Sweetest Day cake & a sewing project

Happy Sweetest's Day!  Duane and I celebrated a day early with a yummy meal at Olive Garden.  I had been longing for a good steak and ordered their 8 oz. sirloin.  It was breaded with parmesan and herbs before cooking.  It was incredible!!!  I ate every last bite.  lol  Tonight we had a Taco Salad meal with the kiddos and shared a bottle of special Raspberry Sparkling juice.  The kids were quite excited when the fancy goblets come out. 

This afternoon, while Duane was working, I made this cake for him.  It looked and smelled delicious.  I didn't have a bite though.....gluten....and sugar.....sigh.....I have put myself on a 2 week sugar fast.  This is day 5.  My sugar-withdraw headache has finally ceased.  This is good for my body....but oh so HARD!!!

I've been so incredibly busy with housework and teaching Callie each day that my sewing has been much neglected. Here is a project I sat down and did on Friday.  A lady at our church asked me to make a walker bag for a neighbor that had liked the bag that she had(that I had made).  I had fun going through fabrics and coming up with something bright and cheerful.  This picture keeps rotating....sigh....Anyways, the one side with 2 small pockets and 2 medium pockets.  The have a bit of elastic at the top in a casing to keep them from flopping when things are inside.

 The other side with one large pocket with elastic at the top.  I didn't have any bias tape to match, so I made my own up.  That was fun!!  Now I think I'd like to get one of those bias tape binders to make the process go a bit faster.  Maybe for Christmas.....:)

Thanks for looking! Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!!!

~Callie's 'Tangled inspired' 5th. Birthday~

Callie's 5th. Birthday fell on a Wednesday.  Sooooo.....after a full day of music teaching and Kid's Club, her party started around 9:00PM after church.

 Blue jello 'water' with orange slice boats.

 Food served up in frying pans!

 Cheese and pepperoni boats

 Frying Pan Flynn Game

Seth drew the poster for me.

 All the cousins

 Pascal party blowers for each party guest.

 Callie with her gifts.

 A tiny Rapuzel doll with accessories.

 A beautiful dress from Grandpa and Grandma.

 Princess game from Seth.

 A pretty card and money for her doll fund.  She's saving for an American Girl doll.:)

 Pastor Mark trying to give Callie her gift.  She hid under the table 'cause she didn't want anyone to see her get the gift.  lol  It was some more money for her doll fund.

 She was pretty happy to see her cake!!  The entire family had kept the entire theme/cake a secret. 

 Can't believe our baby girl is 5!!!

 Callie wanted ice cream in her purple-white chocolate covered sugar cone that was on the top of the cake.

 This was taken just seconds after I caught her wiping her ice cream covered face on the tablecloth!!  Grandpa was howling!!!:)

 We had the Tangled movie playing for the kids/grown-ups.:)  I do not get into animated movies, but this was one I really liked.  I just love a good fairytale.

 I sewed this Rapunzel dress for Callie on Tuesday.  It was a BIG hit!!!  The Rapunzel hair was made out of an entire skein of fluffy, thick yellow yarn. 

 She flitted around the living room after the party guests had left, singing the song from the movie.

 throwing the hair up in the air....

 And of course, her doll, Jenny, had to have a matching dress.  This, I made up Wednesday afternoon after my music teaching and party preparation was finished.

 Jenny's Rapuzel dress.....

 A close-up of the bodice.  Simon helped cut out the front piece for the dress.  It was his idea to sew her doll a new outfit. I didn't think we would have time, but I made it work.  :)

 Duane and I caught the boys playing with Callie's new Rapunzel toys. :)  Just had to get a picture.....lol

This was a super-fun party to put together!!



Fruitcake & First Snow

Making fruitcake is NOT an annual Christmas baking tradition!!!  This is a once every few years thing I do.  On the spur of the moment, late Monday night, after a wild & crazy evening of making gingerbread houses(for which I still haven't blogged about), I declared Tuesday evening to be fruitcake making night!!!  I make a quick run to the store before picking the kids up on Tuesday to get the last few items we needed.  Here it all is ready to chop......Doesn't all that fruit look yummy!!!  I had wanted all the kids to help, but they took one look at all that ooey-gooey sticky fruit and ran away!!!  Seth was the only one brave enough to stay and help....

 All the fruit FINALLY chopped!  Seth is pouring the liquid ingredients over it....you can tell what he thinks of the mess!! :)

 This is a mix-with-hands project.....

 At this point Seth took over the camera and took probably a dozen or more pictures of my hands.....I won't bore you will them all.....

 And for all of those gasping at my bare hands touching the food....yes, I washed them first!!! lol

 At this point, my hands/fingers were exhausted!!!

 All mixed up....now to wash this goo off my hands!!!!

 All that hard work paid off.....beautiful fruitcakes await us for later!!

While I was talking to my sil on Skype, Callie took a break from her school work to play in the first snow of the season!!!  She was throwing little snowballs at the window where I sat. 

 Scooping up some snow off the hammock pillow that still hasn't made it into the trash can!!! It was damaged this summer and needs to be thrown out.  It did make a great place to scoop off some snow though!!!

 Wiping off all the snow.....

On a side note.....her brothers were sooooo disappointed when they got home from school and all the snow had melted!!!  They didn't get to enjoy playing in it!! :(  I'm sure they're will be plenty more a-comin'!!

Out of Eggs!!!!!

So we're out of eggs!  When I went grocery shopping last week, I had 2 cartons of eggs in the refrigerator.  Well, on Sunday, Simon checked to see how many eggs I had left.  ONLY FOUR!!!!!!  I needed all four of those eggs to make Callie's carrot cake for her party that night.  Soooooo.....all week long I've been out of eggs.  Last night, Simon asked if he could bake some cookies all. by. himself!  I googled eggless cookies and found and printed a recipe for peanut butter cookies.  While I sat at the table and peeled and packed peaches for canning, Simon got out the ingredients and mixed/baked these cookies up.

He did a great job making perfect-sized cookies with my Pampered Chef cookie scoop.  (I love their scoops!!!)  He DID NOT want anyone helping him at all!!!!

He kept getting on his brothers and sister because they kept asking if they could 'help' him.  It was kind of funny seeing them do to him what all four of the kids normally do to me! :)

Simon showing off his collection of 50 cookies!!  They turned out quite yummy!!!  Now I have a new cookie baker in the house! 

Oh, we now have 2 dozen EXTRA-LARGE eggs compliments of Daddy going to the grocery store late last night! :)

Cake with a side of Toenails!

                          Late, last Tuesday, I was asked if I wanted to bake a birthday/going away cake

 for a friend at church.  I said I'd do it. 

 So, early Wednesday morning, I started baking. 

 I had a little helper who helped clean out the cake batter bowls!! :)

Isn't she cute!!

Here is "Mr. Leg" reaady to be frosted. He took 3 cake mixes, 2  pounds of powdered sugar, 1 pound butter, 9 eggs, 7 different cake pans, one VERY large piece of cardboard covered with foil, 5 brand new toenails & a package of sixlet candies!!!  This has got to be one of the most interesting cakes I've ever created!!  The entire time I worked on spreading the icing, Callie kept up a running conversation with 'Mr. Leg'.  She was very sad that her new friend was to be eaten that evening at Teen Action and he wouldn't get to experience everything she has experienced.  She decided he needed to see one episode of I Dream of Jeannie before his demise.  She got the portable DVD player, put in a disc, and placed it right where both she and 'Mr. Leg' could watch it together! :)  She definitely has an imagination.  Who knew that cake & frosting could be so entertaining. 

Here are the kids with 'Mr. Leg'.  The boys expecially thought it was disgusting that the cake had a thigh! 

Some pictures of 'Mr. Leg' by himself.  It's supposed to vaguely resemble a leg prosthetic.  Our friend, from church, is in the final stages of training, learning how to make these. I guess it was a hit at Teen Action, toenails and all!!!!  I reassured everyone that they were fresh from a brand new box!!!! :)