Frosty Toss

This is what I did today... well, for about 4 hours of today. I made this "Frosty Toss" game for the Christmas party in Sophie's class. The kids will be throwing marshmallows through the holes in Frosty. Although a little time consuming, this really wasn't all that difficult. You just need cardboard, posterboard, spray adhesive and a little glitter paint. You can't see it from this photo, but Frosty and his button holes are outlined in silver glitter paint. The tree, bush, scarf and hat also have glitter paint on them.

This pic is just to show you how big it is!

Cake #6- The Pink Guitar

Ok. This is the cake Sophie chose for her birthday. She got a pink guitar for her birthday (a little early) and wanted a cake that looked like it. This cake, of course, looks way cooler than her pink garage sale guitar!!! This cake was much easier to decorate, probably because it had less colors to mix up than the Lightning cake. Also, the icing was easier to work with because I didn't have to use a whole bottle of red coloring this time!!! I was really glad that I chose to do the part with the silver sprinkles first, because I got them everywhere. There are a lot of silver sprinkles under all that icing. The part I worried about the most was the guitar strings because I didn't think I could get them all straight and consistent. There are a few breaks, but overall, I think they turned out well. Sophie was very happy with the cake, so I'm happy too!!!

Cake #5- Lightning McQueen

Whew... that was A LOT of work!!! This is Aiden's birthday cake that I spent all afternoon making. He's happy with it, so I guess that means I am too!!! He stood there and watched the whole time. I got a little frustrated because he wouldn't keep his fingers out of the icing bowl!!!

The back tire is a little messed up and there is a little color discrepancy on the front of the car. I'm not really sure why. I left the house for 20 minutes to pick up Sophie from school and then picked up right where I left off and the color was a little different. Also... I will NEVER make red icing again. My very smart Sister-in-Law told me to buy it pre-made, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Next time I will order it if I have to, but I definitely will not make it. It took so much color that the icing was a little wet. I tried to thicken it up by adding powdered sugar and then it just looked a little grainy. It was still too wet, so the icing was a little more difficult to work with than the other colors... Oh well... that's what learning is all about!!!

Pine Cone Birdfeeders

Aiden found some pine cones in our back yard and has been begging me to help him make bird feeders with them, or "make bird food" as he would say. So this afternoon, we sat down and did just that. These were really easy and inexpensive to make. They only cost me $2 and we could have made a ton of them for that price! As it turns out, we got tired after making just 4 of them.

The birdseed cost me $2. The pine cones were free from my backyard. I used left over string from a roman shade I made earlier to hang the feeders and skewers that were left over from kebabs this summer as a perch. The peanut butter, I would have had to pay for, but Aiden took this jar outside last week and I found it outside a couple days later. (I wouldn't have purchased Jif for the birds!) Apparently he was preparing for this project long before I was!

Aiden's favorite part of the project was putting the peanut butter on the pine cone. He got it everywhere and wasn't even tempted to taste it because he doesn't like peanut butter.

Here is the finished product. Since it rained last night, we're going to wait to hang them up until things dry out. It will be fun watching them to see if the birds eat the seeds!

Cake #4- Playing with Fondant

I've been wanting to try playing around with fondant and I had a little extra time today, so I thought I'd give it a go. This is a six inch round cake that I covered with white fondant. Then I made some blue fondant stars (Thanks to the play dough cookie cutters!) and stuck them on. Overall, this was pretty easy to do. The fondant recipe worked out well and it's pretty easy to color although I was in a hurry and still had a few streaks in mine.

My critique: I think I made my stars a little too thick. As I mentioned, I was in a hurry and so I didn't take time to trim down the round cardboard cake board that is under the cake so you can see it. (Nor did I wrap it, but I'm only going to serve it to my family!) This was a very quick job (less than 5 min to decorate) and I'm sure I could do a little better if I gave it a little more time and effort!

I have read that covering small cakes is easier than covering large cakes with fondant. I could easily see how that could be true. As for this small cake. Covering it was super easy and I have to say that I prefer this to using traditional decorator icing.

Fishing at Grammy's House

We spent last weekend visiting our family in Wichita and El Dorado. Grammy's house has a pond behind it. The kids spent a lot of time fishing over the weekend. Neither one of them caught a fish. Fortunately, Travis caught a few so the kids could see and touch them. Wow. I never thought I'd raise two city kids, but it seems as that's what's happened!!! My kids have pretty much only fished at Grammy's house. I think we're going to have to change that!

Aiden had amazing patience and persistence. All he wanted to do was fish.

Waffle got to spend some precious time outdoors while the kids fished.

Travis caught this bass one morning while waiting for Waffle to do his business.

Cake #3- The Anniversary Cake

Yep, that's right. Our 8th anniversary is coming up next week. I thought I'd make a cake to celebrate with. I decide to make a round layer cake and then decorate it. No too difficult, right? Well, there is a very good reason you're not going to get to see a picture of this one! Major FAIL!!! Hahaha. At least I can laugh at it. I couldn't get the cake to stop leaning (I thought I had the layers level), which made me pretty frustrated, so I just decided to use left over icing from my last cake to decorate it. Instead of making new icing for this disaster. I used orange and light green (which were our wedding colors). They don't belong together on a cake. Enough said. The next cake will be Aiden's birthday. It should go better. We'll see!!!

Two Silly Kids

I thought you might enjoy a little silliness today!

At the Zoo

It was a beautiful day today in addition to being cycle break, so we decide to take a trip to the zoo. I can't believe we hadn't been there yet this year! Here are a few pics from our trip. Enjoy!

We had to get popsicles...

and ride the carousel...

and of course ride the train!!!

One of the nice zoo volunteers showed us a gorilla skull, a chimpanzee skull and a lemur fur. How exciting!!!

It was a beautiful day to visit the zoo. We went in the afternoon and there was very few people there. There were no crowds, no lines and no arguing between my children. What a great day!

Cake #2- The Jack-o-Lantern

I thought I'd try another cake today. This is my first attempt at a jack-0-lantern cake. I think it turned out pretty well! The kids are really excited to eat it! Next up will probably be some Halloween cupcakes and then the kids both have birthdays coming up! Aiden has already picked out a Lightning McQueen cake. It looks pretty complex... I may need a practice cake before the real thing!

Dad's Handy Helpers

Ok, well maybe not so handy, but they are super eager to help out daddy with all our home remodeling projects! You can check our our project progress here.

My First Cake

Just thought you all might want to see what I've been up to! Not that I need another hobby, but I thought I'd try my hand at making cakes. This is my very first. Thanks to a little tutorial from Aunt Connie, I think I did ok! I made it in time for her to come up for Grandparent's Day at Sophie's school. Sophie thought we should write "Welcome Aunt Connie" on it. I thought that was a fantastic idea!

Waffle's Birthday

August 22 was Waffle's Birthday. He turned 1!!! Sophie, being the party planner that she is, required that we throw a party for him. So here are the details...

Waffle, a.k.a. The Birthday Boy

The Cake for the Humans

We made dog treats for Waffle. The kids had a lot of fun doing this little project. It was much like making sugar cookies, but not nearly as tempting to eat the dough! The dough consisted of cornmeal, flour, chicken broth, peanut butter, eggs and a little oil.

Mixing it up...

Rolling it out...

The final product...

Waffle loved the cookies. The kids loved making them. It was a big puppy party success!!!

Vacation- Part One

Ok, ok, I know.... we went on vacation in July and I'm just getting around to showing you all what a great time we had! This year we went to Wisconsin Dells for vacation and got to do a lot of very fun things. Our "biggie" this year was going on the Zip Lines. Both of the kids loved the zip lines and Travis and I did too! It was an absolute work out as well!! There were 6 zip lines that each started at the top of a 6 or 8 story tall tower. And on an 85 degree day, with zip line gear, a helmet and gloves on, it was a lot of work climbing every one of those towers. Yeah, that's right... we climbed close to 40 stories that afternoon! Travis climbed all of them carrying not only his gear, but also carrying Aiden! Whew... makes me tired just thinking about it!

On Sophie's first trip down, she wanted to go with a guide. As soon as she saw that it was safe, though, she decided to go on the next five by herself!!! What a brave girl!!!


You can't see Aiden's face in this picture, but he was LOVING it!!! He went with a guide on all but the last zip line. That one was a double zip line and he got to "race" momma, so he decided to go by himself. I got to watch his face the entire way down. It was awesome!

Daddy....

.... and Mamma.

Ok, zip lining was so much fun. You should all try it! It was our adventure for this year. If you remember, last year we went white water rafting. I wonder what kind of adventure we can take the kids on next year! I'm open for suggestions!! Stay tuned for more vacation pics!!!

This one's for Aunt Connie... (and of course everyone else)

Aiden started t-ball this year. These are the kind of things I live for as a mommy!!! He has so much fun and loves playing!!! Here are some pics from his first game.

First time on the field.

Some pre-game stretching.... is it bad that he can't quit looking back at his momma???

"Hey Batter, Batter!!!"

His first at bat. He was so proud to finally get to put on that helmet!!!

The first swing wasn't successful, but the second swing was!!!

Yay!!! I hit the ball!!!

Running to first...

Looking for second base...

Scoring his first run!!!

High-five for the coach!!!

This game was soooo much fun! It is such a joy to see your children completely enjoying themselves! I loved watching his little personality come out when he was interacting with the other kids and the coach. It's not very often that I get to watch him "from a distance." Even more than that, it's so much fun to see the self-confidence they build when they accomplish something! He was so proud of himself. He felt like a really big boy! We have four games left. I'll be posting more pics soon!

It's been a long time...

Yeah, I know it's been a while, but get ready... A LOT has happened since my last post. (That's about 2 months ago.) School started for the kids today and school is OVER for me in less than 3 weeks! That means more blogging, or at least less excuses for not blogging often enough!

So here we go. Let's start with back to school photos!

Today was Sophie's first day of 1st grade and Aiden's first day of preschool. I recently went part-time at work, which allowed us to put Aiden in preschool this year instead of daycare. It is seriously A LOT cheaper!!! He is going to have a great time! Oh, and that's also one less excuse I have for not blogging very often... you should hear a lot more from me!

This is Sophie's new outfit that she picked out just for her first day of 1st grade. She has been daydreaming about a new outfit from Justice, so we went to Justice and picked out a look and then went to Kohl's with my 30% off coupon and tried our best to re-create that look, obviously for less $. She was very happy with the result. I was very happy with the price! Everyone wins!!! (Except for Aiden, who had to sit there while she tried on outfit after outfit.)

Aiden was super excited about his first day of preschool. The let the moms stay for the first 45 minutes on the first day so the kids can get used to their new classrooms. Aiden was ready for me to leave as soon as he got there! I stayed for 5 minutes and then he said I could leave! I almost, just a little bit, wish he would have wanted me to stay!

That's it for now. Check back for vacation pics...coming soon!!!

Time to play catch-up...

It's been a long time, I know. It tends to get pretty busy around here!!! I have had a lot to do and have been complaining that I don't have time to update my blog, but Travis keeps telling me that my blog is the last thing I need to worry about!!! Well, I'm between semesters right now. My new (and last) semester starts tomorrow, so I thought I'd give you all a big update on everything we've been up to this spring.

We went home to visit family in March over Sophie's cycle break. It was a pretty quick trip, but the kids love seeing their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. I really wish we got to go home more often. While we were there, the kids and I made some Easter sugar cookies. It looks like they had a good time!

How did he get icing there???

Sophie is our party planner. She plans parties nearly every week. We get invitations to things such as Easter egg hunts, dress-up parties, sleep overs, etc all the time. It's pretty fun. This time she wanted to have a "Fancy" party. She made me a list of things that she needed at her party. It included red cups, red plates, red napkins, red streamers, lemonaide and a cake with strawberry filling. The attire was formal, so Aiden wore his Cars costume from Halloween and Daddy also dressed up for the occasion. You can't really get fancier than a suit jacket and a mullet wig!!!

There was silliness....

And dancing....

This is a random picture of Aiden "hugging" the dog. Poor poor Waffle. His neck might not survive! This is one boy who loves his dog!!!

The kids have spent most of the spring outdoors. The play in the backyard. It is so nice to have kids who are still BFFs. They play so well together. They made a secret club out of Aiden's soccer net.

You can see the TV from only one chair in the dining room. Every morning, the kids eat breakfast sitting in the same chair!!! They know the TV goes off after breakfast, so they have to squeeze every little bit of viewing time in! I could solve this problem by turning the TV off, but then I wouldn't have this story to tell them when they get older! (Those are my new dining chairs, btw. Yes, they are aluminum and yes, they are cold, but they are uber washable!!!)

I have been spending a lot of my time with Aiden teaching him how to cook. I know he's only 4, but he's a quick learner! In this picture he is making pancake batter. He also can pour it onto the griddle. We've also made cookies, cakes, pies and pizza. Maybe I should have said I'm teaching him how to 'bake'!!! Cooking will be next, but for now we're sticking with baking, which is my personal preference!!! Aiden is a great little helper.

They love posing for pictures!

We have been doing a little family golfing. Daddy has taken us to the driving range a few times. These are pictures of a time when Travis took Aiden.

My little golfer!!!

And to the end of our update... I recently purchased the ITSO storage system that Target carries for some storage in Aiden's room. They were super easy to put together and made a huge difference in the appearance of his room. We spent an afternoon cleaning and re-organizing his room. I know it's been 2 1/2 years since we bought this house and we still have almost nothing on his walls. I guess I'll have to be getting around to doing that soon!