Happy Birthday to my little man!

Brodie took this one of us!

He's getting so big!!
BIRTHDAY CAKE!!!

...this is what a birthday is all about!

Haunted Castle

Ahhhh... here's the finished project.

My second castle cake, this time a haunted one for a Halloween Party we had tonight.

Complete with Kit Kat fence, pumpkins galore and even featuring a multi-flavor house! The top floor is chocolte and bottom floor is vanilla! This one was too much fun to make! I can't wait till the next!!!

Brodie turns 3!!

My little girl is 3!

I can't believe it! She's grown so much in the past 3 years, and now I'm ready for her to slow down!!!

We did the "Tinkerbell" theme since she is "fairy" crazy right now! This cake was awesome!!! The little tinkerbell is actually hanging on a little stand, and it can also transform into a zipper/backpack clip. It's so cute!

And here's the birthday girl with all her party goodies.

Ok, so the plates, bags and cups are "Fancy Nancy." Hey, a birthday girl shouldn't have to decide between two things pink, so she got them both!! Blowing out her candles. It was So cute!

Be sure to watch for the video of her blowing it out.. it is too funny!

Her birthday easel.. she LOVES it! Something to draw on that isn't the walls!

Her "Fancy Nancy" skirt. She is SUCH a girl.

Her star pinata. Yeah, I couldn't find Tinkerbell, but the thought of taking a stick and whacking Tinkerbell seems too mean!!!

Notice... Brodie has changed clothes since the pictures above?Blowing bubbles at my parent's pool. They loved how the bubbles landed on the water and then caused the ripples to "dance" and make cool shadows on the bottom of the pool.

Yes, Brodie's third outfit today. She HAD to try on ALL of her new birthday clothes!

The spoils of the pinata... glow sticks! I actually figured out my night setting on the camera and I think the "action" shots turned out great!

Brodie got a baby doll for her birthday and her she is comforting the baby as she was "falling asleep." She is such a little mother!

If I EVER see another cupcake...

It will be TOOOO soon! Unfortunately, I have to make more tomorrow! UGH! I made 80 of these lovely witch cupcakes for our Plebes (freshman) and Yucks (sophomores) for Halloween. I only have about 70 more to make tomorrow for our Cows and Firsties (juniors and seniors). They were fun, but WOW!!! That's a lot of cupcakes!!!
I sure don't want to eat cake anytime soon!!!

And all this after spending 6 hours at the dealership buying a new TRUCK! Yep, we are now a 2 vehicle family again! YEAH! It's been rough with 1 vehicle and 5 people with different plans and agendas!!! It's pretty sweet, but the only thing I don't like about it is it's BURNT ORANGE! YUCK! (University of Texas colors for those who don't know. It's my husbands favorite college team, but my family is from a rival school, Texas Tech...) But... I can't complain too much! Or at least I won't until I finally get to drive it! It will be nice to have my music already on the radio each time I get in, though!
Off to bed, to dream of witches and cupcakes, I'm sure!!!

Ummm Yummy!

Here is my Pumpkin Pecan Pie! It has a layer of cream cheese on the bottom, followed by a layer of pumpkin, topped off with a mix of pecan pieces and milk chocolate toffee pieces. The brown sugar caramalized the pecans to make it tooo yummy!!! Topped off with whipped cream and some hot fudge (it is actually better without the fudge on top, but that's the first way we tried it.) Overall, it was tooooo good and we ate too much! After chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob, we were all full!
I'm really getting into the fall feeling now... pecan and pumpkin pie, warm clothes, cold breezes on my face. Not to mention the hope of a little snow! (as long as it's before or after Jan 14th!!!)

Birthday FUN!!!

We had a pretty good day today. 6 Cadets came to celebrate Brodie's birthday with us. We had tacos, nachos, rice (you'd be proud of me, Dad... it turned out!) Mexican Eggrolls and of course CAKE!!! The cadets helped deck Brodie out in Princess gear... glasses and a Fairy princess outfit, complete with wings and slippers! She got a really cool Princess purse with brushes, mirrors and even lipstick! (she calls it her "marker") She absolutely loves her Princess Tea Set!!! She immediately went up and had a "tea party" with Randy and Riley at her Princess Table. (pictures in another post...)



Here's the Princess Cake that I made for Brodie. It turned out better than I thought it would. It actually ended up being 4 layers, a lot of cake, but it made it look better than being smaller. The hardest thing was taking it apart when it was time to eat it! I look forward to the next one I can make.. the boys have already picked out their castles for their birthday, so it's going to be fun!





We were singing "Happy Birthday" to Brodie and she wasn't quite sure about it till she found out she would get to blow the candles out! Then she couldn't wait for us to finish! (Those are two of our Cadets behind her.. they are tooo cool!)





Here's Brodie's favorite part!!! She was upset she only had 2 candles to blow out, so we re-lit them and she did it again! She would clap after she finished and look around to make sure everyone else was clapping, too! She seemed to have a good day. She danced for the girls here and tried on her sunglasses over and over again.


I did learn a few good things in the past two days preparing for today and I thought I would share them:
1. Never put your contacts in after you cut an onion. Even if you wash your hands, wait. I'd suggest you wait about a week before you put your contacts in if you have come into contact with an onion!
2. Liquid Cheer can cover the floor of a 4x6 laundry room in under 10 seconds. It's really hard to clean up (even though it's soap!!!) and when you put towels you've used to clean them in the washing machine it makes A LOT of bubbles.
3. Baking Soda refreshes the carpet when sprinked and vaccumed. And the sofa. And the coffee table. And a 2 year old girl.

So... those are my "Heloise Hints" for today!

Cake anyone?

I got ready to give the boys a piece of cake after lunch and I saw this! Stuart Little, it isn't! Isn't that a lovely site to see??? It was actually covered with plastic wrap, but when I saw the edge had been lifted I just figured it was due to impatient little kids...hence the finger mark in the upper right corner! It's actually kinda cute, but NOT IN MY HOUSE! If I saw this online somewhere, I'd think "how cute" and would try to create little mouse feet to make a "mouse cake." But after it was in MY house, YUCK is all I have to say! We do have Chipmunks running all over the outside, so maybe one found his way in, ate cake and left. I think I can deal with a cute Chip or Dale instead of a mouse!

My Peter Pan Moment: I wanted to find the little mouse with chocolate on his wiskers! Or little chocolate mouse prints! Hey.... this is hard to be a kid about!!! :-)