Bull in a China Shop

Every year we get together with John's side of the family for a holiday get together and gift exchange before Christmas. This year, the extravaganza was at Laura's house. I'm pretty disappointed I don't have more pictures to show you. Instead of taking pictures, I was chasing Brendan around and saying things like . . .

Brendan, put that ornament back on the tree.
Brendan! *oh my gosh* That wasn't sentimental or anything, was it?

I promise I'll buy you a new one.

Brendan, stop pulling all the books off the shelves.

Brendan, stop chewing your food and spitting it out on the *new* carpet.

Brendan, that bottle of beer is not yours.

You get the idea.

If Laura's house was the china shop, our dear Brendan was certainly the bull.

Brendan did spend some of his time (.93873740283475 of a second) relaxing with Grandpa,

posing for a photo with Megan

and conning Aunt Kathy into sharing her water.
Heck, it is better than the beer he had tried to swipe earlier!
Ho, ho, ho.

Next year, I'm offering to host the K family extravaganza.
Brendan has already broken everything here :)

Santa Trauma

In an attempt to avoid the long lines at the mall, this year we arranged a "private meeting" with Santa Claus himself at my friend Kasey's house. I dressed the kids, packed my camera, and hoped for the perfect ho-ho-ho-photo of smiling children sitting on the lap of Santa. I even had the scrapbook page all planned out in my head. It was going to be absolute magic!

Magic . . . until Brendan actually saw Santa Clause.

His perfect ho-ho-ho-scrapbookable-smile turned into this . . .

This is his totally-terrified-but-not-too-terrified-to-stop-eating-this-cookie smile.

It reminds me of when Megan sat on Santa's lap when she was about his age.

Let's take a walk down memory lane here . . .

Megan 2007

And now back to good old, terrifying 2010.

Megan didn't seem too happy about sitting on Santa's lap either. I think she forced herself, afraid of what he might bring if she didn't give him her detailed list.

She was very business-like and described exactly what she was hoping for this year.

Maybe one of these year's I'll get a scrapbookable photo of my kids on Santa's lap, but I doubt it.

CAKEcakeCAKEcakeCAKE

Will you please go here and vote for my cake.

I entered a cake contest and I don't really care about winning.

I just want to beat this weird looking frog cake that someone entered.

It is really burning me up that the frog cake is beating me.

Here is a pic I stole off the website of the frog cake I'm talking about.

See how much I need your votes.

Please.

And now, some other cakes I've made recently.

This one was for a blog reader of mine who happened to live here in Central Ohio.

It was for her sister's baby shower.

This one was for an Ohio State football fan turning the big 3-0.

This ole guy was for a family Christmas party.
We cut him up into little pieces and ate him.
And he was good!

That's all for today, folks.
Tune back tomorrow when I share some pictures of my children screaming on Santa's lap.
Good times.
Good times.

Now go vote for me please!
That frog cake must go down!!!!!!!!!!

Will You Do Me a Favor?

Remember this cake I made for Brendan's first birthday party?

I entered it in a cake contest and I need your help.

Will you go here and vote for my cake?

Pretty please with sugar on top?

Then do it again every day until December 27????

(You can vote once a day, every day until Dec 27)

Ask all your friends to do it too.

You can have a lets-all-vote-for-Lisa's-cake-so-she-shuts-up-about-it-party.

You can even blog about it yourself.

C'mon!

Doesn't that sound fun???

My Favorite Four Letter Word

What is your favorite four letter word?
Mine is F-R-E-E . . . FREE

Did you know Shutterfly is offering a promotion this year to bloggers?

It is amazing. Simply blog about how wonderful Shutterfly is and receive 50 FREE Christmas cards. FREE! It is my favorite four letter word. For more info on this promotion, go here.

Every year Shutterfly comes out with gorgeous designs for Christmas cards. This year, their designs are nothing short of exceptional. They are very simple to use as well. All you have to do is go to their website http://www.shutterfly.com/, chose your design, upload your photo, add your information, order your cards, and voila . . . a beautiful Christmas card!

Here are some of my favorite designs . . . .

I love how simple and elegant this one is.

I love how this one has multiple photos (for those of you out there who are actually able to get more than one photo of your children without funny faces, mutual nose picking, etc.). The colors in this one are striking as well. (And p.s. - I'm secretly jealous of you non-funny-faces-non-mutual-nose-picking photo obtainers.)

And how cool is this one? It is kinda like a Christmas newsletter but I guarantee your friends won't roll their eyes when they open it up. You could include things like #10 - Both the kids made the honor roll at their exclusive, private school and #9 - The baby now speaks four languages, blah, blah blah. But let's keep it real folks. If you are like me, your top ten could possibly include #10- Finally finding the kids at Walmart after they were hopelessly lost for a half-an-hour. The options are endless.

If you want to buy one of these beautiful cards for yourself, simply click here.

Did you know Shutterfly also sells desk calendars where you can upload all of your non-mutual-nose-picking photos? Everyone needs a calendar. What a great gift idea! Click here for more info on these calendars.

And for those of you planning on having a baby in 2011 . . . Shutterfly also sells beautiful birth announcements. Click here for more info on these.

So now you've learned two things about me that you may not have known before. One, I have a hard time getting a picture of my two kids without mutual nose picking going on (eww, I hope you're not eating) and two, I'm not above shameless promotion for free stuff. Not above it one bit!

Now quit reading my blog and go check out http://www.shutterfly.com/.

Can I have my free stuff now?

And Now You Know Why

Or I guess I could title this "Why No one's Heard From Me in a While."

This cake was a challenge for me. My customer wanted Handy Manny's toolbox and all the tools to be edible for his son. Just one problem - I had never even heard of Handy Manny and neither had my little sidekick Megan. A quick internet search and we were off . . .

Handy Manny's toolbox was carved from rice krispie treats and covered in fondant. All the tools were sculpted from fondant. The cake was classic white with Bavarian cream filling, iced in buttercream. I really like how it turned out!

Megan went with me to deliver the cake and was BEAMING when the customer was complimenting the cake. He asked how I got the brick impression on the sides of the cake and Megan started explaining it to him. I was so proud!

The same weekend (which happened to be the weekend after Thanksgiving), I had to make this little cake for my niece Austyn. She wanted a gymnastics cake that was pink and purple. I don't think she asked for the thumb print on the front border but I threw that in for her at no extra charge.

Now, if you drive by my house (which you shouldn't be doing unless you are my neighbor or a creepy stalker) you will still find a wooden turkey on my front porch, my beautiful fall wreath still perched on my front door, and my mums collecting a dusting of snow in their urns. I think I'm the only one in the neighborhood not yet decorated for Christmas . . . .

and now you know why.

Overachievers

Every week in Megan's Pre-K class, they study a letter.

For extra fun, they have show-and-tell at the start of every class.

Students are tasked with bringing something in that begins with the letter of the week.

Before we were used to this routine, it created some scrambling in the morning.

It went something like this . . .

"Oh no!!!!!! Mom, I forgot I need a b-thing. "
This, in turn, led to a wild, sweaty, frantic search for a b-thing*

Cat. Nope. Elmo. Nope. Guitar. Nope. Farm. Nope.

Princess. Nope. Puzzle. Nope. Dog. Nope.

Seriously?

Needless to say, we now plan ahead.

We have our show-and-tell item all ready to go in the morning to prevent last minute scrambling.

This week, we lined up our G-thing with great anticipation.

Thanks, GG, for visiting Pre-K.

You were the best G-thing ever!

(And much more appropriate than a G-string . . . not that I have one of those or anything)

My Cake Workshop

A while back, after answering the fifty-thousandth email I had received from a friend/neighbor/acquaintance/sister of a brother's-uncle's-mother-that-I-went-to-high-school-with with a cake question, I decided to have a cake workshop. I figured it would be totally fun and much faster than answering fifty-thousand cake question emails.

I created a little website for my venture and decided to use the cabin in NY to host the event. I thought I would be lucky if one or two people actually signed up and was shocked when I had to sell out the workshop just days after I opened the registration.

Our cake extravaganza was this past weekend.

We had so much fun!

Let's play a little game.

Remember the song . . .

"One of these things is not like the others.

One of these things just doesn't belong."

Yeah, that would be my dad who showed up at my fancy, girly cake workshop dressed in his deer slayer clothes hoping to grab some quick lunch. (The only thing missing from this picture is the giant bow and arrow he was carrying.)

I guess you are never too old to be humiliated by your family.

I moved past my embarrassment and created this simple, little Christmas themed cake.

Everyone left with a ton of new skills and a cake they decorated themselves using my techniques.
I honestly can't wait to do it again,

only this time perhaps without the deer slayer as our special guest star!

Quit Whining, Start Blogging

So I finally thought of a solution to my "poor-me-I-am-so-behind-in-my-blogging-I-just-can't-sleep-at-night-problem." The solution . . . quit whining and start blogging.

So here goes . . .

Halloween 2010 began with the annual pumpkin carving contest.

Megan got into the action this year making the contest a three-way race.

She carved this pumpkin all by herself (with the use of a template and a non-sharp pumpkin carving thing-a-ma-jig. (technical term)
Still, quite impressive for such a youngster!

I think she has her momma's competitive gene.

John and his spooky spider provided some tough competition.

My spooky pirate skull thing was definitely a contender as well but the top prize ended up going to the four year-old. I mean, seriously, who has ever heard of a four year-old carving her own pumpkin? She must be destined for greatness (or at least we think so.) And I'm destined to lose this pumpkin carving contest so long as she is all cute and little and such.

And since I was unable to come up with any new, creative Halloween snacks this year we recycled the Frankensnack idea from last year. This, by the way, is how meaningful traditions are born.

So now our meaningful, Halloween traditions include these green headed pudding cup things. Then we made mummy dogs . . .

Caution: Megan's scary mummy dog face ahead.

If you frighten easily, stop reading now!

No Halloween is complete without the annual door-to-door quest for candy.

This year, Megan said she wanted to be a bowl of spaghetti, no a cupcake, no a princess. no a cupcake, no a bowl of spaghetti, no a cupcake. She also has my gene for decisiveness I guess. ha!She finally settled on the cupcake and I was excited. I figured, how hard can it be to make a cupcake costume?

Then I spent 48729037532 hours making, remaking, and fixing this costume, I decided next year's costume is coming from Walmart. (yeah, right)

Here is my little cupcake cutie. I think her costume turned out adorable.

Megan said, "I look so good I want to take a bite out of myself." ha!

Here is my superman, wearing a costume that is a size 3t-4t.

Remember folks, he just turned ONE!

He looks like he's ready for kindergarten.

Our neighborhood friends.

And that's all I have time for today folks.

Quit whining, start blogging. How's that for a new motto?

Hopefully you'll be hearing more from me soon.

Perhaps

I am so behind in my blogging it is interfering with my sleep.

Seriously.

I lay in bed and think of all the blog posts I need to do just to catch up with the here and now.

For example, I need to do posts on Laura's wedding, our trip to Niagara Falls, the Delaware County Fair, Leed's Farm, our trip to Disney . . . I'm sure there is more in there I am forgetting. Perhaps I'll get our Halloween photos up before the Fourth of July.

Perhaps.

First Day of Pre-K

Megan started Pre-Kindergarten after working very hard last year to make it through the rigorous Preschool curriculum, with honors! (Ha, just kidding about the "with honors" part . . . but if they had honors in preschool I'm sure my sweet Megan Kate would have received them.)

Here she is with her cousin Colin who is in her class again this year.

There they both go running ahead, excited to start another school year.

Another school year begins and the most boring blog post ever concludes!

Cake Baking Fool

I've been a cake baking fool lately.

Since I feel like a lost puppy without a cake to make, I've decided to turn this into a little business. After tossing around several ideas in my head, I've finally decided to call myself Sugar Kisses Cakery - Baking life sweeter, one cake at a time. It reminds me of the sugary kisses I get from Megan when she licks the beaters and helps me "cake bake." My orders have come mostly from word of mouth or friends. I'm working on getting a basic website together with my computer genius husband and I'll let you know when that is up and running. For now, you'll just have to settle for this little old blog that doesn't get updated enough.

I made this cake for John's sister Laura's wedding. It was white almond cake with raspberry filling, iced in vanilla buttercream. You can't really see in the picture but at each intersecting line, there was an edible pearl dragee. The bow and the monogram were made from fondant. The monogram plaque was outlined in teeny tiny pearls and was my favorite part of the cake. This is the largest cake I've made so far . . . 200 servings. The florist brought the wrong flowers (they were supposed to be the same gorgeous ones from her bouquet) but that's ok. I think this cake would have looked pretty with dandelions on it, but I guess when you spend 84237598470 hours working on something . . . you better like it!!!!!! I was really proud of this cake, especially since it was only my second wedding cake AND I managed to get it to the reception 1.5 hours away without it crumbling, tipping over, or falling apart. I shed a few tears of relief when she was placed safely on the table at the reception, and then a few more when we had to cut her up and eat her.

I made this cake for my nephew Carter's first birthday party. It was almond cake with raspberry filling and fresh lemon cake with raspberry filling, iced in vanilla buttercream. I sculpted the animals from fondant to match his safari themed birthday party.

I made this cake for a sweet little customer's baptism. It was almond cake with raspberry filling (popular combination).

This one was for a little girl's third birthday party. The bow and the number three were purple but for some reason the pic makes them look blue.


I also have another little business venture to tell you about. I've decided to host a cake workshop at the cabin in the woods (but we're calling it the "cake cottage" because we're fancy like that.) Read all about it here. I only have a few spaces left and I'm really surprised at the interest in this. If you want to learn how to "cake bake" come join us :) We are going to have an absolute blast filled with all kinds of some stay-at-home-momma drama.