterbox cake really had me worried.  Hee Hee), but all of the girls help really made it a family win.

The theme of the night at the school was the 50's and so they had a sock hop.  We only took our elementary age kids and left everyone else at home so you can see Lee tearing it up with Bethany, Braelynn and Brooklyn.  What a great evening.

Braelynn dancing with Daddy.

Bethany doing the sock-hop.

Brooklyn swinging around the gym with her favorite guy.

As you will notice the two boys standing and looking in Bethany's direction.  Right before this picture was taken there were 4 boys standing there all talking with her.  The boy in the white T-shirt asked her to dance during the sock-hop and she told him no because she was going to dance with her dad.  After the dance was over he came up to her and said, "It's too bad you didn't dance with me. . . it would have been fun."   When we arrived at home the little "following" she has showed up at the front door to ask if Bethany could go skating with them around the neighborhood.  Lee quickly told them she wasn't feeling well. (which was actually the truth) and then, upon closing the front door, cringed.  He said, "Do we have to start this in 5th grade?  I'm definitely in trouble here."  We'll keep you updated.

Brooklyn dancing with eager enthusiasm.

What a fun evening!

Somebody scold me.

Last night was wonderful.  We headed out to the North Shore again and on the way picked up McD for the kids.  We then stopped at a bait shop and Brandon and Lee proceeded to interrogate some poor shop owner about the wiles of fishing on the beach.  We then drove our BUS to Haleiwa Beach Park and proceeded to try and catch anything.  Although many prayers were offered to catch a fish they all lived to see another day.  However, we lost two hooks (they were bitten off) and a lot of bait.  I think all of the turtles we saw were eating them, but my more experienced fishing buddy (Lee) swears they were just huge fish that took everything with them.  He said we would come prepared next time.  Sounds like Rambo going for the kill. 

The reason you should all scold me is . . . I forgot my camera.  All the pictures you see here are off the internet of the place we went.  This always seems to happen to me.  I have the most beautiful pictures to take and nothing to record with.  I even thought the entire evening of the shots I would have taken.  So here they are, use your imagination:

Bethany trying to get close to the three turtles

that were 3 feet from the beach.

Brooklyn trying to convince me that she really hadn't

wanted to get all of her clothing wet, the wave just sneaked up over her.

Bryant jumping up and down everytime a turtle

poked its head out of the water.

Lee trying to let Brandon cast the reel.

Lee trying to hold onto the reel as

something was biting.

Lee's look of dissappointment as the something took

the hook off the end of the line.

Braelynn's look of disgust as a shrimp was

impaled on the end of the line.

GREAT prayer!

I just had to share Bryant's prayer at dinner last night.

Bryant:  Heavenly Father, thank you for these GREAT, GREAT carrots.  Thank you for this GREAT, GREAT macaroni.  Thank you for the GREAT, GREAT oranges.  Thank you for our GREAT, GREAT water.  Thank you for my GREAT, GREAT mom.   (I liked that one)  Thank you for my GREAT, GREAT dad. 

(At this point all reverence has kind of gone out the door as all of the older children are giggling and Lee and I are trying to maintain straight faces, but Bryant was unmoved and was having a true conversation with his Father.)

He continued:  Thank you for my GREAT, GREAT sisters and my GREAT, GREAT brother.  Bless the food.   amen.

I hope it is not blasphemous to share such a beautiful prayer, but just picture the cutest little blonde boy emphasizing how GREAT everything was in his life. I hope I can learn from him.

Newest Creations! Chocolate Butter Mint Cake. MMMM!

So here is a picture of my newest cake creation.  I made this for the girls Achievement night.  At the last minute the activity was canceled and so we took the cake with the ribbon to some friends that Lee was worried about and the other cake was devoured after dinner.

It was Chocolate Butter Cake, but I modified the recipe and added a little mint extract.  I also put Chocolate Pudding with Green mint chips in between the layers.  I then iced it with whipped cream icing and put Pirouette mint chocolate cookies around the outside and sprinkled on top.  The family rated it a 9.5 on a scale of 10 and hoped that it would make a repeat performance soon.  I love this!

I got Teeth!

Ok, could someone tell my mom to take her fingers out of my mouth!  So I just had the most traumatic experience in my entire life with growing these two little things and now everyone wants to take a peek.  They can't believe that I now have teeth.  I had to get them because I keep watching all of these other guys eating all of the good stuff and I overheard one of them say I couldn't eat any of it until I got teeth so here I am.  I know this will open up a whole new world of possibilities.  Thanks for looking.