Cake Review 2010

Alright folks! Here is the 2010 cake review. For those of you who are not familiar with my obsessive yet wacky personality: I stay up late the night before a birthday to make themed birthday cakes for my kids or other good causes. They wake up in the morning to a cake a fondant creation. It is far from professional, but it's something fun that comes from just me.

James's birthday is today (six years old!!) He wanted an Atlantis Lego birthday party. Aside from the disproportionate props, it turned out pleasing enough for James. Everything is edible except the legos (which I refuse to make out of food since Lego already makes what I need - thank you Mark for putting them together) and two pokemon cards that I covered with fondant for the treasure chest lid (which are now in the garbage, don't tell D.J.)

I made this bakugan cake as an incentive for a client. I don't think he expected anything like this. Everything is edible except for the toothpick holding the rice krispie head onto the cake body.

Mark doesn't really like cake (neither do I) for birthdays. But he asked me to make an Eiffel Tower cake for him anyway. Like I said, I'm not professional and am not very good with welding, so I made a paper Eiffel Tower to put on top of apple crisp.

Spencer is into football. He had a football party, so I thought the U of U football field would be appropriate. I think the real football field might hold a cake football better than a sheet cake, as it was sinking slowly. All is edible except the straw goal posts and the straws holding up the scoreboard.

D.J. wanted a Lego Harry Potter birthday party this year. He challenged me by asking for a scene with dementors, where Harry helps himself out with a patronus (a stag, which I made by making hard candy). Thanks to my Mom and Mark for making trees out of tootsie rolls and hard candy leaves. Thanks to my Dad for very carefully placing the graham cracker sand along the shores. Thanks to all who helped figure out how to make dementors stiff. They are made of cheesecloth dipped in sugar water, which didn't have enough sugar water. We tried spray starch, which just made them soggy. So we ended up hot gluing them, sticking them on skewers and hoping for the best in the morning.

Our elementary school had a cake auction. Since Diary of a Wimpy Kid was so popular, I thought it would be fun cake to make - and relatively easy.

Mini cakes for the cake auction.

Whew! For those who wanted to look at other cakes I've done, here are links to two other cake reviews:

I Think Mark is a Great Photographer, Among Other Things

Alright this one I took, but it just shows that his artistic talent goes beyond photography and reaches in pumpkin carving. (Go Utes!) I should probably note that we will not be starting up a photography business, as that seems to be a new trend these days. We'll just stick to hobbies that make no money but bring great pleasure. I know, shame on me for not being entrepreneurial.

Rocky Mountain National Park

In the hills of Centerville

Cool mushroom at Rocky Mountain National Park (hereafter RMNP)

Cool kid at RMNP

We went on a hike that included seven or so beautiful lakes, this one had lilly pads!

These last two pics are from Fish Lake National Park (I think) where we climbed through mud and rain, but had much fun!

Merry Halloween!

So, I'm a little behind. Whatever. The kids had a great time with their halloween costumes. James went to a theater yard sale with me (poor kid still has to go nearly every where with me), and there was a clown suit, just his size. So he decided he could shelf the Iron Man idea until next year. He makes a pretty cute clown!

One of our favorite movies for the year was Despicable Me (thanks Uncle Jesse!) As we were running through the costume ideas, after about 20 "no's" to my ideas, we finally struck gold (hee, hee) when I mentioned the minions from the movie. I looked online at premade costumes, but I just can't spend that much for two hours on one night. So we made our own. Perhaps my boys will look back and think their mother was just a cheapskate, but they didn't seem to mind in the moment! We discovered that many people had not seen the movie, so they didn't quite get it. Some people guessed that they were Spongebob Squarepants (oh, the horror), or Bob the Builder. We had fun with it anyway! D.J. is the top picture, Spencer is the bottom.

D.J. Turns 8!!

D.J. turned eight-years-old this year! He has been reading the Harry Potter books, so he decided to have a Harry Potter birthday party complete with quidditch match, potions class and wand making! We had a great time! Three weeks later, D.J. was baptized with lots of friends and family around!

Great Grandma Wheeler, Aunt Kaye and Uncle Riley and all of the Wheeler cousins were there! Many of the Davis families were there and many of D.J.'s friends! What a lucky kid! He is so loved!

Our family was so excited for D.J., especially because he seemed so ready and understanding of the choice he made for baptism.

Mark baptized and confirmed D.J. a member of the church. D.J. said he liked his baptism day because, "I was lucky enough to have most of the people I know come to my baptism."

My Baby is in School!

This is the year. The year when all of my children are in school. Many people say that half day kindergarten doesn't count. But believe me, I'm making those 2 1/2 hours count! I still enjoy having James home for half of the day. It's nice to have a buddy for some of the day, though I think he might be getting bored of me!

JAMES!!!

D.J.!!!!

SPENCER!!!!!

All three of my boys with their back packs, ready to go. Every year we have a neighborhood breakfast on the first day of school. James was so happy to be one of the school kids this year! I didn't think I would cry when I walked him into his classroom, but I gotta say, I got a little choked up with the realization that I'm starting another new phase of life. . . . HOMEWORK times THREE!!!

99 Loof-bloof-faloof

That's all I remember from the 99 Red Balloons song in German (or something). I thought of that song when Mark and I got to go on a hot air balloon ride this summer while at an attorney retreat. We spent the weekend in Park City (thank you Grandma Wheeler! x2) There were many activities we could choose from, but when Hot Air Ballooning is one of the choices - that's a no-brainer! We started early in the morning and were assigned basket groups. Our basket could hold eight, but there were some that would hold 12!

The balloon pilot began filling the balloon with air using a large fan, then when it seemed full enough with regular air, he began filling it with hot air. Our ballon had a smiley face!

Mark had to hold up the material, so air could get in and the ropes wouldn't get burned. Mark did a great job because our ropes didn't snap when we lifted off!

Our balloon pilot said that this is a "ballonar elipse"!

Proof that we were high in the air! See that tiny lake in the distance?

After an hour of a very peaceful flight, we landed safely in a field by the freeway. The balloon technicians essentially rolled up the balloon like a giant sleeping bag! What a great experience! Park City from up high was just beautiful, with views of mountains and lakes. I can check this off my bucket list!

2 1/2 Month Blog Vacation and Wacky Ads

I just got an email from a friend who asked me if I thought things are getting ramped up in life. The answer is: YES!!!!! It's not like I signed up for a million things this summer, we were just busy having fun and making sure the boredom stayed away, particularly in August. We really did have a great summer and I will post pictures about them. But this post is going to be about two ads. I'm raring to go after 2 1/2 months:

There is a billboard on the way from Davis County to Salt Lake. It is a black and white picture of Jennifer Aniston. She is somewhat covered in a bedsheet and holding something up in her hand. What do you think that product is? Perfume? Fabric Softner? Cotton? Air freshner? Wrong. THE AD IS FOR "SMART WATER"!!!

To make the ad even more unbelievable, the ad says "My Secret Revealed." Does this strike anyone else as a little off-the-mark? What this says to me is: Jennifer Anniston drinks Smart Water, which makes her so smart she advertises bottled water in something that must make total sense to her: sheets. I'm thinking the ad executive needs to dip into some of that Smart Water. Which, by the way, makes you no smarter than regular water. In fact, buying the stuff actually makes a good case for a low I.Q. because if you think that fortified water will make you smarter you may as well lay around in sheets all day.

Here's another great ad that comes to my mailbox every three months or so. It says:

"Life is too short to clean your own house." It is an ad for a maid service. So, does this mean that for the maids advertised, life is long? If so, should I look into maid service as my own employment? Forget finding the fountain of youth, I'll just clean other people's houses and I'll live long. So, why can't I clean my own house and live long? Maybe it's because I know the people that belong to the socks I pick up every day and with each sock a gray hair emerges because I know I've told them a gazillion time to pick them up, but I end up doing it!!! Then I wonder how I'm going to pay for the things that are more fun than cleaning my house when I'm paying for a maid to clean it. I suppose the maid service is banking on the chance that the person who cleans house picks up the flier and exclaims, "you know, you're right! life is too short to clean my house! I've wasted my life away! Well, that's going to change here and now." Then six months down the road after paying the maid bills and deciding it wasn't worth it, this person still thinks life is too short to clean the house and then we get reality shows about hoarders.

I'll actually posts interesting pictures next time.