Practice cakes

I spent the day on Tuesday making some mini cakes for practicing different decorating techniques. I am not great at them but I hope to get much better. My friend gave me an idea that next time I just want to practice I should use the back side of a cake pan. That way the kids can easily eat up the mess. I used the real buttercream so the decorating was a little difficult. I think that next it will use the shortening and powdered sugar recipe for decorating because it holds up better.

Getting closer to Christmas

I like to start getting ideas for Christmas a little early on. I wish I could buy stuff throughout the year to get them when they are on sale and the best prices but that is not my thing and I don't have the money for that. Christmas is growing ever closer and for my in laws we are doing a homemade gift exchange. Me, I not so good at creativity. I wish I was, but not so much. So I am asking anyone out there if you have any good ideas for home made Christmas gifts. I do like getting things that they will actually use or would put up in their home. I like things with a purpose. So if you got any ideas, leave a comment. I could really use it, it would be nice to start preparing now!

Learning from my kids

I have to say that it is so nice to learn things from my kids. There are things that they will do that I am so impressed with sometimes. Like the other day, daddy took the girls to the store with him and I stayed home with Cameron. Cameron was excited because he decided he wanted to take the time that we had together and have a "boy time". I have girl times with Lilly because that kind of interaction is what she thrives off of. Cameron is good as long as he can play games and I usually sit down with him and talk about everything he did at school. So "boy time" wasn't as important for him.

So I asked Cameron what he would like to do for "boy time" and he said,"I know, I know, I have a good idea, you're going to like this one. I think we should read the scriptures together, then we can eat cookies and talk, and then we could watch a show, then daddy will be back". I told him that that was a great idea, and that is what we did.

Then last night I had Cameron say the prayer. I listened intently to what he was saying and there again he astonished me. He said the prayer so nicely with praying about the things he was thankful for, like school, treats, mommy and daddy, his new bed and other family members. He then prayed that he could be a good boy and that the kids could keep their room clean and several other things as well. As I listened it made me think about how innocent he is and why it is important that we be like little children: submissive, meek, humble, willing to submit to all things. His prayers come right from his heart. He does not use boring repetitions and he can feel that the scriptures are important(which is why he will not let us skip scripture reading even if it is late at night).

I wish that I would do more good things just because I know that is what Heavenly Father wants me to do, just as Cameron suggested reading scriptures because he felt that it would make me proud of him. Which I was. He makes me wanted to be a better person so that I can be a better example to my children and others.

Woman's Run

Went to the woman's run again this year. Man was it so much better than last year and all the rain. The weather was great, and the kids were being watched( thanks mom). I went with my sisters and some ladies from Katie's ward and Mariah, Katie's daughter. It was a nice run and very good thing that I went considering that it was the only time that I got a run in during the week. I totally slacked off last week because I am training for a half marathon that is going to be in 4 weeks. From now on I have to be much more strict.

Well, I finished in about 29 min. and we found everyone as soon as they finished as well. In the past it would take a little while to find everyone afterwards. Always a fun run and I'm happy we did it.

Grandma's Birthday

So it was grandma H's birthday on Saturday. We were very excited for another birthday and not sure what to do for her. During a get together last Sunday we decided to do something special for her this time. We came up with a plan to schedule a massage for her and get her some flowers. I also volunteered to make a cake for her. So the massage got scheduled and my sister-in-law picked up the flowers.

I have been wanting to make the real buttercream frosting and I thought it was a prefect time for it. Definitely worth some extra effort. I little while ago I recorded the show Good Eats where Alton Brown showed me just how to make the frosting. So I put all the stuff together that I needed and set the butter out several hours before hand to soften.

I started at probably 7:00 on Friday night. I had already made the cake and put it in the freezer, so that was ready. I boiled the sugar and dark karo syrup, beat the eggs in the mixer( took a little while because the eggs would not foam up), and then I poured the sugar mixture in the eggs slowly with a spoon. I got a little too much of it on the beaters and the side but it did mix together ok after about 5 min of mixing. So I kept rewatching the buttercream show and still messed up by not waiting long enough for the mixture to cool down before I started putting in the butter a table spoon at a time. Now this was very wrong because it turned into a soupy mess. I didn't know how to make it thicker so I just kept letting it mix and mix until the butter was curdled completely separated from the liquid. Dumb mistake since I had decided to make a double batch and just wasted 8 eggs and 5 sticks of butter. This is what it looked like after putting it into a bowl.

I couldn't do anything with that.

Then I tryed it again. I pulled out another bowl and my hand mixer, then set out more butter and eggs. I waited at least an hour before trying it a second time. I boiled the sugar, mixed the eggs to a foam and started to very slowly add in the sugar. It started out ok but I let the beaters hit the sugar mixture too much and it hardened to the beaters. The eggs started flying out of the bowl in every direction. I stop mixing and felt inside the egg mixture. There were huge clumps of hard sugar and my dinky whisk beater was all spiky.

This is what it looked like.

I was done with that batch at that point. I put the kids to bed and went to the computer to figure what I did wrong. I found a different recipe and read through it a couple times. I was not going to give up. I had to make it no matter what, even if I had to start it at 11:00 at night.

I pulled out the stuff for the new recipe and got going right away. I boiled the sugar, whipped the eggs and slowly poured in the sugar mixture making sure not to hit the beaters. Then I had to let the mixture cool down for an hour. I got to the point to where it was only a little warm on the bottom so I started mixing in the butter. I tried going very slow with this as well. It was looking fine all the way through but it was still pretty soupy looking. I let it sit and stir for a while until finally it thickened. Well, It didn't get too thick but thick enough to frost a cake.

I pulled out the cake from the freezer, plopped on a raspberry filling in two of the layers and for the middle layer I put some butter cream. Then I frosted the outside after mixing in some extra powdered sugar to try and thicken it a bit more. It went on pretty well. I did a simple shell design around the top and bottom of the cake and with this new really cool chocolate and cinnamon grinder, ground on a little color.

I cut some flowers from my mothers house for the finishing effect. I like how it ended up looking was glad to give it to grandma H.

Hope you had a great birthday Grandma.

Summer Fun

I have to catch up on a couple things we did this summer. First of all we went to another family reuion. We had a great time but it was pretty cold most of the time. It was at Red Fish Lake which is very beautiful, but because of the cold we did not get to enjoy swimming in the lake.

We celebrated Doug's birthday while we were there. He turned 28. I did not make a cake or anything and I forgot to bring the little gift that we bought for him. I'm sure he still was able to enjoy his birthday in loo of it being cold and everything else because he hasn't had time off in a while and it was a treat for him to just get some time off of work. Plus that day everyone said Happy Birthday to him like twenty times each and we sang the birthday song several times. Thanks to Grandma H, she did bring a small piece of cake to give to him while we sang the song for the third or fourth time.

While on our way over to Red Fish it rained pretty well and got all of our pillows, blankets and some of our clothes wet. I had to spend about three hours and over $10 at the laundry mat after getting there.

It was pretty uncomfortable sleeping. Our blow up mattress had a hole in it so by the end of the night were sleeping on the ground and through out the night we were in so many weird postions because of the deflating air that it was impossible to relax. On the last day we ended up throwing the thing is the trash and spating horrible names at it.

It was very enjoyable hangin out with the family and getting to know each other again. We had fun during the camp fire even to the point that the kids still have some of the songs stuck in their heads.

This is Miah when I was trying to distract her from the fact that Daddy had just left with Cameron and Lilly to go fishing. She ended up sitting on a rock crying for a little while next to the road entremely disappointed that she was not included.

These are just some pictures we took on our drive up. I think I must have left the camera on after these because I just put new batteries in before these pictures and by the time we tryed using the camera up there the batteries were dead. I was lucky to get the one picture of Miah and the video.

This is a video of one of the family activities that we did. It was so much fun. All we had to do was cut the foam floaties in half( which they got at the dollar store) and plastic lady bug and flower cover thingys that go around the handle like on a real sword. You would not believe how great this was. Everyone including grandma, all the aunts and uncles including all the kids enjoyed this activity for several hours. It was great because you could hit people has hard as you wanted and they wouldn't get hurt. It also made a reaaly loud noise which made it even better.

During the sword fighting some of the girls made bracelets out of buttons. They were cute.

We also enjoyed free fun at the fountain near the police station in Nampa. The kids really enjoyed themselves and we were able to hang back and watch. It was getting late so by the end they were pretty cold. It was a good time nonetheless.

Katie's 10 year reunion cake

This is the cake that I made for My sister Katie's 10 year reunion. I think the curve on the S got messed up since I saw it when dropping it off and the layers are so close in size that I think the they didn't get completely centered. The light is hitting it in just the spot where the fondant isn't really smooth so when I look at the picture that is all I see. I kept it simple as well. I am still a bit afraid of adding too much and messing the whole thing up.

Now that I have pointed out all the flaws, I am happy about how it turned out. I am no professional by any means so I think it is good for my skill level.