It's been a crazy few weeks around here. As I was looking at the pictures I need to post, it was a little overwhelming. Goodness, I haven't even posted Easter yet! Ugh. So let's start out with a barrage of photos to get us up to date.
Decorating eggs
The Annual Maxfield Family Egg Hunt
This next one is a little tough. As I posted earlier, we had to give Pogo away. It's been pretty sad but the good thing is that his new owner loves him and sends us a text every once in a while to let us know how he is doing. He describes him as a very obedient dog who goes everywhere with him. This is not the dog we knew, which tells me that he is actually better off with his new family. We are happy that he is in a good home and doing well.
Oh...and did I mention that there was a move in the midst of all these other activities? Here's Brooke with a look that describes pretty well how I felt.
Little Brooke had a birthday in April. She is just so stinkin' cute!
Savannah graduated from preschool. It's off to kindergarten for this girl.
She also celebrated her 5th birthday Lalaloopsy style.
Here are her pics. Can you tell I'm diggin' the rule of thirds lately?
After what seemed like a bit of a whirlwind of looking at various
builders and trying to find lots we could AFFORD in Davis County, we
ended up going with a lot in beautiful North Ogden. Now you may be
saying to yourself Doesn't Drew work in Salt Lake? or Aren't they crazy to move further north?
These things are true, but I like to say that the mountains spoke to
us. It is just so darned pretty there and I know that if we would have
found a similar lot in the benches of the mountains in Davis County it
would have easily cost twice as much. So we are excited. The first pic
is the hole after it was dug and the next two (excuse the crappy
quality of my camera phone) are the foundation in progress as of
yesterday.
And then there were cakes. There are always cakes! But wait....there is an excellent story to follow so stay tuned....
An adoption cake
A shark eating a mermaid for our nephew Ben
A Jazz cake
Another Angry Birds
And another ruffle tutu (excuse the camera phone again)
A petal cake
A graduation cake
A buzzard for a surprise 50th birthday
A fox cake for Brooke
And another Mario cake
A Lalaloopsy cake for Savannah
And now for the cake with the story like I promised. This happened just this weekend on Friday and ranks up there as one of the worst. days. ever. I'd been working on the cake all week. Probably spent 12-15 hours on the roses and then another 3-4 baking, filling, trimming, and stacking the cakes. I needed a few extra things on Friday afternoon but when I headed out to the car I discovered that Savannah had locked the keys in the car. Uh oh numero uno. So we had a neighbor come over and work on getting it open. Meanwhile Linda offers to drive me to the store to get what I need to finish up the cake. We get in and I look at the car and uh oh number 2...the girls just got out of school and I forgot to pick them up. So we zip out to Clinton to pick them up, albeit a little late. By this time it is 2:15 and the cake is due at 4:00. We get the stuff at the store and get home and working on the cake. Fortunately I have a fantastic mother-in-law who helped me get the cake stacked and put together. It looked awesome! The fondant was nice and smooth, the flowers turned out beautiful, the pearls looked nice. I was all set. Drew didn't get home from work until 4:30 so I decided I could handle the three minute drive down the street to the reception center on my own. Big mistake. About 100 yards down the street from my destination I watched in horror as the cake TIPPED OVER! Holy crap....I just ruined someone's wedding day. I felt absolute panic. I pulled over and reached back to prop up the cake with my hands. It would not straighten out. The whole bottom tier had collapsed on one side and smashed in. I had to hold it, all the while my hands smashing into the fondant and ruining it all the more. I was so stupid. Why did I drive the dumb thing stacked? And why did I think it was supported well enough internally when it clearly was not? I frantically called Drew in tears and fortunately he was in Layton and came within a couple of minutes. He helped me lift the top two tiers off the center dowel and I held it in my hands while he drove us to the reception center. I just felt so sick to my stomach and absolutely embarrassed. I honestly did not want to even get out of the car and show my face. It was awful. Luckily my client was amazing and understanding and so nice about everything. The reception center had some tools for me to use and Drew ran to Sam's Club to buy new cakes and my in-laws rushed over my left over fondant and ribbon. So in an hour and a half we were able to throw together another cake. It turned out okay in the end, but it still wasn't the cake she asked for and it wasn't the cake I had spent well over 20 hours working on. I don't think I'll be doing wedding cakes any more.
Here's the original cake before uh oh number three:
And here's what she ended up with. Fortunately the flowers were all intact.
But this is what was waiting for me when I got home....
