2 years old

Miriam wearing her new birthday dress before church on her birthday!

My baby is two years old already, but as you see in this picture she thinks she is four :)

Miriam loved her princess cake, a party at Grandma's house, and even some presents. We are so thankful for this sweet little girl who is two. She talks up a storm, has been potty trained for four months already, loves to hold babies all day long, and is a charmer to all of her brothers. We love her!

Making a Princess Cake

I am NOT a creative cake maker. I always use the good old 9x13 for birthdays, and two stacked round cakes when I am really feeling birthday creative, and most often lately it has been cupcakes for birthdays!

For some reason this year, I decided to stretch the cake abilities and try a princess cake for a 2 year old birthday. Maybe it is because I have older kids now, and they can appreciate the efforts, and they did. So here is the process for making a really easy "hard looking" cake.

STEP 1

So step one, the longest part. You need to bake 2 cakes using a pampered chef glass 8 cup measurer, the batter bowl they may call it? The cakes are so thick they have to bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes each. It is hard for me to be patient for the fun decorating part, so this seemed to take all day. You could fit two batter bowls in the oven, but who has two? I guess I should have borrowed one from a friend and cut my time in half. Here is the recipe/directions I followed over at Pampered Chef.

STEP 2

Here is cake number one, with its bottom edge cut off to make it nice and flat. I didn't get a picture of the two stacked without frosting. You only use the bottom 2/3 of the second cake, and let the kids snack on the leftovers. The bananas and wheat bread have nothing to do with the cake, I just bake amidst kitchen mess! So step two, frost and stack the two cakes.

STEP 3

Frost the outside with a base layer of frosting. My cakes didn't match up perfectly, but nothing a bit of frosting won't fix. The two cake part is important or the cake won't be tall enough for the dolls legs to stick into.

STEP 4

Time to stick in your Barbie/Princess/Fairy --whichever doll you choose. This is Sleeping Beauty, with her bottom half wrapped in plastic wrap. It really made clean up nice of the doll when the birthday girl wanted her after the cake was eaten.

STEP 5

Time to get some clothes on this girl. Stick her right into the cake. Start covering her with frosting in any way you like.

STEP 6

Dress design. I just used a star tip with the frosting and covered her with stars. This is a great way for beginners, the class of decorators that I am in. The stars are very forgiving and don't have to be perfect. Make sure you tie up her hair somehow, or it gets stuck in the soft frosting.

STEP 7

Add some frills, fix up her hair and put in the freezer if you have room. I was making this cake a day before, so I put it in the freezer. This really cemented up the frosting nicely.

I could hardly cut into her, but everyone loved eating the princess! And it feeds a lot!

Valentine's Day

We had a big Valentine's Day Party this year, which is somewhat of a novelty for my kids. We had a poetry party where all 20 kids who came recited a poem, exchanged Valentine's, ate treats, and had a really fun time.

Eliza can now write here name all by herself, due to the 20 valentines that she made :)

Everyone made their own valentines, and I decided homemade is much more fun, cuter, and cheaper!

The Art Sale

My son started busily working on something the other afternoon. Before long, he was asking me how to spell "Art Sale." He made a sign and a flag to wave. Soon he was pricing his pictures and asking me for a table. He told me that he was going to sell his art outside (I guess like a yard sale). He was pretty sure that people would start flowing in once the table was up---keep in mind it is 1:00 in the afternoon and a wintery cold day :)

What do I do? I help him set up.

Notice the person coming down the street in the red sweatshirt. This is one of my other sons who costumed himself in other clothes and a mask to see if he could sneak out the back gate and "come" to the art sale to buy something. His brother wouldn't let him. We were just trying to help!

No one showed up. I explained what a cold day it was, and that we probably needed to advertise.

I mean, of course the art is great. Who wouldn't want to buy it?

The best part is the missing corner on one piece of art work to provide a price tag for the one with black paper, since the price wasn't showing up :)

Any buyers?

Had to try our aprons

We just had to make some brownies and break in our new aprons. They definitely made the brownies taste better!

Craft Retreat

Who can resist crafting with 50 other women, into the wee hours of the night, for multiple days? I couldn't. I got the opportunity to attend Friday and Saturday of the Beta Psi Crafters Getaway. It was so much fun! So many fun ladies! So many fun projects!

I tried out some new things, instead of just quilting. I wanted to try some new skills. I made an apron, and loved it so much I had to make two for my girls. I made about 10 bibs. I made 4 zipper pouches. I quilted a fabric world map I have been storing for AWHILE. I even crocheted a flower, and I don't crochet, yet! And I stayed up until 3 in the morning----all of these being new things for me :)

And I chatted and laughed and had a lot of fun with friends (and ate wonderful food). Just walking around the room was utterly amazing and inspiring! Women are so creative!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I do have that glazed over, went to bed at 3am look :)

ok, so it is a little funny looking, but I did crochet it!