Weekend Fun, Weekday Woe

Ok so I'm back! I brought with me one heck of a cold, but I think I just was working too much for my body to catch up on being healthy this weekend! I played many roles including (but not limited to) cake decorator, floral arranger, photographer, and assistant to the bride! HA- but I love my Shelbs (my cousin, the bride) so it was a joy. There are definately some lessons learned in the cake, and so next time I'll be more even on my arches, points, etc. But I was pleased if people didn't look too close! Here you go:

The flower arranging was my favorite part!

Stage 1 of set up on site
Almost done...
Finished!
With our lovely Explorer in the background (sorry!)
Shelby and Josh cutting the cake (if you look close you'll see the hundreds of gnats that flew into the frosting and got stuck! AHHH- but I didn't care, we just told people to pick them out--the price you pay for an outside wedding!)Aftermath- the second layer chocolate was gone! This layer was butter pecan- yum!

A couple of my favorite pictures I took and made sepia...
We call this one Shelby's "Estee Lauder" picture
And to finish it off, our sweet boy, Caedmon (left) with his second cousin, Tanner on Great Grandpa's tractor!
I may be posting again soon as a big event is happening today around our area. It's called their moving our house! Not the one we're living in, but the one ruined by the Great Flood of '07. I'm SO sad, I don't want to see it done, I LOVE that house. Not that I'm not grateful for the house we have now, but to those who have been to both there's just no comparison! To make things worse we can see all what's being done because the house's are separated by just an alley! Here are the pictures of our first home here on Cedar, and our current home on Summit:

Our beautiful first home:
Our current home (but it looks a lot better now, because my flower beds are in bloom!)

Good News with a Cake

Ok, so I fixed the couch (just for you, Mandy). I went online to get helpful hints as to the best way to do it, but got answers from "just throw the cushions in the dryer for a couple of hours, but make sure they don't touch the back or they'll burn up" to "I simply took the cushion out and used my electric knife to saw it in half and then it dried out quickly." Holy mackerels people- do you KNOW how much this couch cost?! However the basking in the sun on our car seemed to do the trick.
On to better and brighter things; I'm making my very first wedding cake! I'm nervous about it, but fairly confident that it'll turn out. I just don't want it to look like the bride's cousin (me) made it!
I've been making cakes for about a year and a half now, and while I'm still not confident to charge for them, I'm convinced I need to for all the work involved! I've learned many valuable lessons over time like "Aunt Pat's Frosting" is simply the best; Jiffy cake mix is simply the worst; and nothing beats having a sister around to be my sous chef and fill frosting bags and replace tips for me! I'll include a few pictures of past cakes and the like and hopefully after this weekend I'll get home and post a picture of my first wedding cake!

My most recent cake--the traditional bear form from Wilton. It was fun, and don't kid yourself, smoothing an area with a finger dipped in cornstarch is a LOT harder than it sounds!

This is the first fondant cake I did for my sister's birthday. I have some big problems getting it to smooth out--it's never as easy as Wilton makes it out to be! Oh and right after I took this picture Caedmon threw up on the cake from drinking too much pop (I'll spare y'all that picture).
These are cookie bouquets I did for my friend's twin's birthday. Jillian did the cowboy decorating for Maguire and I did the girlie one for Ava.
This is my first baby shower cake (also the infamous Jiffy-made one- yuck!). My friend, Kamber, gave me a b&w picture to go off of but I dolled it up a bit. Jillian did the cookies, I'm just not great at cookies.This is Caedmon's first birthday cake(s). I got the idea from a Wilton book and took it my own direction. It was LOTS of work, but LOTS of fun! My mom helped me a lot and even Mark smoothed frosting on one of the cakes!
Sorry the pictures aren't great, I need to have our resident photographer, Mark, take them for me!

Hurricanes Irritate Me

Ok, so the simple fact that we're hundreds of miles inland should be reassurance enough from the threat of hurricanes- right? Wrong, so wrong.
My parents (who live in a Houston, TX suburb) escaped Ike with few inconveniences: raking small sticks and branches from the yard; their pool close to overflowing. Like I said, small inconveniences. The did NOT even hear it when it hit Friday night. However, we in a small Missouri Ozarks town were kept up half the night by winds (44 mph was the highest one recorded last night). And horror of horrors, today after church when Mark went in to take his Sunday afternoon nap in the living room he discovered that my couch, my BRAND NEW BEAUTIFUL COUCH is SOAKING WET! What?!?! The ceiling in the living room leaked all night long soaking the huge cushions!
I'm getting so sick of water (be it contaminated with city sewer*, or just sieved through my attic and ceiling) ruining my things! I've got the cushions outside basking (yes, they're basking--they're on a Siesta Keys beach towel in fact) in the sun on the hood of our car to dry them out. If that doesn't work, I suppose it's thank goodness for renter's insurance. We SO learned our lesson last time* and have that now, and while the sound of gushing water in my house still gives me the shivers I have a certain peace of mind about it now.
Just thought I'd give a shout out of thanks to the stinkin' hurricane that has wrecked a good majority of my past 12 hours.

*Referring to the "Great Flood of '07" where over 2,000 gallons of raw city sewage gushed into our house ruining most of our belongings on the first floor and basement. And when I say "raw city sewage" I mean everything that implies, yes THAT!

Dictation

Here's a sweet thing my boys did. Mark took Caedmon out to scout for deer while I had dinner with a friend. They both were thrilled with their evening and their finds: 5 deer, and 3 turkeys. Caedmon did love the animals, but that was perhaps amplified by the fact that he was sitting on a 4 wheeler with his daddy while watching them. He still talks about it and Mark can coerce him to do just about anything by promising to take him out to see the deer again. I think maybe I should keep track of how many promises have been made, this could mean a whole lot of nights off for me!

Am I supposed to abbreviate everyone's name here? I find it difficult, and I'm not giving out addresses or socials or anything...