More Cakes

I’ve been having fun with my newest little hobby. (See here for the original post.) Here are a few more I’ve done recently:

This one is a soccer themed birthday cake for our friend JR. I used marshmallow fondant for the hexagons and didn’t really realized I’d have to decrease their sizes as I got to the bottom, but the writing covered that up. So simple and so cute!

Next, I did this milk and cookies themed cakes for twin one year old girls. They’re chocolate butter cream with marshmallow fondant chips and carafes and of course individual smash cakes.

Here they are eating them!

This was a cake for Aunt Joci who came in near her birthday. We were blessed to host a fun 30th party for her, and yes – obviously we enjoyed some wine, too!

Since I already knew what I was doing with soccer cakes, I volunteered to do one for our team soccer party at the end of the season. I put all of the girls names on it along with the coach, and they all loved finding their name on it. It seemed to be a hit!

Here’s my latest creation. Sorry for the bad lighting. This was for a friend who recently went to South Africa and played with the lion cubs. Her mom requested I show that – quite a challenge! But, I had some fun learning with modeling chocolate and made a replica of my friend as well as a couple of playful lion cubs that came out cute, I think! The background is the South African flag, and I thought the outline of Africa was a fun touch as well.

Halloween 2010

Many of you have heard my costume saga with Ellie’s costume. I won’t retell it here, but the bottom line is that the original costume wasn’t meant to be. It turned out to be way cuter that they were matching anyway. A few photos:

Shout out to Ellie for the photography on this one.

Em wasn’t a big fan of her hat. They both did a great job of saying Trick or Treat and Thank You, though!

Silly Daddy

After we were done Trick or Treating, the girls loved passing out candy. They said they wanted their chairs to wait for more “customers”. LOL.

School Photo Day

Here are the girls on the morning of school photo day as well as the end results below. I couldn’t help but laugh at our stereotypical firstborn and ornery second born.

  

Random Fall Funness

Yes – I know funness isn’t a word, people. :) Here are a few random fun photos from this fall that don’t necessarily fall into a category. Enjoy!

These are the dresses we got all of us in Mexico on our cruise. Pretty cute, huh?

It’s true – Our ‘Boys have been failing us miserable this year. But, no one can accuse us of being fair weather fans! We’re fans through and through, so here we are in all of our jersey “funness”.

These are from a much later day of school, but the girls wanted to take photos again, so we did! They remembered showing off their cute backpacks from the first time and wanted to take photos from the back again, too. Ha!

 

The Girls Go to Colorado

As I’ve written previously, the girls spent 11 days in Colorado in August while James and I were on our cruise. They LOVED their time with Aunt Penni and Uncle Bill, and, amazingly, all 4 of them sound like they’d like to do it again soon. They went on hikes almost daily with Uncle Bill or both Bill and Pen. They played with sidewalk chalk and dressed up. There were a few stories of disobedience, but I suppose with 11 days that’s fair. We’re so glad they enjoyed it and even MORE glad that Aunt Pen and Uncle Bill loved it and want to do it again. Here are a few of the cute photos from that trip:

I could just eat her up in this one.

More Soccer Photos

Ellie’s first soccer season came to an end last weekend. Despite – let’s just be honest – not being the best player on the team, she LOVED playing and is already asking when she can play again. I think that’s in no small part to a very patient and fabulous coach as well as some great teammates. Here are some photos from the remainder of the season.

Is this what I’m supposed to do?

She may not have been the best soccer player, but she sure was cute!!

First Day of Preschool

Yes, I realize it was two months ago. Hopefully most of our faithful readers are used to me mostly going dark during my PwC busy season.

Here’s my attempt at catching up. Ellie started her second year of preschool at a nearby church this year. She LOVES school and is in a class with one of our sweet friends and has some great teachers. Because Emerson seemed to want so badly to go to school last year, we also decided to put her in a two day Kids Day Out program. She also was blessed with fabulous teachers and also loves school.

In Ellie’s class, the teachers have a chart in her folder that they send home every day. They put a star sticker in there if she has a good day, and they write a note if she has behavior that needs improvement. Ellie is a typical firstborn in many ways and is normally a happy-go-lucky agreeable social kid. Most days, she comes home with a star, and she’ll tell us with her super expressive face “I obeyed the WHOLE time!” She loves it when she gets her star, and conversely she tells us immediately if she made a “bad choice” and knows it’s not good if there’s a note in her folder.

And speaking of conversely, then there’s Emma. She’s our kid with attitude. She has no problem screaming or hitting at school to get her way. She’ll just tell us she had to go to time out like it was nothing and doesn’t even really express much remorse. We discipline her appropriately, and she does seem sad and remorseful then. However it’s often not too long before we’re getting another negative report from her teachers. They of course love her anyway, and it’s evidently indicative of many of the two year olds. It’s a good thing she’s cute, that one. We love her to pieces, but we’re probably trending towards the strong willed side when it comes to her. She makes us laugh as much or more often as she frustrates.

Here are some school photos of them.