March Flowers and Cake Design Final Cakes

I'm not sure why, but I didn't take pictures of these lady's cakes from the basics class.  It certainly wasn't because they were not post worthy, I must have just totally forgot.  Oh well.  Better luck next time I guess.

This class had 3 students ( I had to beg my manager to allow me to have just the 3).  I only have 2 of the cakes because my 3rd student hadn't finished hers, but to her credit, she did a fabulous basket weave!  (One of the techniques we learn in this class)

Anyway, on to the cakes....

Angel's cake was really pretty.  Simple and pretty.  She chose to decorate her final cake with a peach and white lilly and peach primroses. 

Lily chose to use a decorator 'comb' (that's what I call them - I don't know what the real name is)  She too used primroses in several different colors and topped her cake with the pretty, blue Wilton roses. 

I had a great time with this class.  I'm I was sad to see it end.  Hopefully, I'll have all 3 ladies back soon!

February 2012 Gum Paste and Fondant Final Cakes

I've been really lucky.  I've had at least one class a month since December.  Fortunately, this month, I had 2!  This class had 3 ladies (I had to get permission 'cuz I should have 4 and for some reason, one of the students didn't show up the last 2 nights.  Oh well it happens)  Anyway, here are their final cakes.  (I feel that I should note they have both only taken the Basics course before this one.)

Lisa's Cake

Polina's Cake

Their cakes looked amazing and I'm so proud of them!



RSV ~ RSVP

     A couple of weeks ago, my little guy had RSV.  We've been lucky to have never experienced this virus at our house.  We were even luckier to avoid a hospital as well.  I said all along that if you spent any amount of time with him, you really couldn't tell he was sick.  And that was true, but I took some picutres of him at the doctor's office (in an attempt to keep him out of stuff while we waited.  Oh boy did we wait! 2 1/2 hrs)  (I picked him up right from day care and didn't have his diaper bag - he pooped while we were in the waiting room - NICE!  Thankfully they had a spare diaper and some wipes for us otherwise, time in there would have been much stinky!)





Just look at those sad puffy eyes!  He must have been putting on an act the whole time trying to convince everyone around him that he really didn't feel like crap!



     So while we were there, he had 2 breathing treatments before his oxygen levels were good enough to send him home.  He was SO BUSY while we were there, I had to give him a sucker during a breathing treatment to get him to sit still.   3 prescriptions later, (He also had an ear infection - poor kid!) we made it home.  My instructions were to give him a breathing treatment every 4 hours or more if he was wheezing, then to bring him back in the morning. 

We headed back to the doctor's the next morning and was told that he sounded much better and to keep giving him the treatments every 4 hours.  Didn't even occur to me to ask about getting a doctor's note so he could go back to daycare the next day.  Besides, I figured that he'd have been on antibiotics for more than 24 hours so it wouldn't be a big deal. 

Not ever having to have dealt with RSV before, I didn't realize that the antibiotics wouldn't really help (Duh I guess my first indication of that should have been that the 'V' in RSV stands for virus!)  Anyway,  no release for friday day care.  We had a follow up appointment on monday (President's day) and would hopefully be able to get one then.

He LOVES to get into stuff and these were the only good pictures I got of him messing with the papertowels.  The faucet in there is one of those motion ones and he had a blast with that too!  Of course he loved sitting on the doctor's rolly chair typing on the computer....

So over the weekend, we endured multiple breathing treatments and several doses of various medicines.  When we headed back to the doctor on Monday, I was told that he was 'Clinically Improving' and given the much needed note.  (I hope that by emphasizing the note, it doesn't make me sound like a workaholic mom who loves dropping her kids off at day care more than I love spending time with them.  I'm really not.  I just work for a small company and if I'm not there to get the stuff done I do, then it doesn't get done and things needed to get done.  My employer is great and my bosses have the mentality of family first, which is awesom.  So if I needed to take off more time then I did, I could have.)

Nathan and my other kids are getting their health back.  They still have the occasional cough or runny nose.  But that's to be expected with all the yucky stuff they are exposed to daily. 

During this whole time, I got sick too (for what seemed like the 100th time since last fall!!!!)  I too am starting to clear up.  I really need to start taking something to strengthen my immune system.  I know for me that if I don't get a good nights sleep regulary (and that happens alot if I'm working on a project), then I start coming down with something nasty.  Pretty wussy huh?

Cake Cavalcade

So here are some pictures of some cakes I've done (Or helped with) over the last couple of months...

I'm going to take all the credit for this one (even thought the girls helped put the 'beads' on the crown)  This was for a little girl in my ward.  I made the beach cake for her sister back in September.  Anyway the crown is gumpaste and I used a foam crown for my template.  I wanted it to be thicker, but the gp wouldn't cut properly so I had to keep rerolling it to get it to the right thickness.  I wrapped it around a big cup and let it dry overnight.  Then we glued on pink pearl and silver non pareils.  I'm not impressed with the drop strings on the side.  I used Wilton's glitter gel and everytime I use it I think to myself, 'I know it won't be a gloppy mess.' But that's what I always end up with.  I'm willing to try the gels one more time....so I haven't given up hope just yet.  Anyway, this was a chocolate cake with buttercream icing.  I used vanilla and almond extract for the flavoring. (BTW - I almost always use that flavor combo.)


For the next (or last) 3 pictures, the cakes shown will be decorated using Wilton's Punch Cut Decorate Line and Sugar Sheets.  This is there answer (my opinion only!) to the Circuit Cake machine.  It's alot of fun too and I can't wait to get the new book specifically about this line.

Ok on to the cakes.....

This masterpiece is Emily's.  She used the butterfly and flower punches. 

Sophia created this heart and spiral masterpiece.

I'm so proud of both of my girls and their creativity and their patience with me while I 'played' with my new toys.

Lastly, this is one I made a few weeks ago for my mom's birthday.  I used the diamond boarder punch.  Again, I really like the simplicity of the punches and am impressed with the pieces I have from this product line.





What a 15% rotation looks like....Or what happens when you try to fly

On December 8th, I received a call from Emily's school.  The woman on the other end explained that Emily was out at recess and fell.  She hurt her pinky finger and that I should probably come and get her.  I gave my Dad a call and he picked her up.  His job was to look at her hand and tell me if I needed to get off work right away and take her to see a doctor or if it could wait until I got off work ( a couple of hours later) and take her in after dinner. 

He said I should take her right away.

So I left work and took her to the doctors office.

You can see from this view that there is definitely something wrong with her right pinky right?

Here you can see the rotation of her finger and her cool scrapes on the side of her hand.

 So basically the doctor said that they would like us to see a hand surgeon and they would wrapped it and she wore a sling for the weekend.

Oh and I probably should say at this point they believed there was some damage to her growth plate in her little finger.  They also said if that was the case, to expect surgery, so we did.

Monday morning we saw the specialist. He had confirmed the growth plate damage.  He said that he could do the repair in the office, but that kids had a tendency to scream loudly and scare the other patients. (he is a funny guy!)  So he had us schedule surgery for the next day (12/13). 

Em and I went to the hospital to get checked in and changed.  Dad came later after he dropped Sophia and Nathan off at daycare.  Emily got a new pink blanket and some little hospital socks.  The staff was great and super accomodating for her.  A child's advocate came in and talked with her.  She brought in an oxygen/anesthesia mask to show her what it would look like and a puzzle she could keep.

She went into surgery and was done in about 45 minutes.  Her recovery took awhile.  She ended up getting sick and the medicine they gave her to stop her nausea made her sleepy so we didn't get home until almost 1 (we were there @8am).  She could keep anything down, not water or sprite and definitely no food. 
Finally she ate some saltines and was starting to feel better, but that was about 7pm that night.





Here is an x-ray taken after the surgery and before the wires were trimmed down.

She had a post-op with the specialist about a week and a half after surgery.  They took some more x-rays and we had to get a splint made for her.

Here is the her hand after the surgery.  It had been wrapped up since then, so we couldn't really wash it - that's why you can still see the "this is the right finger for surgery" dot on the top of her finger.

Here is a close-up of the wires.  You think they're gross now, you should have seen them when they were pulled out - but don't worry - there aren't any pics of that.

This splint was made in the physical therapy dept of Riverton IHC while we waited.  That purple stuff is sorta like plastic canvas that is put in warm water to soften and shape.  Then the lady attached the velcro straps.  It was really cool to watch her make it!

So she sported that cool purple accessory for 3 weeks.  She had the wires removed on 1/11 and she's doing great.  She even got to keep the wires.  I told her she could keep her wires with my pins! She didn't think that was such a cool idea - besides, I think she wants to put them on her shelf in her room as a badge of honor or courage or just plain grossness.  Yeah that's probably it...now she has a badge of grossness!

So this is it.  Emily's right hand 2.0.  This was taken the same day the wires came out and after a shower!! (please don't think that she went a month without bathing, she didn't. But it was the first time she could get her whole hand wet)

Ok, are you wondering how this whole thing started in the first place?  I guess a boy was teasing her friend during recess.  This friend took off to clobber he and Emily went chasing after.  I can't help but wonder, if she did this to herself, what would that kid looked like if she was able to catch him?