End of cake class

Today was the final day in a three day cake series class my cousin, Kristi and I took together. It was so much fun!

We put together the skills we learned in the first day, the decorations we made the second day, and today we made homemade marshmallow fondant. It was delish!!! Earlier in the week, I made the two of us royal icing, and today Kristi made us our little cakes. We were ready to go by the time class started.
Here is my little Bunco cake. I going to try something a little different next week for dessert when I actually host the ladies for Bunco.
So my first attempt at the fondant dried out way too quickly as I was finishing up my dice, and once I put it on, it cracked up BIG TIME. I ripped it off, and made a new batch. It was kind of tricky getting the texture right because it was so hot and humid in the room...it was so sticky. Powdered sugar to the rescue!!! I slapped that stuff on, smoothed it out, trimmed the edges, and started putting on my little dice. I LOVED using the Wilton edible markers because it made the perfect sized dots with indentions on the big dice. Then I just got tired and was too lazy to do a border, (let's be honest, the class is from 6-9pm) and I stuck on the little dice. It was cute.

My cousin made the most ADORABLE turtle cake. I love how she got the marbling just right, and had so much detail on his little face. LOVE it!!!

Another lady in our group was hosting an Octoberfest themed party next week and wanted to practice a few things before the big day. Look at her little pretzels!!!
And here is a final picture of our groups' cakes...
Kristi gave her cake to my dad as kind of an inside joke....
All in all, this was super fun to get out and learn a few new things. I am totally going to use the techniques I learned on my family's cakes now. :)

Sugar high...

This week, I have returned to school...for fun. My cousin and I decided to team up and take a cake decorating class. So far it has been really fun.

At first, I was a little hesitant, but once we started, we have had a great time. The first day we practiced with buttercream using all the different tips, many of which I have been using for a while. But the teacher gave us a lot of tips and hints on how to make different patterns that I would have never gotten on my own.

The next day we made royal icing and practiced making flowers, coloring it, and striping icing.

Here is my first royal icing rose...

We also planned out the design of the cake we will be making the last day and started working on the fondant pieces. One of the girls in my group is making her husband a Bud Lite birthday cake...it looks really cute. Another girl is making an Octoberfest cake with beer, pretzels, and sausage on a stick. :)

Hopefully mine will turn out ok, and pictures will be posted later in the week. It's really fun to learn something new and meet new people!

Soccer weekend bonanza!!!

This weekend is Caleb's Halloween Shootout Soccer Tournament, which means games, games, games all day long! Thank goodness for the last two weeks it has been nice and cool, because playing in 100 degree heat is not fun for anyone.

We had some time between games this morning so we got to come home for a bit, and I went straight to my new favorite blog,

I love seeing all the blogs out there with fabulous ideas. Craftiness, holiday decor, inexpensive ideas...super cool to watch and try out some things in my free time. Our school Fall Festival is coming up soon and there are about 3 or 4 different baked goodies that I would LOVE to try out to donate to the Cake Walk. It's my favorite game...and the easiest!

Have a great weekend everyone!!!!!

Fall Porch....

Today I finished decorating the front porch. Well, I say "finished" with a bit of hesitation because I think I might want to find a skinny scarecrow behind the haystacks just to add a little height.

All in all...the goodies were from Walmart...a place that I am occasionally a fan of. Everything was on clearance and you know I LOVE me a sale.

Hay stacks were $3, the big pumpkins were $4, the little pumpkins were $2, the garland was $3, and the leaves and berry picks were 50 cents.

Caleb's art project

Everyone knows that Caleb has Autism, but is pretty high functioning. Every month he gets better and better! He is such a blessing in our lives. :)

Anyway, yesterday was his turn to make his Fall Festival poster for school. He is not very creative and doesn't tend to think outside the box...that is just not his strength. But he said he wanted to make a pumpkin, and that is totally appropriate. I am really annoyed when parents do their children's projects, I mean, it is really obvious and doesn't do your child any favors. With Jansen, I just traced out the letters on his poster so he could trace them since he is learning to write. But Caleb....never needed that. He could read and write very well by the time he was 4. That was his thing.

So we talked about different ways to make a pumpkin, drawing one, using tissue paper, cutting it out of construction paper, tearing construction paper, etc. He loved the idea of tearing paper and yelled...."Like the Texas flag I made at school last year!" Yep, yep.

He sat at the table and I got all his supplies out, and said, "Go for it. Make whatever you want." He cut out a pumpkin template, and glued it on the poster board. He tore all the little pieces and started gluing. Seriously, it took him about an hour, but when he is into something, you won't hear from him until it is done. I wrote down on a piece of paper the wording that needed to be on it, and he started writing. Once he finished I asked him if he was happy with it, and he said yes. I asked if he wanted to add anything, and he said nope and then asked for me to take his picture. So I did.

He seems to be proud of it, and so I am proud of him!

Fall projects...

So I haven't blogged in a while, mainly because for some strange reason, I am not sleeping at all. Not just the usual getting up 3-4 times a night, but not falling asleep. Yesterday I didn't fall asleep until 5am and woke up with the kids for school at 6:30am. UGH. I almost feel useless.

Anyway, enough with the pity party. The boys' school is having a Fall Festival in a couple of weeks and part of the festivities is a Poster Contest. The only requirement is to write, somewhere on the poster, the details of the Festival.

So after school, Jansen and I ran to the dollar store to pick up a few supplies. I figured it would be so much easier for him to work on it before his brother got home from school. He picked out some paper and tissue, and we headed home to begin. He wanted to make a Fall tree. AND wouldn't you know it, the construction paper packet I got had no brown or black in it. UGH.

So we improvised. I helped him trace his hand and arm on white paper, and then Jansen colored it black.

He cut it out and glued it on the poster board.

Then he took tissue paper and constrction paper and ripped it into little pieces and then rolled them into little balls.

Then he glued them all wherever he wanted.

He said, "Look Mom. There are leaves falling out of the trees!"

Then since he is still learning to write and has a really difficult time with it, I wrote out all the detail information with a pencil, and he traced over it with his choice of crayon or marker. He chose red crayon.

I think it turned out super cute, and he is really proud of it.

Kindergarten masterpiece!!!

Now, Caleb just has to decide what he wants to do and start working on it tonight.

And, here are their school pictures....my Kindergartener and 2nd grader!!

Progress on Master Bedroom

Slowly but surely, this room is getting better.

Remember where we started?

Don't get me wrong, this room was nice, but once you change the bed, it seems like the whole thing has to go!

First we added the king sized bed and it has totally changed my sleeping habits for the better.
My husband works shift work and always woke me up getting into bed. Now we have a Tempurpedic style king sized bed (that we got on clearance) and I hardly feel a thing. It took about a week to get used to the style and no longer having a coil type mattress, but BOY it has done wonders for my back! Two scoliosis surgeries and I could never really get comfortable at night. :)

Then we got a king sized sheet set from the lovely Target, and it was also on clearance. Woohoo!!

Then we ordered the PERFECT comforter set from Overstock.com. If you have not gone to their site, you should! We have only bought 2 things from there, but you just can't beat their prices and shipping prices. It shipped quickly and was just perfect. Thank you Michael Kors for designing it. I love it.

But once I got the comforter on, the color scheme in my room was completely off. So my end tables from the living room became nightstands, the two Poppy pictures came down and a piece of wrought iron from our front porch came in, the burgundy curtains traded places with the green silk curtains from our piano room, and that is as far as I can go for now.

Next is to get a pair of lamps...but that will come with next week's paycheck. It is coming along nicely, I think :)