Ava and Austin

We finally took Ava and Austin to get their first pictures together.  Admittedly so I get way too worked up about pictures.  I am just crazy about my sweeties and I never want to forget one sweet detail of their little faces. I am always wanting the perfectly posed picture (of a two year old and baby, seriously Gina!).  I really wanted one of Austin and Ava together, hugging and smiling.  Every time we tried to put Austin on her lap she said “he’s tooooo heavy” and pushed him off.  Even sitting them side by side she would not smile with him in her picture!  The one thing that did work was putting him in a basket, Ava thought that was pretty funny, so here are our baby Moses pictures  

Notice the absence of the pirate smile!  When we told Ava to smile we did get the “arrr” smile so instead Greg and I took turns dancing behind the camera to make her truly smile.

I’m NOT smiling

I took some pictures of Austin that evening.  The fence isn’t so lovely but I wanted to some of his sweet baby cheeks without the bright studio light.

It’s a caketastrophe!

I finally get to use my word for real!! I made a royal mess making my second cake.  I had so much fun in the process though!  Joy Guinn (Trey and Julee’s little beauty) had her first birthday party today and knowing that I have a new obsession I got to make the cake!  I was thrilled because I wanted to make cake #2 and now I had a reason.  The party was a fiesta theme so this cake was BRIGHT.  OH wait, before I post pictures from my cake photo shoot, totally took way too many pics of my cake, here is the caketastrophe.

I’m not proud of my mess I “had” a reason for this powdered sugar storm. (by the way the air in my house still tastes sweet that stuff is everywhere even after the clean up) Let me preface by saying I enjoyed making this cake SO much and learned a lot….but I did have a minor caketastrophe – word of the week ding, ding,ding! I made my fondant Friday night and let it rest overnight. When I went to put it on my cakes yesterday evening it cracked so I had to quickly peel it off the cakes, re-ice the cakes, let them chill again and then I tried to save my fondant for the next few hours. I kneaded it over and over, added water and tried to re-cover the cakes, then when that didn’t work added powdered sugar bc I had made it too pasty, back and forth with this dry then sticky goo. At 12:00 a.m. I gave up on that batch and Greg went to the store and I made and dyed new fondant. I finished the cake this morning at ten til 6:00 I had to get up at 8:00 so I was so happy that I finished. Thus the mess, it was a 4:00 a.m. sifting powdered sugar mad rush to finish the cake. ( I was making royal icing for the piping) I’m sure I looked comical running around like a crazy lady over cake. Here is the finished cake. The middle layer is HUGE, not traditional, I planned it to be really tall but not quite so big. I topped the cake with fondant spirals at the party location so they wouldn’t damage the cake in the car.

I just added these new ones from the Guinn’s camera.  They are such sweet friends to support my cake craze by taking tons of fun pictures for me! 

Here’s the smash cake…..

AND here is what takes the cake (AHH the cheesy phrases are out of control today) The pictures of JOY, such a BEAUTIFUL, happy little girl!

a few pictures of the cake in the making…. The glaze of vanilla and eatable shimmer just applied to the dots-

The top layer was key lime cake with key lime buttercream, middle tier was vanilla with vanilla buttercream, and bottom was chocolate with chocolate buttercream. I made marshmallow fondant but with the food coloring I still think it tastes funky, fun to decorate with though.

And finally the after pictures of my house. Let me just say that I have the SWEETEST dad in the the world!! When I came home today this is what I walked in to……

My dad spent hours scrubbing a crisco-ed sugared paste off my furniture and floors…. and thanks to him… TA DA….

I have cake number three all planned out. Here is my sketch of my mom’s chocolate cake I am going to make for her birthday.

I’m so excited to make red gum paste and fondant roses and chocolate fondant. I doubt the finished product is going to look anything like what I have in my head but it is fun to dream.

P.S. feel a little guilty that my longest post in a year is about cake… hehe……

Baby Boy’s first trip to church!

I have to preface that I know I’m a crazed mom about germs (I think Ava’s bout with the whooping cough when she was a baby made me overly cautious) I’ve pretty much quarantined myself and the kiddos in the house until Austin’s four month vaccinations.  SO happy that flu season is over and he has four months under his belt  meaning we are BACK at our Sunday morning church service that we have missed so much!  Austin was in a serious mood this morning but I still had to snap a few pictures before leaving.

I couldn’t steal enough sweet kisses from my precious sleepy boy this morning.