Blue and Gold Dinner Invites

 

David's Birthday Cake

 

Boy did I sweat it out on this one! I could not figure out how to get the icons on the cake to look authentic. I was thinking of using fondant to make each of the icons but that would have taken forever, and I did not have the time or patience for that! So, I found rice paper that I printed this image on. I sponged down the fondant top of the cake with a small bit of water and then just lightly pressed the printed rice paper on it. After a few minutes, it absorbed and layed fairly flat. It was definietly not perfect, but it impressed a group on sweaty 10 year old boys so, worked for me! I used Wilton's black fondant to cover the cake. It was fairly easy to work with, but not as tasty as the homemade marshmellow fondant. Since I used regular ink to print on the rice paper, it was not edible, so we peeled the fondant off after we sang and cut the cake.

Abby's Hula Girl cake

 

I had lots of help on this cake. My dear friend Rebecca decorated the skirt and made the sand and shells. Luckily, we had a hula-esque Barbie doll. I baked the cake in a Pampered Chef glass measuring bowl, the large one. I cooked it at 325 for 45 minutes. I'll admit, it was a little mushier on the inside and curcnhy on the outside, but it definietly worked out. I just shoved the Barbie doll in the center and then Rebecca decorated her little heart out. The Barbie did have knee joints, so once I shoved her in the cake , I bent the knees and then I could push her in a little further.

Luck of the Irish

These kiddos got decked out in green for the holiday. No pinching going on with these two!

 

Now, make a silly face

 

This time of year always makes us reminisce about our loved ones lost. Nana and Papa both loved this holiday and celebrated with family traditions. We decided to pay them a little visit on this rainy St. Paddy's Day. This picture is of David and Abby looking at headstones, not our family ones. They really do enjoy visiting the cemetery and looking at the different headstones. If it wasn't pouring rain and freezing cold, we probably would have hung around and checked more out. It does seem like it would be a bit depressing, but visiting there does in fact make us feel closer to family.

 

After I remembered how much Mark enjoys the traditions surrounding this holiday,(why do I always seem to forget how much it matters to him until the day of??) I kicked it into high gear and made some fun things to eat. We made the follwing:
1. Green Jello popcorn, which Abby named Skittle Popcorn-it does taste just like green Skittles mixed with popcorn!
2. Rainbow Fruit Platter-this was fun and easy and we ate almost all of it.
3. Corned Beef with Cabbage, Potatoes and Carrots-it's all about tradition right? Not my personal favorite, but it was pretty tasty this year. We even got David and Abby to try it after trimming the meat and dicing it and telling them to pretend they were eating ham.
4. Rolos-doesn't seem like a traditional treat, but it has a gold wrapper!
5. We were going to have Greenie Floats but we were too full. Maybe we'll do that tomorrow night.

 

All in all, it turned out to be a lovely day. Hopefully we are creating traditions and memories for our children to carry on.

Snow? In California?

For Winter Break, we took a little jaunt out of town to Palm Springs. The kids were so excited at the thoughts of staying in a hotel. I guess it's been quite awhile since they've had that experience so they were really pumped up about it. I can't blame them though, I too was excited at the thoughts of a free breakfast buffet and having maid service for two days. Simple joys.

 

On the way up, we went through Joshua Tree National Forest. It was an unexpected highlight of the trip. We've never been there before and it was a very cool place to check out. There were, of course, tons of Joshua trees to look at and lots of rocks to climb.

 

 

We went on a short hike and look what we discovered! Snow! (Somebody's mother clearly did not anticipate the cold weather.) Pretty bipolar outfit Abby's got going on here!

 

We even had a good, old fashioned snowball fight!

 

That was the last picture I took because I left my camera in the car for the rest of the trip. Ops! We filled the rest of the two days with swimming, eating, tennis playing and more eating. Seriously, the kids would not stop eating. Maybe it was the free food or growth spurts they were feeding, but it was nuts! Very good times!