Four Wedding Cakes and an Almost Funeral

Holy cow!  Things have been insanely busy around here, or at least it feels that way to me!  I somehow signed myself up to do four wedding cakes on the same day the first part of this month.  Actually, it was three wedding cakes and one groom's cake, but who's counting right?  I didn't even get pictures of the first two, so you'll have to just envision something lovely.  The other two are here:

 All I can say is thank goodness for lace, ribbon and flowers.  They totally saved this cake!

The groom's cake was a surprise and I am assuming a combination of a few of his favorite things.  The Delorian from Back to the Future, Super Mario and wake boarding

 Delivery of these cakes almost killed me (hence the title of this post).  Things started to melt and shift, and the groom's cake actually lifted off the board and sunk in on one side because the dowel slipped.  It took some adjusting, but we got it back up to an acceptable state.

I've also had quite a number of birthday cake orders in the past few weeks.  Feast your eyes on these:

 Monster High topsy turvy

 An "under the sea" themed cake for three sisters.  Yes folks, it's another triangle cake!

Side 2

 and Side 3

The Hunger Games.  This was another solo cake by Drew who just happens to be the perfect husband.  He knew I was pretty "caked out" by the time this one rolled around, so he took over and let me go shopping in Park City with my BFF.  I love this man!  And check out that mocking jay!  Can you believe all that detail?  It's made of gumpaste.

 An ombre tutu complete with crown for a sweet little 3-year-old

 A football cake for my nephew who...well... lives, breathes and eats football!!

A pirate cake.  Argh!  This one turned out pretty awesome and has made it to my list of faves.

Sparkly butterflies and rainbows

And then there was an order for a 4-tier cake in honor of the 4H Club of Ogden's centennial celebration at the Weber County Fair.  This one was straight buttercream, which is both good and bad.  It takes a little less time because you don't have to make, tint, and cover the cake with fondant, but the trick is trying to get the buttercream as smooth as possible.  This also means the cake tiers themselves have be pretty straight and level.  They were really happy with how it turned out and couldn't say enough nice things.

And last but not least is one last birthday cake for my sweet Abbie.  She turned 8, if you can be believe that!  So we're also gearing up for her baptism this coming weekend.  I'll be sure to post pictures of that too. 

 Drew did all the scenery on the bottom tier and also made the incredible tree out of modeling chocolate.  We kind of cheated on this one and bought the little figurines from the Disney store.  Sometimes you gotta take a little help where you can get it! ; )

 

We did find time to put together a puzzle we brought back from Disneyland.  And we also made a trip to the Treehouse Museum in Ogden.

 

To cap things off, I'll leave you with another little snippet of what I've been up to.

What I've been reading:  Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore and End of Summer by Rosamunde Pilcher

What I've been eating:  Honey and vanilla Greek yogurt

What I've been watching:  The Forsyte Saga and Parenthood

And now I'm off to bottle some pickles.  I can almost hear the collect "hooray!" from the Maxfield's.

Crazy Summer

Summer has kept us all rather busy around here, and there hasn't been time to catch up on the ol' blog!  We've had a couple of birthdays and a few outings to share.

Savannah turned the big 4 in May.  She was very excited about a birthday and has been asking since when the nest one is going to come around.  I went with the theme of pinwheels and polka dots for her party.

 Abbie had a Wild Animal Fair at school and was assigned the chameleon.  Drew spent many nights working on this paper mache masterpiece!  Of course Abbie chipped in here and there too.  She added some strips of newspaper here and there and then did all of the painting herself.  The best part?  It's also a pinata!  Oh yeah...this baby is up to its eyeballs in candy!

 Carly also had a crafty project of her own to wrap up the school year.  They made up plays to present to the other 3rd grade classes and had to make a hand puppet.  Isn't that a cute little fish?

 Drew had a birthday too, but I made him a key lime pie instead of a cake.  We also went to eat at Spaghetti Factory that night.  Yummy!  I heart mizithra cheese and brown butter!

 We went to the zoo a couple of times.  The first time was within a week of the new exhibits opening and it was way too crowded.  We got to go with Drew during the evening a few weeks later and it was glorious!  The new animal exhibits are amazing. 

 The highlight of this trip, however, turned out to be the tigers.  They were right up next to the glass playing in the water.  They were fascinating to watch so close-up. 

 Here's the tiger going after the ball.  Check out those claws!  Yikes!

 The 4th of July included a trip for the girls to the West Point Parade and a trip for Drew to golf with his dad.  We also had a BBQ with the Maxfield family complete with homemade ice cream and make-me-crazy-nervous home display of fireworks. 

 I've also make a few cakes in the past few weeks and there are 7 more on the docket in the coming three weeks.  It should keep me busy!

Enjoy your summer!!

Picture Extravaganza!

Um...I'm afraid there's been a lot happen between now and the last post, or at least a lot of pictures taken!  I'm thinking the majority of this post will therefore be photorrific and I'll just add a few comments and details here and there.

Firstly, our little Brookie turned 1 on April 29th!  Doesn't it seem like I was just posting her newborn pictures?  Time certainly flies!  So here's our sweet baby girl:

Savannah also graduated from her 3-year-old preschool class.  Miss Cambria was the best teacher ever!!!

And then we had a retirement party for my dad up at Bear Lake.  Super fun!

Last but not least, we spent last week in Disneyland with Drew's family.  Truly the Happiest Place on Earth!