7 Layer Studio

Feasting On Bones, Spiders, and Worms...Oh, My!

 
We had an invasion of spiders in our house yesterday.  They crawled all over the goodies I made for a little party I hosted for some friends and their kids.

At first I was grossed out, but then I thought they might taste pretty yummy (nice texture with those hairy legs, and hey - we could all use more protein, right?) with the chocolate "blood" cake (raspberry jam was used on top of the white icing in between the layers, and they were encouraged to ooze off the edges of the cake) .  I also let the spiders stay because they help to hide the boo-boo's I made on the chocolate web...I used chocolate icing that I microwaved for a bit, but it got too hot and oozy so I couldn't control it very well.  Hence the oozy web.

We dined on grubby worms (hotdogs sliced lengthwise and boiled) with blood sauce,

 
crunched on salty bones (breadstick dough-in-a-can brushed with olive oil, then sprinkled with garlic salt, Italian herbs, and parmesan cheese),

and devoured headstones.  These three things were repeats fromlast year's big bash, and I think I got the ideas for them from Family Fun magazine, but I'm not sure.  My memory is not always the most reliable thing in the world. 

We quenched our thirst with Blood Punch (a very spunky and tasty concoction of frozen lemonade concentrate, cherry Koolaid - with 1/2 cup sugar - and Ginger Ale.  Floating eyeballs and gummy worms optional, but that's what made the kids so excited about the stuff - they all wanted a gummy worm, but since they all sink to the bottom it became a fishing venture at the punch bowl.  In case you want to try the punch yourself, here's the exact recipe:  1 can lemonade, 2 cans water, 1 pkg cherry koolaid, 1/2 c sugar, 3/4 of a 2-liter bottle of Ginger Ale, and lots of ice.  It's really tasty!!

I have a fancy punchbowl, but it didn't really fit the theme so I used an inverted cake plate lid on top of a glass bowl filled with treats and spiders (don't ask me how they got into that candy - they were everywhere, I'm tellin' ya)

I made white chocolate spiderwebs just like the article in this October's Country Living magazine explains how to do, but then I started making other things with the white chocolate because I got bored with making spiderwebs.

Eeek!  There's a spider crawling toward me!

 

Boo!  There's one on you too!

The crazy black cat was enjoying his perch atop a candlestick.  It was a great place to keep away from the spiders, because the sides of the pillar were too slick for the spiders to crawl up.  Hence the grin.

Here are the kids on a gummy worm fishing expedition.

I hope you have a great Halloween weekend!  Now I need to go finish the kids' costumes and gear up for party #2 (this time for the neighborhood kids) in a couple of days!  I know, I'm crazy. 

This afternoon we'll carve our pumpkins, the kids are really looking forward to that.  We'll see if Eliza and Hyrum are brave enough to touch the slimy insides of the pumpkins this year...it's such a tactile delight.

Runner Up Late

What Halloween table is complete without a runner?  My dining room table looked a little too bleak with that black tablecloth, and I had all that ribbon practically begging to get used, so I stayed up the other night making this.

As with most things I do, it took a lot longer than I thought it would.  "Oh, I'll just whip this up in an hour before I go to bed," thought I. 

Hah!  Due to a lot of technical difficulties and a painful lack of fusible, double-sided interfacing tape, I was up till after 2 am before I finished it.  And I was determined to finish it before I went to bed, because, well, that's just how I am.  :-)

I usually try not to sew or do any big projects during the day because of the kids.  Night time is when I can unwind and do fun stuff like sewing or other projects.  I know I shouldn't stay up so late very often (I know, dear Mom, it's not good for me!), but sometimes it's too tempting to work late into the night when all is quiet and there are zero distractions.

It started out innocently and easily enough.  I had all the ribbon just where I wanted it, pinned in place on both ends, but after trying to sew the first ribbon on straight while the runner and ribbons flopped and pulled every which way, I realized I needed to switch tactics.  

Since I either didn't have or couldn't find my fusible tape, I took double-sided interfacing and painstakingly cut it to the appropriate widths and carefully put it beneath each ribbon in a few places.  Then, after fusing the ribbon, I tried the sewing approach again and it worked much better.  But I quickly realized that sewing down both edges of every ribbon was more than a little time-consuming!  I finished it off with a border cut to 3" wide.  First I sewed the strips on, then turned under the raw outside edges of the border twice for a finished edge, and finally flopped into bed for a few hours of z's before waking up to get Eliza off to school.  (confession:  after she left for school, I snuck back into bed until my other kiddos woke up, which was heavenly bliss...I love sinking back into bed for more shut-eye.  Doesn't happen often, but it's a welcome luxury!)

So last night, after the kiddos were all tucked in, this black-and-white fabric that has been stored away for about a year kept calling my name, and the leftover ribbon was whining about being left behind.

This time I got smart and used the fusible interfacing strips (still haven't made it to the store for the ready-made tape) over the entire length of ribbon so I didn't have to stitch the ribbon on.

Since these pillows won't be taking much of a beating due to their short display time every year, I'm not really worried about not stitching the ribbon on.  I always stitch the ribbon I use on garments, however, because of how frequently clothes get washed.

I used pillows I already had but weren't being used at the moment, and made a flap in the back of the pillow case so the pillow forms can be removed easily and the cases stored with the Halloween things.

Seems I can't do much with ribbon without making one of my ribbon bows (see Ribbon Bow tutorial in my sidebar). 

This one is providing a bit of bling for the checkered pillow.  I have it safety-pinned on from the inside of the pillow case so I can remove it if/when the case gets washed.

Ahh, my first pie of the season.  It's apple, of course (made from scratch, including the crust, yumyum), and I added some toasted pecans which made it extra scrumptious.  I'm still getting acquainted with my new oven, it's gas with a convection fan so I'm having some moments of frustration with it (see burned edge, despite my efforts to shield the crust with foil).  Electric ovens are definitely better, but I really wanted a gas range and couldn't afford one of those hybrid ovens with gas for the range and electric for the oven - so the gas range won out!  I'll just need to fiddle with the oven and rotate things.  Anyway, the pie was delicious, although a bit overdone (boohoo for overcooked, mushy apples).  At least it hadn't turned to applesauce pie yet, which I have done before!

This one's for Grandma, who sent Hazel this adorable little PJ set complete with a tutu.  She wears it night and day, she loves it so much.  Thanks Grandma!

My sister sent Hazel the most adorable rainbow glasses and compact mirror case, among other things, which Hazel squealed in delight about.  She wore those clear lens glasses everywhere (much better for seeing indoors than the sunglasses she wore a few weeks ago) for days, until her little 2-year-old hands pried the frame apart one time too many and the side pieces broke off.  :-( 

Guess we'll have to go to Claire's and get another pair!  I haven't been to a mall in absolutely ages, and the thought doesn't excite me...give me Home Depot, Lowe's, or HomeGoods anyday!  Can't buy nonprescription rainbow glasses at Lowes, though, so I it looks like it's time to figure out where the nearest Claire's is...

 

  
 
 
 
 
  

2 Days, 2 Parties, 2 Much Sugar! (but hey - the kids had fun)

 
 
Hyrum and Hazel were born a day and 3 years apart, so we will always have double the fun back-to-back when it comes time to celebrate their special days.  This year, Hyrum wanted a space rocket theme for his party, so I had a lot of fun coming up with rocket-y things to do with the crowd of rambunctious boys who helped us celebrate Hyrum's big day.  (sorry for the blurry photos - I didn't have time to track down and set up my tripod for these shots)

 

I ended up using Oreo sugar cones + Li'l Debs chocolate whatevers (sorry, I can't remember what they're called and I threw away the packaging a long time ago).  They're cylinders with marshmallow creme stuff rolled up in the middle (shudder...talk about nasty synthetic treats, but they were the right shape!) and when I put 3 of them together (held together with chocolate frosting piped along the edges) they were the perfect base for the rocket.

I put a little smudge of frosting on the bottom of the plate to hold the cylinders in place better, and lined the edge of the cone with frosting as well.  The fins are Andes mints with one corner cut off, and the other decorations were Mike & Ike candies and red hots.  The "window" is a thinly sliced cross section of the Li'l Debs roll, held in place with frosting.

The kids had a great time decorating their own rockets, and I even managed to convince them not to eat them right away so they could show their parents what they made (and abstain from so much sugar right before dinner).

We had some appliance and moving boxes left over from our kitchen remodel, so I made this giant rocket for the kids to play in.  Not the most polished thing in the world, but I knew it was going to get hammered at the party so I didn't bother making it look perfect.  The kids still loved playing in it!

 

Eliza figured if she was going to get blasted off into space, she'd better wear a helmet...or maybe she just thought the rocket was more interesting than the bike she was riding.

I think Hyrum likes his rocket, what do you think?  I love that expression on his face.

 

...And this one as well.  See his lost tooth?  He was so excited to lose his first tooth, and to get some money from the toothfairy.  Which reminds me, I need to take some photos of the toothfairy pillow I made for him.

 Hazel thought the rocket was okay too.  I can't believe how grown-up she looks in this picture!  What has happened to my baby?!

 
Eliza dealt the final blow to the #5 pinata, and of course the mad dash for all the loot ensued in .07 seconds after it hit the ground. 

I'm a little embarrassed to show you this cake, it's supposed to be Saturn but it looks more like a pink spaceship.  The bottom of it is cake, the dome part is ice cream that I pressed into a round-shaped bowl and refroze overnight.  The day of the party, I placed the ice cream on top of the already frosted cake, then spread tinted CoolWhip on top of the ice cream dome.  It's hard to see in this picture, but that's supposed to be Saturn's red eye below the 5 candle.  I made a paper rocket, inserted some party blowers with metallic streamers into the base of the rocket, and stuck a bamboo skewer into it to hold it up above the cake.  

I think next time I'll just make grey frosting and decorate with candies to make it look like a spaceship - it's the perfect shape for a UFO, and not such a convincing Saturn!  Ah, well...Hyrum still liked it, so I guess that's all that matters.

The next day we celebrated Hazel's birthday, but since she's just turning 2 I didn't do a big kiddie party for her...that will come next year!  Instead, we invited some neighbors and friends over for cake and ice cream.

 

I made chocolate-frosted cupcakes for the kids with colored sugar crystals on top,

  Nutty, chunky apple cake,

and pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting.  Yum yum double yum.  I just love autumn desserts, don't you?  They're my favorite.  All those spices and rich harvest flavors...love it.

 

Hazel was very excited about the two big candles in her cupcake, and after several attempts she even blew them out all by herself!

Hyrum was a great coach.

Now I'm all partied out...I think next year I'll try and do their parties a week apart and reduce my stress load a little bit.  But hey - at least I only had to clean the house once instead of twice, eh?  I'll do anything to avoid dusting.  ;-)

Catch-Up

 

I'm still buried in boxes (no new kitchen yet!) but I couldn't let any more time go by without finishing my coverage of fun and exciting things from our Oregon trip.

 

My sister's adorable little boy turned 1 during our stay, so Tricia put together a fabulous party, Very Hungry Caterpillar style.  I thought this centerpiece was so incredibly clever - such a perfectly appropriate concept, and we all got to munch on the goodies during dinner.  Because, after all, we were all Very Hungry too.

She had purchased some Very Hungry fabric and just cut the borders off separately, then sewed the strips together to create the long table runner.  So cute, especially when paired with the red and white tablecloth.

 

Tricia hung some wooden "beads" from her chandelier for fun,

and Hazel had a very hard time keeping her fingers away from the darling birthday cake.  The other cousins did too - that caterpillar was the recipient of a lot of attention and petting by many curious little fingers! 

I think Tricia formed the leaf and the caterpillar from marzipan, but it may have been fondant too - I'm not sure.

Because there were so many of us at the party that day, Tricia also made these cute little cupcakes out of gumdrops and used mini chocolate chips for the feet. 

I love how the leaf cupcakes turned out too - good enough to eat a hole through...okay, more than that - good enough to eat the whole thing!

 

Make a wish, Baby Niko!  He didn't really know quite what to do, but everyone else did! 

Tricia even had these fantastic gift totes for all the young ones.  She thinks of everything! 

And here we have my brother Jeff and Niko's big sister demonstrating the many fun ways one can wear a party hat.  Sorry if this embarrasses you, brother dear, but I just had to put this one in!  At least I didn't post the one with you looking all cross-eyed and goofy faced.  :-)  Uncle Jeff is always such a good sport.

 

Meanwhile, back at the farm, here are some photos of the rest of our very fun day with my friend Cynthia and her two girls. 

Grandpa helped everyone refine the art of roasting hotdogs over a fire.  See those great hotdog sticks?  He made them with steel rods and drilled a hole in a wooden dowel for the handle.  No more hotdogs or marshmallows slipping off into the fire, and it's built for two!

Dad built the firepit too, out of super thick slabs of metal.  One of the perks of being a metal sculptor! (see link to his site in my sidebar)

We were "camping" next to a big lodge that my dad, with the help of many others, is building from timber from the farm property. 

 

It's a work in progress, but isn't the staircase incredibly cool?  They placed a giant fir tree trunk in the middle of the lodge, then secured huge slabs of fir to the trunk for the treads and used branches for the the stair rails.

 

The branches are also secured from the loft floor to the ceiling as an inventive railing "wall."  I love that staircase - so incredibly organic and unique.

This lodge is not zoned for or intended as a permanent dwelling, but it sure is a great place for summer gatherings!  Dad's been so busy with other things that he's never really finished the lodge (yes, I inherited my tendency to finish things about 80% to 90%, then run off to another exciting project, from him) but hopefully someday the interior will be finished enough to really have big family get-togethers there.

Because, after all, where else are the kids going to be able to open a big rough-hewn door with an axe as the door handle?  (Not to worry, the axe is very deeply and safely embedded in the wood!)

 

Or, for that matter, where are they going to be able to pull a handcart, crafted after the ones that the real-life pioneers pulled from Missouri to Utah and beyond, searching for a better life?

 

I really like this handcart, partly because it's so much fun for the kids, but also because it reminds me of all the hardships and sacrifices people made so long ago to settle the West.  In our church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or Mormons), every July 24th is celebrated as Pioneer Day to commemorate the incredibly difficult crossing of the plains that early members of the church endured to escape religious persecution and eventually settle in Utah and other areas.  It was a trek that cost many lives and required great sacrifice, both physically and materially, but they were determined and blessed to finally establish communities far from the misinformed and often violent mobs that ultimately drove them from the east coast to the west.  Fortunately that kind of opposition doesn't exist today, but we still pause to remember the rich heritage of faith, hard work, and endurance that the early pioneer saints exhibited by celebrating Pioneer Day.  Hence the handcart.

 

Can you imagine pulling all your earthly possessions over thousands of miles, trekking through the Rocky Mountains (before any roads were built) with hardly any food and not even any shoes because they wore out miles and miles before?  Some pioneers were so poor that this was their only choice.  Some were caught in early snowstorms and it was truly miraculous that any of them survived at all.  There are so many incredible accounts of those early pioneers that it just makes my jaw drop sometimes.  I don't think I would have made a very good pioneer.  I'm way too soft and spoiled...and how on earth would I be able to fit my printing press and art supplies into a handcart?  :-)

Here's Hazel in a rare stationary pose, taking a second to snuggle with mommy in front of the fire. 

Cynthia needed a baby fix, so Hazel obliged for a few moments by snuggling with Cynthia too.  Actually Hazel warmed up to Cynthia immediately, which doesn't always happen with people Hazel first meets.  What's not to love about Cynthia?  She's great.  One of my dearest friends when we were living in Hawaii at the same time, and now she lives in Oregon and I'm clear across the country.  Sheesh. 

 

Hazel discovered the olive-on-the-finger trick that day, and she got a huge kick out of feeding herself (and Hyrum) as many olives as Mommy would allow before Mommy got nervous about what sort of diapers an overdose of olives might create.  TMI?

 

At the end of the day, it was time to extinguish the fire with the water hose, a task that Hyrum took great pride in.

It's a big job to be the Family Fireman, you know. 

  

We couldn't let Cynthia and the girls go home without a tour of Dad's sculpture gallery, so we all swarmed into the studio for a look-see.

 

Hazel's favorites were the huge gongs hanging up outside.  They make very fabulous sound vibrations when they're struck with the leather-covered mallet.  She could have done that all night, but since I'm selfish and valued my hearing (and hers!) I finally pulled her away.  I just love the incredible waves of light and shadow that are created in a flat piece of metal by means of using a handheld grinder.  My dad is a master at creating those curvy shapes.  I've tried it = DEFINITELY much harder than it looks!

 

So there you have it, folks!  Thus ends the story of our trip to Oregon, and after 2+ hours of putting this post together (I told you my internet was slow, although in the middle of the night it's faster than the daytime, thank goodness) it's time to bid adieu (did I spell that right?).  The next post will have pics of our "new" old(ish) house, I promise.  Nighty-night!

Has It Really Been 7 Years?!

 

My "baby" girl Eliza turned 7 on Friday.

 

When I really stop, step back, and look at her, I am blown away by how much she has grown up when I wasn't looking.  I still think of her as a spunky little toddler, and now she's almost as tall as some adults and is doing all sorts of big kid things (but she's still quite spunky). 

So we had a big water party for Eliza on her birthday, despite the fact that I had been really sick all week (I think I wore myself out from all the late nights due to getting the wedding stuff ready last week, and a nasty bug got me when my immune system was down...I literally couldn't accomplish anything all week.  Nobody else in my family picked it up, thankfully - it was not fun at all).

Lucky for me, Steve came home right before the party started and some of the other moms helped out tremendously, so everything turned out fine in the end.

 

Our neighbor let us use her giant inflatable water slide/pool thing, which was a huge hit!  The kids all had a fantastic time on it.

We couldn't find Hyrum's swim trunks (probably left at one of my friend's houses last weekend when we were at the wedding) so he had to make do with regular clothes, but he didn't care a bit.  Hyrum could hardly contain his excitement, he was loving this pool thing so much. 

 

We had a pinata, and the kids scrambled to get their stash of goodies.

Here's Fake-Smile-Hyrum, doing his best to pose for the camera...

 

Eliza loves horses, so I made a huge cake and just perched these little guys on top.  The plastic horses were actually pretty heavy, so their feet originally sank deep into the cake when I placed them on there.  I ended up cutting out a wavy "circle" of cardstock and placed it on top, piped some "grass" all around, sprinkled some green colored sugar on top of that, and the horses are perched on top of the paper.  They got knocked off no fewer than 4 times when I either tried moving the cake or the table got bumped, leaving lovely gouges in the cake all over the place (which is why I'm too embarrassed to show you details of the whole thing....it's quite bungled everywhere) but hey - Eliza didn't care and that's what matters most.

 

A big thank you to everyone who helped pull it off, a big sigh of relief that the weather held (there was a possibility of thunderstorms that day), and a big hug and birthday wishes to my sweet "little" 7-year-old!

Happily Ever After

 

Stormy weather in the hills of Utah threatened to spoil the fun, but we were blessed with a few hours of lovely, non-blustery weather in which to throw together all the decorations for my niece's wedding!

I was very frustrated (understatement) about the windy and rainy weather on Friday (this is June in Utah, after all) that prevented me from setting everything up at a relaxed pace, but it all came together in the end.

The reception was held in the lovely backyard of the groom's bishop's house (a bishop is like a father or a pastor in other denominations), and it was such a pleasure to get to know him and his family a little bit.  Incredibly nice people, so generous and unassuming.  Camille (my niece) wanted a theme that was fun and fresh, with a combination of retro and English tea party undertones.  She chose fabric from Amy Butler's August Fields line and we built the theme from there.

Camille had seen pictures of a wedding online that had colorful pennants draped beneath pretty white tents, and although the budget couldn't support renting tents, I was able to get quite a bit of bang for the buck by sewing these pennants and draping inexpensive white fabric over the rails of the balcony.

I purchased loads of paper lanterns, and had planned to hang them on the wire armatures and put them all over the borders of the yard.  The stormy weather prohibited that until just before the reception, and I discovered too late that the wires I had bent to create the armatures were too short and wimpy for the larger lanterns (I'm telling you this so you don't make the same mistake, should you ever attempt this!)  Lesson learned:  always test things like this out beforehand! 

Still, the few lanterns that I was able to get in the ground were a fun addition to the color scheme.  We put lots of them in the trees, and since we ran out of time, we just tossed the remaining lanterns in the bushes around the patio...

What's that about the best laid plans?

  

Happily, the wedded couple was so giddy from the excitement of tying the knot that they neither noticed nor cared.  Actually, they were very easy going about the whole event - I was the only one preoccupied with getting everything "just so".  I admit it - I'm a perfectionistic type A person...what can I say? 

 

Ah, such an incredibly handsome couple, don't you think?  Camille found an outstanding man to marry, I know they'll be very happy together.

I grouped some white peonies and gorgeous roses together for the bouquet, and you can't really see it but I took an unwanted sash tie that had been removed from the dress and wrapped it around the stems.  The end of the sash was embellished with some lovely beadwork, so the result was very pretty.

These pictures were taken at the end of the day, so the flowers were sagging a bit, but still so lovely. 

We had originally planned on using orange ranunculus and white peonies for the arrangements and the bouquet, but since the ranunculus were out of season I ordered these breathtaking roses instead.  I was just totally enamored by them, with the delicate tinges of rosy coral on the edges and the warmer tones in the middle. 

Please don't make fun of my unfocused rose - I had about 10 minutes to run around and take pictures of everything before the start of the festivities, so I didn't have time to really concentrate on taking great photos.  Nor did I have time to even shower or change clothes before the party started (it was a crazy, crazy afternoon, I can assure you!)  I was putting flowers on the cake during the beginning of the action, and was scurrying around making sure the food was all taken care of in my jeans and with my greasy hair pulled back in a ponytail.  Thank goodness I wasn't in any pictures until things slowed down a bit and I was at least able to change into a dress.  I'm very grateful for the small army of family and friends who helped get all the food together at the last minute.  There just was not any time to do it any sooner, what with the bouquets, boutenirs, and corsages to make that morning, and the decorations to put up when the weather improved, and then the food crew to organize (thanks, everyone, for all your hard work!) and the cake to decorate.

 

I used less expensive dahlias, mums, and carnations to create the centerpieces and serving table bouquets, but they're still quite pretty.  I put all the arrangements in ceramic pitchers, which provided a fun and whimsical element to the bouquets.

 

We kept the menu pretty basic, since it was an after-dinner affair and for cost reasons as well.  The food we did serve was dressed up for the occasion.  This fruit kabob display was something that my mom taught me to do way back in the days of 4-H, when I was a young teenager.  I did this for a competition one time, and if I remember correctly it was a hit.  The fruit dip was a simple yet delicious combination ofcream cheese, marshmallow creme (of all things!) and lemon zest.  The elevated bowls holding the dip are actually just little bowls from IKEA with an inverted egg cup tacked to the bottom with StickyTack. 

 

The brownie bites from Costco got a facelift with dark and white chocolate, and a strawberry garnish.

Since I was bringing my dishware across the country in suitcases, I didn't want to risk bringing my elevated cake plates.  So here we have the stacked plate+painted glass candle sconce arrangement once again!  I temporarily attached the pieces together with StickyTack, the white stuff you can use to tack posters to the walls.  I have used this technique countless times, including Halloween and birthday parties, and just change the ribbons to suit the occasion.

 

I failed to get any photos of the punch, but it was so pretty with lemon slices and whole strawberries floating in it.  Camille wanted lemonade, and so I punched it up a notch (har har) with a generous helping of ginger ale added to the double-strength lemonade concentrate.  It was very popular, so I'll give you the exact proportions here: Use 2 cans of lemonade concentrate for every 2-liter bottle of ginger ale.  Premix the concentrate with half as much water as you would normally, add it to the punchbowl with LOTS of ice, pour in the ginger ale and garnish with lemon slices and strawberries.  Very tasty, very easy, and very summery.

 

Camille borrowed a darling apothecary jar from a friend, and we filled it with jellybellys that people could scoop into little organza bags.  It was a very fun way to give out party favors.  The golden frames housed bridal photos that the wedding photographer brought...the frames were not exactly in keeping with the aesthetic theme of the other things on the table (had to put in that little disclaimer), but not the end of the world.  :-)

Here's a quick snapshot of one of the ribbon boards I made.  We put childhood photos of Camille in one, and her husband in the other.  

  

In case you were wondering, I didn't actually make or even frost the wedding cake.  Pretty hard to put all the layers of a huge cake in one's suitcase!  :-)  They ended up ordering the cake from Albertsons (it was pretty good!  I had some of the red velvet layer and thought it was quite tasty) and I just put the flowers on it.  Some of the icing had been bungled in transit, and the seams between the layers were pretty apparent (I didn't have any extra icing to cover it up) so I just got very ambitious with the flowers and leaves to hide the boo-boos.  That was definitely the fastest, easiest decorating job I have ever done!

 

Hooray for gorgeous flowers, hooray for good weather at the last minute, and hooray for everyone who helped make Camille's wedding a beautiful and memorable occasion.  A huge thank you, too, to all our friends back in Virginia who took turns watching Eliza and Hyrum while we were gone (just Steve, Hazel and I were able to fly out to the wedding) and to all who helped watch Hazel in Utah.  It was hard for me to be basically childless for a few days (I kept on looking around thinking, where are my kids?  What are they up to?) and I worried about inconveniencing our friends who were watching our children, but it was for a very good cause. 

 

So here's to true love, and an eternity of happiness together.  Congratulations Tij and Camille!  I wish you all the best.

Just Married

  

Well, we're back from a whirlwind weekend in Utah, and I'm exhausted but very happy that our niece's wedding went off well despite some weather-induced setbacks!  I don't have time to post the whole she-bang right now, but here are a few pics to satisfy your curiousity for the moment...

 

  

 

That's all for now, folks!  I'll post more later, I promise.  Now I've got to unpack those 3 suitcases of wedding decoration gear that are still in my front room! 

Visions of Sugar anything

 

Don't you just love Christmas goodies?  I'm working on mine the earliest I ever have, because I lose my kitchen stuff on Monday!  Aack!  I'm also not doing my usual bake-a-thon this year, as I just can't deal with the mess and the time commitment said annual bake-a-thon creates.  This year I'm doing candy.  Simple, easy candy, with some store-bought things thrown in like the candy canes (of course) and the peppermint bark from Costco.  I haven't even started really packing anything in my house, because I'm in a mad dash to get everything made, sewn, and painted before Monday when the packers come.  Don't even get me started on all the things I still have to sew; this is a post about food....more specifically, CHOCOLATE!

 These are my new favorite candy to make, because they are so EASY!  I got this truffle recipe from, of all things, a food magazine put out by Kraft.  I wasn't expecting to find anything too impressive in there because, no offense to all the Velveeta lovers in the world, super-processed Kraft products are usually not on my list of favorite foods. 

HOWEVER, these truffles taste quite incredible considering how easy they were to make. 

All you do is cream an 8 oz block of cream cheese until light and fluffy (KitchenAid or equivalent recommended), then add 8 oz of melted semisweet chocolate.  (you can use the blocks sold in the little boxes, or just use chocolate chips, weighing them on a little kitchen scale like I did.  Or just melt about a cup and a half of chocolate chips and call it good.  This recipe is not rocket science).

Chill the mixture in the fridge for at least an hour.  Roll spoonfuls of the truffles into balls (watch out, this is very messy because the heat of your hands melts the cream cheese mixture immediately, so it gets a little gooey.  I ended up just sort of pressing the mixture into balls instead of rolling it), place on waxed paper-lined tray, and refrigerate again.

Meanwhile, over double boiler (or pyrex measuring cup resting in about 2 inches of water in a saucepan) gently melt 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips with 2 Tbls shortening (NOT butter, like I did the first time and it totally "seized" on me, the same thing that will happen when you get even 1 drop of water into the chocolate.  Seized means that the chocolate gets all grainy and clumpy instead of smooth).  This will be what you will dip the balls into.  The Kraft recipe said nothing about the shortening, I added that because the pure chocolate was just too thick and wasn't cooperating.

Take a little cocktail fork or two-pronged fork,  poke a chilled truffle ball, then dip it completely into melted chocolate.  Place back on waxed paper, sprinkle with finely chopped nuts, sprinkles, etc (I used peppermint flavored sprinkles) and chill.  These get soft really quickly when warm, they should be stored in the fridge. 

And there you go!  Homemade, heavenly balls of calories...I mean chocolate.  They really are incredibly smooth and luscious - you need to try this recipe!

 

With the leftover chocolate, I made these simple pretzels.  Hyrum had a great time helping me with this one.  He also had a great time eating the inventory, but who can blame him?  The crunchy, salty pretzel juxtaposed with the sweet, delectable chocolate is quite tempting.  I melted some white chocolate and made some with white chocolate too, then put the extra white chocolate in a ziploc baggie, snipped a tiny hole in one corner, and drizzled white chocolate over some of the dark chocolate pretzels. 

 

I STILL had some leftover melted chocolate, so I tossed some of those nugget pretzels into the melted chocolate until coated, laid them out on waxed paper, and did the white chocolate drizzle action on them as well.  They look like solid chocolate nuggets, but the pretzel interior keeps the guilt (and calorie count) down a little bit.  Unless you eat twice as many as you would have otherwise.  :-)

 

I packaged up several little boxes and tins with the goodies, which will have to do for the kids' gifts to their teachers this year, as well as treats for the neighbors.  Except for the bag I have yet to make for Hyrum's preschool teacher, who also happens to be a good friend of mine.  Guess I better stop blogging and start sewing, eh?

 

Here are the cute little goodie boxes, all packaged up and ready to go.  Now that I look at this photo, I'm thinking some extra ribbon embellishment is in order....well, maybe next year.  Time to get back to that sewing machine.

Snow in Hawaii + Yam Recipe

 

Okay, okay, I lied about the snow in Hawaii...but the kids were pretending that this popcorn was snow!  We got our Christmas tree today, which, by the way, is the most gorgeous noble fir I have ever seen.  Usually they're a little on the sparse side, but this one is so incredibly full that I get giddy just looking at it.  I'm not kidding.  It looks like a fake tree it's so perfect. 

But fake trees don't have the intoxicantingly pungent evergreen fragrance that now graces the air in our house.  I walk around taking deep breaths like I'm huffing or something.  :-)  Don't make fun of me - I grew up in Oregon, land of evergreen trees and the capital of Christmas tree farms (our tree this year is from, you guessed it...Oregon).  Every whiff of that sharp, sweet scent of noble fir brings a million memories rushing back of my childhood days....

But I digress.  Since our things are being packed up mid-month, I'm not decorating our tree with our usual array of handmade ornaments and fancy store-bought ones.  I keep having to force myself not to decorate for Christmas, but it's really, really hard not to.  Especially now that I actually have a blog to post pretty pictures of all the decorations I've made through the years!  I have a few photos of previous years, I think I'll have to sneak those in.

 

We are going to decorate our tree this year with edible or paper ornaments and decorations, so I thought I'd get the kids to help me make some popcorn strings like my family did every year when I was little.  As you can see by the pics, my kids are still a little too young.  Hazel made a concerted effort to make sure that every piece of popcorn was thrown/spilled onto the floor (note empty bowl at her side), and Eliza played vacuum cleaner instead of threading popcorn (see first photo above).  Hyrum did his best for the first foot or two of his string, then he thought it was very funny to crush the popcorn already on his string until it fell off. 

 

When Hazel decided she wanted to spread her carpet of popcorn all over our house (is she being contrary because the poor kid is still sick with a nasty virus, or is she just being a toddler?), and after Eliza tired of being a vaccuum cleaner, I got the broom out and swept up all of our "snow".  Our tree sure looks great with our 2-foot-long popcorn garland, I can assure you!

...and now for that Yam recipe I promised you (the one I make every Thanksgiving and Christmas):

6 or 7 whole yams (the kind with orange flesh)

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup white sugar, PLUS 3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup milk (or a little more if mixture looks too thick for your taste - keep in mind that it will set up after cooking a bit due to the eggs)

4 eggs

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon, plus optional dashes of nutmeg, ground cloves, allspice, ground ginger, etc.  The usual spices in autumn food...add as desired in quantities you prefer

2 tsp vanilla

Okay; now for the directions.  Simmer (with lid on pot) whole yams, skin on and with water covering all the yams, until they are extremely soft and tender and skins are falling off.  Drain; let cool for awhile until you can handle them.  Slip skins off, then mash with electric mixer or KitchenAid.  I use the wire attachment that is intended to whip cream or merengue, as it catches a lot of the fibrous strings that are in the yams.  When those strings build up on your paddle/wire attachment, don't scrape back into the mashed yams!  Discard the stringy fibers.

Add all the above ingredients to the hot mashed yams, then put into LARGE casserole dish.  Now for the crust  (I'm a girl who likes a lot of topping, but if you don't you can reduce these amounts):

1/2 cup butter, melted

2 cups coconut

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup flour

2 cups chopped pecans

Mix all topping ingredients (using one's hands works best) in large bowl, then sprinkle onto yam mixture.  Don't press down crust ingredients too hard - it's better if it's crumbly.  Bake at 375 for 30 to 45 minutes, until golden brown.  If the crust starts getting too dark (like mine did in the photo of my previous post) place a piece of foil loosely over top of dish until the yams get heated thoroughly and the eggs have a chance to finish working their magic.

There you have it!  Dessert masquerading as a vegetable.  Perfect. 

ps This recipe produces a dish big enough for a huge crowd; you can reduce it by half and still feed at least 6 to 10 people....but then there wouldn't be any leftovers, would there?  Enjoy!

A Day of Thanksgiving

 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Ours was relatively low-key, considering that this was the first time we've ever eaten Thanksgiving dinner with no guests!  Last-minute plans seem to be the recurring theme with us lately, as the families we had invited to dinner had last-minute trips to the mainland or other things came up.  After those plans changed, and in light of our topsy-turvy schedule in preparation for moving, we had talked about just going to a restaurant to celebrate. 

 

I bought some Thanksgiving staples just in case, and it's a good thing I did; last night Hazel developed a fever and was unwell all day today.  So out with the restaurant idea, and I cooked a feast for 4 (and 1/2, including Hazel).  Needless to say, we have a lot of leftovers!  The kids were a little disappointed about not going to a restaurant, since it's such a rare thing that we go out, and so I did my best to create a restaurant atmosphere for them here at home.

 

Steve came home with these gorgeous tulips when he kindly braved the INSANE amount of last-minute shoppers thronging one of the two grocery stores that service a community of over 30,000 people (!!)  to pick up some evaporated milk for the pumpkin pies (thanks honey!)  Aren't they just beautiful?  I adore tulips and the colors are just perfect for an autumn table setting.  I used my fake pears and some darling little tealights I found at Ross the other day ( Hooray for Ross!!  My only connection to the "outside" commercial world other than Walmart and Costco) to decorate the table. 

 

For those of you who remember me saying that we have never used our dining room table, you will be happy to learn that we finally did use it...and now we'll put it up for sale.  :-)

It's a gorgeous piece, a vintage solid mahogany beauty that I bought at a moving sale and made slipcovers for the chairs, but since it doesn't have leaves and the chairs are so wide, it only seats six...and when do we ever have company with just six people, considering that there are 5 in our own family?  So we are going to find a new home for our dear table, and find something a little more versatile in Virginia.  Craigslist, here I come!  That is the most handy resale site - I love it.

 

Here's our little Thanksgiving crowd!  Eliza was being grumpy at that moment, and couldn't quite decide whether to scowl or smile, so it's sort of a hybrid expression.

Our turkey was cooked in our friend's imu pit, which is a traditional Hawaiian method of cooking whole animals such as pigs and, in this case, turkeys!  It's an amazing process:  they dig a huge pit in the ground, pile a bunch of special wood in there and load a big pile of lava rocks on top.  The fire is lit and the stones are heated to a glowing hot temperature, then eventually the meat is placed on the stones, covered in wet burlap and/or leaves from banana trees, and fresh wet chunks of banana tree trunks and leaves are placed on top to insulate and provide a steamer effect for the cooked meat.  The covered imu pit is left alone all night long, and by the next morning the turkeys are done!  The meat is so moist and tender, it just falls off the bone, and the smoking process imparts a wonderful smoky flavor.  It doesn't look too pretty, but it definitely makes up for it in flavor and texture!  Our friend hosts a big imu pit party every year so that we can all cook our turkeys this way - it's great.  Thanks, Kimo and family!

 

And of course, what Thanksgiving would be complete without pumpkin pie?  I was shockingly conservative in my pie baking this year...normally we have at least as many pies as people (oh, you should see the incredible array of pies when my family gets together!!  My mom is an excellent pie baker, and she has taught all her children the art of making pies.  When I think Thanksgiving dinner, the first thing I think of is pie.  One year we had 16 pies.  Absolute, gluttonous heaven) but I was worn out this year.  I only made 2 pies, and both were pumpkin because that big can of pumpkin pack makes 2 at a time.  My family would be shocked.  :-)  I'm still totally craving apple and coconut cream pie (the REAL cream pie, made with custard from scratch) so I may just have to have a dessert party in a day or two and invite the neighbors...

 

This, admittedly, isn't the prettiest of pictures, but I want to tell you about these delicious yams.  I'll try and post the recipe tomorrow, but suffice it to say that even people who claim to hate yams love this dish.  The yams are boiled, mashed, and mixed with spices, butter, eggs, etc.  The topping includes pecans, coconut, brown sugar, and of course more butter. Yum!  The result is divine, and it's almost like a dessert in itself.  I make this at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it is always very popular despite its questionable appearance.

 

And thus ends another Thanksgiving Day, a day to spend with family and/or friends and reflect on the bounty which we enjoy and often take for granted.  I'm so grateful for the many blessings in my life, the most important being my family and my faith in God and His eternal plan for all of us.  I'm so thankful to be a citizen of the US, with all of the freedoms, privileges, and responsibilities such citizenship entails.  I'm grateful for my health and the health of my loved ones, for Steve's good job, for my friends, and for the many incredible beauties of the earth.  I'm thankful for the talents I've been given and the opportunities I have to share them with others, for modern technology, for education and lifelong learning, and for the chance to start every day anew, with no mistakes in it (who first said that?  Annie?  Pollyanna?  I can't remember).  My list could go on and on, but I won't bore you to tears listing any more here.  I hope you had a wonderful holiday, and may the spirit of gratitude influence our lives to a greater degree every day.

All Hallow's Week

 

It's been a whirlwind of a week, with all the Halloween activities for the kids both at home and at school.  Hyrum's preschool class had its annual field trip to the pumpkin patch a few days ago (around here you have to wait until the last minute to get your pumpkins or they'll rot in the hot humid weather). 

 

I must admit I was happy to bid adieu to the pumpkin patch, knowing that it was our last visit to the Hawaiian variety of pumpkin patches.  After battling the heat, humidity, dust, bugs, and rotted pumpkins for 4 years straight, I'm looking forward to pumpkin hunting next year in crisp autumn weather in Virginia! 

Looking on the bright side, at least they have a pumpkin patch to go to here, so for the sake of the kids I'm grateful for that.  They have always had a great time coming to the patch to pick out their own pumpkins, and for the first half hour or so they're in high spirits.  After that, the humidity takes its toll and it's tears and tantrums until we get home.  I've learned not to wander more than a half mile away from our van, because being several fields away from the parking area in search of a non-rotted pumpkin with 2 or 3 exhausted kids who won't/can't walk plus trying to carry 3 pumpkins is not the happiest of circumstances! 

This year they had a large selection of pumpkins piled up near the entrance to the patch, so that was really nice.  Hyrum really wanted to go out into the field too, so I humored him until he was satisfied that the ones left out in the fields were left there because they were rotten.  Then we went back to the piles of squash at the entrance and eventually decided on a few.

 

Here's Hazel searching for just the right one...

 

"Oh, I give up, Mom,"  she says.  "Can you choose one for me please?  Besides, I don't even know what these things are for!"

  

Here are Hyrum and Eliza's pumpkins, didn't they do a great job?  They both drew out the designs ALL by themselves, and Eliza cut hers out all by herself using the little child-safe saw you can buy.  I was really proud of her, considering last year she didn't want anything to do with it.  She still refused to clean the pumpkin out by herself (it was a little stinky because there was a little spot of rot on the inside, so I guess she's excused!) but at least she enjoyed carving it this year.  She even made glasses, can you see them?  Hyrum did most of the cutting by himself too, except for part of the mouth. 

 

Here's how they looked in the dark.  Sorry for the blurry pics, by the way.  I thought I could get away with not using a tripod, but I was wrong!

 

 

 

Here's another food idea I got from FamilyFun.com.  Mummy pizzas!  I used toasted hamburger buns instead of the english muffins.  The white mummy wraps are strips of string cheese.  This was our quick dinner in the flurry of trying to get everyone ready for trick-or-treating and the house staged to receive the trick-or-treaters.

 

Halloween night.  This was Hyrum's 3rd costume of the season, as he refused to wear his banana costume at the preschool party, so his teacher let him pick out a costume from their emergency inventory.  He chose to be a dinosaur that day, but on Halloween night he was Bob the Builder.  No sewing involved for that one, which was a very good thing!

    

Hyrum the dinosaur.  Note his long legs sticking out of the short costume...he was barely able to squeeze into this one, but he made it work.  Hurray for Ms. Chris, who circumvented a major meltdown by letting him wear this costume instead of the banana one that I worked so hard on.  (sigh)  Ah, well.  At least I have pictures!

 

 

For those of you who didn't see Hyrum the Banana Boy in my previous post, here he is.  Who can blame the poor kid for not wanting to wear 2.5 feet of stuffed banana on one's head? 

 

At Eliza's new school, they have an annual mask parade for Halloween.  Everyone was supposed to make a mask at home, and this is what Eliza came up with.  She wanted to be a happy candy corn witch, and although I helped her with the paper mache part, she painted it all by herself.

   

There is also a door decorating activity every year, and I helped Eliza's class make their poster.  Each child wrote their name on a ghost and glued pompoms on it, which they had a lot of fun doing.  It was pretty faded by the sun by the time I took this photo, but it gives the general idea. 

Like most projects, this took much longer than I thought it would, due to drawing and cutting out all the letters, then embellishing them.  The kids were very excited when they saw it, though, so that made it all worth it.

 

Here's a sweet picture of Hyrum, with messy hair (he won't let me cut it because he's afraid of the hair clippers), chocolate on his face and all.  We were waiting for Eliza's parade to start and Hyrum wanted me to take his picture. 

 

While I'm on the subject of costumes, I thought I might as well post what the kids were last year.  They really wanted to be ghosts, so here they are at the preschool cheesing it up.

 

...and there's baby Hazel just a month old in her ill-fitting ghost costume!  It's so amazing to see how much she's grown in the past year.  I still think of her as my tiny little baby, but now she's walking and almost talking.  Don't grow up so fast, Baby Boo!

 

I almost forgot to post some pics of the mummy wrapping game we did at the party earlier this week!  I didn't have very strong toilet paper (oops) so it kept breaking while they were trying to wrap eachother.   

The moms had to step in to help, but that darn TP was just not cooperating. 

 

This is as good as it got that day.  Next time I'll definitely choose which TP to use more wisely!  Most of the kids still had a great time, if for no other reason than to have an authorized opportunity to unroll toilet paper without being chided for wasting it! 

 

Okay, last picture of the day...this was the extent of my halloween costume this year!  I didn't have time to come up with costumes for Steve and I, so I just made this necklace out of Sculpey clay and sprayed it with clear gloss.  I offered to make one for Steve, but for some reason he wasn't too interested....

I hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween, and may you have more self-discipline than I do with all the trick-or-treating goodies in the house.  I have a serious problem with chocolate, especially if it's individually wrapped and in bite-sized pieces.  I always think to myself, "Oh, what's one more little piece going to hurt?"  And at the end of the day there are many, many empty wrappers in the trash.  I should have Steve hide it from me so I don't know where it is, but then I might have severe withdrawal symptoms and go berserk.  So I better go have another piece to keep me sane.  :-)

Ghoulish Grub

 

I hosted a little (okay, not so little) Halloween party for the neighborhood kids today, it was a lot of work but so much fun to do!  We had all sorts of themed foods, most of the ideas coming from FamilyFun.com.  Some of them, like the worm bowl, were a little too convincing...they're just sliced hotdogs boiled in water to make them curl, but most of the kids wouldn't touch them!  Even my own children, who love hotdogs, repeatedly declined even trying them...I guess they were a little too real to be appetizing.

 

Don't they look disgustingly great?

The dish that the worms are in is a trifle bowl...makes you want to dig right in, no?

They were served with Blood Sauce (ketchup) on the side in a separate little bowl.

 

These bones were made from the refrigerated breadstick dough you can buy at any supermarket.  I pulled at each dough section gently, made slits at either end and then rolled/formed the rounded bone ends until they looked right.  I sprinkled the tops with a little garlic salt/parsley combo.

Next time I'll butter the tops of the dough a little bit before sprinkling the seasoning on. 

The store-bought dough wasn't as tasty as homemade, but with an entire haunted menu to deal with, I was very grateful for the convenience of the dough-in-a-can!

 

 

Here are my tiered plates all loaded up with gross goodies...cheese stick witches fingers, cracker spiders, and monster mouths.

 

These were the most time-consuming project on the menu, but so much fun!  Each mozzerella cheese stick was cut in half, with a place for the olive fingernail carved out of the curved end of the cheese.  The knuckle creases were carefully carved out as well.  The olives were sliced twice lengthwise to create 4 sections, and a small portion of each quarter was cut off the bottom.  The "nails" were attached to the cheese with a touch of cream cheese.  Note:  in retrospect, it would have been better if I had placed the cut olive pieces on paper towel prior to putting on cheese, as it would have absorbed some extra moisture (thus making it adhere better to cream cheese and cheese stick).

 

I made little peanut butter sandwich tombstones, and piped chocolate frosting on them.  My kids didn't really get the whole RIP thing, even after I told them what it stood for.  The edge of this dish was embellished with a crepe paper "skirt" made by folding up a section of crepe paper, then cutting the fringe along one edge.  I then wrapped a narrow black ribbon around the top, but since the edge of the plate was curved and at a slight angle, the ribbon didn't want to cooperate very well, even with lots of bitty pieces of double-rolled tape to hold it in place.

 

I had a great time finding ways to elevate the dishes; it has such a great "fancy shmancy" effect, and it makes the table display much more interesting...not to mention the extra opportunity for more ribbons!!

The spider cake is sporting another version of the crepe paper fringe + ribbon.

 

The wormy spider brew was a big hit - the kids loved the taste of it as much as they loved the spiders and worms in it!  It's very simple to make:  I used a packet of strawberry Kool-Aid, a half-cup of sugar (instead of the a whole cup like it says on the packet), added about a quart of water and a container of frozen lemonade concentrate and stirred until the lemonade dissolved.  Then came about a liter of 7-Up, a bunch of ice and more water until it tasted right.  Not too sweet, and with a fun kick from the carbonation and lemonade!

You can't really tell from this photo, but I didn't actually use a punchbowl.  It's an inverted lid to one of those chip/dip and/or cake platter combos (I was using the other half as an elevated graveyard for the tombstones) and I have it resting on another bowl with ribbons sticking out all over from beneath the glass dish.  A very versatile piece of dishware - I have used mine in so many ways.

No kid's party is complete without cupcakes.  I got lazy and just used some little toothpick cupcake decorations I bought at Walmart.

I know, you're probably disappointed in me (and you thought I was such a purist) but hey - efficiency and convenience has to take precedence sometimes.

 

Speaking of Walmart, that's where I got these darling little paper bags. (and the tablecloth, and the paper plates and napkins...)  There's nothing in them (much to the disappointment of the kiddos), but they really brightened up the table.  To form the larger square ones, I put a square glass vase inside temporarily until I was able to fold the top down crisply like a present, then I removed the vase and carefully taped it shut and added a ribbon (of course).  The smaller one is just folded over twice with holes punched in the top to thread the ribbon through.

 

This spiderweb cake is just a single 8 inch layer of cake.  I froze it, and made a quick icing with a bit of soft butter, about 2 cups powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk (sorry, I didn't measure so I can't give exact portions).  The consistency wasn't extremely thin, but it wasn't as stiff as normal icing either.  I dumped the whole little bowl of icing onto the middle of the frozen cake, and it slowly oozed its way down the sides (with a little bit of encouragement with a spoon).  The cold temperature of the cake resolidified the butter in the icing so it set up pretty quickly.  Then I just swirled some chocolate icing on the white icing and used a butterknife to make the lines distort a little bit, retracing the knife marks with more chocolate icing.  Very quick and easy!

I almost forgot the Monster Mouths!  After cutting the wedges of apple, I placed them in a solution of lemon juice and water (the acid prevents the cut apples from browning) for about a minute.  Again, no specific measurements; I think it was about one part lemon juice to 4 parts water.  The almond slivers kept breaking when I'd try to shove them into the apple, so I took a butter knife and poked it into the flesh of the apple to make grooves for the almond slices.  That technique worked much better!

Here's my good friend Andrea helping the kids with the most popular item (!), the punch.  People think we're sisters, and sometimes get us confused because they can't tell us apart, which is very funny to both of us.

Since it's almost midnight yet again, I think I'd better call it a night and post the games portion of the party tomorrow.  I hope you were able to find something fun to treat your kids to on or before the big trick-or-treating excursion!  Children get so excited about fun and creative ways to make themed food, and it's really not that hard to do.  So go make some bones, worms, or brains for your kids and have a Happy Halloween!

Cake Post-Turned-Essay

 

We had the baby shower on Saturday for our friend (it's her first baby!) and it was a lot of fun.  Here is the cake, styled after the invitations I made, and you can see in this photo the drawback (if you consider it thus) of using the CoolWhip+yogurt icing - it's very hard to make it smooth over large surfaces!  The texture, like I mentioned before, gets pretty grainy after a few minutes, and especially in the window light you can see that it is not unlike the texture on a plaster wall!  I'll just pretend I did it on purpose...yeah, that's it.  :-)  It's all part of the Olde World charm, right?

Anway, I formed the dress shape by butting two frozen 9 x 13 cakes together with the long sides touching, and carved away until I got the desired shape.  (tip: a good use for the extra cake is to break it into chunks and make a trifle out of it, layering the extra Coolwhip icing or pudding in between the cake layers in a clear glass dish)

 

The rose is just made from fondant; I formed it the night before so it would be ready to put into place the day of the shower.

Many thanks, by the way, to all the people who are passing my pouch tutorials along to the readers of their own blogs!  Thank you specifically to Whipup, OnePrettyThing, Jan Andrea, Joy, and 10marifet (a blog that appears to be another craft sharing hub, but it's in a language I don't recognize so I can't be sure!)  At any rate, it's great to see my tutorials reaching an ever-expanding audience - learning to sew and being able to make things with one's own hands is a very rewarding and satisfying experience.  I'm happy to be a part of what appears to be a rennaissance in the home arts. 

My own mother majored in Home Economics education when she went to college as a young woman, but when she got married to my dad and he was drafted right after he graduated from college, she had to quit school because they were transferred all over the place.  When her 5 children were all in school (we have a birth span of 16 years!) she went back to college but her major had been eliminated from the program(!) so she had to start all over in elementary education. 

I personally think it's a tragedy that, generally speaking in this country, domestic skills are considered inferior to academic careers and the Stay-At-Home-Mom is somehow short-changing her identity and potential as a human being.  Home Economics classes, 4-H programs, and similar teaching tools are being eliminated across the country, and generations of young people are growing up without the slightest idea of how to run a household, cook a meal, or sew on a button. 

Please don't get me wrong; academics are of extreme importance to me just as they were to my mother, and she made sure we all did our best to achieve academic excellence as well as learn essential life skills.  As a result, all of us did exceptionally well academically in both high school and college.  My point is not that academics are unimportant (because they're very important), but that just because a woman chooses to be a homemaker instead of pursuing a career outside the home doesn't mean she is any less of a valid contributor to society.  Indeed, it is my personal belief that much of what currently ails our country has a single root cause; that of a crumbling foundation of home and family and the consequent loss of self-reliance, home and life skills, and character formation. 

I know that many of you will disagree with me, but think of the biggest domestic issues we face in America: crime (both violent and corporate), a sinking economy and a national (and international) credit crisis, drug culture, broken homes, abuse, gangs, moral decay (and I'm not even talking about the hot-button issue of gender preference here; I'm referring to the general loss of integrity, honesty, and other "old-fashioned" values).  Now, before you write me off as another annoying conservative idiot :-), consider this:  Back in the days of "traditional" American households, when the average family consisted of a breadwinning father, a homemaker mother, and children who had many household chores, everyone worked together as a unified whole. They all had important (different but equal in value) roles to fulfill, they all felt needed, they were all vital to the success of the family unit.

There were far fewer latchkey kids wandering around getting into trouble because they're bored and nobody is home anyway (or else their brains are rotting under the influence of too much TV or violent video games).  Young children were not typically raised by daycare centers, and most women knew how to sew, cook, and run a household.  The responsibility of teaching children life skills and values was commonly understood to rest squarely on the parents; not the school, not the YMCA or other community program, and not the government.  Parents typically took care to teach their children the difference between right and wrong, the value of a job well done, the dignity of self-reliance, and the consequences of poor choices.  Families lived more simply, because the possibility of over-extending one's finances through compulsive credit card spending and unwise, risky loan products hardly existed.  Most people didn't expect to live like Hollywood stars (who, by the way, prove to us daily that exhorbitant lifestyles and fame don't guarantee or even prove conducive to happiness) and people expected to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. 

Of course this is an oversimplification, used for illustrative purposes, and of course there were many exceptions to the above description.  I also want to be sure that I'm not misunderstood to be saying that the evolution of women into the workplace is wholly negative.  There have been many valuable contributions by the feminist movements, among others, to the betterment of women and society in general.  There are few things that make me more upset than to see a person discriminated against because of gender, race, religion, or beliefs, and we owe many of the rights we enjoy today as citizens of the US to those fearless suffragists and civil rights leaders who have fought for Justice For ALL.  I just think that our society has swung too far the other direction, to the point of negating the value of home skills, staying at home to raise young children (when possible - of course some circumstances require the mother to work outside the home), and a lifestyle conducive to learning and teaching by example the character traits described above.  In short, the disintegration of the family unit has played, in my view, an undeniable role in the disintegration of our domestic national health.

....WELL....I didn't intend to get on that soapbox when I sat down to post a few pictures tonight!  One more thing - just so you don't get this idea of me as someone who always has an immaculate house, neatly folded clean laundry always stacked in the drawers, perfect children (at whom I would NEVER yell), and 3 homemade meals a day with never a dirty dish in the sink, let me be the first to tell you that NONE of those scenarios are true!  I can't stand laundry, sometimes making meals is a dreaded chore, and with 3 young kids at home the house is never immaculate.  I get frustrated and burned out just like any other parent.  I can, however, attest to the deeply satisfying and enriching experiences that come from being here at home with my children.  Beyond the dirty diapers, runny noses, tantrums and baby talk, there is a rewarding sense of place and purpose that means more to me than any accolade, award, or promotion. 

Along with the benefits of being at home with my children, I also feel deep gratitude and satisfaction in being able to use my "domestic skills" on a daily basis for the benefit of my family and friends.  I'm so thankful that my mother taught me to cook, sew, clean (although I must admit I'm no expert in that arena - I'd much rather be creating something!), and work hard in general.  We are able to save money because I can make many things instead of going out and buying them, we eat at home instead of going out to restaurants (although I must admit I love to eat out, especially Thai food - we just don't do it very frequently), and we don't have to hire a cleaning service, yard service (Steve maintains the yard now that we have so many kids - thanks hon!  I actually enjoy yardwork, but lawnmowers and weedwackers + toddlers don't exactly mix), or daycare service.  I'm very grateful for a husband who has prepared himself his whole life to be a good provider for his family, so that I don't have to seek work outside the home to make ends meet. 

I love to do all those fun things that make a house a home, and I also love to teach others what I have been taught or have learned on my own.  So go give your kids a big hug, learn a new skill or practice an emerging one, and enjoy the satisfaction of making the world a little bit better place...all within the walls of your own home sweet home.

The Big 1

  We were finally able to have Hazel's 1st birthday party bash - hooray!  (last week we had to cancel due to illness)

Hazel had a great time, as did the rest of the group.  She, of course, didn't know what all the hullaballoo was about, but we sure had fun throwing her a party.  She was very impressed with her candle, and all the kids helped her blow it out.

 

Hazel wasn't a bit shy about diving into her cupcake - why use hands when you can just do a face plant?

 

 

The aftermath.  She looks a little uncomfortable about the results of face planting...

Some of my friends were teasing me about Hazel's cake, they said it looked like a wedding cake not a baby's cake....but I ask you, how many wedding cakes have paper flowers on sticks poking out of the top? :-)  Actually, I admit it does look wedding-esque, but I knew I needed to make a big cake, and I thought I might as well put the giant cake pans I had used for my own wedding cake to good use.  (No, I wouldn't recommend people make their own wedding cakes - I spent a large part of the day before my wedding decorating our huge cake, and it was a little too much stress - especially because I was also working with friends and family getting all the reception decorations set up in my dad's studio/gallery.  We saved a bunch of money, but the whole weekend was a big blur.  A fun blur, but a blur nonetheless!)  Anyway, I digress....

The icing, by the way, was my old standby of CoolWhip with a little bit of vanilla yogurt folded in for stabilization.  I used about 3 oz of yogurt per container of CoolWhip (and I used 3 containers of CoolWhip for this cake and cupcakes!).  Note:  do not mix the CoolWhip and yogurt together until just before spreading on the cake, as it becomes hard to deal with (grainy) if it sits too long before spreading on FROZEN cake.  I mixed each container as I went along, not all at once in a big bowl.  If the cake is frozen beforehand, the CoolWhip icing will stay in good shape for several hours at room temperature. 

The magic of candlelight...

 

 

Since we were expecting a big crew for the party, and since I know kids can't resist cupcakes, I just had to make this tiered cupcake stand as well.  For more info on how I did it and where I got the idea, look at the bottom of this post.

 

The bottom cake layer was a marbelized cake, which I accomplished by pouring the white cake batter in first, then dropping the chocolate cake batter into the white  in dallops around the whole cake pan.  Then I took a butter knife and gently swirled and twirled back and forth and in circular motions until I felt like the batters had been reasonably marbled.  Take care not to mix it too much, or you'll just have milk chocolate cake!

 

...and now for the pictures of sweet baby Hazel...

 

I couldn't resist making another matching set for Hazel and Eliza.  The darling fabric is from Sandi Henderson's Farmer's Market line.  I absolutely adore the bright colors and happy motifs.

 

Our happy, smiley, bundle of joy.  I know I've said this many a time, but we continue to feel so blessed to have Hazel in our lives - she is such a special little girl.  Unless she's sick, teething, or tired, Hazel is always joyous and sunny, brightening our days with her infectious giggles, laughs, and funny expressions. 

Happy birthday, Little Pumpkin Head.  We love you!

 

 

 

 

 

This tiered stand is actually just 3 plates (from Ross) and some glassware from Walmart that I spray-painted white.  The bottom piece is a sundae dish, and the two top ones are tea light holders. 

Since I didn't want to deal with storing such a huge dish assembly, I didn't glue any of the pieces together, although you certainly could.  I just took little bits of plasti-tack and gently pressed the pieces of the stack together. 

I would recommend using plates with less slant than these, because I discovered that things like cupcakes don't fit very well on such a steep angle - they all leaned in toward the center and threatened to smear icing on the ribbons. 

I got this great idea from Rachel's site, One Pretty Thing, which features crafts and projects from all over the place.  She compiles a new list every weekday - it's an oasis of ideas!  Unfortunately, I can't find the original idea on her site anymore (it was sometime in September, I think), so I don't know to whom to give credit.  The original tiered idea used glass candlesticks, but I couldn't find any affordable ones that suited this project - so I opted for the dishes and painted them to coordinate with the plates. 

Hamburgdog

Well, today was supposed to be Hazel's big birthday party, but Eliza woke up this morning with the flu, and the rest of us have been feeling pretty punky all day, so we had to call it off.  I'm just glad I hadn't actually assembled and decorated the cake yet, and all the layers are now wrapped and frozen.  It's going to be a gigantic cake, I can't wait to see it all put together. 

In the meantime, I'll have to just post this desperate attempt at a last-minute dinner that my kids would eat:

 

Look closely; that's not a hotdog or a sausage in there - it's a hamburger!  We had gotten home right at dinner time that day, and since the kids can be picky eaters, my choices for fixing something quick that we 1) had ingredients for and 2) they would actually eat were pretty limited.  So the dog-shaped hamburger was born, and the kids thought it was a great novelty.

I'm not sure if I would make this again, though - those brown cylinders sitting in that frying pan just didn't look very appetizing, if you get my drift.... :-)   That's why they're covered in cheese and tomatoes - and if I had had lettuce, I would have put some shredded lettuce on there as well!  It's amazing how much effect aesthetics have on whether or not something tastes good to me.  My kids, however, didn't make the potty connection and they loved them.  Bon apetit!