50th Birthday Cake

Last Saturday Tren and I hosted his mom's 50th Birthday party. I was in charge of the cake. I was trying to come up with something awesome (of course) to do and did some googling on over-the-hill type cakes. We decided I'd better do something not so over the hill-y. Tren's mom LOVES sheep/lambs, so I googled "sheep birthday cakes". I got some great ideas and then thought about cupcakes. So I googled "sheep cupcakes". AHHHHAH! Love this idea. Tren and I talked and we decided I'd make little lamb cupcakes and a big red barn cake. Earlier in the week I made my little bite-sized twinkie cupcakes for my lambs. Then I also made a few 9 inch red velvet cakes for my barn. I made 6 of them, and had a few altercations getting 2 of them out of the pan, so I really only ended up with 4 good solid squares and some chunks. Friday night after work I had to get started on these things. I was not feeling creative AT ALL. I needed a pal to help me get in the groove on this. I have never made a birthday cake alone. This was becoming a problem and I was about to just say screw it and only have the twinkies. I decorated one little sheep the way I had planned to, but it was hideous. Then Tren came to my rescue and we came up with this sweet little creature:

Do you love it? I do! First the twinkie was dipped into the frosting. Then using a jelly belly that had been cut in half we put on the ears, and then another half for the nose. Then blue frosting for the eyes. Then he was rolled in coconut. Done! Well,.... 49 more and I was done...

Do you see the one in the top left corner? That was the first one I made and wanted to smush it and quit. It looks like a mouse =ugly

I had Tren cut me a big piece of wood to hold all this stuff on. I knew cardboard wouldn't work. I covered it in foil and then made some green frosting. At this point, Belle is wanting to be very involved, so after spreading my green grass, I let her do some green sprinkles. Then we added a bit of sheep droppings. This was funny.

Then I started to build the barn. Belle was talking and talking and talking. "why are you doing that?" "what is that for?" "I want to help." "I need to do some of it." -holy smokes she talks alot!- So I tell her that she can't really do any hands-on helping, but she can tell me how good it is looking and that I'm doing a great job. I am not exaggerating a bit when I say this, but she told me I was doing a great job or it looked great every 30 seconds. After about 2 minutes of this I thought she was being sincere, but then I looked and noticed she wasn't even looking at what I was doing anymore. Lovely. I got the barn up and realized I didn't save any of my frosting to do the white trim on the barn. So, I waited for Tren to get home to go get me a tub of frosting. I had used all my powdered sugar for the red. Oops..

Then I added the white trim, a "K" for Kim and the fence. I had also made a bail of straw. I was very happy with it and even though the barn looked a bit frumpy, I loved it. It was perfect and I couldn't wait until the next day to add my baby lambs.

Finally it was about 11:30 on Saturday and time to put on the flock!

The cake turned out just as I had imagined it! It was a hit and very delicious, too. This was by far my most favorite cake to make.

Happy 50th Kim!

The Flock

Tonight I made 50+ little bite-size cupcakes....

Then I injected them with a most scrumptious "twinkie" filling...

Soon these little babies are going to be a flock of sheep surrounding a big red barn. Just you wait!

woot!!

Painting

For the longest time, I've wanted to get in to painting. Canvas painting. I wasn't sure what kind of paints to use or how to start. I went out to Grandma Adams' and got some advice. She told me to start with the acrylic paint versus the oil paint because acrylic dries faster. I went to the Craft Warehouse and much to my surprise, all the paint stuff was on SALE! woot!! So, I bought some brushes, a huge! canvas and some acrylic paint. I think I spent about $25 for all of it. OH! And since Belle was with me and everything was on sale, she got a little 8 x 10 canvas for $1.50.



I wasn't sure what I was going to paint so I didn't do anything with my supplies for a few weeks. It just sat in the spare bedroom. Finally! It came to me and I figured it was pretty simple so I could do it. But, I had to find time to do this... Sunday night, Belle and I got out our supplies and started painting.



This was NOT at all how I thought it was going to be. I borrowed an easel from Grandma Adams but the canvas I bought was too thick to be held in place. So I couldnt use it. Oh man... I need an easel. My back is that of a 70 year old woman's so hunching over on the kitchen table was not fun. Plus I would block the light from above me and this caused me to have to hunch over and to the side so I could still have some light. Ugh. I need an easel (Tren please build me one). Then there was Belle, constantly talking and talking and breaking my train of thought. That one is a Chatty Kathy! I bought the small tubes of paint so I was afraid I'd run out before I was done. I didn't use as much as I probably should have. I started at the top and did my blue sky. Loved it. I was happy. Then on to my 4 rolling hills. Great... looking reallllllll nice. Then I had in my mind to do some sort of sage brush along the bottom. So, I keep going with my brown hill color and I didn't use as much paint to try and distinguish between hill and dirt where my sage brush is going. This looks hideous. I am getting mad. Belle is still talking. So I stop about 4 inches from the bottom. Belle tells me I should do a little trail there along the bottom. So, I get the lighter brown paint and go for it. OH MY WORD!! I want to throw this thing away! It is so ugly. So, where the mountains meet the dirt, I paint some "sage brush" in a dark green. These actually look like pine trees! Crap! So, I decide I'll put a few scattered pine trees in my light brown dirt. Oh wow. Not good. Looked like Belle (no offense Belle) had painted this thing instead of me. So. I sit and want to just cover the whole thing in black since I've used nearly all of my tiny little dark brown tube of paint. I decide I'll try and throw some clouds in the blue sky. HA! That was a joke. I need better brushes. So, I let the white dry and then cover it back up in the sky blue. What a mess this is becoming. I keep staring and getting more annoyed with my inability to paint. ARGGGHHHHH!!!!!!! Then I covered the bottom "trail" in light green. Ohhhh yessss.... This is getting better. So I cover the pine trees all up with dark green. This is looking better. Then Tren comes home and tells me it looks like I did a mirror image of the mountain... like part of the dark green is reflecting the mountain in a lake! What is this he is talking about? So I start looking closer and finally see it. Woot! With his advice, I mix black and the dark green and then paint a little line across, splitting up my dark green and making this "lake". Not so bad now! Woot!! I made the line a little thicker and then got the dark green and smushed some bushes on the edges of the lake to give it a good look. Woo woo! Then I decided I wanted to make 3 hills instead of the 4. Grandma Adams told me a long time ago that when painting you do odd numbers. Well in anything art-y you should to odd numbers. So, I pulled the 2 center hills together to make one big one. You can sort of tell it's 2 made into 1 if you are at the right angle. Then I signed and dated it and now I love it! What do you think?




I'm out of dark green and dark brown paint.

I think my next ones will be more just shapes and random things... I didn't expect to be a pro at this right out of the gate, but I thought I would do better. I really think with a few tips, some better brushes and an easel I can improve.

St Patty's Wrap Up!!

Well, St Patrick's Day went perfectly as planned. A bit hectic and crazy, but perfect! We have one of those water cooler things that you take your big jug to Albertson's and fill up and then put on your cooler to have delicious water always at home. There is a mini-fridge in the bottom part. This is where Belle chose to hide her treasure box for the leprechauns.

That night, the leprechauns came and TOOK Belle's treasure box and left this note:

Belle was not too happy that they took her box and left her a paper "leaf-clover". They did hang some fun garland and wrote on my mirror though.

After work and school, the Green family, Lewis and Blythe, Grandma Kim and Blakeleigh, and Grandma Bernice all came over for some green dinner and fun!

'Cheers' with our bubbley!

After dinner the girls and dads all went out to the front yard while Jesika and I cleaned up the dinner mess. Suddenly! We were ambushed by the leprechauns! They came in through the sliding glass door, through glitter all over us, put some balloons by the water cooler and ran back outside. It was just a bunch of green and glitter and giggling! We ran outside to get the girls and told them to come in and check out the balloons.

We noticed a green ribbon leading from the cooler out the door and so we sent the girls out to find out what it was. The green ribbon lead all over the back yard! They ran and ran to find where it ended. It ended up back in the flower bed. We noticed there was green glitter all over and that it looked like something had just been burried there!

So they began to dig! Suddenly Belle made contact with something and noticed it was glittery and colorful! It was their boxes!!!!!!!!

They were freaking out!!!! (It was pure joy for me and Jesika too. They were so excited, really!)

After they had opened their boxes to find their gold coin chocolates and green jelly bellys and glittery body stickers they ran around the yard... all hopped up on sugar! (from left to right: Blake, Peyton, Blythe, Belle)

When we were done outside, we had Belle go let the dogs out of the garage and you know what, those dang ol' leprechauns even got the dogs!!

This was one of the best things ever! When I was taking the stuff out of Belle's box to put her treasures in, she had put little notes in it I was unaware of. She drew a picture for the leprechauns of a leprechaun. She also put some of her own money in the box. She knew they liked shiney things and money is shiney. It was very fun for me to get a little surprise when I was giving her one back.

New Decor

There is a show on tv called "Pickers". These two guys travel around the states, show up at people's houses who have lots of "junk" in their yards and lots of little buildings around their houses, and see if they have any antique stuff they are willing to sell. This show fascinates me! I have always liked old things and have always wanted to start collecting. Well, Tren's mother has been saving antiques or heirlooms, for quite some time now. We went over to her house and went "picking". She has lots of things that were her grandmother's or grandfather's. Tren told me he can remember all of these things in his great grandparents house from when he was little. Kim (Tren's mom) was very excited to let us borrow her things and display them in our house. We went home and put up the new decor. I don't know how to get a good picture of everything. There is so much stuff and it all looks really awesome! There is another plant shelf on the opposite wall that we are going to do our own picking and decorate.

View from the floor:



(Picture below)From left to right: What we think is a battery charger, cabbage slicer, iron, Carnation Milk box, fire torch thing, cream can, lard bucket.



Another view:

(Picture below)From left to right: Lard bucket, washboard, scale, frying pans.

(Picture below)From left to right: Lantern, wood box that they used as a bathtub / with rug that his great grandmother made on the loom, deer antlers (these are Tren's... not old), Tin can with old screws and random little things in it?, and toy gun Tren used to play with (not too old).



(Picture below)The item leaning in the window frame is a spool of thread. This thread is awesome! There is another piece I am going to hang on the wall and it is a drawer from a sewing desk that has old spools of thread on them. The thread is so thick and the spools are made from wood and they just look sweet! Maybe I need an old sewing machine for my shelf?!

If you ever cross anything old that may fit in to our collection, let me know! I just might want it!!

St Patty's Day!!

In talking with my boss about traditions for holiday's, she gave me this great idea she used to do with her kids when they were little.

Did you know that leprechauns will come to your house and if you leave them something sparkly and shiny, they will leave you something sparkly and shiny or maybe even sweet!?

We wanted to make nice little treasure boxes for our goodies for the leprechauns to find and see if they would leave the girls something. So, Jesika and Peyton came over to do some St Patty's Day crafting!! I found these great little wooden boxes with a latch at Kings. They were going to be perfect for our treasure boxes! We let the girls paint!

We had green and gold glitter to add to them to make them nice and sparkly so we were sure to attract those little leprechauns!

After lots of glue and paint and glitter and a few puffy sticker shamrocks, the boxes were done!

On the inside, we put some shamrock garland stuff and some green rocks that we are thinking the leprechauns are going to L.O.V.E. and maybe take in exchange for something else.

Now all we have to do is wait till St Patty's to see what happens!! Check back then to see!!

ps. If anyone wants to do this too, I can tell you in advance what are planning, so you can do the same! (if you'd like)

The Monsters are Coming!!!!!!!

A few weeks ago, I needed a great baby shower gift idea for Tren's cousin's baby shower. I like to give gifts that aren't something straight off the list. So, in chatting with Annie she sent me a link to this blog she had been checking out and found the most amazingly funny-looking, fun, cute, PERFECT! gift.

Meet Frank:

Meet Ruth:

These little guys are made from socks! Oh do you love them!? I do! If you check out the blog Annie found these on, the girl named all of her monsters and gave them funny little details like "Ida has taken over my television, watching roller derby until all hours of the night and is constantly listening to Barry Manilow." Annie and I were dieing thinking up names for all these monsters we were dreaming up. As I was making these two for Laura, "Frank" and "Ruth" just fit. I was laughing as I made them. It was so fun and easy and you have this hilarious little creature in the end. I wasn't creative enough to come up with some "monster-ous" thing about them, so I just made a little tag with their name and then put "this monster was made just for you by Emmy" on the back.

Belle requested I make her one, too. She had to switch it up a bit and we added some hair out of tulle and a horn (from Frank's spare parts) on the top of it's head. She calls it Eddie (E.D.).

I think this will be a new baby gift from me!

Hannah

Around Christmas time (I know this is old) Belle was very into making her own Christmas cards for people. She would draw a picture or something and then tape a piece of candy to it and then fold it up and tape it shut. On Christmas Eve, when all the exchanging was done in our little family exchange, Belle was not ready to be done with the gift giving and receiving. So. She hauled to her bedroom and found the card she had made for Hannah (her step sister who is 8 I think?). She came out and gave it to Tren and told him she made it for him. I stopped her and said "I thought you made that for Hanna?" and she said "Ohhh noooo,... that was a different one... this is for Tren". So he proceeds to unwrap it and we are looking it over and can see "Hannah" sort of written on it there in the top right,... and then one other word.... Can you see it?

As funny as it is, Belle had told me a few days before, that Hannah had told her how to spell it. I told her not to repeat the spelling or say the word. So, instead she wrote it on Hannah's card, included a little chocolate and planned to pass it on. Instead, wrapped in the excitement of Christmas, she gave it to Tren. When we saw this word and asked her what it said the look on her face was priceless! You could see her read it and sound it out and then the "oh crap!" look on her face. She ran to her room and grabbed a marker and said "oh that was a mistake!" and scribbled it out. I love it!

There are much worse words out there she could be writing, right?

JEWELRY

As some of you may know, I LOVE big earrings and jewelry. The flashy-er and bigger, the better! I have quite a collection of big earrings. Love them! For nearly 4 years now, I've been asking Tren to make me something to hang them on so they aren't all piled up in my little square jewelry box. I finally came up with a design that would work for me and keep all my things sorted and in their own little area. I told Tren about my idea and he said it was going to be ugly (because of what I was going to use). He wanted to go out in the foothills and find some deer horns (?I know) and use that to hang roughly 75 pairs of earrings, 10+/- necklaces, and who knows how many bracelets! I was sticking to my plan because I knew it would be perfect for what I needed. ((If he happens to still make his "rack" I'll most certainly blog about it!))

So!

Things to get:

Peg board (I bought a 4' x 2' sheet of peg board that already had a nice white coat of primer on it)

8' long wood (to make a frame out of)

3 wooden dowels (small enough to fit in the holes on the peg board)

Spray Paint

I went home and spray painted my peg board. I took a picture of it, but I think I deleted it already. Then I cut my dowels into 2-inch pieces. This took forever! Then I sanded each end of each 2-inch piece. Perfect fit, though and I can move them from hole to hole, depending on what I want to hang and how big it is.

Lets be honest, I was scared to use the saw, so I had Tren cut out my frame pieces and then he nailed them to the peg board. Then I spray painted the frame and pegs. This took a few times to get all the pegs sprayed, and some of them still aren't completely covered.

Now, Tren was making a shelf for his cousin's baby shower and he got a router from Grandpa Brenner and was testing it out on a 2 x 4. I thought this was the coolest thing, because it gave the wood a fancier edge. So. I had him do it on the side of my frame. He started and did one long side and I nearly burst in to tears! I thought I was going to cry because it ruined my beautiful creation. I was so mad at myself for needing to fancy it up. So, Tren the problem solver, calmed me down and put a little edge/shelf thing to cover up the big ugly chunk that was missing. I figured I could drill some holes in the shelf and put some pegs in and use it for rings. So, we got that on, I spray painted it and then when it was dry last night, I sanded the edges down. We had measured a spot in our closet behind the door where this beauty would fit. But that was when I was only going to use 3' x 2' of it. Then for some reason I thought all 4' would fit. When we went to hang it we realized we had a problem. So, my only option was to have it going up and down versus left to right.

I had Belle help me organize my earrings and Tren hung it up. I have tons of earrings, folks. And most of them have some great memory behind them :) . And as I would hang each on its little peg, I would chuckle or sigh or want to throw them away. Some of them that were broken, I did. I also made a little baggy for Karin. Belle wanted to try all of them on. (One of these nights we'll def do that.) All of my earrings and necklaces and bracelets fit, with room to spare if needed. I love my new jewelry art. It is just what I needed. Its like a little store when I go to pick out what I'll wear for the day.

Since the paint I used had a shiney finish, my camera flash was reflecting off of it badly.
Without a flash you couldn't really see anything. These are the best pictures I got. Some are from my cell phone and some from the camera.

Tren even admitted it turned out pretty nice. I love it tons!

Helping out

Last night while Tren and I were getting dinner ready, I asked Belle to fold the clothes that were in the dryer. She kept coming to the kitchen and laughing about how small my underwear (thongs) would fold up. After about 20 mins and no word from Belle, I had completely forgotten I sent her in to fold clothes. We went searching for her and here is what was found:





She had folded my and Tren's clothes, just tossed her's on the floor, and started taking the ones in the washer and putting them in the dryer. She couldn't reach "one last sock" so she proceeded to get into the washer.

Tren and I were so wrapped up in making dinner we didn't notice her moving that chair around. Someday, I'll have a slightly larger laundry room so I can put a stool in there and some lower shelves so she can really get after doing the laundry for me! She was quite proud of her folding and she did do a great job. It's so nice to have even more help!