D-d-d-dora!!

I made this Dora cake for one of my friend's little girl's 3rd birthday! She left the design pretty open to me and this is what I came up with. Dora is actually a candle, but the rest of the decorations are made of fondant. The cake was made from the Darn Good Chocolate Cake recipe and was filled with chocolate buttercream! Yumm!

This cake was actually a lesson learned! I knew that eventually some catastophe would happen, but I was hoping it would be far off and minor... of course that would never happen. When I took the bottom tier layers out of the oven, I just barely burned my hand, but I ended up dropping the cake. :( I dropped it right on the oven top and it broke in half. Luckily this happened before I got to decorating and I was able to whip another one up real quick. Lesson learned... two hands with real oven mitts.

Risky Business :)

I'm not a risk taker by any means. I like to know exactly what I'm in for and still err on the side of caution... just to be safe, ya know?

I'm kicking around some ideas in my head that make me nervous and excited all at the same time. I've had some interest in my cakes and cupcakes lately. I've even had an offer to give my goodies a shot in an established restaurant! The only problem is... I don't have a bakery. Food safety and certifications are a big deal. I can make all the goodies I want, but they have to have a visible tag on them that lets people know they were made in my home kitchen. A private kitchen that you can't come to and check out. I wouldn't buy food from a home kitchen! Lord only knows what goes on there! Do they have pets there? Is it dirty? What if I get sick? Who do I call?

In my crazed flurry of "what ifs" and "this will never works" I googled. I love google! Google found me a kitchen. A certified one. That I can rent! I can rent it by the hour or by the day or even by the month, if I was so incline. All I have to do is get some business cards, which my darling husband makes for a living, find out about insurance and pay for the rental. Ta-da! Certified and ready to roll!

I might actually give this a shot. It might just work... and then again, it might not, but what do I have to lose? It's not a huge investment and labor is free! I might be able to make something of this little hobby! It makes me nervous... really nervous, but I think it's about time I take a risk.

Demonstration Team

Cameron had his first performance on the demonstration team and he did excellent! The performance was held at the annual festival at the Transfiguration Catholic Church. We were under the impression that they would perform inside the gym, but when we arrived, they told us they were to perform inside a small tent with a plywood stage. Master Lee, being the master of improvising, quickly instructed the team how to change the performance to fit on the tiny stage. It turned out great and had I not known what the performance was going to be, I would've never known they hadn't practiced it before!

Cameron is on the far right breaking a board.

This is when you cringe a little bit and wonder what you've signed your child up for! Cameron is the last one on the right ducking. He is supposed to be slightly higher than the person next to him so the person jumping can see him.

Here is the jump and here is the man that decided now would be a great time to bend down in front of me. If you can get past the old man, you can see how amazing the jump was!

More of Cameron breaking.

And more breaking...

This is one of my favorite parts of the demonstration. I've seen this move several times now and it's a crowd pleaser everytime! It really looks like he's flying!! Very Matrix! :)

Pretty amazing!!

The newest members of the demo team. They're like the 3 Musketeers!

After the performance, the kids were all eager to hit the carnival!

Wedding Cupcakes!

These cupcakes were for my sister's childhood BFF's wedding (did you follow?). She is having an intimate wedding tomorrow and asked me if I could make some cupcakes for her based on her bouquet. She told me that her bouquet was filled with bright, colorful daisies and this is what we came up with! I think they turned out really cute and I really love the bright colors!

The chocolate ones were made from a recipe called Darn Good Chocolate Cake and let me tell you, it is darn good!! Joe has already put in his request for a birthday cake!

The white ones were classic white cake with buttercream frosting. Yumm!! There were more cupcakes, but the picture looks exactly the same so... you get the idea. :)

Pics from the week...

Cameron has been asked to be on the demonstration team at Tae Kwon Do! This is a really big honor, especially because of his age! Most of the members are teens or adults! I decided to be "that mom" who stuck around for practice to take pictures. Next time I'll drop him off and leave, but I REALLY wanted to get some pictures of him in his new red uniform! :)

I wanted to get a picture of him doing one of his flying side kicks, but I couldn't quite get the settings right on my camera. :( I'll have to mess around with it a little more to get it right. This would've been a really cool picture!

I love his stance in this picture. He stood like that the entire time the other team members were practicing their parts.

We took the boys to the park today since it wasn't raining! Yesterday's weather was awful and I think the boys were getting a little stir crazy!

My sweet little boy! :)

Cheeeese!

Cameron and his football. He's got quite on arm on him!

Black Belt!!

It's official!! Cameron is a black belt!!
Black belt testing was long and difficult. It's 2 hours of choreographed form, back-to-back sparring matches, multiple board breaks and a real show of strength and endurance! Cameron did excellent! I was so impressed with his determination and the respect he had for his opponents and Masters. We are so very proud of the amazing young man he's becoming!

Bo black belt form.

This was the first break of a 3 part break. I've never seen him break with his hands before and I was a little nervous when I saw what they were gearing up for. You can't see in the picture, but there are another 2 Masters behind them with more boards. He broke all the boards on the first attempt!


Here he is (in blue) getting ready to spar one of his best friends.

The belt ceremony!

Bowing to his Master

His congratulatory hug. :)

Cameron and his Master; Grandmaster Yong Jun Lee, 7th Dan Black Belt.

Joey's Birthday!

My baby is growing WAY too fast!! I can't believe his 2nd birthday has come and gone already! It seems like just yesterday we brought him home in his little infant carrier. Now he's running and jumping and starting to talk. He knows what he likes and what he thinks is funny. He has his own little funny personality. I guess my baby isn't really a baby anymore!

We had Joey's birthday at Millennium Park on Saturday and it turned out great. The weather was perfect; 68 and sunny! Joey had a blast playing on the playground, eating cake and opening all his gifts!

I didn't get a whole bunch of pictures, but I know there are a lot more coming from family!

He didn't want to open anymore presents after this truck! He just wanted to play with it!

Daddy helping Joey blow out the candles!

Poking his fingers in the cake!

Me and my sisters!

Here's a better picture of the cake. This was not the cake I intended to make. I had an idea for a cute little owl on a branch with little pinecones and trees, but Joey had other plans. I was looking through cakes on www.cakecentral.com to get some last minute ideas when I clicked open a picture of a Mickey Mouse cake. Joey started pointing and saying "yeah, yeah" and "mmmm", so I guess he made the decision. Mickey Mouse it was! I think it turned out really cute! Some unsuspecting person will be getting an owl cake this year!