Serious Slacker

I have been seriously slacking on the blog thing. But in my defense, Santa's Workshop was going non-stop. I don't have photos of all I made, but I'll give a list. It is quite extensive!

10 pairs pajamas
4 girls dresses
1 hand sculpted doll (not ever doing that again it turned out fine, but I found gorgeous 18 in dolls at Michaels that I much prefer making clothes for.)
11 doll outfits (mostly using up my scraps, which take up a large shelf in my hall closet)
1 car city
12 cuddle wraps (blankets with legs that you can use in the car seat. I got fleece on a great sale and made a bunch to have baby gifts on hand)
1 party dress (which I didn't get to wear to Paul's annual work party, the snow got it canceled. I did wear it to church.)
1 nativity table runner

I think that is it, but phew! that's enough!
I also hemmed a few pairs of pants. Made around 60 chocolate covered oreos, about 40 kisses filled with hazelnut fudge and a huge batch of penuche. Oh, and 30 graham cracker houses for Kiara's class to decorate at her Christmas party. This stuff I worked on until about a week before Christmas and then I spent that whole week cleaning up the house as it was seriously neglected. But we are all back to our normal routine, except now I have some serious playing to do. (see next post!)

I'm in love! I'm in love, and I don't care who knows it!

The object of my affection?

Yep, that's Paul in all his glory....Cute huh!?

The reason for a public announcement of my affection??????

Sew pretty!

Finally, after nearly 10 years of marriage, he got me a new sewing machine!!!! Which is also an embroidery machine! Now the story.....When Paul graduated from BSU (6-ish years ago) we got him a BBQ grill. The deal was that when he graduated from Law School, I would get the graduation present in the form of a new sewing machine. Well, that just didn't happen. We were too poor and I wanted a really good machine. And we didn't have a job yet and baby #3 was going to arrive soon. So technically I've really only been waiting 3.5 years. Paul asked me for a list of things I wanted for Christmas this year, which he never does; he is really good at figuring out great gifts without a list. So I jokingly put my dream sewing machine on the list. Never did I really think he would get it, but he did!!!! I was pretty excited to see it sitting out Christmas morning. But the first time I used it, (I know everyone is now going to know just how nerdy I am, but oh well!) I was almost in tears! I was and am so excited and it is so fun! Oh the fun I will have. Oh the things I will create! In fact I already have created! Payton has been waking up multiple times in the night because he is cold. His fleece blanket that he uses was just too small for him now. So I went and got some fleece to make him one like Kiara and Kegan's. But of course I had to embroider on it! And I figured while I was at it, Zander should get one too. I am also working on our stockings that I made last year. I am re-doing the tops of them so our names are embroidered and not just drawn with a fabric marker. I'll post pictures when I am done with them. I also have plans to do new quilts for the boys room as Zander will soon need to move from his crib. I've had those quilts designed for a while, but now I may have to add embroidery!

And finally I did get a cake in! My cousin adopted his wife's oldest girl and they were sealed last week. Well, it was also the younger sister's birthday that day, so they asked me to make her a cake. So of course I did! The only guidance I had was she wanted chocolate cake and chocolate frosting, so that's what she got! She was pretty excited, I was glad to help make that day special for her too!

Three Blue Stitches

Envelope contains a lock of hair that had to be cut to do the stitches, luckily no shaving had to be done!

Pretty blue stitches. (So they can see them to remove them later.)

Well, we've had a fun afternoon. As we suspected all along, Payton is the first in our family to get stitches! He was walking from chair to chair (our tall kitchen chairs.) I told him to stop, which of course he didn't, and then he slipped and fell, cracking open the back of his head. It bled pretty good, but I was able to get it stopped pretty quickly. But it started to ooze a bit later, and when I inspected it closer, well, it wasn't closing up. I called our Dr. and asked if they do stitches in the office, hoping to avoid a long wait in the ER. Luckily they did and they squeezed him in right after their lunch break. And she took one quick look at it and confirmed that he did need stitches. I have no doubt that if he didn't she would have sent us away; she is a very no nonsense doctor, my favorite kind! Poor Payton though, they had a papoose type thing they strapped him down to. He didn't mind too much and thought it was fun until they poked him with the numbing stuff. He pretty much cried the rest of the time. Until our doctor started singing to him. They were talking about how he was a blue M&M for Halloween, so she changed the "I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weenie" song to "I wish I were a blue M&M." Then he stopped crying and even talked to her a bit. Overall, he was pretty brave. Not sure how he'll react when we take him to get them removed......

Halloween and Kegan's B-day!

So I finally have the pictures from our Halloween Party and Kegan's birthday downloaded and have a few minutes so here they are, just a little late....

Okay, the story with Kegan's cake. Sigh. I had the best of intentions....He has been saying for months that he wants a Wall-E cake. So the week before his birthday I asked him at dinner what kind of cake he wanted. He hemmed and hawwed. So Paul decided to help out. If you read the following conversation you will see the power Paul has over him...

Paul: Hey, how about a cheesecake.
Kegan: Yeah! I love cheesecake.
Paul seeing me cringe: Or what about those lava cakes mom made once. Those would be super yummy.
Kegan: Oh, yeah, that's what I want for my birthday. Wait, what are those again?
Paul: Little chocolate cakes that when you cut them chocolate lava oozes out.
Kegan: Oh, those were so cool. Mom lets do that.
Me aside to Paul: I don't want to make cheesecake or lava cake. He wants a Wall-E cake and I don't think I can do that on a cheesecake and definately not on lava cakes.
Paul: Hey, didn't you want a Wall-E cake? Mom can't do Wall-E on lava cakes.
Kegan: Oh, yes, I want Wall-E. So lets do a Wall-E cake.
Paul: See, you just have to guide him a little.

Conversation dropped. I still didn't know what flavor of cake to make, but at least Paul had managed to change his mind over and over....Then I remembered that I had been reading about Frozen Buttercream Transfers on Cake Central. I thought that if I made a cheesecake I could do one of those with Wall-E in cream cheese icing, and everyone would be happy. So that's what I did. The basic explination of Buttercream transfers are you get a picture and flip it so it is backwards. You put some wax paper over it and trace it and fill it in. Then you freeze the icing picture and flip it over onto the cake, peel off the wax paper, and presto! You have a very detailed picture that is perfectly smooth. Well, apparently this does NOT work with cream cheese icing. I froze it for several hours and it was still gooey. I called Paul and had him buy some dry ice thinking that I could get it to freeze that way. Well, it kind of worked, but I still was unable to peel off the wax paper. So the above pictures still have the paper on them. Its what his cake would have looked like....Instead I took it all off and drizzled it with caramel sauce. Very yummy. Just not Wall-E.

These are the Superman cookies Kegan took for his birthday treats at school. The cutter came from a Valentine's set and is supposed to be a diamond. The kind that goes in a ring. Well one day the kids were playing play dough and were making Superman things with it, and it has NEVER been used as a diamond since. I cut out Marshmallow fondant with the same cutter to go on the cookies and then used cream cheese icing for the red border and S. They were quite yummy, if I do say so myself.

Here is our family as M&M's. We were the hit of the party. Of course Paul was only there for about the last 30 minutes. He was working in Boise that day. So I had all four kids at the ward party by myself. It wasn't too terrible, I just let Kiara and Kegan fend for themselves and I held a very cranky Zander and followed Payton around playing the games. I found out about 20 minutes before Paul got there why Zander was cranky. He had a massive diaper explosion. Diarhea that would not be contained. And of course I didn't bring the diaper bag. So thankfully I had Paul stop at home and grab a diaper so we could change him before the trick or treating. Well, I forgot to request new pants as well, so he has bare legs in this picture. But all's well that ends well!

These are from Halloween night. The wig didn't last, he only wanted it because Paul and Kiara were each wearing one. We didn't get pictures of Kiara and Kegan for some reason, but they were wearing their old costumes, because the M&M's were "too embarassing"-Kiara, and "I look dumb in it" - Kegan. Man they grow up and turn opinionated so quickly!

Cupcakes and Stubborn Ear Infection

Here are the cupcakes I made for our ward Harvest Party Cakewalk. I got the idea from Foodnetwork.com. The frosting is a super yummy peanut butter cream cheese. Pretty good for a powdered sugar icing!


Well, Zander is on his third round of antibiotics for one ear infection. He wasn't even sick or pulling on his ears that I noticed. The only thing was he didn't have a large appetite. So at his 15 month check up they discovered his ear drums were red and not moving at all (they are supposed to flutter like leaves in the wind). So he got a prescription and we went back three weeks later and there was no change. He got a different antibiotic and we went back today (another three weeks later). Well, they are still red and they are moving, but not much. So we have one more try with antibiotics and a decongestant to get them cleared up, otherwise he is going to need tubes to get them drained. If we don't get him better it could lead to permanent hearing loss, and we all know we can't have that! Little toddlers don't listen at all and if he couldn't hear; well, that would be disastrous! But we also really don't want to do tubes, so pray the antibiotic works this time!

Halloween Preview

Fall is here and that means cold weather, corn mazes and costume time! I got out the Halloween box and the kids have been dressing up all day today. We went to the CSI corn maze last night with Bryan and Emily and their girls for FHE. It was really fun and we were actually lost for a little while! It was quite a chore to find hats and mittens and coats for everyone! I also started on our family Halloween costumes today. I am really excited about this.....Our ward has a Harvest Party every year and this year we are doing a family theme for our costumes. Below is a preview. Can you guess what we are going to be?

Kiara
Kegan
Payton
Zander

Still to come....Paul's and mine!

School's Out!

School was out this Thursday and Friday for State Inservice. So Tresh brought her kids to play for the day! It was really fun having them here. After we played for a while we went out to Mom and Dad's and the kids picked their pumpkins from the garden. That has been a tradition for the last few years and the kids love it! I took a few pictures of the kids and thought I'd share.

She is such a sweetie
Jumping around!
Getting another perspective on life....
My little climber - he'll climb ANYTHING!!!
I think these two kept climbing the fence for two reasons....One, to hide from the "boys," and then two, to eat the little plums in these trees!

$200!!!!!

Yep, that's the official word. Now if only people would pay that in real life......

Auction Cake

You know, it rare when a cake actually turns out the way I picture it in my brain. But it has happened. This cake is for a friends church that is having a dessert auction. As soon as she asked me to donate a cake, this is what instantly popped into my head. My friend Amelia (Cake Expectation on my blog list) had reminded me of my oreo version of Italian Meringue, so I knew I wanted to do that again. And she did a gorgeous polka dot chocolate wrap on one of her cakes that I wanted to try. I also wanted a taller cake piled with striped chocolate curls. Mission accomplished! The chocolate wrap is not perfect. It wasn't quite hard enough when I pulled off the clear vinyl (I am sooo impatient!) so its not as smooth as it should be, but otherwise it is what I saw in my brain!
I am excited to see how much it goes for. I've been told the desserts go for $30 to $800. I just hope it isn't the lowest one! I'll update when I find out.

Busy Family Life

Well, nothing is new here, we're just busy, busy, busy! I am starting Christmas projects. Early I know, but I have the tendency to over-do it, so I have to start now! For one project I got to play with decorative thread on my serger. I was nervous that I'd mess it up, but it went really well and looks great. I'd post a picture, but the recipient reads my blog, so I guess I better not. I also get to do a cake for an auction this week, so look for pictures of that coming up.

Oh, I do have a new niece today, little Emersyn (Emery for short). I watched her older brothers today and let me tell you, 5 boys five and under (4 are 3 and under) can make a mess! My house looks like a tornado ran through it! But its all good, they had fun together and thats all that matters. So I must go tidy up. In two days I am watching my neighbor's boys so she can have her baby! Its better if they have a "clean slate" to mess up, more fun for them that way! Right!? That and I don't want to step on train tracks and blocks all day.

Two Cakes

Well, here is the wedding cake to go with the roses...... It is white chocolate cake with white chocolate cream cheese frosting. The frosting was sooooo good! It tastes like cheese cake! I have made it a few times before, but have never added the optional lemon oil. Well I did this time, and wow, it made a great frosting spectacular! This cake has about 70 roses....I don't really like making roses, but it was fun doing a two tone rose and they turned out pretty good.
This next cake was for a good friend's 30th birthday. She is our choir director and we always have treats after choir, so I took this to surprise her. She and I are the same age, I turn the big 3-0 in January. She has been saying we should throw a party...but I don't really like parties in my honor.... So I thought it would be more fun to let everyone in choir know her age...ha ha!
Any way, it was chocolate cake with peanut butter Italian meringue filling and milk chocolate butter cream frosting. I must say that the milk chocolate frosting is pure heaven! Or pure evil, however you look at it.... It is so soft and silky and the fragrance.....oh man, it makes the whole house smell like chocolate....Only make this if you are planning on sharing, it is way to much temptation to have laying around the house!

I am going to share the recipe...It is found in Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cake Bible.....

16 oz milk chocolate, broken in small pieces
8 oz dark chocolate, broken in small pieces (I actually use chips of both chocolates, easier that way)
3 sticks unsalted butter, softened

Melt chocolate in a double boiler, or very slowly in the microwave. Let cool until about room temperature. (I had to get a new microwave because a certain toddler cooked a piece of bread in mine...for 15 or so minutes....nice fire; it was rather exciting.... but anyway, it has a melt button and a soften button, it melts chocolate perfectly and even softens butter and cream cheese beautifully. Which is great since I am horrible at planning ahead and taking butter out of the fridge....) Beat the butter until creamy in mixer. Slowly add the melted chocolate until incorporated. Best if used immediately. You don't really want to refrigerate this one, it is kind of temperature sensitive......it hardens quickly in the fridge and then takes forever to soften again. Also, don't leave it the hot sun, it will melt!

Pretty roses

Here is a preview of the wedding cake I'm working on. Well, of the roses that are going on it anyway.

 

Catching up

I figured it was about time to catch up. We've been busy! We had the Twin Falls Temple Dedication, I made a baby quilt, hemmed five pairs of pants, Kiara and Kegan started school, Kiara danced at the fair, Kegan started soccer (which Paul is helping coach), hmmmm, what else. Oh, Zander is walking, and is finally getting his molars, Payton turned three, and turned into a little monster. (My kids have never done the "terrible twos," they always wait until they are three. Either they are slower than normal or the experts have it wrong!) Oh my goodness, the mischief that kid can get into! Nothing is safe! The fits he can throw! Okay, that's the quick version, below are more detailed stories!This is Kiara watching President Monson at the Cornerstone Ceremony. (She is the one leaning on the girl in the blue dress.) Her Grandma Arrington sang in the Cornerstone Choir, so she got to go with Grandpa Arrington to watch. It was an amazing weekend with the Prophet in town. I did not get to meet him, or see him, but I loved watching him on the video feeds to the Stake Center. I got a real sense of his love and the Savior's love of EVERY individual. I watched as he started to leave (the cultural celebration and some video from my cousin who did get to see him) and then would come back to talk to someone else, hug, or high five another child. He did it again and again. Some friends got to be in the temple one of the sessions with their older kids. He passed them and then stopped and came back to talk and shake hands. I just kept thinking of Christ in the Book of Mormon calling all the children to gather around him. I have always known and felt of Christ's love for us, but watching President Monson and knowing he is God's servant made that love all the more tangible. And then the actual Dedicatory Prayer. President Eyring said it in the session I attended. It was so beautiful and powerful. We are so blessed to have the House of the Lord five minutes away! A place to leave the chaos of the world behind and just be at peace for a few hours.

Speaking of chaos, here's ours!

This is the quilt I made for my niece Emery that will be arriving later this month. I love making girly things. And I love, love, love pink and green together.
Kegan on his first day of Kindergarten. He was a little nervous, but really did just great. There are two Kindergarten teachers, and despite knowing about 10 others going to K this year, NONE are in his class. Most are in the afternoon like he is though, so he sees them at recess. But he tells me a sob story every day that no one will be his friend and play with him. I think he is a little lonely, but kids ARE playing with him, because Kiara sees them!
Playing with toys the first day, while waiting for the bell to ring.
Okay so there is some commercial that showed a girl with outfits laying all over her bed, trying to decide what to wear on the first day. Well, Kiara was inspired. But she is Miss Organized and had Monday's through Thursday's outfits picked out, including underwear as you can see! She even picked which shoes and socks. Crazy girl!
First day of 3rd grade, and outfit number one! I think there may have been a mini baby boom in 2000 because while there are four classes of each grade, Kiara's grade has always had five. So they have to put one of the classes in a portable classroom. That's where she is this year. She thinks its cool because they have their own bathroom.

Then there are Payton and Zander. With Zander walking now, Payton is teaching him how to drive Mommy CRAZY! Zander climbed on my table and played tangle all the threads on mom's serger. Then Payton had to one-up him and lost the screw on my sewing machine that holds the needle in. GRRRR..... All this was discovered the night I needed to hem some temple pants for a friend of ours who was going to the temple the next morning. (It is a small temple, which means no rental clothes; everyone has to have their own.) It's lucky he was in bed when I discovered this mischief! I was able to borrow a machine to get his pants done, and then I found that a different screw fit in that place so I could hem some other pants for my brother-in-law the next day. And make a matching bumper pad to go with the above quilt. Now its time to start any Christmas projects if I decide to do them. I tell you time just flies around here. I also have a wedding cake this week, and a good friend is turning 30 this week so while I'm baking up a storm, I may as well do a cake for her too! So next post will be cake filled!

Two of the Three White Dresses

Kiara just turned 8!!!! We had her baptism last Saturday. I made her a white baptism dress, and she looked so pretty in it! This first picture is Kiara in her blessing dress that I made from scraps of my wedding dress (which I also made.)

This is her in her baptism dress.
Gorgeous girl!
Now lets wait about 15 years for the next white dress!

cake

Okay, so the last few weeks have been full of cakes. I am ready for a little break. Mostly for free counter space in my kitchen. I love my house, it is so perfect for us right now and so homey. But we have two people with cooking related hobbies, and we just need more space! That is my big "someday" I'll have.....double ovens and vast amounts of counter space!
This is my niece Ambree's 4th birthday cake. Grandma and Grandpa A. took her and my older three to see a local production of Peter Pan, so a Tinker Bell cake was in order! The cake was a coconut cake made from a recipe off Cake Central, White Almond Sour Cream, only I substituted coconut for almond. It was yummy!
This is a mini wedding cake I did yesterday for my Sister-in-law's mom. It is copied from one of my best friends cakes. She is AMAZING. Actually two of the things in this post are copies from her. I didn't ask permission, so hopefully she'll forgive me.....but really imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! White almond sourcream cake filled with strawberry italian meringue buttercream and covered in fondant. Fondant flowers as well.....about 250, but I lost count!
These are cupcakes for Kiara's baptism tomorrow. Coconut cake, Coconut italian meringue, shredded coconut and white chocolate 8's!
My dad the chocoholic will be disappointed there was no chocolate, but you can't do chocolate at a baptism, the white is symbolic!
Payton's birthday is on Sunday, and we will be in Utah for my new niece Katelyn's blessing. My sister is having a brunch, so I made banana cupcakes today to go with the breakfast part of brunch and the ganache glaze and peanut butter italian meringue make it a dessert for the lunch part of brunch. We will probably stick some candles in them and sing to Payton. Happy 3rd buddy!

Oh, and these are the other copy from my friend. She also topped them with marshmallows and toasted them. The peanut butter italian meringue is to DIE for! I had to freeze the leftovers or I'd polish it off in one day, and then spend and eternity trying to lose the weight I packed on!

Who needs a dog when your baby plays fetch?!

Zander loves to play with balls. He throws them and then crawls after them. He also loves to have us throw them and then he fetches them and brings them back. This evening he was doing just that, but apparently he was feeling lazy, or thought his arms were a lot longer than they are. As you can see he would go a foot or so, stop and try to hand it to Paul or I. Pretty cute and entertaining. No dog needed for this household!

Parker's Blessing

My nephew Parker was blessed this weekend and his parents had a huge BBQ (that Paul got to smoke 3 pork butts and a brisket for) on Saturday. My sis-in-law Marie has a huge family so I decided to surprise them with a cake! I haven't done a stacked cake in a long time and this was the perfect opportunity. So the bottom layer is chocolate cake with raspberry ganache filling and the top later is white cake with strawberry filling. All frosted in the BEST milk chocolate buttercream and with fondant accents. If I ever do "floating" letters again I will use two wires per letter. I only used one this time and they kept twirling and showing their "backsides." Naughty letters!
All the Arrington clan (we missed Bryan and Emily and their two girls, due to unforseen circumstances.) Baby Parker is in the middle with his parents.
The proud parents. I got to hold Parker in Relief Society for a short while (Grandma had Zander). I got him to smile and even got a little giggle too. Babies are so fun. (And I loved giving him back too!)

Swimming lessons

We have been at the pool last week and this one for swimming lessons. Kiara is becoming really good at it and Kegan is getting there too, and has mastered going down the slide with no one catching him. Payton just loves it. For his age group it is mostly learning to kick on your tummy and back, getting comfortable putting your face in the water and "scooping" water with your hands. He is pretty much fearless in the water and wants to do everything. I wish he did fear it more, but even half drowning and being saved by a life guard didn't help, so what am I to do, except put him on a leash!
Now the story of Kiara. She seems to be afraid of EVERYTHING! So on the first day they took her class to the diving board at the deep end. Well she came running to me sobbing that she was too scared to go to the diving board. So I told her that no one would make her do it if she didn't want to. I then asked her to stay with her class and at least go watch. (I wanted her to see they were not only safe, but having tons of fun.) They were jumping onto a noodle that the teacher was holding and then he took them to the side. Well, you would have thought I told her I was going to go throw her in and then hold her down! She continued to sob for about 3 minutes despite my reasurring her that no one would make her do it. So I stopped talking and marched her down there to just watch. She finally stopped crying, and watched, but as we were leaving she was vowing to never come back and telling me how much she hated swimming lessons! (typical girly drama). Well Paul has some magical touch that I was not blessed with and reasoned with her that night that she needed to at least try and that we wouldn't ever ask her to do something that wasn't safe for her. Sure enough the next time they went to the diving board she confidently strode up and just jumped! No tears, not even a small hesitation! Crazy girl! Now she loves it and told me today that she was thinking about what it would be like if they didn't need to use the noodle. The last picture is of her landing after one of her diving board jumps!