Princess Party!

Emma wanted to do a princess party this year so we had a Princess brunch for her.  I decorated the table really fancy so it would be extra fun and special for the girls.  We put princess blush, lip gloss, and glitter hair spray on the girls.  They got to eat white powdered donuts, blackberries, yogurt, and pink lemonade.  We even had fairy dust, sprinkles, for the girls to add to their yogurt.  After brunch the girls got to make princess wands and play pass the "poison apple" from Snow White.  As an added bonus I dressed up like Snow White and had one of the girls mom that was helping also dress up like a princess.  Emma was so excited when I walked out in the dress.  Thanks Stephanie for letting me borrow it!  It was a lot of fun!

I made Emma's invitations and loved how they turned out. 

My little baby girl is 4 years old!

I cannot believe it has been 4 years since Emma was born.  She really is the sweetest girl even and I don't want her to ever grow up!  Whenever I tell her she is getting so big, which is all the time, she says, "Mom, I will always be your little girl."

Here are some fun pictures of the birthday festivities.

I love Eli in this picture.  He wanted in on the opening presents action so bad. 

Emma also had a little princess party with a few friends.  Pictures coming soon...

Halloween Costumes!

This year I ventured to make the kids Halloween Costumes. Emma wanted to be a mermaid. I had to get a pattern for her costume. It was not necessarily hard but there was a lot to it and it took a good amount of time to make. For the time and money that went into it it was not worth it for me. Emma loved it and wore it to the trunk or treat but then wanted to wear her Snow White Dress trick-or-treating. It would have been cheaper to buy a mermaid costume that she would have liked just the same. I will remember that for next year...

Emma ALWAYS makes a princess or funny pose in pictures.  I love it.

Eli's Pinocchio costume was my favorite to make! It was super easy and quick. I used some of the instructions of this website.

Eli LOVED trunk-or-treating and trick-or-treating.  It took him all but 5 seconds to catch on to what to do and there was no stopping him. 

Luke and I were Princess Leia and Han Solo.  Thanks to my sister for letting us borrow her wonderful costumes!

I have been really busy this year and have not had a lot of time for sewing.  However, when I sewed the kids costumes it made me realize how much I LOVE to sew!  I am committed to doing more sewing projects so stay tuned for those!

Just because this is adorable!

Just becaues this is aborable and I love these guys!

A little bit of our October

October always is an extremely busy and fun month for us! I have lots of fun ideas and pictures to post. First up, pumpkin patch, Halloween decor, and random costume photo shoot at the park. Halloween Costumes to come...

Half Marathon!

I ran my first half marathon!  13.1 miles

I had been training for the past couple of months and would go running with a friend at 5:45 in the morning.  We trained in the hottest months of the year running in extremely warm weather - we are crazy I know!  The day of the marathon it was beautiful and did not get above 70 the whole time we were running.  The run went well and I was surprised when I had more energy than expected to be running such a long distance!  

I don't think I am interested in ever running a marathon but hope to run many more half marathons in my lifetime. 

Dear Eli

Dear Eli,

A softened stick of butter and a package of gold fish do not mix well, I promise! 
Please don't ever attempt this interesting dish every again.

Also, your little gangster look going on is a tad on the rebellious side and has your father and I worried.  If you continue to wear your pants below your bum crack we may have to have some kind of intervention.

Love, Mom

My "Divinely Decorated" Cake

Now, because I was the only one in my family that did not win an award for my art submission, the photo of the lily's below, I have to give my self credit for being awarded the most "Divinely Decorated" cake at a ward cake bake-off this last weekend. 

I really didn't have a lot of time to make/decorate a cake so I looked up some ideas and found the idea of these adorable, very simple, slivered almond flowers.  I used brown Reese's pieces for the center of the flowers and a basic, very rich, chocolate butter cream frosting.

You can find the recipe for the cake at Ladies Home Journal.

I did not use this recipe for the cake but did use the frosting recipe and it was very good.

My lack of blog updates...

Back in May I landed a pretty awesome design job which has basically monopolised all of my free time for the last couple months.  However, it was a really fun project and so I have to share with you all why I have been neglecting my poor blog.  I was asked to create 640 unique background designs for a photo book website called Group Story which include ten different concepts. The concepts are Solid Colors, Stripes, Distressed, Polka Dots, Contemporary, Texture, Plaid & Argyle, Pattern, Floral, and Nature.

Below are a couple screen shots of some of the thumbnails of the background I created.  It was a lot of work but is what I love doing.

GroupStory.com  is a on-line photo book site that allows groups of people, i.e. soccer teams, family reunions, school friends, etc. to share photos and stories to create their own photo books.

My Talented Family

Luke's work has art show every year that families can submit art in.  We decided that this year we would all submit something.  Luke submitted a paper flower he had made me for Valentine's Day,  Emma submitted a drawing she drew almost 8 months ago of our family, Eli submitted a finger painting and I submitted a picture I took.  Luke and Emma both won first place in their category and Eli won honorable mention.  Emma and Eli were in the same category with about 30 other kids.  What a talented family I have! 

Pedometer Fun

To kick off the first of many posts in the next week I thought I would share a video of my dear husband. We went home to Idaho and Montana to visit over the last few weeks. My sister had just gotten back from a reunion on her husbands side and was in charge of planning the "activities." This was one of the many we enjoyed trying out. Luke had a pedometer on each ankle, wrist, and forehead and had to get as many "steps" as he could in one minute. I do have to say, Luke rocked it.

The second video is of Luke, my mom, step-dad, and sister having a pedometer head competition. They had to do this for 1 minute. I got the lucky job of video taping!

Luke = CPA

Luke took his last CPA test two months ago and we have been waiting for his score to come in the mail. It came last Friday and I secretly opened it while he was at work and he passed!! I assumed he passed, which is why I opened it, and wanted to throw him a big surprise party. So Friday evening I sent an e-vite out inviting all our friend over for a surprise party that next night. Our good buddy Joel took Luke out to the movies and when they returned Luke was pleasantly surprised by a house full of people and the news of passing his last CPA test. Luke had been taking the CPA test over the last couple of year and we are SO happy to have them behind us. Congrats to Luke, you did it!

This is the video of Luke walking in the house to the big surprise. He had absolutly no idea he had passed or that there was any type of a party going on. It is kind of a long video but the first little part has the initial suprise. He really did not know what to think. I think it took him a few minutes to process what was going on.

Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Easter Eggs

My sister Michelle put together these documents on how to make the Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Easter Eggs (Isn't she talented!). You really could make any shape in the flour mold you wanted. You could do hearts for Valentines day, etc. A couple years ago for my niece's first birthday I made the egg shape but decorated them as lady bugs. they turned out really cute. The possibilities are endless!

Marshmallow Birthday

We celebrated our friend Joel's birthday and he just happens to love marshmallows so... he got a marshmallow cake!

They went from this...
to this...

to this!

It has been a tradition in our family for years and years to make chocolate covered marshmallow Easter eggs at Easter. I remember making them with my mom every year and my sister and I have have continued the tradition with our own families. It is really quite easy and super delicious! My sister put together a couple page spread on how to make them. I will post it in the next post.

Randomness from March

Here a few random picture from March.

I walked into Emma and Eli watching a TV show like this. Apparently she had decided she wanted to hold him and this was the best she could do. Hey, he had no objections.
Do I have a bug on my face?

Just because he is cute!

Just because she is cute!

One Saturday I was not feeling good so I took a nap when Eli went down for his nap. Luke and Emma went out to go pick up a couple Red Box reservations we had. When I woke up an hour to two hours later I came into the kitchen to find both Emma and Luke sitting right in front of the oven. They were watching a cake bake. Luke had taken Emma to the store and they bought a cake mix and frosting and were making their own little bowl cake. Emma was ecstatic to have a movie and cake night with Dad.

What could he be thinking?

The Piano Man

My kids LOVE the piano. Sporadically throughout the day Emma with grab a piano book off the shelf and play us a beautiful rendition of a song of her choice. She mostly chooses to play and sing a Christmas song. This weeks favorite song has been "We Wish you a Merry Christmas." Of course Eli cannot resist getting in on the action.

Bear Bread

This is just a warning that I have LOTS of fun things I want to post over the next couple of days so you may get a little tired of hearing from me but here goes!

Emma and I made this bear bread and it was so much fun! We got the idea from her Highlight magazine. You can find it here. I used a basic cinnamon roll recipe for for the dough so it would be a sweet bread. It was adorable and o so delicious!

This is my new background. I had to post it on the web so I could add it as my background. So, don't think I am strange for posting it...

Cake Balls

I have had several requests for the recipe for the cake balls I made last week. They are SUPER easy and are an easy way to dress up any event.

There is TONS of information/recipes for cake balls on the Internet. I found an article from

DallasNews.com where I pulled my information from. That article also has some great tips for making the cake balls.

Check out this

Bakerella site for the most adorable cake balls/pops ever! They put them on a stick and decorated them in all sorts of different ways.

Basic Cake Balls

1 (18.25-ounce) boxed cake mix plus ingredients called for on box

1 (16-ounce) can prepared frosting

Almond Bark Coating or Confectionery Wafer Coating (both recipes follow)

Bake the cake according to package instructions. While warm, crumble the cake into a bowl with a hand mixer to a fine texture. Mix in frosting to make a paste, using 3/4 to a full can of frosting, according to taste. Chill the mixture for at least 2 hours. Using a melon baller or your hands, form the mixture into 1 ½ -inch balls. Place the balls on wax paper; freeze at least 6 hours.

Working in small batches, remove the balls from the freezer and dip the balls into warm, melted Almond Bark Coating or Confectionery Wafer Coating, using toothpicks or forks to manipulate the balls. Remove the balls. Place the balls on wax paper to harden.

Makes about 30 cake balls.

Almond Bark Coating: In a double boiler, melt one (20-ounce) package vanilla- or chocolate-flavored almond bark, stirring constantly. Or, in a tall, narrow container, microwave almond bark for 45 seconds on High (100 percent power). Continue to heat in 15-second intervals, stirring between intervals, until melted; be careful not to scorch. When almond bark is melted, stir in 1 teaspoon vegetable oil. If desired, stir in oil-based coloring drop by drop until you achieve the desired color. See "Where to find supplies" for purchase information.

Confectionery Wafer Coating: Melt 48 ounces confectionery wafers in double boiler or microwave oven per instructions for Almond Bark Coating. Omit oil. If desired, stir in oil-based coloring drop by drop until you achieve the desired color.

SOURCE: Lea Worth-Portocalis