Easily Entertained

So I'd forgotten how much babies love Kleenex boxes! They can be entertained by them for quite awhile. And sometimes it's just best to let them take every single tissue out of the box because they're so cute when they're so engrossed. Here is Grant's recent Kleenex adventure (guest starring an excited Andrew):

An Idea...

I had an idea recently, and I wanted to run it by all ya'll (see, ya'll is just to one person, and I think I have more than one loyal reader...I hope...). Anyway, as you all know, I quite enjoy baking (and cooking, to a lesser degree) and so I'd toyed around with the idea of starting a baking blog or something. But then I thought c'mon, really...who would read it? There are SO many baking blogs out there, what would mine add? But, I thought it would be fun to do a food blog with anyone else that might be interested. What it would really be is a forum for us to share recipes, ideas, techinques, etc. with each other. That way, I wouldn't be making a fool of myself trying to start my own food blog. So, any takers? I'll try not to be too terribly offended if no one wants to....might go cry myself to sleep though. :)

Proper Motivation

Well, for better or for worse, it's official: Grant is crawling! Apparently all he needed was some proper motivation, because I think he's been capable of it for awhile. Stubborn child! Anyway, as you will see in the video clip, Grant is willing to crawl in order to get his hands on a bag of Crunch Eggs (must be my kid!). I told him that if he could crawl to them, I would let him have a little piece. Yep, I gave my ten month old chocolate. So? :)

Anyway, it's neat to see how different each child is. I know you always hear that a lot, but to observe it is really interesting. Andrew was crawling on all fours at six months, and when he was Grant's age he had been walking for a month. And Grant has just not been interested in any of that. I'm really curious to see how Grant's personality continues to develop.

And now our feature presentation....

Fat Tuesday! And other recent baking adventures...

So in honor of Mardi Gras, John's office had a little lunch party. He signed up to bring dessert (of course :) and I had a hard time deciding what to make. I didn't really feel like doing a King Cake of a pecan pie, so we started tossing around the idea of a regular cake decorated Mardi Gras style. We discussed some design ideas and looked up some pictures online, and well, one thing led to another and here's what we ended up with:





I guess I got a little carried away...it's a monstrously large cake and there are 13 people in John's office. Heh. I had SO much making it though. It's my first tiered cake (and only my second attempt at fondant) so all things considered, I'm relatively happy with how it turned out. I could have easily spent another hour working on it, but John had to have it to work by 1:30, so unfortunately, some of the other decorations I wanted to do (such as a few bead necklaces made of fondant and some additional purple stars) didn't happen. I also seriously rushed through the top layer, which you can definitely tell. The cake itself was having issues, so the frosting and the fondant didn't adhere as well. So yeah, don't look too closely...there are some serious issues. The bottom layer (two 10" cakes) is a homemade funfetti cake (using my new favorite yellow cake recipe) and the top layer is a divine chocolate fudge cake. Yum yum yum. I'm happy to say that I've finally found a decent vanilla buttercream recipe, one that uses just butter (no icky shortening) and still manages to have the right consistency for layer cakes. And the fondant is a marshmallow fondant, so the taste is actually decent. I mean, fondant is still fondant, but it's the best I've tasted. John--who hates frosting--actually likes the fondant.

As I mentioned, I recently made my first fondant cake. I made a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting for my boys, and I was rather happy with how my first attempt turned out.

It's obviously very amateur, but I'm working on it.

And since I was sorting through my Food folder, here are some more semi-recent pictures:

V-Day truffles that John took to his co-workers.

A couple of weeks ago for FHE Andrew wanted to make "pink cake." I was craving a nice yellow cake, so we compromised by using pink sprinkles. :) Andrew loves to help bake.


Ok, so this is really late, but here are my Christmas cookies. I made plates for friends and ended up making over 180 cookies. We had sugar cookies, iced pumpkin cookies, cranberry orange cookies, raspberry thumbprint cookies, Rolo cookies, and chocolate biscotti (which were not deemed worthy to be included in my cookie plates).



And last but not least, the cute tartlettes I made for my parents last time they were here. I of course didn't eat any, but I snuck some of the Bavarian cream that was left over--yum!

So I just saw this on Robyn's blog...such a cute idea! Remember, it is only the first 5 people to respond and you HAVE to post it on your blog. If you don't put it on your blog then you don't count!

So I just saw this on Robyn's blog...such a cute idea! Remember, it is only the first 5 people to respond and you HAVE to post it on your blog. If you don't put it on your blog then you don't count!

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice, my gift...To you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!

2. What I create will be just for you.

3. It'll be done this year (might take a while).

4. You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry or an article. I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? (Not you, that's for sure!)

5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FABULOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it! Good luck!

It's that time of year...

It's Crunch Egg time, and not a moment too soon! My outlook on life is slightly improved.

Bovine Update

When we last left you, we hoped that Grant's presence would scare away the cow. However, yesterday Andrew and I were in his room when he grabbed his stick horse and started swinging it through the air by his window. The conversation that followed was priceless:

Kara: "What are you doing?"
Andrew: "I'm smacking the cow!"
Kara: "Why?"
Andrew: "Because the cow mooed at my feelings! And it made me feel sad."

So apparently the cow has moved on from scaring to offending. Poor Drewbie.