it's official...

i graduated from the level one cake decorating class. 

i have to say that i do not feel like i really got what i wanted out of it. i know i posted before that the lady teaching the class was very nice, but not the best teacher. i don't feel as confident as i would like, and I still feel as though i will just have to figure a lot of it out on my own. 

that being said, here was my final cake. 

i decided to do a chocolate fudge with banana cream filling. butter cream icing of course. it turned out ok. there is a lot i would like to still try. however, with three birthdays in October and my  new found cake decorating hobby, don't be surprised, if you my local friends get a mysterious cake on your door. Please take it. I really can not have cake in my house anymore. I don't even want to eat it at this point.

oh, i do have pictures of the other cakes that my friends did. however, at the moment i can not find the cord i need to get them off my camera. so when i find it, will post them as well!

i start the level 2 class this Thursday, but with a different instructor. i am hoping to learn a lot more. 

i have really enjoyed taking these classes and just doing something fun one night a week.

Cupcakes!

Week three of cake decorating class. There are only 4 weeks. I have to admit that the teacher is not my favorite. She is a very nice lady but she is not the best at teaching the class.  I don't know.  She is very nice but maybe our teaching and learning styles just don't mesh.

Of course I have everyone take pictures of their cupcakes at the end of the classes.

Here is Jenny's

 Jillian's Cupcakes.

 She took an extra one with her cupcakes, just in case I forgot. She is so funny!

 Becca's beautiful treats!

 Here are mine. Don't say anything about my stupid stringy mum cupcakes. I hate them. They are my least favorite and I really don't ever plan on decorating anything with them. 

(Can you tell it's late and I am feeling a wee bit like a 5 year old cranky child) LOL

 Last but not least, Trisha's. 

And the best part is, they made it home. Last week her cake hit the floor as she was leaving class. 

Next week we have to decorate a cake. Pictures to come!!

cake anyone?

I decided a while back that I wanted to take a cake decorating class. Just something fun to do where I could get out of the house for just one night a week.

  A couple of friends decided to take the class as well. 

from left to right

trisha, jillian, becca, and beccas friend. i can not remember her name. 

we decorated our frist cake this week. i made everyone take pictures of their finished products. 

 this was trisha's. sadly it hit the floor as she was leaving class. it really was sad even though we were all laughing!

 Jillian's pumpkin.

 Becca's corn cake!

 Becca's friends butterfly.

Here is mine. I need to work on my coloring of frosting but the design is not to bad for my first attempt!

I am sure there will be more pictures of cakes to come!

old projects

ok. so this chair was my moms when she was little. then it was passed down to me. now, when B gets older it will be hers. however it needed a little work. so garran has decided it will be a little extra thing he will work on. he took it into the studio and ran it through the sand blaster to take off any extra stuff and this is what it looked like.

 then he did the first coat of paint. however there were some drips and small imperfections and so he sanded parts of the chair down again and is going to do another layer of paint.

after this we have plans to do some painting on it and adding of all of our initials. i am excited to see it when it is all done. i will post pictures later of the finished project. right now it is still waiting on the second coat of paint!

the project

so we have started a summer project. i found this table two summers ago at a garage sale and it was in awesome condition. then i made a mistake and cleaned it with something that took the finish off. argg. so we have been dealing with the spotted up ugliness until we had a place that we could work on it. well we do know. I am so excited. here is the table before we started. I know it looks horrible.

here is the table from a distance. it doesn't look as bad when you are far away but still. it really needed some help.

 here is garran hard at work. he had already sanded down the legs. now to work on the really bad part!

 everyone got in on the help. the boys really enjoyed trying the sander out.

of course we took a Popsicle break - it was pretty warm yesterday!!

briea was really excited...can you tell?

here is the table after round one of sanding!! i think it already looks so much better. we are going to do another round of sanding today. then we just have decided how we want to stain it. it was originally light but all of our furniture is darker. i am not sure what we will decide but picture will come soon.

Relay for Life!

(Oliver Palmer, Halloween, 2009)
Garran and I have been invited to participate in Relay for Life with the Palmer Family. They are having some friends and family participate this year due to Oliver's condition. We have been asked to participate with the family, so I am looking for help. If you would be interested in sponsoring me in this event, please click on the link below! We are very excited to do anything we can to help this great family and this sweet boy.
Relay for Life

something i love!

if you know me, you know i LOVE organization!! you might now always be able to tell, but i do. i love organization!! one of the things i love to be organized about meals. here is a link that has some super cute meal planners. why not be organized and cute all at the same time!!

you can click HERE to check them out.

this is the one i love!!

feeling crafty.

the other day i was at hobby lobby and saw the cutest little thing for Christmas. it was a nativity finger puppet set for kids to play with. the pieces came pre-cut and then i sewed them together. i think they turned out pretty cute. here are the three wise men.baby Jesus..sorry he is a little blurry.a sheep and an angel.
i still have to do marry and joesph, but the kids already love them. they keep asking if we can play with them now. i let them try some on so that i could model them for pictures.
see. aren't kaels fingers festive.ok so these are garrans hands. they don't really fit him all that well. we could just squeeze them on the top.i think they have turned out pretty good so far. i am excited to use them when we read Luke 2 with the kids around Christmas.

old school~

how many of you remember taking old broken crayons and melting them down to make the fun little circle ones that you make with muffin tins. well my friend did this the other day with her kids and kind of reminded me of doing it as a child. so i went on a hunt to find all our broken and used crayons. then garran happened to come across a huge stash!
so we peeled. melted. cooled. COLORED!!
i love how they turned out. they were so pretty.
ps. the only problem is that i have to continually stress that we don't cook the crayons every day. only on special occasions!!!

bitten~

so recently i have been bitten by the baking bug. i really enjoy baking, i just rarely have the time to do so. anyways. i was surfing some of my favorite baking blogs and happened upon a new chocolate chip cookie recipe. chocolate chip are garrans favorite, so i thought i would give them ago.i printed off the recipe, which i might add was super easy.i had a feeling these would be wonderful. even after i was done mixing them, the dough was smooth and creamy. they looked so yummy just sitting in the bowl.
so i scooped some up, threw them in the oven, and waited.

garran kept commenting on how good the smelled but the real test would be if they tasted as good as they smelled.out of the oven the came. looking and smelling yummy!

i know the pan is ugly, but it is one of my favorites to make cookies on.

finally after they cooled it was time to taste....

DELICIOUS!

kael got his picture on here because he had the best reaction to eating them!
this recipe is a keeper!

on the mend~

slowly but surely our bathroom is coming along!

finally repairs are being made.

a little art & a check up~

so garran found a picture of his dads father and decided to do a linoleum block cut of it. the boys thought this was awesome. since it was garrans spring break he worked on it at home and the boys got to help ink the block. they were super excited and thought it was very cool. cullan even said, " this is grandpas dad". i dont have any pictures of the print, but it came out great. i am excited to get it printed and framed. i think garrans dad will really like it.

-great grandpa gillespie--the boys inking the block-

----------------------------

briea had her two week checkup today, even though she is three weeks old. she is doing great. here are her stats:

weight: 9lbs 5 oz (75%)

height: 21.5 inches (75-90%)

progress with a bit of the grumps~

well i have blogged a couple of times about this little girls blanket. it is slowly coming along. my friend CJ showed me a new way to do the binding, but you have to hand stitch it. honestly the first time i have ever really hand stitched anything. but it is coming along well. i have all of it done except for one little spot that have to wait until i see CJ again. she knows some trick with the binding to get it to come together a little more smoothly where two pieces meet that she is going to show me. but for now i feel good about it. once that last little bit of binding is done, it will just take a few minutes to finish up the hand stitching and it should be complete. i will post finished pictures when it is all done. here is a picture of my progress though~

i am excited to have it all done and ready for baby!

while busy working on the blanket kael was having a bit of a grumpy day. i tried to cheer him up by telling him i loved to take pictures of grumpy boys........

this was kael at his grumpiest telling me not to take anymore pictures.

then daddy got involved and this was his reaction.

garran is always so good with the boys and really knows how to make them laugh when they are in - well not the best of moods.

hooray for daddy!

looking for~

some one who knows how to knit.

i was blog hopping one night and found these.

they look super cute and warm.

perfect for where i live.

i can just imagine a sweet new little one all bundled in one of these.

i don't think it would be to hard.

looks fairly simply but i am no knitter...

so if any of you knit out there, let me know!!

they look so comfy and perfect for a sweet new little one!

ps. if any of you knit..this lady has great ideas. super cute.

all about babies~

so i thought that i would give a little update
on baby and things that have been going on. so sit tight who knows how long this blog could be.

for starters tomorrow is cullans big day. we have to take him to one of the local hospitals at the crack of dawn tomorrow. they are going to put him completely under, (which makes me extremely nervous). so anyways they are going to do x-rays, which is why they are putting him under in the first place. he is really good about letting them clean his teeth but when they tried to take a picture he flipped. so they decided that they would put him under, due the x-ray, do a really thorough cleaning and then if there is a problem they will just go ahead and fix it. so we will be doing that for most of the morning. say a little prayer that everything goes well.

on a happier, lighter note, i finally found the fabric i wanted, to make this lil miss a blanket. i have always made each of my kids a blanket. (with the help of my talented and patient friend cj)the first one with the little lambs on it is cullans. he loved it as a baby and now has out grown it a little. he might ask for it every now and then but it is pretty rare.

this cute one with frogs is kaels. he is super attached to his. he carries it all over and sleeps with it all the time. i love that he loves it. it makes me feel good because i made it for him.

and finally........................................

this is the fabric i found and fell in love with for this next lil one!! it took me forever. however i have to say that now that i have everything i am so excited. by the time that they are all done i can always just imagine holding our sweet new baby in them. i know i went a little over board on the pink, but hey it is my first girl.=)

on to a baby update~week 23!!

this by far has been my easiest pregnancy. i have felt the best and this baby is super active. she is always bouncing around. night and day she is just kicking and moving. which for me is great because i am a worry wart about the baby not moving enough. so we are doing pretty well. we have our next appointment on monday and they are going to do another ultrasound to make sure that this is indeed a girl.

well this is probably long enough=) happy tuesday to everyone!!