She's now Double-Digit and Zebra Print cake

This weekend we had a birthday party for mija. She turned TEN!!

I couldn't help be remember back to the evening we got the call to rush to the hospital. By the time we arrived, she was already snug and wrapped in the hospital bassinet. 

It hardly seems possible that this:

One Month Old

Has become this:

The zebra cake earned many positive comments. I simply frosted the cake with pink frosting. I had purchased a small box of black fondant and rolled it out a little at a time. I cut out pieces initially using a zebra pattern print I printed from the web. Once I got the hang of it, I was able to freehand it. 

It was my first time working with fondant. One thing I will remember for next time is rolling it out thinly and evenly. Some of my stripes were thicker than others.

Regardless, I thought I did a pretty swell job. I woke mija up with my personal adulation such as "Who's the mommy? I'm the mommy! That's right. I'm the mommy!"

My first 49th birthday

This weekend I celebrated my first 49th birthday. I specify first because I have a friend who had her second 39th birthday the day before mine. 

Looking forward to the upcoming year is scary, intimidating. I want it to be hopeful and successful, but I've failed so many times. I just really desire that by the time I celebrate my second 49th birthday, I can face the remaining half of my life in physical, mental, and spiritual achievements which I have never experienced before. 

What I need to focus on this year seems really daunting AND really imperative.

In the meantime, here is a pick from my celebration.

First, my husband took Saturday and Sunday night off, so it was really nice to spend the time with him.

Mija had a friend's birthday party to attend. While she was there, hubby and I took the time for a quick coffee date. It was really nice.

We had a drink call Headrush it has a quad among other things, so needless to say, we were wired for the rest of the evenings activities.

We picked up some grub and snacks and headed to the drive-in! It's a small local drive-in but has one of the best screens in the country. It is better than blue-ray even. It also is kind of classic because it still has a playground under the screen and played the National Anthem when both movies were over.

Mija hadn't been to the drive-in for awhile, so she had a hard time understanding we didn't need to choose a movie; we got both!

However, mija evidently partied hardy too much earlier in the day, so within 15 minutes of the second show she was like this...

Yup, car hood was the bed and front window was a pillow. 

Definitely keeping this photo for future blackmail usage!

Had a very pleasant day and felt well loved with all the birthday wishes on FB, too!

Free Birthday Treats---a couple of options

You know I love free.
I also like birthdays.
Put the two together and your get free things on your birthday!


At Free Birthday Treats you can find a bunch of places which offer free or discounted items for your birthday.
The one catch is not to wait until your birthday to look because most items require that you sign up online for a free club or emails.


Free Birthday Stuff works a little differently. You sign up for the site and then you "shop" for all the free birthday treats you want. You put free entry at the Tennessee Aquarium, a birthday card and coupon for free pet food for your dog, and a free birthday gift card from Victoria's Secret in your cart, check out and then select how you want to receive the items. You can select as many as you want but some are location specific.

Birthday Cake--Pinterest-style

While this week is mija's birthday, we celebrated on Saturday since The Nutcracker rehearsal is hogging the schedule. She didn't mind getting cake, ice cream, and gifts early!

I actually used the opportunity to use three...yes, three...of my pins from Pinterest! Here are the pins I used.

Source: omnomicon.com via Betsy Price on Pinterest

I didn't follow the recipe on cake, only the method to make a rainbow cake. I only used 4 colors and I didn't switch the colors around.

Source: tastykitchen.com via Betsy Price on Pinterest

The basic recipe for this frosting is the classic fruit dip...marshmallow fluff and cream cheese, so you know it tastes good. The difference is a little bit of vanilla. I even was able to put it in a bag and pipe shell work and such with it. I wouldn't recommend it for heavy duty decorating, however.

Source: brasstacksandbasics.com via Betsy Price on Pinterest

Because the picture was so small, I actually cheated and purchased the tubes of icing just to save me time. I actually found Wilton tubes cheaper and larger than the Betty Crocker tubes at the grocery store. Two things I recommend after doing this. First, select a cake that can handle a larger picture. My picture was less than a 4 x 6 which made detailing VERY challenging. Second, don't use the Wilton Sparkle Gel. It doesn't freeze which means it doesn't come up neatly when you pull up the wax paper. 

Here was my final product.

Twilight Dash

As I mentioned, it being small was a challenge and the use of gel messed it up some, but on the whole, you can tell it was a pony. The eyes and the cutie mark suffered the most. Mija thought it was cool regardless.

Here is the whole cake. 

Twilight Dash looks better from a distance!

I left the frosting unsmoothed. I thought it looked more "marshmallow-y" that way. 
Now for the piece de resistance which made everyone wonder how I did it...

I didn't prettify it before I took the photo, but you can see it worked awesome!

And most importantly, the birthday girl thought I was, in her words, artistic, a cake decorator, and talented! This mommy rocked the party.

Oh, yes. She had pink hair. She wanted to look like Pinkie Pie.

50 Sucks--My Husband's Birthday Gift

This past weekend my husband turned 50 years old. I never do an "Over the Hill" theme for him because I'm only a few years behind! 

He's not a big party person and yet we managed to get two small gatherings in over the weekend. First was one with his family. Mija made a dump cake for that occasion. Second gathering was with our small group from church.

Mija and I made a gift which we present him with at his family's house and continued to share it the next evening. I've been waiting for a few years to make this for him!

We chose a basket and used a Styrofoam ball which would give the finished product a nice shape. We painted half the ball black, so it wouldn't be so noticeable.

We ran out of paint part way and finished the rest with a couple of layers of marker.

Then we picked out 49 suckers. We chose Tootsie Roll Pops and Blow Pops for the variety of color and texture. We also picked out a few others for accent pieces.

If you noticed, each sucker was tied with a golden ribbon (for 50 years you know) and then we curled them.
This was the first time mija was introduced to curling ribbon. She was very impressed.

I realized that everything safety procedure I had taught her about scissors was undone with this one activity! Holding scissors closed and the blades away from you fingers became, 

"Hold the scissors open. Put your thumb and ribbon along the 

sharp edge of the blade and pull!"

We had found a large sucker at Party City which actually said, "50 Sucks." I had planned on having to make one, but this saved me a BIG step. That became our 50th sucker. We then assembled our "bouquet" as it were.

It went all the way around. 3D. Here's the back.

50 Sucks took two bags of suckers and a few extra to accomplish. There was only one or two left to celebrate with after making it. Of course, mija found one of the extra suckers!

He thoroughly loved it. Everyone was impressed that 1) we made and 2) how many suckers 50 actually was! ;-)