Happy Birthday Jacob!

Do you ever look at your kid and think "holy moly when did he suddenly get so big I can't lift him into the grocery cart anymore and he also shouldn't really be in the grocery cart?" ... Well I did! Jacob turned 6 and he is definitely not "little" anymore. He has become a passionate, compassionate, awesome kid! I'm amazed.

Anyways... He came up with this super plan (it was all just in his head, he said) for his birthday cake. It would have a racetrack with actual toy race cars on it. And there would be people watching the race on some sort of 3 dimensional stands and the people would be M&Ms. It should also have his name and a 6 on it somewhere. I'm on it, I said.

Happy Birthday Baby!

Samuel is 1!! Wow, has this year flown by. It won't be long before my little is walking and talking now... He is just so joyful and such a fun little guy. We had an awesome meal to celebrate him. 

Awesome messy spaghetti. This is his favourite meal. 

And chocolate froggy cupcakes decorated by his big brothers. 

Okay, he is just way too adorable!!

I think he was completely surprised that we just handed him a whole entire cupcake! He held that thing tight and ate it all. 

Bonne Fête!

He's four now! We had a great day to celebrate Daniel with sunshine, friends, and cake.

Worms and dirt cake. Delicious and disgusting.

Wearing his new super hero cape. "It's a bird... It's a plane... It's SuperDaniel!"

Happy Birthday my amazing Daniel! Hope you had a wonderful day.

Teddy Bear Beach Party

So this is what happens when I let Jacob and Daniel pick a cake for me to make for my mom's birthday...

It was actually lots of fun and they did help bake and decorate the cake. 

Happy 5th Birthday Jacob!

Holy moly the boy is five! He was quite sure about what he wanted for his birthday. The only gift he wanted was Fruit Loops and he wanted a smartie cake (specifically with smarties inside the cake and a five on top made out of smarties).

So we had Fruit Loops for breakfast and then we were all cranky because we had a massive sugar high and the subsequent crash. This is why we don't have sugary cereal! But it was so worth it to see him this happy.

We waited to have cake until after his favourite supper (fajitas). My kids don't eat cake. They lick the icing off and that is it... Which works great for me because I don't like icing so I just eat their cake. Anyways, I decided to make the cake part a Rice Krispie cake with smarties mixed inside. Both boys thought it was delicious... Also way easier to do the whole cake the night before this way. 

We had so much fun celebrating him on his special day! 

Birthday Kake!

Ok... So I look a little crazy in this picture... Don't worry, my hair was just having issues... Severe issues. And yet I am sharing this picture anyways.

Jacob and Daniel put 11 candles on for me... I think it looks great!

It is a two layer devil's food cake with caramel icing in the middle and fudge frosting on top and KitKat bars around the outside. Trust me, it is as delicious as it sounds.

KITKATKAKE

Someone New in the Kitchen!

Welcome home Samuel!

Happy 3rd Birthday Daniel!

So my little guy is three... and he told me exactly what he wanted for his cake - James Cake. That would be James from Thomas the Train. Anyways, here it is:

I forgot to take a picture, but the inside of the cake was tye-dye blue.
Blue is his favourite colour.

Blow!! (Three blows, one for each candle, so cute!)

Birthday Shirt I made for him. Got totally stained today.

Dancing Daniel.

Live Long & Prosper

Happy birthday to my husband! Jacob wanted a party so we had some friends over and I made a cake that I thought was pretty cool. The day I made it though, I had some mega pregnancy brain... I ran out of icing sugar (to make the icing) so we walked to the store... They didn't have icing sugar but they had canned icing, that'll do. Anyways, locked myself and the children out of the house. No big deal, we only had to wait 40 minutes for Jeff to get home from work and it wasn't too cold and the oven wasn't on. Later on, Jeff found 3/4 cup of butter in the microwave... I don't know how but my devil's food cake turned out just fine with no butter in it at all!
So here is Jeff's 31st birthday cake:

All ICED and almost ready to serve...

Bet you didn't guess it was going to be a Star Trek cake! 

SURPRISE! 

Jacob is even wearing his "rocket ship" shirt.

Daniel put all the ships on his piece of cake.

An Update on Turning 30

I have been asked how our birthday challenge went. More or Less. As most challenges go we started out really strong. It was fun to get rid of one thing everyday. Sometimes it was just a lone kitchen utensil that had an unknown purpose, sometimes it was a pile of something being saved for some unplanned craft, sometimes it was the extras where we had multiples and multiples stacked it the cupboard. Anyways... We knew we were going to be away quite a bit over the summer so we had a few good PURGE DAYS. That way we wouldn't have to come back and say we were gone for 11 days now we have to find 11 things to get rid of. Our church had a garage sale so we donated a bunch of stuff to that. We now have a corner of our basement dedicated to next year's garage sale. By August our challenge petered out quite a bit. I still think however that it was successful. Have I missed anything I got rid of? Nope. But I still look around and see clutter.
And then I found this:

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. William Morris

Wow. That is so my goal for my house! I have said before that I want everything in my house to be something I love, and this kind of summed it up beautifully for me. This will be an ongoing struggle and challenge for me, but I know that someday I will succeed and be happy with the results.

In conclusion.... The birthday challenge was good but the lifestyle challenge continues!

Oreo Cake

If you come to my house on your birthday I will probably make you a cake. This is the cake I made my brother-in-law. This is also the best chocolate cake recipe ever. I should have used this cake for Jacob's birthday digger cake. So moist and delicious.

The original inspiration for the chocolate cake recipe come from Martha Stewart's Allergen Free Cupcakes, which are really good. My version makes two rounds. I think my pans are 8".

3cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 tsps baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup cooking oil (I use canola)
2 tbsps vinegar
2tsps vanilla
2 1/2 cups water

Preheat oven to 350.
Combine dry ingredients in one bowl and we ingredients in another, then combine.
Batter is very thin.
Divide into two pans and bake 25-30 minutes.

For the Oreo filling:
1 8oz pkg cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups cool whip.
Then add chocolate chips or crushed Oreos.

For the chocolatey top:
4 squares semi sweet bakers chocolate
1/4 cup butter
Melt in microwave.

Happy 4th!

So Jacob is four. Wow. Holy smokes. Crazy. I find this hard to believe, and yet here he is. My wonderful little boy. He is so excited to be four!

Here is my delicious looking iced cake:

This icing is so good! And way easier than buttercream.

1 pkg instant pudding (I obviously used chocolate)

1/2 the milk called for on the package of pudding

1 small container cool whip

Mix together for creamy deliciousness. 

Bonus recipe: throw leftover icing in the blender with milk to thin the consistency. Pour into popsicle molds for the best "fudgsicles" I have ever made.

Now, Jacob wanted a digger cake. So then I brought out the heavy machinery... CAKE DESTRUCTION! 

But look at that cute face! He loved it and had a great birthday.

Happy Birthday To Me!

Yeah I am 30! Birthdays are fun. I made my own cake this year because I really wanted to try out a new recipe on myself. I found a recipe for white cake that called for frozen lemonade concentrate. So I wondered... what about frozen PINK lemonade concentrate?
So I made myself a pink cake. It was delicious. The icing was amazing.

RECIPE:

Take your favourite white cake recipe and add 3tbsps lemonade concentrate. I just used a Betty Crocker recipe. I also added 3 drops of red food coloring just to make my cake more pink. Bake normally.

For the icing you will need

1 tbsp butter softened

2 tbsp lemonade concentrate

1/2 tsp vanilla

4 oz (half block) cream cheese

1 3/4 cup icing sugar

Happy Birthday Daniel!

Nothing says you're two like a watermelon shark. Oh yeah. He loved it!

Celebrate!

Happy Birthday Husband!!

(yes, that is birthday bread)

Birthday Pictures... As Promised!

So for at least a month leading up to Jacob's birthday he was asking for licorice. Specifically black licorice and he wanted to share it with Mommy, Daddy, and Daniel. So what does this Mama do? Why throw a licorice party, of course! With 12 people to sing to him and to share his licorice he had a great time. Also, I HATE black licorice so I picked up four different kinds of licorice for him, including black.

NIBS to decorate the cake...
the top half was white cake and the bottom half was chocolate.

Jacob clapping after we sang "Happy Birthday"

Daddy helping blow out the candles.

Black Licorice PLEASE!

Black, Rainbow, & Red.... the rainbow were gross but the kids liked them.

Happy Third Birthday Bean!

And... Daniel eating cake. He also likes black licorice.