2 cakes this week

So, this week I've made a couple cakes.

Monday was election day.   I was asked by my friend to make a cake for them to enjoy as they're watching and waiting for the result to come in.  I have to say, this was the largest, flat cake I've ever made.  22"x15".  Iced in buttercream.  I think it turned out well.   Have a look...

Yesterday was also my sister's birthday.  Now, anyone that knows Heather, knows she LOVES cake.  To be more specific, she LOVES icing!!  So, for her birthday, I made her a pretty cake that is loaded full of buttercream icing.  Just for her.   I've never decorated a cake like this before, so that was new for me.  My friend, Megan, made me a birthday cake this year and decorated my cake like this.  Pretty, simple and easy to do.  I will definitely decorate a cake like this again (and don't look too closely at my white roses, they aren't all that nice because I was using icing that was just way too soft and thin and I was too lazy to make it more stiff...)

Happy Birthday Heather!!  Hope you enjoyed your cake!

And now I must go and get ready for my busy day.  This weekend I'll be at Camp Croppin'.  I'm excited for the chance to do some scrapbooking (which has been so long... almost since last year, but whatever!) and more importantly, to spend the weekend with some great friends.

Calgary Temple Progress - April 15, 2012

The Calgary Temple is coming along. It's been a little while since I've posted some pictures on their progress.
A couple weeks ago, the last of the scaffolding on the bottom, main section of the temple came off. It's looking fantastic! The top is almost completely done and it won't be long before the last of the scaffolding will come off completely. A couple weeks maybe?? We're seeing progress done on a daily basis.
I actually took these pictures a couple of days ago. I was in Royal Oak and had a little bit of time and decided to stop and watch the progress and take some pictures.



So, my neice is engaged to a nice young man named Ryan. Ryan is an electrician and he has the opportunity to work on the temple. I've seen him a couple times over the last couple of weeks and thought I'd ask him what he thinks of working on the temple. Ryan says he's enjoying working there. He is amazed at how PERFECT everything is. The chandeliers are going to be amazing and BIG (he says the biggest one is around 600 lbs!) When I asked about lighting for the outside, he told me that the stained glass windows have LED lights in the bottom that he installed. Cool. I look forward to the day when it's all lit up.

Speaking of the temple, today we heard news that someone was called as the Chairperson for the Youth Cultural Showcase. That person was Cam's Uncle. How exciting!

So many good things. It's awesome.
Lastly, I thought I'd share a short experience that I had today regarding the temple. As I was walking to the van after church, there was a truck with an older man that was stopped just behind our vehicle. The man called me over and asked "Can you tell me what this building is and what religion is it for?" I told him it belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that the building I came out of was our church building and the building he was inquiring about was our temple. I had a nice little chat with the man. He said he had noticed the temple from far away and had wondered what it was and so he drove all the way over to find out. It's true that you can see the temple from so far away and it amazes me that someone was curious enough to come and see what it was.
And on this note... I thought I'd mention for any of you out there.... if the Calgary Temple is of interest to you, when it is done in the Fall, there will be an Open House for anyone to go through. I extend to you an invite to come and walk through this beautiful building.

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.