Cakes for Relief Society

This year marks the 170th "birthday" of the Relief Society.

Every March, we always have an activity that focuses a bit more on the Relief Society program and this year we decided we'd like to have more of a BIRTHDAY party!

And if you're going to have a birthday, you need to have CAKE!
And come on, a cake is always better than cupcakes or other desserts for celebrating such an occasion.

So, between my friend Megan and I, we baked 8 different cakes in 6 different yummy flavors. We baked vanilla, chocolate, coconut, banana, pineapple coconut and mixed berry.

And so the two of us, along with my sister Fern (who graciously agreed to come over), spent the morning decorating....

All the cakes were decorated with a butter cream icing... and since we can't have open flames at the church, I thought it would be fun to make some fondant candles to go on top.

(and a big thank you to Meg, who came over on short notice to spend some time with sweet baby M today... it was a huge help!!!)

Alien Party

I can't believe that my youngest is 6! Where has the time gone??

So, this year we decided to have an ALIEN PARTY. I knew exactly what I wanted to do for his cake. In fact, I had originally planned to make this cake last year, but ended up changing my mind when we decided to have a magic show as part of his party. But, for the last year, I knew I still wanted to make this cake for him.

The cake itself came together quite quickly (quickly is a relative term, but for me a couple hours is still quick...) I had a lot of fun making it. A lot of fun. Maybe it's because I'm making the cake for my little guy and no matter what, he'd be thrilled with it.

As party of his party, I decided to do a little bit of extra stuff to go along with the theme (which I never do). We blew up some balloons and we made them into Aliens. Some looked like this...Some I let the kids decorate with markers. (sorry, no pics of these). They had a great time drawing different alien faces.

As part of the party, we watched "Aliens in the Attic". An older movie that I hoped most kids hadn't seen. It's one of those "kids save the world" type of movie. My kids like it. Anyways, I had originally gone to the store looking for popcorn containers - you know, the red and white striped ones except the store didn't have any that I wanted. Instead, I found some green bags that worked perfectly for this...

And for beverages, we had juice boxes I decorated too. Cute, hey?

So much junk food!! I think Cam went a little crazy. And in the ice cream bucket was actually caramel popcorn. With all this candy, it's no surprise that no one wanted to eat cake later!! (the story of my life when it comes to cakes at my own kids' parties... no one eats them.)Some of the kids are so darn funny. There was one boy that was laughing and giggling throughout the movie. It was very funny.

It was a great party though. Matthew had a great time.

Happy Birthday to my favorite little boy (oops... I mean big boy!)

Recent Fun Geocaches

Ah, geocaching. Yes, another blog posting about one of my favorite activities.

I love it when I come across a cache that someone put some serious thought into and didn't just hide a "tupperware in the trees." Especially when it's something unique and hand crafted. (I will admit, not all of mine are all that special. I have a couple that are just tupperware, but I think most of them have a unique element to them)

Anyways, there's been a lot of really good caches that I've found recently. Not all of them have I taken pictures of, but quite a few of them.
I'm going to share some pictures of the caches here (mostly for the benefit of my cousin who also loves geocaching, though she lives far away and we can rarely go together... and she's the one that got me into it by talking about it.... so she can have some new ideas for hides herself..... or for any of the rest of you and inspire you to take up this fun hobby!!)

Lots of spoiler pictures. But I won't say where they are hidden or the name of the cache.
Enjoy!


This one took me a few minutes to find. Not too hard though.


This one I found tonight and it was worth the walk in the very cold wind...

huh, a lock... now what's the code?
Okay, I know. Now what's this?? A second lock... oh boy, this is going to take a while.

eeny meeny miney mo.... which key?
(would you believe I picked the right one of the very first try? What are the chances? It literally made me laugh out loud when it worked!)

Lastly, I had seen these online and had planned to one day hide one of these myself, so when I saw it, it was a quick find cause I knew exactly what it was...


These are all great examples of fun, unique geocaches and what helps to make this a hobby that I love. Now go out and find some yourself!

My little poet

I can not for the life of me write a decent poem. Of any kind.
So, when I come across random writings by my kids, sometimes I'm quite amazed at what I read. It's really quite beautiful.
Yesterday, I came across this poem, scrawled messily on a piece of paper with my daughter's name printed neatly in the corner.......

When you look into the night sky
Do you notice how they fly
That twinkling shining star
you can see from afar
How they dance
When they prance
In the night sky so pretty
Now I don't want the sun to rise
Because this night is my prize
This shining star that I see
This shining star that I see.

Budding Talent

I've been wanting to share these for a while, but I'm just getting around to it now. (blogging on the small computer just isn't as convenient and easy to use as my reg. laptop which is broken...)

There are two people in my life that I think are budding cake artists.
The tips and guidance I've given them, they've pick up on so quickly. The two that I'm talking about are my friend Megan and my 9 yr old daughter, Elora.

My birthday was a short while ago. Megan gave me a great surprise.... a beautiful cake that she decorated for me. I loved it!!! Thanks Megan, it was a great gift and I truly appreciate the work that you put into it, cause I know how time consuming it can be. And one of the things that I loved about it too... was I personally have never decorated a cake like this, so it was unique and new to me. Fantastic! Megan, you're on your way to becoming a fabulous cake decorator!! Here's my birthday cake....




The other week, our ward had a Talent Show night. The kids could either perform or put something on display. So, Elora decided she'd like to decorate a cake to put out. She's got a real talent for making things and in the past, I've actually had her help me make flowers when I've got a lot to do for a cake. So, this was the first time that Elora covered a cake with fondant. She did really good, except in one part that started to tear. I told her her options were to make the tear the back or to make it the front and cover it. She opted to cover it (smart girl, that's what I would choose). She made all the flowers herself. Her cake was amazing. A real budding artist.

Anniversary

I can't believe that today creeped up on me so fast, that I didn't have time to prepare all that I wanted to do. And, to top things off.... my computer is dying on me. Dying! The screen is all a mixture of weird colors, mostly red. I don't know what happened to it. It's really quite sad (and annoying).


So, what anniversary is this???
Why, it's my 1 year anniversary of blogging!
That's right.

So, in honor of my blog anniversary being today, I'm going to do a bit of a giveaway today.
First person to comment here on my blog and tell me which blog posting of mine they enjoyed the most, I will make you something!!! If you live close, it most likely be something sweet that you can eat. If you live farther away (like Melanie), I will make something else and I'll mail it to you.

So, go write something... QUICK.

So, if my computer holds up and survives a little longer, I still plan to do what I was originally going to do and have some sort of puzzle and another giveaway. But, given the hour and the lateness of the evening, it'll have to wait a bit. I know. I'm disappointed that I wasn't more on the ball.

Well, happy anniversary to my blog.
And thank you to all those that read it.