Skateboard Cake

Brady's 10th birthday cake was designed to match his birthday invitations and party decorations.

The cake is a chocolate cake, filled and iced with homemade buttercream. The decorations on this cake are made of homemade buttercream and homemade fondant.

Sleepless Nights

As I am getting ready to get up for work, Tony and I have been watching Braysen on the video monitor. We are cracking up, because, for the last hour, he has been practicing his new sitting-up skills. We already tried putting him back to sleep, and he just wasn't going for it!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Sittin' pretty...

or handsomely you'd say, because he's a boy!

When I went to pick Braysen up at my mom's yesterday, she told me that when she went in to get him from his nap, he was sitting up in the Pack n' Play. I thought she was nuts and was just exaggerating.

As it turns out, she wasn't lying! I set Braysen on his blanket today so I could unload a few Target bags from my car. When I came back in the house, THIS is how I found him! What the heck!? I tried to take some quick pictures, because he's not REALLY sturdy yet, and it makes me nervous because I'm afraid he'll tip over.

And yes, he was tipping over in this last picture. And yes, I did catch him before he hit the ground!

Racetrack Cake

Chocolate cake with homemade buttercream filling. Cake is iced with homemade buttercream and decorated with homemade butterceam and fondant.

The new J-O-B

I was going to wait until I finished all my employment paperwork and everything was official before I made this announcement, so as not to jinx it, but my mom already announced it on her facebook page, so I guess the cat's out of the bag.

I got a job! A HUGE thanks goes out to my dear friend Courtnie who contacted me to let me know that her school was hiring.

I'll be teaching 7th and 8th graders... I know, sounds scary, right? But Court assures me that these kids are really well-behaved and are nothing like the majority of students in public education. I'll be at a charter school, and one really nice thing about this job is that I will only be planning for and teaching two subjects. And at a charter school, I have a lot more freedom to teach material as I see fit than I have had in the past five years. I will be in the classroom 3 days a week and will work from home the other 2 days as the students are home-schooled twice a week.

I'm am VERY sad that my job as a SAHM is over. I'm really not happy about having to leave Braysen to go to work. But the other side of the coin is that I won't be as concerned about money. Don't get me wrong, we could have probably made things work with just Tony's income, but things would have been REALLY tight. We've done that before when we lived in Beaumont, and believe me, it wasn't fun. So as much as I want to be home, this is probably what's best.

Tony's 30th Birthday Party

I have SO MANY pictures from Tony's Birthday Party. Here are just a few. The rest are on facebook.

5 Months Old!

This should have been done yesterday, but there was so much to do that I ran out of time!

And as you can see from most of the pictures I got, he was not much more cooperative than he was at our 4 month shoot! Arching his back, rolling over, you name it, he did it!

Look Whoo's Turning 1 Cake

1st Birthday Cake and Smash cake. White cake with strawberry filling. Decorations on the birthday cake are homemade buttercream and homemade fondant. Decorations on smash cake are all homemade buttercream.

The cake was made to match the party invitations and decor.

  

I'm pretty sure she liked it!

Tony's 30th Birthday Cupcakes

For Tony's birthday I did cupcakes instead of a cake. For a full (and lengthy) explanation of why this happened, you can click here to see it on my other blog. Tony's loooves snickerdoodles, so I made...

Snickerdoodle cupcakes with homemade cinnamon buttercream icing.

Decorations made out of tinted white chocolate

Smooth-iced. Some with and without sprinkles.

Swirl-iced. Some with and without sprinkles.

No Longer Drowning in Cake - Now Drowning in Cake Sorrows

I'm typing this post from my Blackberry because I cannot sleep thinking about what happened today. I'll post it tomorrow morning. Tony's birthday cake didn't turn out quite like I wanted it to. And just as if it were a cake that I made for somebody else, I couldn't possibly use it if I wasn't completely happy with it. The only difference is that with any other cake I would have either fixed it or started back from square one and worked until the cake was something I was proud of.


Unfortunately that was not an option yesterday. After Braysen ate breakfast, we headed over to my parents' to work on the cakes. I decided to decorate and assemble them there because I was a little afraid to transport a 3-tiered cake in my car! That was mistake number one. I had so many cakes with me, but the layers couldn't be stacked on top of eachother yet because all the weight would end up smashing the bottom layers. So all the cake layers had to find a place in my car where they could lay flat. Plus I had all iof my cake decorating supplies. My car was FULL. And it took forever to load and unload all of this cargo.

I started off by working on the first birthday cake and smash cake for Rebecca's little girl. I wanted to make sure I got those done before I even STARTED Tony's cake. As I got farther and farther along with his cake, I realized how unhappy I was with the way it was looking and how different it was turning out from the way I'd planned.

Like I said, in a normal situation, I would have redone the cake. But this time, I still had to redecorate the 1st birthday smash cake (Which had already been accidentally smashed. Once by me and then later on by my brother). I also needed the majority of Saturday morning to set up for the party, so that really left me no more time to work on Tony's cake.

So as upset that I was that things didn't go as I'd planned, I had to make a decision. I could either just finish up and use what I had for Tony's cake or I could go out in the morning and get a store-bought cake (GASP, I know!). I ended up making 100 cupcakes instead. Sure, they took some time, but not nearly as much time as redoing the cake would have taken. So I will spend tomorrow morning icing the cupcakes and then I'll be done

Cuddlebug...

caught in the act!

Drowning in Cake

I'm really excited for a super-secret meeting I had this morning! I can't wait to share the good news, but I can't yet because it isn't official yet. Thank you so much to Courtnie for all the information on what I would need.

After I got home, I got started baking all the cakes I need for this week. I need a total of 13 layers for all the cakes I'm making! Yes, I said 13! I'm making 3 separate cakes, and one of those cakes will hopefully be a 3-tiered masterpiece. Well see how that goes! I've been super busy all day running errands and then super busy in the kitchen. Hopefully I can get everything done today because I have a ton more to do tomorrow. So I've finished 11 cake layers, 2 more to go!

Burrito Boy

When we first brought him home from the hospital, I called Braysen my Little Burrito Boy, because that's what he reminded me of when he was all swaddled up. Well Friday morning he lived up to his name. After he gets up, I always lay him on the floor in the living room so he can roll around while I'm getting his breakfast ready. He loves to work his way to the edge of the blanket and put it in his mouth. He rolled to the edge of the blanket, grabbed onto it and stuck it in his mouth, then proceeded to roll a couple times the other way until he was rolled up in the blanket.

You think he would be scared because he couldn't find his way out. Nope, he was giggling under the blanket.

During his morning nap, I checked on him, and found that he had pulled the top of his bumper pad down and had an arm and a leg over the top of it and was cuddling with it. By the time I got back to his room to take a picture, he had already woken up. He probably heard me cracking up as I raced down the hallway to get the camera.

Insert Foot in Mouth

Yep, he loves those feet!

JPD in Riverside - Farewell

I have a lot to blog about because I've been MIA for a while. I've been really busy tying up all the loose ends for Tony's party, so my poor blog has been neglected. It's easier for me to organize my ideas if I put each day in a separate blog.

So it's official. The Riverside JPD studio is now closed. They have a studio in Temecula and just opened one in Corona. I danced at JPD growing up and can't even count the number of hours spent at this studio and the number of memories I have at it. On July 26th, Terry and Mandy opened up the studio so all the JPD alum could go and take class on one of the last nights the studio would be open. I went so that I could see all the girls I grew up with, but I didn't dance, even though most of them did. :) I should have, but I don't think I can make my behind do most of those things anymore! And besides, Terry asks these dancers to do a lot more than we were ever required to do! These kids are in shape!

Braysen and me with Miss Terry and Michelle

Me and Michelle

Me and Mandy with our babies

Jessica and me with our babies

Braysen was a little startled when the music first started, but then he was excited and had his arms going almost the entire time!

Streeeetch those legs! I was amazed with how flexible some of the oldies still are!

Rebecca and me with our babies. I love that she showed up wearing one of our old dance recital Tshirts!

Tara, Becca, Isabella, Me, & Braysen

So weird to be sitting on this floor again.

Yet Another Practice Cake!

Tony decided that he wants his birthday cake to be square-shaped. I've decorated square-shaped cakes withe buttercream before, but never with fondant. I needed to do a practice cake, because I don't like my first time trying to do something to be on an actual event cake rather than a practice cake. I have heard that square cakes are more difficult to cover in fondant than round cakes are, so I wanted to make sure I could do it before I told him yes! Here is the practice cake:

I didn't decorate it because it was only a practice cake.