I made a cake last week...

It has been a LONG time since I've made a wedding cake. Over a year since we spent the last year in Texas...

 So I happily accepted when Chris's cousin came to me about making the cake for her daughter's wedding.

 She had a tree-ish theme to her wedding. Backyard picnic, swings, shabby shic...her invitation had a tree in the background with their initials carved in to it. Very cute.

 She emailed me a picture and I did my best to dublicate it. I love the way it turned out!

Hannah Montana Cake

I always love when people call me back to make another cake for them....this is actually #5 for this family! I'm now officially apart of the family!

I'm not a huge fan of Hannah Montana. Really, I'm not a fan at all and we try our best from keeping Elodie from watching her.

But this Hannah Montana themed cake turned out cute! The bottom tier is a star shaped cake, in case you couldn't tell!

Addysen and Grayce's 2nd Birthday Party

Through the years I have learned two major things about birthdays.

#1- It doesn't matter how simple you try and make a birthday party, it will still somehow find a way to Stress. You. Out. PERIOD!

and

#2- No matter how many cakes I make, or how early I start preparing a cake, or how late I stay up decorating said cake...Sometimes...SOMETIMES...the cake will not come out exactly how you planned! It just won't. And you just accept it for what it is and move on. Because it doesn't matter how good you are, a cake has a mind of it's own....especially when it wants to lean!!!


With that said, I still love birthdays and my girls will have a party every year of their life!

Because what's a better way to spend the afternoon than celebrating these 2 girls
2nd birthday!? I say NOTHING!

The weather was perfect, we had some of the best friends celebrate with us, the food was GOOD, and the girls had no clue what was going on! Except they knew that they wanted cake!

We love these girls...


Chris parents came to town for the weekend and brought oldest cousins Kolton and Aubrey. I didn't catch a picture of Kolton. Bummer.



Sweet big sister...


Singing...


Serving...


Eating...


Not amused that we took them away from their cake for a picture!


The Dads. They helped, they carried, and then stood back and said how great everything was.

Besides cake, we had fruit kabobs, chocolate covered strawberries, and pink,red,and green kettlecorn. Very addicting HOMEMADE kettlecorn. Got to get myself a whirlypop!




Overall, it was an awesome day! All the kids had fun and we all enjoyed the weather and company. Thanks everyone for coming!

Flowers in Fall

It's been a few months since I've been asked to do a cake for anyone. I was feeling the itch so when I got a call about a 4 year old garden party themed birthday party, I was so excited! I love the way it turned out!

I hit 700 entries and didn't even realize it!

And to celebrate 700....2 cake pictures from a cake I did yesterday for a 4 years old birthday party. This cake is this little girls 4th cake from me. I love when people call me back year after year to do more cakes for them.

Before the party pictures...the cake pictures!

Here is the cake for Addysen and Graycie's tutu party. Originally I was going to put a tutu around the base of each cake but it wasn't happening. So, I improvised and made tutu bows instead. I love the way it came out. I don't know what I will do if I ever get a boy!

And while this picture is blurry, a close up of the number 1.

My favorite details on this cake were the little rhinestones in the center of each tutu bow. Too bad I didn't think of this when I was making the girls bows. I can't believe I'm already making Addysen's first birthday cake.

It feels like yesterday I was making Elodie's first birthday cake.... sigh

If I never see a princess cake again...

How many different ways can I make a princess cake!?! So far? 6!!! It's not that I hate a princess cake (especially since Elodie's cake last year was princess) but it's just so predictable. Like being a princess for Halloween! I had to bite my tongue 2 years ago when Elodie insisted on being a princess for Halloween! I guess it's just a right of passage when your a young girl!

This isn't at all my favorite cake I've done, especially not my most favorite princess cake...BUT, the mom had exactly what she wanted in mind and I just bit my tongue again and made it happen. I especially don't like writing on my cakes or being the one who has to write on cakes so I was pretty self-conscious when I dropped it off. She was THRILLED and thanked me a few times when I dropped it off and sent me an email later this evening thanking me again. I guess that's all that matters!

Cakes make me very vulnerable. You spend countless hours creating this piece, all the while trying to get what the person has in mind, stretching your abilities a bit and losing a ton of sleep in the process. In the end, you put everything into it and put it on display for someone to judge!! No matter how cute the cake is, or how many cakes I do, I always feel nervous until I get the reaction! Then I can eat again!
Pure torture but I love it!!!

A cake fit for a princess

Last year I did this cake (the 4 tiered cake) for a girl who heard about my cakes through a friend in my old ward.

This year I did this cake for her...



I was so happy that she liked the cake I did for her last year enough to keep my number and email and ask me to make another cake for her this year! I must be doing something right!

Straw bah-bah-bah-bah berry..

Strawberry Shortcake! So if you don't have a little girl you may not carry the theme song to Strawberry Shortcake in your head....sadly, this song HAUNTS me!!

Did this cake for my great friend Audrey, who's daughter had a Strawberry Shortcake themed birthday party yesterday. It was so much fun!

Elodie had a great time at the party and is talking non-stop about the Strawberry Shortcake party she is going to have for her birthday...5 months from now!

Melissa's Baby Shower

Audrey, Jen, and I hosted a baby shower for Melissa. Melissa is due just a few weeks after me and we are both having girls! We had a great time all together...but then again, it was us, and there was food involved! I took over 40 pictures but to save your from sheer boredom, I'll just post a few for posterity sake! Check out Melissa's blog for a more detailed account of the day!

What's a baby shower without a cake! I love making girly cakes! I didn't get a picture of the whole table of food but just trust me, we know how to plan a party!


Guest of honor...


Great friends...




I don't think you can really tell we are pregnant from this picture...I have 3 weeks to go, Melissa has 6 weeks! It's been so fun being pregnant together and sharing in the joys and sufferings of the whole process! Love ya Melissa. Hope you had a great time!

Another reason my Disneyland pictures aren't done...

Just before we left for Disneyland our dear friends the Schneider's called and asked if I would do a wedding cake for Creston's wedding on the 27th. I immediately said yes and as soon we got home from Disneyland got to work....Everyone loved the way it turned out and I was so happy I could help make Creston's wedding day special!

Here is the finished product...

Back to my regularly scheduled program...

Well, my wedding cake is completed...this crazy week has come to an end and I am exhausted! Next time someone wants me to do a wedding cake the same week as a major holiday I will most definitely be charging a fee for that! Thankfully, I managed my time pretty well and had no gliches other than having a hard time finding the reception! And when that was found, everything else fell into place! If your ever wondering why wedding cakes are so expensive, I'll just break it down for you.....I started baking on Monday....3 days of baking....$100 in supplies (which included about 4 trips to Wal-Mart, Michael's, a cake decorating store, etc.)....a total of about 10 hours of just decorating! Travel time to the reception (twice)...homemade fillings and frostings plus time putting sheets cakes together....and nobody charges for stress!! This on top of keeping my 3 year old out of the kitchen and trying to keep my house in order so it doesn't bite me in the butt the next week AND working Friday night until 1am and Saturday morning until 2pm! Yes, I'm crazy but there is certainly something thrilling about juggling so many things at once..I wouldn't want it all the time, but it's nice to spice things up a bit..Anyway! All of this in hopes that your bride falls in love with the finished product! Which she did and that's all that matters! But never complain about the price of a wedding cake....we could definitely charge more!

Now back to my regular job of being a mother, wife, housekeeper, grocery shopper, and preparing for the next big holiday! Oh yea, and planning the Ward's Christmas Party, graduation and Disneyland! December is seriously going to pass in blur! Wake me up when it's time to go to Disneyland!!

The One About a Wedding Cake

So about a year ago I did the wedding cake for my dear friend Heidi's sister. While I was at the reception serving, one of the ladies who was helping with the catering asked me for my number. Her daughter was seriously dating a guy and she anticipated that it wouldn't be long before she was planning the wedding. Well, nearly a year later this same lady gave me a call today to do the wedding cake for her daughter's wedding! I haven't done a wedding cake since May and although my pregnancy has taken a front seat to everything else, in the back of my mind I was wondering when I would get a chance to do another cake! I'm super excited and any extra money to pad the Disneyland account is music to my ears! Wish me luck...in November!

Cake recap

So this weekends wedding cake went off without a hitch! Huge sigh of relief! It's usually the simple cakes that give me the most problems! But not this time! The bride was so easy to work with (which I needed since my last bride wasn't so much) and was really laid back about what I did. She kinda had to be considering she called me a week before the wedding and asked me to do her cake! Yes, I typed that right..a week before the wedding!!!

Apparently, she had asked another girl from her ward to do the wedding cake for her. The girl agreed but ever since then the bride couldn't get ahold of her!! The bride happens to be a cousin to my friend who I did the baby shower cake for just recently. She saw her cake, asked who did it, my friend gave her my number and that's all she wrote! I probably wouldn't have agreed to the cake with such short notice but the bride wanted an all fake cake with just a real top tier and side tier. And they were serving store bought sheet cakes (ugh!) at the reception so all I had to do was cover the fake cakes and bake the top and side tiers. Easy enough, until of course I burned myself! Plus the bride bought all the ribbon and brought it to me. I didn't really have to do much!

The cake turned out so cute!! I'm a fan of pink and green as those are the colors of Elodie's room....wasn't too sure about it for a wedding but the church looked so cute and the cake tied right in!! I'm thinking this might be Elodie's next birthday cake! Just smaller of course!

Baby Shower Cake

Finally getting around to uploading the pictures from my baby shower cake last weekend. Christopher's little spring cleaning with the computer has thrown me off a bit.

Here it is in all it's glory. I love,love,LOVE the way it turned out! I was just sad I couldn't attend the shower to see Jenessa's reaction! (And because this is a huge deal for Jenessa and her hubby as they had to use invetro to get pregnant. Everyone is just thrilled for them!) It never fails, we are always headed out of town on the weekends a cake is due! Jenessa emailed me today and told me that it was fabulous and I think I might have gotten a wedding cake out of this one too..Jenessa's cousin..we shall see if the bride to be gives me a call.

Weekend Update

Friday was playgroup, I blogged about that on Friday but here is another picture to enjoy...
This is of Elodie and her littly buddy Isaac..they are exactly one year apart, Elodie being the older one....

After playgroup, Christopher came home and we decided to venture out and try Cafe Rio for lunch. I had never been before but I had heard my cousin Tania and her friend Ashley rave about the place. Since we have a few here in Arizona, I thought it would be fun to check it out. I called Tania for tips on what to get and she steered us in the right direction..we both got salads and they were awesome! Definitely on our favorite list! Thanks for the suggestions Tania! We are excited to go back and try the burritoes too! Unfortunately, there is no picture of our salad..I thought that would be a little mean!
After lunch we headed home so I could start on my cake for Sarah's shower the next day. We spent the rest of the evening at home hanging out as a family. I was up until about 1am finishing the cake and getting the other food ready for the shower. Thankfully, it was 5 of us hosting this shower so we were able to spread out the to do list!

Saturday morning I was up bright and early to go help a friend clean her house out. My friend Melissa and I headed over around 9am and I stayed for an hour cleaning the fridge out, wiping out closets, and window sills....all the fun stuff. I hurried home to clean up and load the car up to head over to Sarah's for the shower. We were planning on getting there an hour early to set up but because of the cleaning I was a little late..I wasn't planning on bringing Elodie with me but then she asked if she could go with me to see Mrs. Sarah's baby and it made my heart smile...I couldn't turn her down. And besides, the girls have to stick together and it was a great chance to dress her up! She looked so cute..don't you think?
...everything for the shower went great. We had enough food, the cake turned out cute....
it's suppose to be a baby sleeping underneath a tent but I didn't really like the tent...everyone else thought it was so cute but you know how you are your own worse critic..yeah, that's me. And Christopher is a close second when it comes to my cakes....that's the downside to marrying an engineer. I stayed at Sarah's from 10:30 to a little after 2pm..long afternoon! Sarah scored a bunch of stuff and I know she had a great time! This is a picture of all of us who hosted the shower..with the exception of one of Sarah's sister in laws who had to leave early. Sarah's the prego one! ;) She and I were visiting teaching companions for 2 years while they lived in our ward. We hit it off instantly..both scrapbookers and we even took our cake classes together. When they moved out, they bought a house in the subdivision where our house was being built. We were excited to have them as our neighbors but then plans changed for our family and we ended up backing out of the house. Bummer!
Before I left for the shower Chris asked me to take a picture of the house..we hadn't been out there since it had been completed so it was kinda exciting to see the finished product. It made me really sad to see the house..I didn't think it would as it's been since November since we backed out. It was still sad to see something that was suppose to be ours...another family is living there now and if they were peaking out the window they were probably wondering why in the heck I was taking a picture of their house.....closure my friends! ;) It just goes to show that we can plan for things but it doesn't always work out in the end. I know it was the best decision to not buy our house but it's still sad to know it could of been us moving into that house....and all the things on the inside are things we picked out for our family..oh well, it's not the end for us.....we won't be renters forever!
Saturday night we met up with our friends Mace and Melissa for dinner at Barro's.....love that place! We have pretty much converted all of our friends to Barro's..it's simply the best! After Barro's we went and got snowcones at this place called Bahama Bucks...so good! All the snowcones came with these cute little umbrellas..they were a hit with the kids and Elodie just thought she looked so pretty with one in her hair! And of course she did!
We had a great time with Mace and Melissa and the kids always have a great time together too!
Sunday was a whole lot of church and relaxing..since it was fast sunday, Christopher had to stay later than usual to count tithing. He wasn't home until almost 3:30pm so it gave us a great opportunity to fast! We enjoyed the rest of the evening at home gearing up for a new week!
Don't these 2 look so relaxed!?! It was a great weekend!

As for today, we started swim lessons this morning..everyday for 2 weeks. Elodie was a little hesitant but a few minutes into the class she was enjoying herself. No pictures since I have to get in the water with her..I'm hoping Christopher will come one day to take some cute shots for me.....he just rolled his eyes when I told him that but I know he will do it for me!