Cakes, Kids and a Lens

Dancing through life, on horses and foot...

2011-12-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

Well, seems it's once again been a while since I've been here. Computer was down for a while, and I can't blog from my phone. Life has continued to go along at it's crazy pace - some fun and some not so fun, but that is to be expected.
Tonight I thought I'd share some photos and a few sentimental antidotes, if I can get to the sentiments without tears.
I realized I never shared my beautiful dancer Abigail. She has as much passion for her dance as Gabe does his scouting and Sarah her horses. She had her first big recital earlier this year, and I caught some lovely photos of her (for being in the back row, no flash and manual focus). She makes me so happy when she dances because she's so free and happy.

And then on through the summer, off to my favorite place on Earth. I can't believe I didn't blog any of this. The beach is MY happy place, so I dance for joy there. Topsail Hill is Heaven on Earth for me, it's freedom, happiness and joy for me.

See, "in a hole" does not always mean a bad thing.

nor does, digging oneself out of a hole (mind you I was dancing around him singing, so, you gonna clean your room NOW mr?)

Your IT DOESN'T HAPPEN OFTEN photo of me

SHE is a beach bum like her mother. We could live on the beach Abigail and I

Check this out: her first time at Topsail, Summer of 1996

and my child who is quickly becoming a young woman, she's so beautiful, but her growing brings me to tears often.

Then there was Gabe's Arrow of Light for Scouts, is how he soars...

A beautiful day at Five Lakes, swimming and learning, building and sharing....in other words, Scouting.

Although he appears distressed in some way, he's honestly listening to the Top of the Mountain story that Standing Buffalo tells.

And well, for those of you that ask me if Harley can fly with his ears, no, but he can with his feet!!

And finally, a few horse photos. Sarah's version of the dance involves a saddle. Proudly she won "most improved rider" at her barn this year, Highlands Riding Center. She has come far from the timid rider of last year, and is working hard on two horses that are NOT easy horses. She makes me proud because she seems to understand now that is about the horse, not the rider.

Mom and Flicka with Sarah. My mom led us to Flicka, for which I will forever be grateful!

She and Red having a pregame conversation.

Flicka and Sarah, her first show!!

and our boy, having a blast doing his favorite work, with his favorite girl

There we go, all caught up till Christmas.

I hope you all enjoy your holiday. Remember that it's Happy Holidays, that it's CHRISTmas....that there is a real reason for us to celebrate.

Let's Help Our Beloved Five Lakes

2011-05-29T16:58:00.000-07:00

As most of my scouting friends know, an EF3 tornado hit in Bush this past week. Along with many homes being destroyed or hurt Five Lakes Campground was hit really badly.
Yesterday my husband, son and I spent the day at Five Lakes with over 100 other scouts and families, cleaning out and trying to get it ready for Day Camp in two weeks.
Although our beautiful Five Lakes will take time to recover, it's still beautiful to me. It's not it's setting that strikes me to my heart, it is what it is, what it means, what it provides to our scouts. Five Lakes is the home of day camp, the place where many boys spend their first campout, a place for flag ceremonies, funny skits and heartfelt talks around a fire. It's a place to go and be a scout, away from those who judge our boys from scouting, a place to be proud of what a scout is.
Troop 602 is taking it upon ourselves to help Five Lakes by coordinating the renewal of picnic tables and replanting of trees.
We challenge each troop and pack out there to come plant trees, live oaks, pines, whatever you'd like...all sorts were lost. A great project is for your boys to build a picnic table together. If you cannot build it, but can provide the materials to do so, we will set up a day when we can all come together and build tables.
For so many years the Colonel and Jimbo have done so much for us....now is time to really give back - our Five Lakes needs us!
Feel free to contact me, Heather Truett, and let me know how you'd like to help. I encourage each pack and troop to involve themselves and encourage their members. You can reach me by email at heathercooks1@bellsouth.net or by phone at 985-630-2551. As I told boys yesterday, this is OUR camp....my love for it, my pride in it and my faith that we can build it again will keep moving me towards my goal...I challenge you to do the same.

FYI, it was also on the news, and here is the link to that broadcast:
http://www.fox8live.com/news/local/story/Destroyed-campground-hopes-to-rebuild-soon/gFBOMlXc9U2Eh2caa0rFTw.cspx

The patience of Jobe....four legs and a tail....

2011-05-08T07:43:00.000-07:00

We have decided perhaps Red's name should have been Jobe. That boy is such a sweetie, a babysitter for my girl, and has the patience of Jobe.
Yesterday they had their first jumping show, very slow going, but she is just learning and was very nervous. He of course took great care of her, very careful to make her confident.
They did 2 jumping classes, and two PreCaprilli tests for dressage. Two fifths, a sixth and a seventh ribbon were brought home, which although that's not top of the class, for a first jumping show I was proud of her for just getting out there and doing it.
They scored their personal highest in dressage, which made her smile, and made it clean through their 2nd jumping course...had a refusal in the first....so it was a very positive day for all.
Mom is tired, so not very witty or wordy, being the groom is HARD work I tell ya. So here are some photos for ya!
We also had a blessing of the horses, which was wonderful. God has given us these awesome creatures, entrusted us with them....

The blessing: Look at all of those gorgeous creatures

Showing Big Red

2011-03-20T23:17:00.001-07:00

Today was Sarah and Red's first big day together. They did two schooling tests at Amen Corner in Folsom, doing Intro A and B for their first time at a show. They did very well, scoring a 62 in each test, very respectable for a cautious rider and a trail horse come dressage boy. We are VERY proud of how hard they are working together!!
I wanted to share both videos with my darling Denise, but it took me three hours to load just this one...but I do have some photos to share as well.
Here is Intro A

For those that don't know dressage, you are basically competing against your last score. It's about bettering yourself as a rider and your horse learning to carry themselves in a proper frame, and you being able to get them there. They enter at a certain speed, turns must be a certain way etc. It's a big change from his trail world, but he seems to enjoy all the attention.

Now for some photos. He spent the night there last night, as they schooled yesterday and he got all spiffed up. He seemed to enjoy his night in the stall surrounded on each side by girls...our Red loves the ladies, he was chatting them up those mares.

This is hard for him, to stretch down like this while he's walking on....he did awesome today, the best I've ever seen him do..this is called a free walk

Two kindred souls these two men of mine

Working SO hard together, I love to see this, it makes me so proud!

and the two of them with their ribbons!!

Happy Birthday Big Red!!

2011-03-15T20:31:00.000-07:00

Today was our Darling Big Red's 10th birthday!!

For his birthday he and Sarah got a dressage arena (of sorts) built in the upper pasture so that they can practice more. It's not fancy, but it gets the job done. Thanks to Highlands for the donation of the markers, and to Daddy for helping her measure it off and mark it.
They are working hard getting ready for Sunday's show. I tell you guys (the three of you that read my blog) I've never seen this girl ride as hard as she's ridden this week. She's been on him at least an hour hard work daily this week, practicing her patterns and balance. They are working together as a team now, and you can see how much their hard work is paying off.
He's looking great, red horses are lucky, the sun only makes them more beautiful. His coat is coming into a good sheen and he's fat and healthy. We ARE blessed Denise that you brought him to us, and we thank you daily.
So...the girls and I sang Happy Birthday to him over his dinner, and put a birthday hat on him and embarassed him (secretly he loved the attention) then he got his birthday hose down (which he ADORES) and some birthday clover and ate his dinner with his favorite girl of the four legged variety. I promised Denise some photos, so of COURSE I shall be forced to show him off (not like I don't constantly post photos of them).
Here's my Sarah working hard on her arena:
We had to cut some branches down to make room for her head.

Measuring out the dressage arena;

The birthday boy posing with his girls, in his homemade hat and some beads, which he also wore all afternoon to ride, he's so goofy.

And then..his baby girl is having a birthday Tuesday, so he shared his hat. He loves this child because she always has food.

Then, because he really DOES have to work..they practiced for about an hour and a half in the new area

And a birthday hosing (no point in giving pigpen a real bath), but a good hosing is great for all that sweat.

And YUMMMMY birthday clover

and to finish off his day, he had some after dinner hay with his best girl...who he bit right after I took this photo...she was hogging his spotlight.

Sarah and Red

2011-03-01T19:51:00.000-08:00

We are wiping Winter away around here...and shaking out the cobwebs.
I'll admit, this winter hasn't been the best for us and riding. Hacking around has been fun, but Sarah and Red have work to do....if she plans on showing.

They went today for a lesson at Highlands, working towards their first scheduled show at the end of this month. Lazy girl + lazy boy equals horsey mom who will have to buy some blunt spurs so that lazy child can get lazy horse to show some impulsion. Won't hurt him, just get him motivated....big ole lazy oaf.

It's sweet to see her loving on him though, she put his new cooler on him after hosing him for the ride home and was oohing over him being soooo cute moooom, as she said.

THEN..there's the love of his life Flicka, who was dying at home without him. A mile down the road she heard Jamie's truck and went to calling her lost lover boy. I took him back in and the love fest began, just plain ole goofy, a gelding and a moony mare.

SO..wish my boy and girl luck in their show, and enjoy the pictures of them. I'll get some riding pics next week.

Goodbye Sweet Cat...

2011-02-21T18:18:00.000-08:00

Today I got such awful news, that the child of some of our best friends had passed. Nooone ever wants to face death, much less that of their child, and I pray for them with all the strength our maker has given me.
Today the world lost a beautiful soul, a wonderful daughter and an amazing sister. We grieve with the family of Cat...Rebecca, Ty, Randy and Randy Jr. Please join our hands in prayer for them, hold them up and keep them strong.
God Bless, I know his arms were open wide as you came into them my sweet girl.

This poem seems so fitting at this time:

A Better PlaceShe’s in a better place right now
Than she’s ever been before;
All pain is gone; she’s now at rest;
Nothing troubles her anymore.It’s we who feel the burden of
Our sadness and our grief;.
We have to cry, to mourn our loss,
Before we get relief.We know we’ll reconnect with her
At the end of each life’s road;
We’ll see her cherished face again
When we release our earthly load.By Joanna Fuchs

It's a CAKE kinda day!

2011-02-19T18:28:00.001-08:00

Today I had two cakes to do that I was very happy with so I thought I'd share them.

First was a Mickey Mouse inspired first birthday cake, two tiers, done in buttercream with some fondant accents. Love the colors on this one. Just piped the little Mickey heads on, and the diamonds are fondant as well as the big Mickey head.

Then there was my first Whimsy cake. Watched a little SugarEd Productions action on the DVD, got a little pep talk, and away we went. Came out pretty cute, now I wanna try doing one in just buttercream, no fondant covering....b/c at heart I'm a buttercream girl. This cutie girl was very specific about wanting pink and black, and zebra a bow and polka dots! She was VERY happy with her cake, which makes me happy!

So..here are some photos, the before and the after!

First, there was the carving and the icing....

Then we added a little color...

And number one is done...

and last but not least, Ms Olivia's is done

Happy Birthday to two beautiful kiddos, I hope you had a wonderful day!!

Photo blog day

2011-02-09T19:37:00.001-08:00

Here are some recent photos!!

My cutie family in Missouri!

How big is she now?

On our cruise, the most wonderful few days of the last year.

Sarah at her first big girl dance!

Sarah and her daddy!!

Hunter and I at the 3rd annual Camp Kline

Isn't he yummy??

WHY? Must she grow up?

Happy Birthday Gabe and Welcome Big Red!

2010-10-04T18:44:00.000-07:00

What a week we had!
This week, my boy turned 10!! Amazing to me since it seems yesterday they told me WOW Heather, he weighs 10lbs 5 oz...at a minute old!
For his birthday we went out to Bogue Chitto park in Franklinton near our home for some fishing and fun. A simple day, spent with family and friends who feel like family. The catch for the day was Dad 2, Sarah 2, Gabe 1 and Mr Clint 1....combined weight of less than 1 lb for the lot of them!
Thanks to all that came out to spend time with us, we enjoyed you all immensely!
Here are some photos to share from the day!

The big catch of the day!!

My beautiful Joy and her boy Colby

A spider in a web (no, really, it's Sarah)

My baby girl Abi

We also added a new member to our family this week. Dashing Big "Red" came to live with us. Red was a gift to us from Denise, a wonderful woman I know from caking. Red needed to slow down his pace in life, and he is a perfect mount for my timid Sarah to pursue her riding on. She jumped right on him and took off..which is NOT her style.
Red lived part of his life as a race horse, and was retrained. Although he is a quarter horse, he's got a lot of thoroughbred in him, which you can see in the photos to come.
We are pleased as peaches to add him to our family. Ms Flicka has adopted him as her own, and is madly in love with him (unless he tries to sneak in and take a bite of her food). Denise loves Red dearly, and it was her love for him that helped her decision to bring him to us....and we shall continue his life in the style he is accustomed to, SPOILED!!
Some photos to share for you...

My beautiful Foo girl...I will always say she amazes me. She's come so far in so little time this girl. And God bless her, she was sharing her hay with Red.

Red and Sarah, she's in love to the hilt. They were having a love festival...her with Red and he with the treats she had in her pocket.

Now..before you say anything, YES she's barefooted...she was just hacking around not really riding. I did make her put on my helmet.

And..yes I'm in sandals, we had just come home from Gabe's fishing excursion...

So..that's our week~ Life never stops here in our house, but it also never stops being blessed.

Fourth of July Fun

2010-07-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

We always try and do some fun things with the kids for the Fourth, so this year Jamie and I got a few fireworks and planned a bbq for the day.
We dodged the rain and did our bbqing, then made some homemade ice cream (god bless that kitchen aid churn attachment, she's so good to me). When darkness fell we headed outside for our good ole redneck fireworks show!
Here's how it works, we all pile into the back of Jamie's truck and he is the fireworks guy. He puts them out in the street in front of our house (we live on a little dead end gravel road). That way everyone is safe. This year I took Harley out, b/c I really feel like they should be used to all noises. Molly just gets too excited, not scared at all, just wants to participate TOO much.
Then we always let the kids play with sparklers and Jamie helps them shoot roman candles. Amazing how fast it all goes, but they love it!

Praise God for the independence that allows us to celebrate this day...and for living in the country where you can shoot fireworks with no fear of irritating your neighbor...our whole street does it!

On to the photos of course, not great ones, b/c I had a certain dog sniffing my camera.

Blurry fireworks...I try every year to get cool fireworks pics, and never succeed.

Abi and her "cannon" she called it

Checking out the loot

He wuvs her, really he does

A fountain

That's all folks!! I hope you enjoyed your fourth as much as we did ours!!

Sweet sweet summertime!

2010-06-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

This summer seems to be the summer of the horse at our house. We've also had Scout camp and VBS. It's been a great summer though, so I thought I'd share some pictures.
Sarah and Flicka are doing well. Flicka has started doing lessons WITH Sarah now, so they can both learn. They had their first this week, and did great. It's hard when you're a four year old horse to understand things, and hard when you're a pig headed 11 year old girl to know that your horse isn't the BEST thing that ever walked (well, maybe she is), but they are learning together and that's awesome. Here are some photos of her at the barn for her first lesson

Earlier this summer Sarah went to riding camp for the week. (Remind her, all of you, how wonderful her mom is for letting her do this.) Then the end of the week brought a dressage show for her. She rode Maggie and Bobbie Sox, who you can see below. She did well, it rained TERRIBLY hard and it was nasty, contrary to how the weather looks in these photos.

Riding Maggie in her dressage test

And a little Bobbie Sox riding

Just hanging out with Maggie between classes.

Our other big thing was summer camp with the scouts. Gabe loves Scout camp, this is his last year as a camper, next year he will have to volunteer. He had a great time. He went into it with a broken finger poor chap, then got attacked by ground hornets, but his awesome den leader (we love you joy) made it a good week anyways. Here are some photos from camp for your viewing pleasure!

His favorite water thing, zip lining! Gabe's in the blue life vest. Everyone must wear a life vest, good practice to have!

Slingshots! Which he is really good at!

We ALL go to camp, even dad gets in on the act. He is medic at waterfront, but we caught him riding his four wheeler!

Cub Scouting teaches respect for our flag. He was announcer for the flag ceremony this morning. He is the KING of announcement~!

And..just because this one I like:

And yes, the girls get in on the act, here's Ms Abigail

Sarah makes herself scarce, btw!

Lastly, this past weekend my nephew Taylor turned SIXTEEN! OMG save me! Well, we went to White Sands Beach for his birthday. What a fun time! Here are just a few from then.

Thanks to all of you for visiting our blog!! Now, all of you that haven't blogged in a while, and you KNOW who you are ANGIE, get to it!

Long time, no blog!

2010-04-22T20:08:00.000-07:00

Seems I have neglected my little blog here. SO many things are going on in our lives that it's hard to find time to sit at the desktop. I find myself checking on the world through my phone, aahh technology.
Since we last met, we've done so many things. Our lives focus around our children, and their likes and dislikes, so we'll work on the likes here (and ignore the dislikes like good parents should).

Gabe has finished out his Scouting year with a bang, earning his Webelo badge and is moving toward his arrow of light. For the third time this year he achieved A average honor roll at school, REALLY an awesome kiddo. He has chosen not to play baseball this summer for the first time since he started playing ball, but I'm actually kind of relishing the break. He's looking forward to learning to cut the grass with his dad if one can imagine wanting to cut grass.
He's a sneaky buggar to get a picture of, but I got this one:

Sarah is as always up to her ears in horses. She is the proud rescuer of a little quarter horse mare, who she has named Flicka. When Flicka came to us she was very underweight and a sad sad tale. Today she still shows some signs that will take years to go away of that abuse, but is a new horse. I'll share some before and afters of her here in a few. Sarah participated in her first real horse show outside of the barn last weekend and did awesome! She, of COURSE, also has achieved A average honor roll all three nine weeks. She, of COURSE, has no interest in learning to cut the grass. Her other achievement of late was that she and Harley, our 6 month old German Shepherd, entered the 4H pet show, and achieved a "cutest ears" first place ribbon. I shall share his ears, you will totally agree with them.

My freckled beauty at the pet show:

Her beautiful freckles amaze me:

Flicka then: and honestly, this is a good picture of then, she looked much worse in person, this was February.

Flicka now: she's moved to an awesome friends house, is eating good groceries and getting good work, pink thing is bareback pad, kids are slowing getting her used to having someone on her back, and I'm lunging her to get some energy out.

Abi continues to be the same cutie patootie she always was. Kindergarten in this family means a hiatus from outside activities, so she's on a break from her typical dance regime, but I hear daily how she's starting back this summer. She amazes me with her learning, it's always so crazy how fast they start picking up reading and math and spelling. She has also learned to be a great help in the kitchen, one day, if you are all out our way, ask her to make you her "famous pizza", it's killer! She's turned an amazing SIX years old, and gotten her ears pierced! I told her that's all the growing up for now please.

Her cake:

Blowing out her candle:

You can spy a little big girl earring here:

For those following my gastric bypass journey, I'm now down 140 lbs. I've got some more to go, but I am feeling like a million bucks. It's a crazy journey, but one well worth traveling. I have been back on a horse for the first time in 12 years, and can move and groove with the best of them keeping up with these kiddos.

My husband, as always, continues to be my hero. He'll get upset at me for writing that, b/c he doesn't feel like he's a hero, but he is. He works so hard for us and continues to be right here by me to be my rock when I need him.

I did do a cake of late, I'm not doing them anymore other than family and friends, this was for a friend, very fun to do. Fondant cake, sugar ice and beer bottles, fondant crawfish and goodies.

So..I'll leave you with that, and some photos. I will try not to be away so long next time!

Mr Big Ears:

And..dressed for the costume contest:

Our family:

A picture post

2010-01-05T18:56:00.001-08:00

My gorgeous Abi,

Look, it's like we're on top of the world. That's the clouds from ABOVE them, at Klingman's Dome.

My girl and her favorite girl!

I think this was at Cataract Falls, and TODAY my girl is 11, can you BELIEVE that!

Jamie and Gabe fishing at Tent or Treat at Five Lakes in Bush

Gabe's MONSTER fish

Learning Knots with Dad

Abi's field trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Cathedral Caverns in Alabama

At the Chimneys, in the National Park

When we reached the top of Laurel Falls

Gabe's fine self

I'm on Jamie's computer, so I thought I'd post some pictures from Tennessee, field trips and such since they're on here.

A blogging I will go...

2009-12-20T09:20:00.001-08:00

It seems that PERHAPS I've slacked on my blogging, and several people have gotten onto me for it. So much has happened since I blogged last.
My hubby graduated from paramedic school, AWESOME JOB HONEY! My glorious children have been their normal wonderfully challenging selves, my pupper is still a Jack Russel, but amazingly wonderful. I had gastric bypass surgery. I officially stopped doing cakes for hire (I will still be doing friends and family, but no more hectic weekends doing cakes). I started subbing at the school where my children attend. We traveled to Tennessee for a week (it was awesome). Sarah rode in a show and won several ribbons.....the list goes on and on. SO I'll give a short update and some photos. We'll try to follow an orderly fashion here.

Jamie's school:
He CONSTANTLY amazes me with all he does. He finished his Paramedic this fall with his usual stellar grades. I believe in all the years I've known him and the many classes he's taken in that time he's made one B. I can't even begin to tell you how proud I am of him.

My glorious children:
They are continuing to do great in school. They fight, but all siblings fight, it makes them no less wonderful to me! Gabe is doing great in scouts, he's about to earn his Webelos badge. Abi is starting to read, and Ms Sarah rode in a dressage show and won three ribbons this month.

Sarah and Maggie

Me:
Well, I had gastric bypass. Those who know me know I am NOT a small girl, but I'm striving to be. Not just for me, but for my family. I need to be healthy to be around for these kiddos. So far I've lost 90 lbs. I've got more to go, but 90 sure seems like a good number to me. (some was lost by doing a protein drink based diet pre surgically) I've decided to start loving cake decorating again I must stop doing them for hire. I am going to just do cakes from here on out for my family and friends, so that it can become fun again. As such, my girls and I made cheesecakes the other night and it was a blast, so I'm thinking I have made the right decision. I love subbing at the school, and at some point may return to college to get my degree in education.

Good Golly Ms Molly (the aforementioned pupper)
Poor Molly, she's the queen of the allergy. SO..after much food trying, medication, deliberation we've gone to the RAW diet. Basically it means she eats raw meats, with the bone. As animals in nature would. I know there are people who think this is weird, odd, strange, wrong etc, but...I've researched it, and it's a GOOD THING as Martha would say. She's ALREADY doing better.

On to the fun things:

For Thanksgiving we went to Tennessee, where I had never been. What a gloriously beautiful place. God must have been in an awesome mood when he created the mountains, b/c they are inspired! We did go to Dollywood, we weren't all that impressed (we're Disney spoiled). The time we spent in the mountains was my favorite time. We hiked to Laural Falls and Cataract Falls and Klingman's Dome as well as doing some driving tours. All the pictures from the mountains are on Jamie's laptop, so I'll share some later. We also visited the Ripley's Aquarium, very nice place!
Amazing bird show at Dollywood, that was the big highlight there for me:

Tuesday we leave to spend Christmas at Disney. I know it seems like a lot of traveling, but those who remember or know me know that last year this time I lost my Dad(s). You can read those entries if you like here and here. I decided at that time that we would be going away for the holidays this year. We were very lucky and a friend gifted us a condo for a week to go to Tennessee, so we are able to go away for Christmas also. We broke down and told the kids, after keeping it a secret for a year. Someone leaked it to them at school b/c I had told their teachers when questioned on what we were doing for Christmas and didn't do a good job of telling them it was a secret. They are excited. We're cleaning and packing today.

SO...a few photos, and I'll feel caught up. I hope you enjoy! I promise to blog Christmas when I get back! Love you all and hope you have the happiest of Holy Days. Christmas has lost a lot of it's meaning in this world we live in, and I pray daily that people remember it's reason of celebration. Merry Christmas to all of you.

Putting up the Gingerbread house.

Catching up..kids, cakes and all that jazz

2009-10-03T18:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy month, no time for blogging. We've been scouting, schooling, birthday partying and all that jazz.
The big event of September was Gabe's birthday. Celebrating their birthdays is bittersweet to me. It means they've achieved another wondrous year of life but it also means they've gotten another year older on me. I love my kiddos, at all ages, but I do love babies. There are NO babies in this house anymore!
So..on September 29 Gabe turned 9 big years old! Nine years of wonderfulness, filled with lots of moments of pure Gabe (which is grouchy at times but mostly great). He's growing into a fine boy, as tall as his sister who beats him in age by 21 months. For his birthday we decided to just celebrate with a friend, so we took one of his buddies to play laser tag, and then had some cookie cake with family. The morning of his birthday I was coming in from an over night event and stopped in for donuts here in Folsom (the best donuts to be found I hear, although I can't eat donuts while dieting). SO...we celebrated his birthday morning with a candle in a jelly donut, much to his amusement.

So with that, his cookie cake, and cupcakes for school and scouting, I'd say he got lots of goodies (and kept his mommy hopping). He also INSISTED we put a candle in his chicken breast that night at dinner, goober boy!
On with our Sarah update...Sarah's event of the month had to be attending the Arabian Nights show. It's a show done to raise money for a children's literacy program. All of the proceeds benefit this program, as it is run by volunteers. Lots of interesting riding done. A beautiful display by a local dressage rider named Ann Hornbeak as well as a reining demo by another local, Nicki Smith. These guys really impressed me:

Ann and her horse, who danced to the music doing dressage movements effortlessly.

Nickie and Catfish, who is superbly trained and ridden

A little cowboy trick riding!

Taking a bow!

I think this impressed the kids the most!! Jumping through the ring of fire!

The star of the show. This show centers around reading. Featuring the book "The Black Stallion" by Walter Farley (an incredible read if you haven't read it, there are about 22 books in the series)

Another big thing in Sarah's month was to start riding a horse she truly loves. Maggie is an adorably sweet mare that boards at Highlands where Sarah rides. Maggie's rider has been nice enough to allow Sarah to ride her for a while. Maggie has changed Sarah's who riding personality, she's becoming the confident rider she was before slowly but surely. Sarah also participated in our local fair with some breads and a craft, earning herself some blue ribbons.

Ms Abigail...since starting school her personality is beginning to come out. This month Jamie and I visited her classroom to do a fire safety presentation. She was SO cute, telling her class she was "show and telling" her daddy.

Ooh, I promised cakes too huh. Well, I will admit, I've made a few, but only took a picture of this one and the cookies that went with it.

SO..that's our little update. Not very fancy, not very bloggy, no life changing experiences, but, it's our life! Hope you enjoy the photos!

Retiring Old Glory

2009-09-07T18:50:00.001-07:00

In Scouting, there is a beautiful ceremony in which old flags are retired. Recently we were invited to attend such a ceremony by a wonderful pack of Boy Scouts with whom we have become acquainted. I was so happy for those of our boys that were able to attend, they witnessed a very wonderful ceremony as well as being allowed to learn and have fun with the older boys.

Flag retirement is done when a flag becomes tattered or faded. If you have an old flag that you need retired, it is very likely if you search out your local Scout pack, they will gladly retire it for you with the dignity it deserves.

The Boy Scouts taught our Cubs the procedure as well as some wonderful skits. You can read about the procedure in the link above, but the long and short is that a flag ceases to be a flag once it is taken apart. We separate the flag into stripes and the blue star field. The reason we do not cut the blue star field is it represents the union of the fifty states and one should never let the union be broken. We were taught to seperate each stripe, I have seen it done this way, as well as the flag being cut into four peices.
I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank Pack 110, their scouts and leaders alike. Nick, Alec and the Venturer girls (as well as some Scouts I do not know personally) worked with our boys a long time, and their time is not taken for granted. You provided our children with a wonderful experience, and we appreciate you.

Changing mounts...

2009-08-19T20:57:00.000-07:00

For Sarah that is. A few weeks ago we found out Dibbs, Sarah's stablemate of choice, is heading out to greener pastures to be a lawn ornament (as he well deserves). Sarah got one last good ride in on him last week, and this week began riding a new horse. She's such a nervous Nellie anyways, this is a hard change on her.
Mom was along (that being me) with camera in tow to take photos.
I'm so proud of her, she's hanging tough. Sarah's had the school of hard knocks with horse riding, she seems to be out of the saddle more than in, but she's coming around these days and staying tough. Today was no exception, she managed her ride, no nervous breakdowns, on the new boy despite some challenges. George belongs to one of the ladies at the barn, and she allows him to be used for lessons, and he's SUCH a love that Sarah couldn't resist his charm. So..here are she and George, with no further ado

Here she is waiting, loving "her horse" as she told me when I offered to hold him.

And their first ride together. He did get a bit spooked once and scared them both, but all in all they did great together, and she's happy. And since I have a soft spot for old George anyways, I am pleased they work well together.

Fun cake for a friend

2009-08-13T11:05:00.001-07:00

Last night I had some fun!! My friend and most awesome next door neighbor's husband's birthday and their wedding anniversary are this month, and she ordered him a big ole cake.
I haven't done a cake like this in a while, all the carving, and stuff.
So I thought I'd share.

Covered the board in fondant and did a wood flooring kind of effect. You can find a tutorial for this here. Then, carved my cake for the big bottle and made the other two from rice cereal treats. Covered it all in fondant to finish it up, and some love for my airbrush made the coloring happen! My favorite part of course was making the sugar ice, I love to do that. I made two sorts, a shard looking kind and then formed pieces. You can find a tutorial for that here at Melissa Dotson's Decorate the Cake.

Not a very great picture, b/c light at 2am isn't so great :) Hope you enjoy, and Happy Birthday and Anniversary my friends!

Discovering gems we didn't know existed...

2009-08-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday we set out with the intention of having some fun with our kiddos. We wound up at the Baton Rouge Zoo. The Baton Rouge zoo is a part of the Baton Rouge Rec Center system, which is a huge amount of places to do and see in Baton Rouge. Typically, we visit the Audobon Zoo, and love it so much we are members, but sometimes you need a change.
Well..talk about a diamond in the rough. It's a small zoo, but you could NOT ask for a cleaner, friendlier or more child friendly atmosphere. Just enough animals to keep the kids happy, a very well thought out map to follow, and wonderful caretakers that were friendly to our children and talked with them a bit about the flamingos. Even more exciting was it was only $21 TOTAL for the five of us to get in!
Well, as we were pulling out of the driveway from the zoo, we saw a sign that said "Don't forget to visit our Cohn Arboretum, it's free!! So off we went. Acres and acres of the most gorgeous plants. I was in camera happy momma heaven. I had been trying forever to explain painted devil grasshoppers as we called them as kids to MY kids. This place was FULL of them. Ages ago, when I was young, my Gramps' yard was chock full of them, and he loved to scare you by putting them on you. I LOVED my Gramps, so it was a wonderful memory for me to see them.
Of COURSE I took a million pictures, and had a hard time choosing which ones to share with you guys, so bare with me.
I found it so invigorating to be walking around in the gorgeous outdoors with my kids, and to imagine it was all so inexpensive is amazing to me. When you have three children, doing things can be VERY expensive, and I was so pleased to see BREC working to enrich childrens lives so much.
First, some zoo pictures:

This one I find SO funny, it's TOO hot for soft serve in
Louisiana in July and August!!

My absolute favorite zoo mammal!!

and..a family favorite, we FLOCK to see the flamingos!!

My own two meerkats ( I insisted prairie dogs, they meerkats, too much Animal Planet!

And then on to the Arboretum

My "painted devil grasshoppers", I have no idea what they really are.

This fella was hard to get, I had to manually focus him in, but I LOVE this picture!

And..four of God's most perfect creations (all made for me, 3 with my help!)

A couple of special cakes

2009-08-01T12:06:00.000-07:00

These two cakes I have had on the books for months! It's nice to know that someone loves these people enough to think about them that far in advance.
The smiley face cake has such a sweet story. Without sharing the personal story of my client, the smiley face makes the groom smile in remembrance, so she chose that as a theme. It was a HUGE smile, 14 inches round. Then we added chocolate covered strawberries, three pints of them! I love California strawberries this time of year, they're so HUGE and sweet. There were so many I couldn't put them all on the board so I sent them with my client. She bought this cake as a gift, so I'm hoping that it went over well with the bride and groom, I love cakes with meaning.
The 2nd cake I did this weekend was inspired by a cake that the client found online. I'd love to give credit where credit is due, but I don't know who the original decorator was. Originally, I purchased a mold for the topper, but found it was WAY too small. So..I got out my handy dandy $1 knife from Pampered Chef and some fondant and went at it, and I must say, I'm pretty proud of my eagle! I used my consultant's advice and put the blue background (that would be Sarah) under the eagle to make him pop some. The name and all I honestly admit I wasn't sure about, but it's how the original cake was, and I wound up liking it. I WAS wishing Sharon was here (my buddy at SugarEd) to roll my fondant, but I was pleased with how this cake came out all together, and my client seemed to like it also. GOTTA love the airbrush for colors like this, no way could I have gotten a clean fondant job if I had kneaded all that color into my fondant.
So...on to the pictures, which is what we know you really wanted anyway right?

My smile (that made me smile):

And a retirement cake for a man who CERTAINLY deserved a cake!! Praise God for our men and women in the military,
they deserve SO much!

And..a little gripe...and warning for my caking friends. I used Pettinice for this cake. I opened a FRESH sealed package of it, to find 1/4 of it was dried out and hard and crusty. I thought I cut all of it out, but there were hard pebbles still in it that caused me NIGHTMARES, so, I'm off of Pettinice for a while if this is what it's going to do.

Some recent cakes...among other stuff

2009-07-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

My computer has been broken for a while, so I'm not taking photos or blogging very much. As can be told by my bad typing, I'm using Jamie's laptop, bless his soul. I have done a few cakes, although they were quickies and not the best photos I've ever taken, they were all for people near to my heart, so I"m going to share them in a few. This is going to be a jumpy, confusing blog...updating everything for those who keep telling me I need to, ROFL.
Exciting things..a few of my cake friends, including my fabulous Sharon, competed in TLC Ultimate Cake Challenge, which will air in a few weeks. I can't wait to see the outcome and watch my girls on tv~
My kids are doing great. Ms Abigail will start Kindergarten this year, so I'll be without children at home...so time to get a job. I"m going to try subbing, and possibly get my para certificate, I just want to stay near my children. We've had a great summer spending time with our friends, friends and family mean so much.
Jamie has been in school, and is ALMOST done~!! He'll probably kill me for this, but I"m SO proud of him, he's doing awesome! I can't wait to throw my Paramedic a graduation party, I need cake ideas all you cake girls. Jamie is SUCH an awesome student always, but I am overwhelmed when I think of what he has done taking on this class with a family and being D. Chief at the same time. (OK, I promise to stop crowing).
I"m excited to start our new Scouting year. We'll be changing our meetings to a new location, and hopefully growing our pack. We will also be selling first aid kits as a fundraiser to send our boys to camp, so anyone interested, please let me know!! Abi will be dancing again in the fall, and I'm trying to convince Jamie to get some chickens for Sarah to show for 4h, I REALLY think she'd enjoy them. On a good news on the Sarah front, her IBS seems to be doing fairly well this summer. I'm praying for a great teacher for her, b/c her teacher's personality affects her stomach so much, and Mrs Bond was SO awesome for her last year I pray she has a great relationship with her 5th grade teacher. She's overcoming some issues at riding as well, and I pray she figures out what it is she wants from her horsey relationship, b/c sometimes I"m not sure if she really wants to ride, or just commune with her four footed friends.
Ok, on to the cakes....and maybe I can find a photo or two of the gorgeous children who live in my house and seem to grow daily.
First, a baby shower cake. The shadows make this cake look terrible, but it really was cute. I'm not A on my caking game lately though, I'll admit that wholeheartedly. I wish these parents SO much joy with their baby girl, they are going to make awesome parents! The father is a firefighter with Jamie.

For my niece, they wanted something Hannah Montanaish

And my buddy Colby, who even posed with his for me...

Ooh, I remember more things when going through my camera, I do love this camera, it's my short term memory folder. Last week we went to the sprinkler park in Mandeville, kinda fun and a good way to cool off for the kiddos. I saw the cool bird while we were there, I'm thinking it's a hawk, but I'm not sure. Then...for 4th of July my Secret Pal on Ladycakes sent us the most awesome package with fun things for the kiddos and wonderful gifts for me, and I found the picture I took of them for her and never sent her poor gal. Then..there's a riding picture of Sarah and Dibs. Dibs is wet b/c he took a trip through a mud puddle and had to be hosed before he was even saddleable (hmm...that's not a word is it).

Krista's wedding

2009-06-28T18:22:00.000-07:00

What a beautiful bride!! I'm so proud of Blake and Krista, and may God bless their life together. This weekend, we carried a wedding cake over the meadow and through the woods (really, 150 miles) for their wedding. I have NEVER carried a wedding cake that far. GOD BLESS STRESS FREE SUPPORTS!!! Everything went off without a hitch (well, other than the "hitching" of the bride and groom) and I couldn't have been happier.
Krista chose her cake a year ago, from a cake done originally by Carlos Bakery (now famed on TLC's Cake Boss). With a few changes to bring her pink into play on the cake, we wound up with a design she and I were both happy with.

With the awesome help and guidance of my bestest cake bud Sharon, who came to help me while she was working on a really secret important cake, we got them covered in fondant and decorated for delivery fairly easily - which I NORMALLY freak out about wedding cakes (no, I didn't make her stay and decorate, just help me do the fondant). It was very cool, b/c when Sharon left, I had four nicely covered flat white pallettes to work on, and I started with the draping on the bottom tier and worked my way up, I love to watch the cake build. The cake was very basic in flavor, just white cake with almond icing for the brides cake and yellow cake with fudge filling and icing for the grooms cake.

We were in such a hurry b/c we were rushing to get dressed that I did not get very good pictures of it, but hopefully the photographer will send me one through Krista.
Thanks everyone who listened to me stress over this cake!!

Heather

A week of Scout camp, fun fun fun!!

2009-06-19T12:05:00.000-07:00

Last week we had Cubscout camp at Five Lakes, MAN did the kids have fun!! All of my children go, and I volunteer. We had a great number of our Scouts as well as their parents there, it was awesome! My computer is down, so updating my blog is few and far between, but I'm stealing a few minutes on Jamie's computer to do this one.

The only problem all week was the heat, MAN was it hot. The heat index was over 100 each day we were there. The kids get to stay in the water alot, so that helps them stay cooled off.
Sarah swam the shark tooth challenge, a 300ft swim across the big pond, and earned a sharks tooth. Sarah and Gabe both earned their Jr Shooting badges!! They all learned wonderful things, and I can't talk enough about the wonderful job that the staff did on camp!!
Just thought I'd share some photos of the kiddos having fun!

On Friday, the little ones are allowed to go down to the beach, Abi even got to ride in a canoe. Here's a photo of her enjoying the water:

Sarah preparing to swim her "Shark Tooth"

Gabe's absolute favorite thing to do, zipline!! I am so proud of him, last year, he struggled to get his beginning swimmer band, this year, at swim test he swam "swimmer" which is the highest of the three classifications, so he got to enjoy all of the water sports fully.

At flagpole in the afternoon, my favorite scout

This photo wins funniest of the week for me, our friend and Den Leader Drew and his son Brandon show me their muscles after doing the zipline

And this face tells it all about how Gabe feels about Scouting!!! He adores scouting.

Ballet...a love story

2009-05-24T17:34:00.000-07:00

Ever since she could talk, Abigail has asked to be in ballet. In the town nearest ours we are very lucky to have a studio that teaches JUST ballet. Classical, beautiful, artful ballet. Haller Ballet was founded 81 years ago, and is still run the the same family as founded it. Lelia Haller was a beautiful classical ballerina, and her daughter and granddaughter try to maintain that heritage.

So...when Abigail turned four, the first thing she asked was, can I have ballet lessons now? Of course we allowed her to. SUCH a different experience than when Sarah did it, she was not interested in the least. Abigail LIVES for Mondays, ballet days. She's first there, last to leave if she has her way.

For months all we've heard is about her recital, and how she was going to be a swan. Last night she had her recital, and MAN was she excited. At 5, every little girl is so adorable in a white feathery tutu, and Abigail was no exception to that rule. I don't know if she was more excited about dancing, or having big girl makeup on - which they have to wear on stage, in very vivid colors!

Luckily for me, a very nice gentleman who is a real photographer set my camera so that when I got to the front of the house from being backstage help I would be able to take pictures in the dark with no flash. I thought I'd share those.
Rehearsal that morning, learning what it was like to be on the stage:

Dancing her beautiful little heart out...she was SO in awe of it all.

And her handsome brother and gorgeous older sister, who endure an hour of ballet class a week so that she can be happy (so they keep reminding her).

Thanks for sharing our little stars moment in the spotlight!! She had the MOST wonderful time, and keeps looking at her flowers and saying "Mom, when's my next recital?"
I think we have an addict!!

Happy Late Mothers Day!

2009-05-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

To me, moms day is about OUR Mothers....not about me, so we spent our weekend with my mom and Jamie's mom. On Saturday, we went up to see my mom, the kids had a blast swimming and Ms Sarah made a crafty project with her maw maw (they share that love, and talent, of craftiness). I brought Mom a big beautiful flower, but being there in her craftiness made me think of what we would make for my mother in law (and we'll go back and make for Mom now that I had the thought to make them). Our crafty gifts, and YES, I realize there are mispelled words, one is my fault, one the childrens.

Although I did bring my camera to Mom's, I forgot to take any pictures.
On Sunday, we headed over to my mother in law's house for a visit with Granny.

The boys and I (the boys being husband and father in law) cooked fish and the works, to go with the side dishes that my sister in law and I had already prepared. The highlight of the day was getting to see the kids...and hold our newest kiddo in our family, Miles Henry.
(this is a picture of my sister in law holding Miles, who is her nephew)

My nephew in law Mike is great at baseball, so he spent the afternoon helping the boys with their pitches and hits while the other kids played around.

My gifts for mothers day are always with me, day in and day out, and they are the type that keep on giving (even if sometimes what they give is grief). I praise God each day for them, they are wondrous gifts these children.

I hope that YOU had a great Mothers Day also....I hope you have a great EVERY day!

A couple pictures of the kiddos doing their thing...

2009-05-06T20:06:00.001-07:00

Was just downloading the camera, and realized it's been a while since I've posted any pictures of the kiddos doing their things.
What are their things? Well....Gabe's thing right now is Baseball, that's what Spring and Summer bring to our house. Sarah's thing, morning, noon and night, day in, day out, is horses. Today, we did both!

We'll start with Gabe. He tries at baseball, he loves it, but he's not the BEST player ever. He DOES have fun though, and that's what it's all about. A proud moment for him last night, he got his first run of the season (we're only 2 games in) AND batted a fellow runner in!! I am scorekeeper for his team, but I did manage this one kinda cool shot through the fence.

Sarah, as I've said, loves her horses. Well, they're not hers for real, but in her mind they are ALL hers. She rides Dibs every week, and does well, and enjoys him, but today was up for a change. She rode Rex, who is a lovely Thoroughbred, in temperament and looks. They did beautifully together and made me right proud! They did have one snaffu, which ended Ms Sarah in the dirt, and Mr Rex checking to make sure she was ok, but she made me proud and got back on! I got a few pics of her riding him. Even Elizabeth (her riding teacher) commented how well she sits him. I guess my lifelong love of horses makes me so happy to see her love them...like we share that bond.
So..here are Sarah and Rex, and Rex's pretty face. I find him to be so friendly looking. (AND..we STILL love you Dibs!!)

Daring Bakers Cheesecake!

2009-04-27T08:56:00.000-07:00

After several months on break from the Daring Bakers, I've gotten back into the swing of things.

This month, the Daring Bakers Challenge was Cheesecake. The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. Every time I do a Daring Bakers I let one of the kids be my "helper". This month, Sarah was my helper.

The "challenge" was to mix it up in some way, to be creative. So our cheesecake was strawberry swirl, as the strawberries are so delicious and abundant right now in Louisiana. We were also VERY lucky in that we had some gorgeous yard eggs to use in our cheesecake

I'll have to admit, I have a cheesecake recipe that I typically use, and I didn't like this one as much as that one, but it's a very good recipe. I have included the recipe at the end of this entry. This cheesecake did not have the tang that I love in a cheesecake that has sour cream in it. It did bake BEAUTIFULLY, no cracks or anything, and serve very cleanly, which are important things in a cheesecake to me. So..we began with Ms Sarah making a crust for us:

We followed the recipe to the tee until we added the swirl. For our swirl, we mixed some strawberry preserves with part of the batter, and swirled it in the pan with the basic batter. Then, when it was baked and cooled, we covered it in sliced berries and glaze, with a whipped cream border. It was our Easter dessert, and everyone seemed to like it. One thing we did do that many people don't do is we bake our cheesecakes in a regular cake pan. This keeps the problem of leaking springform pans from happening. Just butter your pan, put in your crust, bake it off, cool, add your filling, then put in your water bath. After baking, leave in the oven with it cracked for 10 minutes, closed for 1 hour, then allow to cool on countertop. Place in the fridge overnight, and then reheat JUST the bottom for a second over a stove burner or in hot water, it will pop right out!
Here's a photo of how beautifully it bakes up, in a water bath, in the regular cake pan, in the oven!

Our completed, although not all that pretty, cheesecake. Sometimes, taste rules looks, and this was one of those days. Also, sometimes, we have to turn loose of everything being perfect when our children are enjoying what they are doing (I'm saying this to remind myself!!)

And a little slice, that's all that was left!!

The recipe that we followed:

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:

Crust:

2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs

1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted

2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Cheesecake:

3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature

1 cup / 210 g sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream

1 tbsp. lemon juice

1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)

1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a spring form pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Prep notes: While the actual making of this cheesecake is a minimal time commitment, it does need to bake for almost an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served. Please plan accordingly!

Some variations from the recipe creator:

** Lavender-scented cheesecake w/ blueberries - heat the cup of heavy cream in the microwave or a saucepan until hot but not boiling. Add 2 tbsp of lavender flowers and stir. Let lavender steep in the cream for about 10-15 minutes, then strain the flowers out. Add strained cream to cheesecake batter as normal. Top with fresh blueberries, or make a quick stove top blueberry sauce (splash of orange juice, blueberries, a little bit of sugar, and a dash of cinnamon - cook until berries burst, then cool)

** Cafe au lait cheesecake with caramel - take 1/4 cup of the heavy cream and heat it in the microwave for a short amount of time until very hot. Add 1-2 tbsp. instant espresso or instant coffee; stir to dissolve. Add this to the remainder of cream and use as normal. Top cheesecake with homemade caramel sauce (I usually find one on the food network website - just make sure it has heavy cream in it. You can use store-bought in a pinch, but the flavor is just not the same since its usually just sugar and corn syrup with no dairy).

** Tropical – add about a half cup of chopped macadamias to the crust, then top the cake with a mango-raspberry-mandarin orange puree.

** Mexican Turtle - add a bar of melted dark chocolate (between 3 and 5 oz., to taste) to the batter, along with a teaspoon of cinnamon and a dash of cayenne pepper (about 1/8 tsp.). Top it with pecan halves and a homemade caramel sauce.

** Honey-cinnamon with port-pomegranate poached pears – replace 1/2 cup of the sugar with 1/2 cup of honey, add about a teaspoon or more (to taste) of cinnamon. Take 2 pears (any variety you like or whatever is in season), peeled and cored, and poach them in a boiling poaching liquid of port wine, pomegranate juice/seeds, a couple of "coins" of fresh ginger, a cinnamon stick, and about a 1/4 cup of sugar. Poach them until tender, then let cool. Strain the poaching liquid and simmer until reduced to a syrupy-glaze consistency, then cool. Thinly slice the cooled pears and fan them out atop the cooled cheesecake. Pour the cooled poaching syrup over the pears, then sprinkle the top with chopped walnuts and fresh pomegranate seeds.

Some variations from Jenny (from JennyBakes):

**Key lime - add zest from one lime to sugar before mixing with cream cheese. Substitute lemon juice, alcohol, and vanilla with key lime juice.

**Cheesecakelets - put in muffin tins, ramekins, or custard cups. Try baking 20-35 minutes, or until still a little jiggly, and cool as before.

Our Easter!

2009-04-15T22:31:00.001-07:00

We had a laid back Easter this year!

The Easter bunny was good to the kiddos, we went to my hubby's parents' house for an egg hunt, dinner and to spend time with family.

The Easter bunny is good to them!!

I had my own personal Easter bunny (well, she also sent to the kids and Molly) in the form of my Secret Pal. This is a little fun group that is a small part of a forum for cake decorating I belong to http://www.ladycakes.com/. My Secret Pal has always been great, and this year is no different. I opened a beautiful package (with a label that always has a photo our our Molly on it) to find three BEAUTIFUL Easter plates, as well as goodies for the kiddies and Ms Molly herself) Sarah (my oldest child) has written a note to my secret pal, but does not seem to understand the SECRET PART, and is impatient for me to mail it. I promise we'll save it for the end of the year!

Ms Molly's collars from my SP

Goodies for the Kiddos!

Aren't my plates beautiful!!

Some more pictures for you:

It's UNBELIEVABLE that this child is five now!

I said, ACT like you like each other....really they do.

What a beautiful young lady my Sarah is becoming.

The kids and I dyed eggs Saturday night, while Dad worked on his homework. (CONGRATS Dad on another hard earned A!!) Being the cake decorating mom I am, I didn't buy egg dyes, and just used cake dyes, for all you cakers out there, THIS DOES WORK!! The kids love to write on the eggs with white crayons first, then dye them, so that's how we did it. Sadly, I was heping dip eggs, and got no photos of them in action, but did get some of their gloriously bright colored eggs (which Gabe seems to be eating all by himself).

Easter morning arrives, and at 6am I hear from the 8 year old cynic, "The Easter Bunny really is real, mom wouldn't have left all this mess around the table". Seems the Easter Bunny tracked in some leaves and knocked over the dog's food in his haste last night. Proudly, I can say, they did NOT glut out on candy. They've actually still got most of it left, BUT, the goldfish and raisins they have demolished!

On to Granny's for an Easter hunt. (well, let's be honest, it's really for the cornbread dressing she always makes!!) My kids have gotten really good about letting the little kids get most of the eggs, with just a LITTLE griping on their part. They looked so cute in their comfy but nice Easter clothes, I took a picture or two for you. Granny grows the nicest flowers, so I caught all the girls trying to pick them (which Granny does NOT allow on rose bushes!).

The Whole Gang (or at least those that could make it)

Hunting the elusive "special" egg that did NOT exist!!

Checking on Granny's roses.

LOOK at this look she gave me. Abi with my young nephew, who is just adorable.

I hope you enjoyed our Easter as much as we did. Keep watch for photos of our Easter Dessert..which was our Daring Bakers challenge for the month....

Hellooo cupcake!

2009-02-28T17:52:00.000-08:00

Just a cake I made for a darling little girl who's mom I want to throw MY parties!! She went with a cupcake theme, and I swear it was the CUTEST setup. She even had aprons for the party goers and her mom had made some YUMMY smelling food!!
Last night I was suffering with a stomach virus, so I got up this morning at 4 am to put together this little cutie! (well, not so little) Along with her cake,
Ms Kelsey had 40 cupcake shaped cookies with her K on them.

All and all, I think it came out pretty cute, I love to work with nice bright colors,
and love to get to use my airbrush.

So..here's my cupcake themed cake, for a cutie of a cupcake!

Cake inspired by Pink Cake Box

Happy Birthday Kelsey!!

Racers...start your engines!!

2009-02-20T18:15:00.000-08:00

Oh...that's right, Derby cars can't have engines! Last night was Pinewood Derby for our Pack. I love these events with the boys. The boys build cars with their fathers, and then we all meet to race them.

The boys get to compete in two categories, "Show and Shine" and "Derby". This year, a wonderful volunteer built us a new track to use for our Pack. Thank you Mr Danny for your hard work, you are very much appreciated.
The event was great fun. Our boys did an awesome job building and racing their cars. A successful scouting event is not one where ONE person wins, but one where EVERYONE wins. Everyone wins by being a good sport, and doing their best - and our boys are very good at that.
I must proudly add, as his mom, that Gabe won 2nd place in the show and shine division. ALL of the cars were really wonderful though.

Gabe's buddy Max took first, and MAN was his car fast! Shows that sometimes, simple is the way to go, Max's car wasn't fancy, but it raced like lightening! Here's a photo of our three winners:

Max's is the black and green car..the shiny blue car took 2nd and the white 3rd. Sadly, I don't have a picture of the Show and Shine winners together,
but Gabe's is a firetruck (of course!!)
So...I leave you with just these pictures, AWESOME cars everyone! If you'd like to see more pictures, please visit our Pack website: www.pack602.com

Trouble, thy name is Molly

2009-02-12T09:40:00.000-08:00

Just a funny picture..for those who don't know, Molly is our dog. Molly is a Jack Russell, and she defines many words...including rotten, comedian, and sometimes BAD.
Today's antic was to bury her bone IN the pile of burnt leaf remainings, dig it up and then beg me to come back inside and snuggle back up...
NOT TODAY CRAZY LADY!!
So..here's the picture, see how guilty she looks, and notice she's OUTSIDE the window until she cleans up some (it'll dry and fall right off of her coat).

Cakes...kids...and HORSES!

2009-02-07T18:49:00.000-08:00

This weekend I started doing cakes again, for the first time since I lost my dads last year. WOW, don't take on three cakes when you haven't caked for a while is all I can say.
Cake #1 was for a lady having a 31st birthday party. She was using a fire theme, and asked for a recreation of one of my earlier cakes, with a little "pizazz" added. Buttercream icing, then airbrushed and some fondant flowers.

Then there was a cake for Olivia. I have made each of Olivia's cakes, including her shower cake..so I love doing cakes for her. I did a Minnie mouse theme for her...and hopefully her mommy loved it..her dad liked it (as much as guys like cake). Everything other than the ears on the hat are cake, and then buttercream icing with fondant accents.

Then a cake for Max...you've read about Max on my blog before. I just LOVE me some Max. He's Gabe's buddy, and his cake was his birthday present. Of course, he HAD to choose big ole toys and CHOCOLATE icing for it (we still love you Max). To make it tie in, I made a moon of white chocolate, and put the toys around it. That way my boy got what he wanted.

So..when I finished my cakes, it was time for the Highlands in barn show. Sarah has only been in one show before...and today makes two. She did awesome. She came home with a 2nd, 3rd and 4th ribbon. She even attempted a class that she was very unfamiliar with, which gives her more experience in just showing in general. She and Amelia shared Dibbs and did a great job keeping him calm and happy. In return, he treated them so well, and was SUCH a good boy for them.
At the beginning of the show, Elizabeth pointed out to Sarah that she had a ladybug on her shoulder, which is a sign of good luck!!

Dibbs and Sarah in their classes together! He wears his ribbons so proudly!

Micheala helped Sarah when we were getting ready! It's so great to have one of the older girls who know the ropes. The last picture is Alex and Appy. Normally, I wouldn't post other people's children, but Alex is SO sweet to Sarah and I just love this picture of her riding. She has the love of horses that just glows through her! She is ALSO Sarah's 4H Mentor.

In sad news, I mentioned in my last blog that Clyde, who Sarah loved so much, was feeling poorly. Sadly, Clyde passed to that great field in the sky this week. It's with much love that we wish him farewell and say a prayer to all the people who loved him. "Magic Man" as was his show name, but Clyde to those who knew him, was truly an awesome guy. He was "magic" alright, the sort of magic that is only between a horse and a little girl, the kind of magic that makes a child try harder - because she has the confidence he is giving her. Horses are magic to me anyway, but Clyde will always be remembered with love.

This quote comes to mind:

"The essential joy of being with horses is that it brings us in contact with the rare elements of grace, beauty, spirit and freedom."
Sharon Ralls Lemon

A triumph for Sarah!

2009-02-03T20:19:00.000-08:00

Well, I've said it before..a BAD day at the barn is better than a good day doing most anything else...when you're a horse loving 9 year old. That being said, an AWESOME day at the barn is just stellar!!

Sarah loves to ride...which if you read my blog with regularity you know well. This summer and fall she rode Dibbs, and quite enjoyed him, till one day they had a falling out (which ended in her falling off). Well..she became scared of Dibbs, and he knew it, and she began riding Clyde (who is just God's gift to timid children riders). Clyde is a sweet boy, and she does great on him, and she loves him dearly...this is Clyde.

BUT..today, Clyde was feeling under the weather, and it was either go home, or ride Dibbs, so ride Dibbs she did. She had a great ride, and he was SUCH a super sweet stellar boy, I'm proud as peaches of them both. I also have to give kudos to Elizabeth, Sarah's riding instructor, who CONTINUES to tell Sarah that she can do it, even when the fear takes over the brain that God gave her plenty of!

Saturday she has a show, so I'll update then..but for know, just a few pictures of my horse loving girl and the horse that helped her gain her confidence back!

BOOM...was that canon I heard!?!

2009-01-10T20:14:00.001-08:00

Why yes, it was!
Today our Pack hosted a Living History Unit, who dressed and maintained the era of the Civil War for our boys and taught them SO many wonderful things. I had to laugh when once they fired off the canon, had our boys play their enemy,and ALL of the boys fell to the ground as the canon was fired.

TALK ABOUT an awesome job! These men drew our boys into the excitement like nothing you've ever seen. We're talking 10 year old boys DANCING the Virginia Reel! They did several period dances, which the boys and girls both seemed to enjoy. Seeing the ladies in their hoop skirts dancing is just so beautiful to me.

That first canon fire almost scared the pants off of me, but as I got used to it it was neat to hear. Their camp was SO cool, the boys loved sitting around the fire and asking questions and looking at all the neat things they had to share.
As night fell, they did a night fire of the canon for us, MAN was it beautiful. They packed it with steel wool, so that as it fired, the colors could be seen, the boys were amazed!

The weather man promised us rain today, but God gave us Glory. Although we had a few sprinkles, the rain held out until JUST after the last night fire, then it came booming down with all it's might.

Later this week we'll have more about this event on our Pack site if you'd like to see more, www.pack602.com. We did this in preparation for our trip to Vicksburg battleground later this year with the boys. Teaching them is SO easy and fun when they don't realize they are learning.
If you have a boy, and you haven't explored Scouting, I encourage you to. Our boy, and for that matter our girls, have learned so much through their scouting experience that I find priceless for him. On top of that, it has brought us so much closer to him and his friends and their parents.

I hope that YOU are having as great a weekend as us! If your weather is nice, get out and do something with your kids, they'll remember it always!
Heather

It's a brand new day..in fact, YEAR!

2009-01-06T16:04:00.000-08:00

So..2008 is gone, 2009 has come!

We rang in the New Year in our camper this year. We decided on the 30th to get up on the 31st and go to Alabama..so off we went (gotta love that camper).

Our favorite winter haunt for camping is Wales West Campground, admittedly for the indoor swimming pool! Our kiddos LOVE to swim, and it's nice to get the swim in even when it's cold outside.
So, on the 30th we shot off of yearly $50, I mean fireworks (really, you could light a $50 bill on fire and see just as many explosions around here :) ) The kids LOVE fireworks, so Jamie sees to it that they get to see some yearly. I have a terrible hard time taking pictures of fireworks, but I always keep trying. We just shot them in the backyard, so the kids could have the protection of the trampoline net (I mean really, it works great as a cage).

Through a tree for this one, I was lazy sitting on a table!

SOO much smoke!

So, New Years Eve arrived and off we went to Alabama. It's a LONG drive with all the traffic, but we eagerly await the tunnel each time, followed by the battleship, one long bridge and then our winter home away from home. The weather was great for our drive up (can't say that for the drive back) and the kids were really well behaved. Ms Molly was even good, no carsickness at ALL this time, she's growing into a world traveler that girl.

This is Wales West train station...there is a hobby train that goes all the way around the little campground, SO cool b/c they built it all themselves!

Riding the train

We didn't do much site seeing this time, but we did go to New Years dinner at our favorite restaurant, Lamberts where a roll MAY just come flying at your head, and if you happen to catch it, it's REALLY good eats!
The rest of our time we spent relaxing, walking, playing, swimming and riding the train. Poor girls got rotovirus while we were there and still are suffering a bit from it, but they were troopers.
Playing on the playground:

So..that's our New Years in a nutshell.
My resolutions for the year:

find joy in every day
get out and move more
find more interesting things to cook (and more healthy)
enjoy my family, kids and friends to the fullest

Thanks for visiting our blog!

I hope that YOU are having a great start to your New Year!!

A December we'll always remember

2008-12-28T20:02:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas Daddy! Taken last Christmas with my sweet daddy and some of his grandchildren (mine and my sister's children)

Admittedly, Christmas was not the same this year. The same things happened, but it just doesn't feel the same.
I wanted to share with you our Christmas, and remind you to EACH DAY take time to treasure the ones you love, b/c you may not have them the next day.
As I asked my children what they wanted for Christmas, my middle child, our only boy, said to me "my pawpaws back". Where does one go from there?
So onwards and upwards we tried to go.
We took the Scouts to the Nursing home to visit the elderly there, the ladies were so touching. Tears streaming down their faces at the beautiful sound of innocent children singing. The boys handed out gifts to each person there, and had a wonderful time doing it.

Somewhere in here, we had SNOW!! This never happens in Louisiana, especially snow that sticks!! At 5 am my little one said, it's a miracle mom!!

Then came the school programs. I will warn you, in our school gym, a decent picture is not to be had. No matter what I did, I couldn't get a decent pic, and I wasn't up to fighting with the settings. Gabe LOVES school plays, Sarah loathes them. The kids did a great job with the performance, it was really cute. And Ms Sarah was student of the month!!

We took them to the zoo, they SO wanted to see Santa....they refused to get anywhere near him other than Sarah, who we bribed!!! But..the zoo was nice anyways!

Then a trip to city park to see the lights...here's a cajun version!

Christmas Eve brunch was held out our home for my family. This is where this blog gets really hard..and I will gloss over here and just say again, treasure them, every moment. God bless my beautiful sister and awesome husband, who give me strength of heart and soul like could never be gotten elsewhere.

Christmas morning came, with the wonderful smiles of my children. The most glorious thing is to see a child smile, there's nothing better. The opened their gifts and enjoyed each one...and after much searching found where that sneaky Santa left their present, a Wii that they have wanted since they came out. They've been playing it ever since I think.

But I do believe Ms Molly was as excited as the others!!

In the coming month we celebrate Ms Sarah's birthday. She shared her birthday with her awesome Paw Paw Bill. She will be 10 years old, it's amazing how fast time flies. We'll be posting pictures I'm sure (if she ever decides what her party is to be).
I look forward to the New Year praying for a more peaceful one, a happy and healthy year for everyone and lots of emotional healing.
This year I give thanks for my family, and my friends, who hold me together in times of need. I have been BLESSED with awesome friends, you know who you are.

May God bless your New Year....and give it peace and love.

Heather

Say it isn't so Mr Bill

2008-12-04T20:22:00.000-08:00

It's with a new sadness I write this blog. Last week, I thought that I could feel no deeper sadness, today I know I was wrong.
Today was taken from me the most beautiful man there ever was. The man who raised me to be the woman I am today. The man who loved me like I was his own, and gladly shared me with my biological father, knowing that each of them held their own special spot in my heart.
This time last week, I thought the healing process would begin. Tonight, I sit wondering how all of this could happen, and if my heart will ever heal. My bounty of blessings, my two Dads, have been both taken from me in one week. It makes one wonder, it wavers ones faith, and shakes them to the core.
On December 4th the world lost a treasure. Those of us who were touched by him were better off for it. Those he leaves behind mourn him painfully, although they know he is in a far better place than they. The things he gave me in my life were not things that could be given a tangible value, but things that will live with me forever, and live through my children, and all of his grandchildren. God must have needed a powerful force in Heaven to have taken him from us. I know that somewhere, right now, his mother is welcoming her "Billie" with open arms, and his heart aches no more for his lost loved ones. He is rejoicing in the arms of his maker, his mother, his father, a daughter and a wife that passed before him.....and watching over so many that he left behind.
Mr Bill (as he was known by most everyone) will live on in our hearts. I take comfort in knowing that God gave him to me for the time that he did, and deep, mournful pain that that time was so abruptly ended. I know not what to say to even begin to explain how I feel, but felt the need to get some of it out. I thank all of my friends for their prayers, and hold my loved ones close to my heart - we will all need each other so much in the days, weeks, months and even years to come.

A painful blessing

2008-11-28T15:01:00.001-08:00

In my life, I am blessed. I have many people to love me. I have a mom, 2 dads, a step mom and a step dad, as well as many sisters and brothers. Today, with great sorrow, I said goodbye to one of those dads.
The story of my fathers is inconsequential, but for the sake of confusion, I have my biological dad, my dad who raised me and my step dad, who loves me like his own. It's a blessing combined to have the three of them.
Three months ago, the very last thing I would have thought was that right now we'd be preparing for a funeral. Two months ago, I was preparing to have 2 years left to spend with my biological father, and 2 weeks ago, I began to tell him goodbye, b/c we found out that we only had weeks.
The blessing of having many people to love you is that you feel so supported in every sadness of your life. If only it could make the pain less, is all I keep thinking.
My biological father was who he was. He was a loving, groucy, country, fishing, beer loving, hammer swinging man. He was not perfect, and neither am I. He did love me, and I will always love him, nothing could ever change that. The pain the he endured hurt me more than anything in my life, and when our prayers of his passing on Friday morning around 5 am were finally answered, I felt as though God had lifted a huge weight off of my heart.
My heart hurts for me now, but not for him. He no longer hurts, he's not longer agonizing to breathe, no longer can his body betray him. I can see him in my mind, sitting with my Gramps, perhaps wondering where in Heaven you can get Busch....
My mind can't help but wander forward to the days that will be to come, how I will feel as the pain of watching him pass goes away and the pain of missing him fills that void. I have vowed to remember all of the good times, have long forgiven any bad, and will teach my children about their Gramps right along side loving their PawPaw Bill and PawPaw Ray. The final moment that they spent with him he was able to pull from somewhere in his tortured body a smile a laugh and some comfort for them, so they will not remember him in pain.
I pray for my stepmom, for all my brothers and sisters. I stand proud of my brother Robert, who I had always seen as a child. He stood strong for his mother and our sister, and gave them the strenght they needed. I'm proud to call him my brother. I pray for closure for all of us. He was a man with many children, may each of them carry a happy memory of him to their own children as they grow.
I ask that you pray along with me for those he left behind, but rejoice with me that God has taken his child away from this painful life into a life of everlasting Glory and painlessness. May we meet again some day, all of us, past a rainbow in the sky, and live forevermore.

Starting the Christmas Joy!

2008-11-23T17:04:00.000-08:00

We have ALOT going on in our family right now that's emotionally hard, so we decided to start Christmas EARLY and share the joy.
It's a yearly tradition with me and the kids to make ornaments. You will see several installments of them this year I'm sure. But..today I was shopping online and saw this ornament that a store had for sale and thought..HMM..I have all the things to make those, so we did!

Here's our inspiration:

Well, we didn't have the elongated bulbs, but I did have round ones. So..for this project you will need:

Round glass bulb, that you can fill
Some white sparkly stuff (we used white snow sequins)
Sharpies
Wire
Something to make earmuffs with, we, being the caking family, used fondant with tylose in it, but you could use clay, you could use small foam balls cut in 1/2, you could use playdoh

First, take the top off of your ornament and fill part of the way with the "snow"
Then..draw on your face with the sharpies, this is where personalities come into play!
THEN..put on your earmuffs with a drop of glue and stick the wire into them

Make sure you write your name on the back and the year!!

Have fun crafting,
Heather and the kiddos!!

The finished cakes

2008-11-16T06:54:00.001-08:00

These are the cakes that my friend, her DIL and I did for her daughters wedding. They did an awesome job on the wedding cake, which they did all by themselves!! I made the flag, emblem and seabee on the grooms cake, and they did the cake before I got there. I'm so proud of them, and I know they were proud to have done that for their family! It was a beautiful wedding also! Congratulations Jessica and Anthony!

Grooms grooms grooms

2008-11-13T11:58:00.001-08:00

Seems this is the week for grooms cakes! I am helping a friend work on a grooms cake for her son to be, as well as having a grooms cake order.
My friends SIL to be is a Navy Seabee, and she wanted to show that on his grooms cake. Although she has done many cakes, she had never done what needed to be done to make the bee, so we worked on it together.

We made a royal icing plaque of the bee, as well as making an edible image plaque of the Naval Emblem. Tomorrow we'll finish the cake, and she'll finish her wedding cake, how proud she must be to make a wedding cake for her own daughter!!

I'll be sure to share those pictures with you.

My order this week was rescheduled from Gustav, when poor Baton Rouge took such a hard hit. Our groom wanted to honor his puppy, as well as LSU, his favorite school. So..I made a chocolate chocolate labrador to go on top of his cake, and made a collar for him with LSU colors and all.

The lab took about 1 1/2 lbs of chocolate to make and smelled divine!! Chocolate cake with buttercream icing and some fondant doggie bones. Really fun to make, and I hope they enjoy it thoroughly!!

Thanks so much for sharing these cakes with me. I'm not doing many cakes right now...due to a sick family member. One day, when I have more energy and less emotion I'll blog about that. Please continue to pray though for him, he needs all of them that he can get.
Heather

An award to pass on

2008-11-01T18:11:00.000-07:00

Jacque at Daisy Lane Cakes graciously gave me this award this month. Seems there are some rules for this award:

Find 5 blogs, of any kind that you love to read.
Write a post about the blogs you picked, linking back to them.
Make sure you let them know you gave them an award.

So...I'm handing this award over to three blogs that I dearly love, and watch daily. One for each of my obsessions in life. My kids, my cakes and my photos.

First: Kids (they always come first)
Mata Mania, Carla, and awesome mother and friend. (She also makes a mean cake and cookie and shares my Disney obsession.) Most days you will find Carla hanging out with her awesome kids!

Second: Cakes (I have to tell you, these days I go back and forth between cakes and my camera coming 2nd...but this lady is DEFINITELY top on my list of cake obsessions. Not only does Sharon at Sugaredblog make AWESOME cakes, but she's a killer friend and my partner in crime on many occasions. If you have a cake obsession, her site www.sharonssugarshack.com, will definately help you out, and if you have an obsession to MAKE perfect cakes, her DVDs at www.sugaredproductions.com are the bomb.

Third: Pictures (hence the "lens" part of my blog name) This woman is a HUGE inspiration to me, her style of photography speaks to me! If only I could learn to take pics like her, I'd be a happy camera girl and probably NEVER mention cakes again. Wild Spirit Photography is just an AWESOME blog to watch for inspiration for pictures, so she's recieving the award on the merit of being spectacular behind the camera!

Thanks again to Jacque for the award, she rocks, btw. And..Jacque, any time you're out my way, you're welcome to some more of that jambalaya. I thought of you the other day when I made it for my cubscouts!

Daring Bakers Challenge Oct. 08

2008-10-28T21:48:00.001-07:00

PIZZA!!

This was my first month doing the Daring Bakers Challenge, and I got in on a good one, as my family LOVES pizza.
First, thanks to Rosa at Rosa's Yummy Yums for hosting this month's challenge.
Our challenge was pizza and toppings. So...as we have a wide range of tastes in this family, I headed to the grocery to hunt up some FIXINS!! NEVER take two young girls with you to pick out pizza toppings.
The pizzas we wound up with :

pepperoni and black olives, 1 thin 1 thick crust (these would be the "kids choice award" pizza)
prosciutto, sun dried tomatoes, basil (on a traditional red sauce, traditional cheese)
shrimp, spinach, artichoke heart, prosciutto (why waste the stuff) (on an garlic olive oil base, with tomato basil feta cheese)
apple crumble (homemade apple pie filling and crumb, on a unbaked crust) drizzled with a basic glaze

I LOVED this dough. It played well thick and thin, rose right, had a great texture and handled fairly easily. Sadly, there are no pics of me tossing, I already had my camera dropped once this week, so I was NOT allowing my remaining lens to be broken by an underage cameraman! Tossing doesn't work so well for me, I am a hand to hand, pulling my fingers apart as I go girl, then pop it down, pull it towards a circle and let it be!
Here are some befores of the pepperoni and the prosciutto basil

My little helper kneaded for me, as you can see, but by the time we were headed to the fridge she was pooped. She was also my chief pepperoni spreader on day 2
(the ones she didn't pop into her mouth).

I cut my dough into 6, so I could make small pizzas, and we had some leftovers,
even with 5 of us eating in this house.

I found my right baking temp to be 425, on a preheated stone, got a great crust on them, nice and sturdy, but not tough. I will say this is the ONLY time I've seen pizza crusts eaten in this house that had no toppings on them, poor poor birdies tomorrow, no snacks.
Here's a view from the oven:

I hope you enjoyed our foray into the pizza world!! We enjoyed it, and will def do it again, but I do have MUCH more appreciation for Paul, "THE PIZZA MAN" at our favorite pizza joint!

And..just to make you drool, a few "afters" of the pepperoni and the apple cobbler!

A trip to the firestation for the cubs, and a plea for prayers

2008-10-24T19:28:00.000-07:00

October is National Fire Safety Month so for our pack meeting this month, we met at the firestation. My hubby is District Chief of a local department, so we chose to go to his department for our meeting instead of the small one here in town. So..we met at Fire District 12 with our pack for some fire safety learning and fun! It's fun for me, b/c I know them all so well, they're like our extended family, so I love to see the kids having fun with the guys.

Here are some of the drawings we got from our boys:

We also had a fire safety poster contest, they boys did awesome with their drawings. The winners recieved some fun prizes to use in future Scouting adventures.

Capt. Pierre went through fire safety with the boys. This man was MEANT for this job, he's great with the boys, and gets all the information they need in while staying on their level. Op Matt put on his gear for them, and showed them what a firefighter in gear looks like, so they know not to be scared, and Op Kyle also put on his gear, so they could hear the noises that the air mask makes, so they wouldn't be scared of that either.
Then the boys got to go through the safety house, which is a mobile unit, equipped with a house, that they can fill with smoke and show the public how to react in case of fire. After that, their FAVORITE part, Op Clint let each child got to spray the fire hose!!

We finished up with a tour of the trucks and each boy got some goodies to take him with them. We'd like to thank Fire District 12 for the awesome job that they did for our pack!!

Fire Safety is VERY important. Here are some fun things for your children to do while learning about fire safety. Some other things that you and your family should make sure of:

plan an evacuation route in case of fire
place emergency contacts where your children KNOW who to get in touch with in case of emergency
check your smoke detectors often, a good way to KNOW your batteries will be good is to change them with daylight savings time changes
practice fire drills
visit your local fire station, they will be happy to show your children around

I don't often ask pubically for prayers, but this week I found out someone very close to me has terminal lung cancer, and I would like to ask that you remember him in your prayers.

Playing Indian, Scarecrows and the police!

2008-10-18T14:04:00.000-07:00

We've had a BUSY week!! Lots of pictures to share of all. We've had Indians, and Scarecrows and Police, OH MY!!

Today was dress up day at the barn, for Halloween, and Sarah decided to make Dibbs and Indian horse. I didn't get to get pictures of her wearing her costume, but when I got there she and Martha Ann were taking turns riding him bareback, so I did get a shot of her on him then. Thought I'd share her fun for the day with you guys.

During the week this past week Gabe's teacher asked me to help them make a scarecrow for the front of the school for their classroom, so early Monday morning one of the other student's uncles and I set about our first scarecrows ever!

She's raising her hand to ask a question, how's THAT for being a good student! The kids enjoy being involved in these projects, I just wish they had gotten to help more, but we had to do it while they were in class learning.

After school on Thursday we had our Bear meeting for the week. This week, Folsom's finest came to visit us. Chief Killingsworth and Sgt. Magee are two officers from our local PD, and we were lucky enough to have them come talk with our boys about safety, and about the jobs that they do as police officers. They did a GREAT job with our boys, and we thank them for the time they gave us, the boys loved it!

While we were doing our police unit, we taught our boys about fingerprinting, and printed them all as an activity.

If you have NOT had you child fingerprinted for the national database, let me take this moment to suggest that you do. It's such an awesome tool for police officers should your child be kidnapped or run away or be lost. You can contact your local police station for details on having this done. You can visit this website to order a free at home kit, and then have it registered: http://www.klaaskids.org/printathon.htm

We hope you are loving Fall! Have a wonderful weekend, The Truetts!

Life from the outhouse...one cake and one real!

2008-10-14T14:24:00.000-07:00

What a great weekend, and BUSY!! We went camping with the cubscouts, but first I helped my awesome sis out with my BIL's 50th party and made her some food and a cake! I have to say, my sister is SO level headed, b/c the cake fell over on the way to the hall, and she CALMLY fixed it, I'da prolly freaked out. I guess the stake wasn't driven far enough into the bottom board. She fixed it though, with giggles of Katrina - izing it by putting a blue tarp on it, although I don't think she actually had to go that far! I've been promised an "after" picture, but here is a "before" for you.

The story goes, Greg does these fun gifts for us for Christmas, and the outhouse is part of it. He might kill me for posting THIS picture!!

He is SO normally calm and peaceful, but MAN does he have a wicked sense of humour! That outhouse is in their yard, it's their pump house, hence the cake being an outhouse. FUNNEST cake ever for me I think! For you cakers, it's 1 1/2 12 inch cakes cut into 1/4s and stacked, with foam core between each two layers. The board is fondanted and dusted to TRY and look like concrete. It's not perfect, but it's cute I think. It's all buttercream except the top, which is fondant, and all the color is airbrushed on. I just marked the lines with my bench scraper.

And NOW for camping!

We had a great time!! Sleeping in a tent with Abi is TOO funny. At 2 am on Friday night, she was walking around the tent going wooo....do you see my shadow.....it was hilarious, but not. Let's say the next night I took some "help" to get to sleep, and Abi's shadow didn't bug me at all.

Our boys got to earn lots of beltloops and they had a blast. We had lots of help from our parents, and all in all it worked out. The OUTHOUSE part of the trip, the BATHROOMS BACKED UP Saturday night, NOT good with 50 people, but we made it. AND..the water was cold cold in the showers, but again, we made it. The boys played, and did skits and played and fellowshipped, and all in all it was a great weekend. We even managed to cook all of our meals together and eat together, which I think is so important for the boys!!

I'll share pics of that later, I have to resize and all. We all looked so great in our new yellow activity shirts, and I'm thrilled that after just ONE year and 2 months in existance our boys have come so far!! My heart and soul goes into that pack, so it means the world to me to have them do well, and hurts me if people say negative things about them, so I was so pleased to have them so well recieved by everyone, and see the families working together towards such an awesome goal.

Gone camping...

2008-10-10T12:48:00.001-07:00

At camp with the cub scouts...
they gave us a drink...
we thought it was Kool-aid
because it was pink....

well, you REALLY dont' wanna know the rest of that one!

We'll be back Sunday with pictures, have a great one!!

Art imitates art

2008-10-04T20:37:00.000-07:00

Today I did a cake I enjoyed more than I've enjoyed any cake in a long long time! The board was the most fun part. I covered it in fondant, texturized and painted it to look like wood. Then I got to play playdoh with fondant and make a paintbrush and paints for the cake!
I hope that when the mom comes to get it in the morning she really likes it!!
Thought I'd share it with you guys, thanks so much for looking.

Love in the eyes of a horse

2008-10-02T20:51:00.001-07:00

With the exception of humans, never in my life have I found an creature I loved more than a horse. To me, walking into a barn is therapy. I'd sooner pick a stall clean or polish a saddle as most anything in the world. Recently, I have found someone who shares that love, and also happens to be my daughter.

Sarah and I could spend our lives in the barn. No need to ride, just to commune with the horses is all we need. BUT..she does ride. Weekly we make our trek to the barn, she rides, I take pictures, play with horses and kitty cats, and wish I could have my own stall there with a gorgeous gelding nickering for me daily. After a few different horses, she seems to have found one she likes riding (we don't own our own horse).

Dibbs is a doll, he's got spunk and character, but he's a love and takes care of Sarah. I've seen her riding come around some since she started riding him - although she still lets her brain get ahead of her body and THINKS instead of just riding.

When you're on a horse, it's not about you brain, it's about your hands, your legs, his mouth and two hearts and brains working as one. If I could hand down ONE thing I know about horses to my gorgeous daughter, that would be it. I pray she realizes it, and that this love sticks with her.

So..I thought I'd share some pictures of her, I'm always sharing Gabe and Abi's accomplishments, and Sarah is JUST as special and important to me, so she deserves some blog space too!

A ballerina is born, a boy is 8..and more!

2008-10-01T08:22:00.000-07:00

What a crazy weekend we had!! Saturday we went to the car show here in town to promote our Scout pack, great job guys!!
Then, 5 Scouts came home with us for Gabe's sleepover! CRAZYness, I tell ya, but they had a blast! We had a silly string war, roasted hot dogs, ate smores and even after all of that they STILL stayed up till 2am! On his real birthday, Monday, we took cupcakes to school and went to the fire station to see Jamie (he had to work). I'd say he had a pretty good birthday (although he says I owe him a cake).

On Monday we also had another big milestone. For YEARS Abi has been begging to start dancing lessons. Well, since next year she starts Kindy, I decided to let her. TALK about love!

I love Haller Ballet, which is where she is going. Sarah went there for a little while, before she realized that she wanted to ride horses instead of ballet. They are kind and patient, but firm, and they really teach, and that's right up my alley!
Coming out she said,
"I love you mommy, thank you for letting me dance. Now..am I going to get to come back again?" Just melted me! She's already dreaming of recitals. Makes me feel like I've found a perfect place for all of my kids ya know? Gabe's a Scout, Sarah adores Dibbs (the horse she rides) and riding in general, and now Ms Abber has dance!

And of course there were cakes...there are always cakes. This weekend I made a princess cake for a lady who will ALWAYS be a princess to her friends, and a kitty cat for a sweet one year old.

I made all the accents on the cake from fondant, even the dragon. We bought the princess, b/c I just didn't think I could make her look right! I hope that Jen enjoyed her birthday cake!

This cake was for a little one year old girl! She had the most patient grandpa, b/c I was having a terrible time getting the message for it done when he got here, my edible printer decided it was on vacation! The boys sat and watched me make this cake (my 5 Scouts that were sleeping over) it was TOO hilarious! Made all of these accents with fondant too!

And..there were the 90 cookies I mailed to Liz! Durn fed ex, they drop kicked my box, and broke almost 1/2 of them. Thank God for Liz's foresite to make another favor!
Ever wanted to see what 90 cookies look like on a small kitchen table?
What an awesome party it must have been with Liz running the show!! I hope my daughters grow up to be JUST like her!

Well, that's about it for our awesome week! We're working on another one now, and hoping to make it to the fair this weekend with the kiddos for some fun! Just one cake to do this weekend, a seriously fun one at that, so I'm looking forward to it!

I hope YOU have an awesome week too!

Passing on the "I LOVE YOU THIS MUCH" award

2008-09-23T20:25:00.000-07:00

My beautiful friend Sharon at www.sugaredblog.blogspot.com gave me the
"I Love You This Much" award.

As is common practice in the world of blogging, I'm passing it on. Michele is a friend that is DEAR to me. For so many reasons I love her blog, it's dynamic, and real and has beautiful pictures and one of my favorite boys in the whole wide world in it!
SO..I pass the I Love You This Much award to Michele simply for her beautiful heart and spirit!

A shameless plug for my son's Pack!

2008-09-22T13:19:00.000-07:00

Anyone wanna buy some Cub Scout Popcorn? We are selling popcorn to help pay for our boys to go to camp! We are a small pack, but each year we try and make it where we make enough money for our boys to go to camp for free, it makes them feel so good to know they earned it! (That's Gabe in the Spongebob shorts with his best bud!)

Scout camp teaches them SUCH awesome things that I feel like it's a great thing to raise money for. If you'd like to help our pack out, you can go to www.orderpopcorn.com and use his order key: TEZWTP8 (you'll have to type it in most likely, it doesn't like copy and paste for some reason). My personal faves are the butter light microwave and the caramel corn with nuts.
We thank anyone who chooses to purchase, and understand if you choose not to or can't, no pressure from us at all, just wanted to give those who wanted to order the opportunity.

The reason I do cakes!

2008-09-18T18:43:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I had four cakes, TWO of them were for my awesome nephews. Sometimes, I wonder why it is I do cakes, then I see them with their cakes and I KNOW why it is.

There is nothing more wonderful than a sweet child enjoying seeing their birthday cake for the first time, nothing more awesome than the thank you of a sweet boy, either over the phone or a kiss full of red icing.

Makes all the messes, late nights and messed up idea worth it! Zayne is 3, amazingly, and Marshall 1 (such a sweet age), and here are some pictures of them enjoying their cakes. My sister sent me the picture of Zayne since I couldn't be there, and I took the one of Marshall .

Today, I take a moment of silence

2008-09-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

I know that to everyone 9-11 is a painful day of memories. As the wife of a firefighter, I take it personally when members of our "family" of firefighters are lost, and as an American I take it personally when any citizen of the United States' life is given so little value as on that day.
The only hope we can glean from 9-11 is that it has brought our nation together in prayer for our Armed Forces, for our leadership, and for the families of those that were lost. So today I ask that everyone observe a moment of silence and say a pray or two for those people.
This week in school my children are studying freedom, and politics, and my son asked me today what "freedom" really was.....they take for granted what they are given, what they consider "God given" rights, rights that so many don't have. He listed for me those things and was in awe that people fight for him to have those rights, it was a very touching moment in the life of this mom and her 3rd grade son. I pray that some day ALL children have the luxury to feel that freedom.

Ike is looking good for us so far

2008-09-07T13:03:00.001-07:00

But still praying for everyone involved!

I DON'T LIKE IKE!!

2008-09-06T22:01:00.000-07:00

I've been following Ike for a few days and I have to say he's not a big fave of mine. Let's all pray his path FIZZLES. I don't want anyone else to have it, but I don't want it either. Praying for all of the Gulf Coast.
Here's the offending member himself.

Spa day for the girls...sharing cakes with friends...

2008-09-06T14:35:00.000-07:00

Well, the pupper and the oldest girl! You'll notice in the first blog I did Ms Sarah had LONG LONG hair, well, after many crying and trying mornings we've gone to a modified shorter sleek do! Then, Ms Molly Polly had to have a bath and a brush out from her evacuation for Mr Gustav. Just thought I'd share my two girls looking so smart!

And..on sharing cakes with friends. THE reason I started doing cakes was for my beautiful sister. For her wedding I made probably the worst cake I've ever made (it even got messed up on the way there) and her beautiful soul treated it like the most wonderful possession she'd ever been gifted with. Wedding cakes, in our family, are a special thing. Our Aunt previously made our cakes, and we lost her soon before Brandy's wedding. So...where this is all going. My love is to make cakes for people as a gift. This past month I was able to do just that for a wonderful person who is expecting her first son, and it made me happier than two flies in a puddle of Georgia cane syrup. Tricia is a friend I met on the internet, and Little Lennie is to be their first son's name. A beautiful person inside and out, it gave me great job to make a cake for her. Along with her cake I made some cookies with these cutters, gifted to me by Sharon, and thought they were TOO adorable not to share also. Aren't friends the most beautiful things?

To live is to blog....

2008-09-05T23:17:00.000-07:00

Or so it seems. Seems these days, everyone has a blog, so of course I'll jump in with both feet. As my children grow, it seems so much changes so quickly, maybe this way we can keep up with them!

Who am I? A stay at home mom of three, who LOVES her children, but is glad when they go to school. Proud wife of a firefighter, constant supporter of his endeavors.

Where can you find me? Most days, in my kitchen baking and decorating cakes http://www.heatherscakes.com/ or behind my camera bugging my kids to death taking pictures. If I'm not there, I'm SLAVING for Sharon http://www.sugaredproductions.com/ over at the SugarEd shop.

So...it's a short first blog, but I promise to come up with fun and interesting things for us to share! I leave you now with some pictures of my MOST beautiful creations!