Life As Gesamtkunstwerk: New Movie#links

Life As Gesamtkunstwerk: New Movie#links

Check out this adorable video of my nephew Max. Isn't he adorable?

Hell's Kitchen

So I've decided that hidden somewhere deep within me is a desire to be a great chef. Have you ever watched this show? Its amazing. The language isn't all that nice, but at least they try to bleep most of it out. They have a bunch of aspiring chefs that are competing to win the chance to run a restaurant. I don't think I'd really want to have my own restaurant. Too many years of waitressing I think. But I've rarely ever eaten in a place with "pretty" food. You know where it looks like its not real and maybe you shouldn't eat it. And each bit probably cost you 5$ or more.
Anyway, the more cooking shows and cake shows and other things I watch related to all of it the more I fall in love with the trade and want to be a part of it. This may seem surprising to those that know me well, because most days the kitchen is not the place that I want to be hanging out. But give me a kitchen with air conditioning for one (this is very important), a pantry full of fresh ingredients, and all the kitchen utensils and cookware one could imagine and I just might be in Heaven. I love to cook when I have what I need and am not getting frustrate by last minute runs to the store for lost ingredients. Anyway, watch the show. The finally is next week. I vote for Bonnie. I just like her style better. She looks so sweet and innocent, but shes a feisty one.
So if you don't leave this post with anticipation for next Mondays night show, at least now you know that I like kitchen stuff, and anything related to that makes a good present anytime :).

Our little walker

KC has been learning to walk. Each day he takes more steps and hes getting pretty good at it. Hes a lot more steady and careful than Parker was. Its so fun to watch and help him learn. Hope you enjoy the video!

Cakeventures has moved

I have created a new website using google pages. The new link is http://cakeventures.googlepages.com/home
If you have a link for me on your page will you please update it to the new site? Thanks! Check it out, its a lot nicer.

Ouch!

Well it seems I'm out of commission today. Good thing there's not much to do other than a house to clean and laundry. Things than can wait I suppose. Yesterday, when I was tending 3 extra little kids, I fell going out to get the mail and hurt my ankle. I had to call Aaron to come home and help me because it seemed I could no longer walk or carry kids. And since they were all eating lunch and needed to go to bed soon I really needed the help. It never swelled up or bruised or anything so I don't think it's hurt too bad, but it sure is painful. I did manage to limp around on it most the night at a b-day party for my cousin Lisa. Which was really fun! I love seeing family, especially the older cousins that I have so many fun memories with. And the cake was a hit! One person thought it was fake and that the choc. curls were potpourri. But it was absolutely delicious. And the gluten free cake was yummy too, tasted just like regular cake. After eating my piece and the rest of Parker's,which was all but the frosting he picked off, I think I've had my extra points for the year :). But anyways, back to my foot. This morning I woke up and it hurts really really bad. I can hardly move it. So we went to webmd and think it probably has a mild sprain. Sorry if this isn't making sense or my spelling is awful. I took a pain pill and am having trouble typing. Anyway Aaron has ordered me to sit on the couch with my foot up all day. Why is it so hard to just relax, especially with a good reason. All I can think about is the things I'd like to be getting done. But I'm grateful for a good hubby to take care of me and the kids. Hes at the store right now getting me something to wrap my ankle in and some crutches so I can get around the house without having to out pressure on my ankle. Good thing I can still do most my pilates without using my ankle too much.

Superman

Heres Kais superman cake, The building melted a little but you can hardly even tell. Thanks Evelyn for the great pics of my cake!!

Guts and Glory Walk 2007

Some of you may have received an email about this, but for those that didn't we are joining in the Guts and Glory Walk on September 15th to raise money and awareness for Chron's and Colitis. We are trying to build a team to walk and raise at least $1000. Please, we would love any and all support you can give us. Since Aaron was diagnosed with Chron's in 2004 we are learning more about it all the time, but there is still no cure and he will have to fight it for the rest of his life. Help us support research so that one day maybe he won't have too! You can check out our team page at http://ccfa.kintera.org/faf/search/searchTeamPart.asp?ievent=223823&lis=1&kntae223823=551BA627313641659EA5FA73B4243C1A&team=2030287

and join us and/or donate. Thanks everyone!!

Cake

Well, as usual it doesn't live up to what I pictures in my head, but I thinks its alright considering my house was so hot today the chocolate kept melting on me!! Urgh, I want central air!!

Anyways, its chocolate cake with a strawberry filling. The top tier is gluten free also. The outside is covered in choc icing and then wrapped in a layer of chocolate. I think it was too thick, next time I'll have to try making it thinner. Anyway I had to change it from the original idea a little and am not entirely happy with it, but oh well. That happens when I try to do new things for the first time.

Yoga Kids

Today I came across one of the best things ever!! Yoga Kids! We went to the library for story time and went to get some signing time videos afterwards (Parker loves learning to sign :)). Next to the Signing videos was Yoga Kids, Silly to Calm

What could be better than something that takes kids form Silly to Calm?? So we borrowed it and tried it out before quiet time today. It was wonderful. Parker LOVED it!! He watched it very carefully and did all the moves with them. He was even patient enough that when he had trouble he let me help show him what to do. I couldn't believe it. I think this might be one that we actually have to buy and do everyday. What a great way to help him exercise his body and calm his mind at the same time. We definitely recommend it to everyone with wiggly little kids like ours :)!!!

Cake Classes?

I got an email this morning from a lady who wants to know if I teach any classes on decorating? She want someone to come a do a class on the basics of cake decorating for a family reunion she is having! This was very flattering that someone would think I'm good enough to teach a class, but a little overwhelming. But thanks to my friend B-Jo who taught me some of the Wilton classes I think I could do a just a basic class, as long as they don't ask lots of hard questions :)! So I emailed her back with a price quote for it and we'll see what she says. Today I am making a cake that I'm hoping will turned out how I am imagining it. It will be chocolate with a filling, haven't decided what yet. Then the outside will be wrapped in chocolate decorated with swirls and curls of colored choc. I've named it Swirls and Curls of Chocolate Decadence, we'll see if the final project lives upto it's name. :). Anyway, I'll let you know how it turns out.
By the way I've lost 3 lbs this week!!! I've been excersing every morning, pretty sore, but its beena lot fo fun and really helps my day. Onl7 27 more to go to get to my weight before I ever had any babies at all. but I think I'd be happy with only 17 more.

I finally did it!

So I try to go walking in the morning with a friend at 6:00am. We used to do it a lot, but then got lazy and stopped. We started up again last week :) and its been really fun. No kids to worry about and the nice peaceful morning. Well today she never came outside :(to meet me so instead of going home and crawling back into my nice warm bed like I really really wanted to do, I went to the rec center and did a pilates class. It was just an into class so it wasn't too intense, and there were a lot of old ladies there. But hey you gotta start somewhere right? It was a lot of fun and much more motivating to do with all the other people there. They also have a step class at 6:00 that I might try out next time. I can't believe the difference it makes in my day when I get up and get going. I never thought I'd actually get up at 6:00am on my own accord. I also started weight watchers over the weekend! Thanks Mom :)!! Its a lot harder than I thought to stick to eating things that won't put me over my points, but I managed to break even yesterday and even snuck a few cookies in. Hopefully today I can be under, especially since I get points for exercising. So wish me luck! My goal right now is to lose 15lbs by the end of September if not sooner :). Its hard having to worry about my weight now. I never had to when I was younger, even though I obsessed about it constantly. Things sure do change when you have kids. I envy those girls that hardly gain anything during pregnancy and what they do is lost in the first few weeks. But I guess they were probably in better shape to begin with. So the race is on and I can't wait to feel better and look better.

Utah County Fair

Friday Night we went to the fair with my parents. Aaron got sick from some medication he took right before we left so he had to stay home :(. We missed him, but had a good time. Parker loved going on the rides thanks to his Grandpa getting him some tickets. KC even got to take a ride, and he liked it until he saw Grandpa on the side watching. Then all he wanted to do was wave at him and reach for him when we went by. After rides we watched a local band perform and then some fireworks at the end. We didn't get home till after 11:00 so I had some tired boys. But it was a fun night.

A Boy and his stickers

Parker went in his room for quiet/nap time today and when we went in his room to check on him this is what we found.

Tedis Cake

It's all baked, decorated and delivered!! Its so nice to be done with the wedding cakes, but I'm already wishing I had another to do. They are so beautiful. So if you know anyone who needs a wedding cake let them know! I might even do a discount. Here's todays cake.

Video

Another great thing about the camera Ginna gave us is that we can make movies with it. So Parker helped me out making a test video. Hope you like it! If it works we'll make another later.

Video Test

Cakes

Some of you have asked about how all the cakes are going this month so here a quick little update. Right now I'm working on a wedding cake for tomorrow. It should be really pretty. It is 4 stacked tiers of strawberry cake (the bottom tier is a white gluten free cake), covered in an almond cheesecake fondant. The cake will ahve alternating ribbons of pink and yellow around the bottom of each tier and flowers on it provided by the brides florist. I am really excited to get it done and see the finished look. Wedding cakes are so fun, and this one is hardly stressful at all, unlike the last time. By the way I did finally get to talk to the bride from last week and she told me that she loved the cake and that everyone thought I had been doing cake for years! She's even sending me a check for more money! I'm so glad she liked it.
I also made a carrot cake for Aarons office last week. It was pretty simple. There were 4 b-days so I didn't have room for lots of decorations. And I forgot to take a picture. Sorry :(. But lots of people said that it was the best carrot cake they had ever had! I'd never tried the recipe before so it took a little trial and error, I ended up having to bake 2 cakes because the first didn't turn out. But it was well worth it for the reviews it got. The next day I did a superman birthday cake for Evelyn's son Kai. It was 2 tiers. The bottom was made from a dummy cake, the top was a white cake with raspberry filling. It had chocolate buildings around the base and was iced in a sky blue buttercream. The top tier had fluffy white clouds and a superman symbol. Superman was flying on the top of the cake. The only bummer was that when I went to leave the car was way too hot! So the tops of the buildings that I had made started to melt a little. It was also when our camera decided to stop working so I didn't get a picture. but Evelyn did and should be emailing me one soon. I'll post it as soon as its available.
Over the next few weeks I have 3 more b-day cakes to do, an office cake again, and the baby blessing cake. So it will be busy, but fun!
Thank you everyone for all your nice comments and compliments on my cakes. Its been so fun learning and I still have so far to go. All your support has meant a lot. And thanks for letting me make cakes for you!

New Templete

I found this new templete but I'm still trying to figure out how it all works. Expecially with trying to get all my links on. So if you don't see the link for your site, be patient, maybe I'll figure it out. If not I'll revert back to the regular blogger templetes :)

Update

Here's another quick update that I forgot to put in the other post. I'm not doing day care anymore. I was thnking about only doing it for another month or so anyways, but this last few weeks we have had a lot of days of no shows with no call or anything. I let it go the last time after stressing how inconsiderate it is to me and our time to just not let me know when they aren't coming. Well yesterday 1:00 came and went and they never showed. I called and left a message that I wasn't going to do it anymore after this week so call for sure in the next day and let me know about friday, well no call. So unless I hear tonight I am done. Its sad because I really liked the kids and it was nice to be able to help them out, but its anooying when I sit and wait forever and they never come. So oh well. It'll be nice to have less going.

Swimming

First of all I have to say that I have the best sister in law in the world. Ginna read that our camera had checked out and sent us her old camera! Ginna you rock! Thank you so much. This camera is so great, it takes pictures way easier than our old one. Thanks to you I got tons of fun pics of the kids playing in the pool today!

So we got a pool!! Someone was giving it away on freecycle! Can you believe it! So for only about $30 for a filter and some chlorine we got a pool that is so much fun. Of course we had to patch 4 holes in the top, but I think we finally got them all. The kids love it. I'm waiting for a little warmer day to enjoy it myself. I tried it the first night it was really working and it was so cold!! I guess we can get a solar cover to help warm it for only $20 so I think we might do that so it is funner for us big kids.

Today was Ellie's Birthday (the neighbor girl) so there were lots of little friends here to play and they loved the pool. Here are some fun pictures of them having fun!!

Sad News

Today I got some sad news about a friend of mine in our ward. She's expecting her 4th baby right now, due in a month, and has been having a lot of memory and vision problems. So they did an MRI and discovered that she has White Matter Disease. From what I can find online about it, its a disease that turns the white matter in your brain into a yellow jelly like substance. The intitial prognosis is that she may only have a year or two left to live. She'll lose her vision, hearing, movement etc. I feel so terrible for her and her family. Their oldest son is 9, they have an 8yr old daughter, a 4 year old son and this new baby coming. So please everyone remember them in your prayers and when you fast next. I can't imagine what they are going through right now and know they would appreciate all the help they can get.

First Steps!!

Today KC took his first steps! Two right in a row! I am so excited I even got a little teary eyed. That may seem funny to some of you but you have to understand that when Parker started walking I was working full time and missed most of what happened. So Aaron saw his first steps, and the the next few times the babysitter got to see it and would call me at work to tell me about it. So I am overjoyed that I am home this time and got to see him walk! Up to this point he has never even shown a remote interest in walking. Even when we hold his hands to walk with him he is always trying to get down to crawl. It was so cute to see him trying to do it, he was trying to get to his blankie, which he LOVES! Anyways, I'm excited.
I'd put a some pics on, but it seems our camera has decided to break now. So first we had to replace the card reader to actually put pics on the computer, now the camera keeps telling us there is a card error and all the pics come up as corrupted data. So I'm hoping it will be a simple fix, like a new memory card. If not it may be awhile until you see more pictures from us since cameras aren't really in the budget. So cross your fingers that it just needs a new card!

Pictures

Heres some pics of the cake all finished! We ran to Target and got a new card reader. The best

pics are still coming from Evelyn, but these turned out pretty good.

FINISHED!!!

Well it's finally all done and it turned out beautiful! I am so happy about it and so relieved to have it done. Evelyn came and took some great pictures that I can't wait to post on my website. As for now my card reader is broken so I'll have to wait a little while to get some pics on. But with the shells and the sanding sugar, and flowers, it was gorgeous and I can't believe I actually made a wedding cake and it turned out so well!! I'm a lot less stressed now for next weeks cake. On the downside the carrot cake didn't turn out so I have to re bake it tonight, I think I got the recipe wrong, it was really liquidy. So it will be a late night, but that's okay, I'm so happy to be done with the other I could care less if I am up really late. I didn't get to see the bride so I don't know what she thought, but I'm confident that she liked it. Thanks for all the support!! You guys are the greatest!

Preliminary wedding cake photos

Here are some pics of the cake, Of course it will look much better tomorrow with the flowers and the whole setup. My friend Evelyn the photographer is coming with me to set it up and take lots of pretty pictures for me :). Thanks Evelyn! It's not as nice as I thought it would be, but aren't we always our worst critic? But I think for my first wedding cake with fondant its not that bad. All the pearls are made from fondant, and the shells are chocolate. I made them all, and it took forever! But I learned a lot and really hope that they like it tomorrow, I'm so nervous!!!
Anyways, I'll be sure to put some pics of the finished product when they are ready, and the carrot cake tomorrow too.

Relaxing with my boys

Well the week is going much better, and slower than expected! The kids ended up not coming on monday so I don't have to do day care all week. Parker is missing his friends, but I'm glad for the break. Then I am almost finished with the wedding cake, and since there are so many b-day for the office I don't have to do lots of decorations for that cake. And superman will only take a few hours. So we are destressing and having fun! I worked most of monday so that night we went and saw Ratatouille and went to Wingers for dinner. Since Wingers had their kids meals on special we got KC his own and he ate almost all of it!! Good thing we didn't make the boys share. I really enjoyed the movie, the kids not so much. Parker loves movies at home, but seems to get scared at the theater. He doesn't seem to live when it gets really dark. And KC, well, he's 1, what more needs to be said. Then yesterday we took the day off and played. We went walking in the canyon with some friends in the morning, then to the park for lunch with more friends. After that Parker and KC played for hours together. Parker got all his stuffed animals and tucked them into his bed, and KC climbed all over them laughing. It is so fun that they are entertained by each other now. When I asked Parker what they were doing he told me his animals couldn't find their mommy so they were sad so he was taking care of them. It was cute.

So today is another relaxing day. I'm going to finished up the cake so I can do the other tomorrow, and then we are going to hang out and play, maybe go out in the sprinklers or on our new slipn'slide.

Here's a cute pic of the boys waving goodbye to Daddy as he leaves for work. The do it everyday and KC's getting pretty good at waving too.

Why do I do this to myself?

Why? I don't know. This week is so busy I think I might go crazy. That's it, after the next few months I'm not taking anything else on for a little while so I can get some sanity back and so my boys can remember what its like to have a mother. Right now I'm working on a wedding cake (my first paid wedding cake!!) for thursday. I wouldn't be so stressed about this if it didn't have hundreds of hand made pearls all over it. I have to put each one on by hand with tweezers. Urgh! But it should be really pretty when it's done. Then for Friday I have Aarons office cake. I get to do carrot cake this time so that will be fun. Grandma I'm using your recipe! They'll love it :). Then for saturday I have a superman cake for Evelyns sons birthday. Thats going to be really fun to make. I also have day care kids today, not on friday thankfully, we have a ward rodeo on friday night, and sometime we are going to try to find time for a date. Next week I have my second wedding cake, this one should be much less stressful. I think I have an order every week till about mid august, if not 2 or 3. I'm really excited that I've had so much business seeing as I just started and don't think I'm really all that good yet. I've been able to get a lot of practice with different things and have actually made a lot of money doing it! Too bad everyone can't be paid to do their hobby ;).
On the even better side of things, we are buying a house!!!!! Well, next year anyways, we hope. We came up with a really good plan last night for what we need to do before we dive in to home ownership. So sometime today I'm going to try to make our little savings chart, that we are marking by 5's so we can mark it in more and be more motivated. We're also going to go to a first time buyers workshop where they teach you lots of things about the whole process. Basically I think it's so you don't get screwed over by paying too much or not getting your house inspected or anything like that. I'd be really fun to just do it all right now, but I'm not so sure I'm ready to commit to living in one place for years, even if only 3 or 4. I like knowing that if I get tired of where I'm at we can move anytime. SO I need sometime to adjust to the idea. That and there isn't much out there thats not connected to someone else's house for less than 200K.
So in the meantime I can be excited to learn about different areas and where we might really want to be. And we can really work hard to save some money so we can be better prepared when the time comes. So if you start thinking we are being cheap, or unnecessarily frugal it because I really really want to be able to do this next year.
I'm so glad we have such good neighbors now that we know will be here just as long. Parker has a blast playing with the kids in the backyard. It's nice to have friends for all of us so close.
Anyways I'll be sure to post some pics of all the upcoming cakes as I get them done and anything else fun that comes our wayt his week. :). Have a good day!!

Happy 4th of July and Happy Early Birthday KC!

Well to keep with tradition we headed down south to good old Delta Utah for the 4th of July. My mom grew up in Delta and we've gone back for the 4th almost every year since I can remember. Most of the family comes and its a lot of fun to see everyone and get to hang out together. It was really really good timing to leave since Tuesday the pump in our swamp cooler broke and it was really HOT in our house!! It didn't help that I was running around all day trying to make KCs birthday cake, get the laundry done, and get things ready to go out of town. I miss A/C! I don't know how people live without any kind of air conditioning at all.

Anyway, we went to Delta Tuesday night and then got up nice and early on Wednesday morning to go to the Parade. This is the best parade ever, complete with lots of tractors, pooping horses, and demolition derby cars. I know, your asking yourself "How could we have missed this? How come no one told us that Delta is the place to be on the 4th of July?" Well, now you know and you cam come next year!

The Theme for the parade this year was 'Remember When...'. Back in the day my grandparents had a dairy farm, so they made a float for the parade and all my little cousins rode on it and threw candy. Thats right, candy. Does your holiday parade throw more salt water taffy then you could eat in a year? I think not. Parker was all about running around and collecting all the candy that he could, it was really fun with him this year. KC was confined to the playpen but liked pointing at everything as it came by. And the occasional rescue from Grandma and Grandpa holding him for a little bit.

Here are some fun pictures from the parade !

Bunny Hop!! This year as part of Deltas centennial celebration they wanted to beat the Guinness world record for the largest bunny hop. So before the parade started we all lined up down main st. and did the bunny hop! They said that there were over 3000! The old record was less than 2000. Here we are bunny hopping!

Parade Slide Show

KC and the cake

Since we were getting together with all the family, and because I have 3 other cakes to make next week, we decided to celebrate KC's birthday early. I made a jungle themed cake for everyone else and a monkey cake for KC, it looked more like a bear though. I really should have started the cakes a few days in advance, because with all there was to do I didn't have time to make all the little decorations for it that I wanted to, so I bought some trees and animals and called it good. He didn't destroy the cake like I had hoped, but he had a big dinner so maybe we should have waited longer. But he enjoyed it. I can't believe my little guy is already going to be 1! This year has gone so fast.

More Pics

Videos?

Okay I need help! I can't figure out how to get a video from my camera or dvd to the computer so I can put it on my blog or facebook page. Help!! I know some of you do this a lot so how do you do it? I'm not very good at this kind of stuff so I need very simple directions. Thanks!

Boys in the Cave

Parker loves making a "cave" out of his bed. Sometimes it's the only way we can get him to sleep in his new room. This morning I heard some crazy laughter coming from his room and went back to find KC and Parker in the cave jumping around and laughing. I tired to get some pics without them noticing but Parker has camera radar and spotted me right away.

Heres a pic of the cake. It was pretty cute and the strawberry cake inside wasn't too bad either. One of the wedding cakes I am doing next month is strawberry so I need to play with the recipe a little to get what I want, but I'm sure Aaron won't mind having more cake to eat.

And we are celebrating KCs birthday when we are in Delta for the 4th, a week early, but with everything going on next week there is just no time. I'm making a jungle cake for him complete with monkeys swinging from vines. If it turns out it'll be really cute so I hope it goes good.