Andrew and Marybeth Cressman

Another wedding cake this week...this one had to be transported over 2 1/2 hours which made me nervous but it (and I) survived. Marybeth has been a good friend since I learned to know her when she came to work at GBS several years ago. I made her twin sister, Myra's, wedding cake almost five years ago. Because of some of our similarities we sometimes are mistaken for each other. Her name is Marybeth Louise Brown, mine is Marianne Louise Brown. Our work e-mails were mlbrown@gbs.edu and mbrown@gbs.edu respectively. I'm very happy to have been a part of her special day (it was even more special that she purchased my wedding gown and wore it today). I chose to do basketweave on the sides of her cakes so that if they shifted or cracked during the transport it wouldn't be as noticable. Each cake was topped with a red silk rose and silver dragees. The pictures are of the cake, Marybeth and Andrew, and Michaela Schaub who was the flower girl. That little lady brought tears to my eyes...she's growing up so quickly...she's only a few weeks younger than Allan...time sure has flown.

Jodi (Newton) Emery's Wedding Cake

Another snowflake wedding! It turned out well although the pictures don't show the iridescent sparkles very well. In addition to the tier cake she also needed 4 sheet cakes and the snowflake theme was used for them also.

Busy, Busy Week

I keep thinking that life will slow down one of these days but it's not looking that way...at least for the next week. On Tuesday I hosted a bridal shower for Marybeth Brown (no relation) and 11 other ladies. The menu (which is the most important part :o) was: Hawaiian Rolls, Bacon-Wrapped Water Chestnuts, Fruit with dip, Shrimp Dip with crackers, Dried beef cheese ball with crackers, creme puffs, cheesecake and punch. Due to a glitch with the invitations (no one on GBS campus received one) not as many people could come with only a 24 hour notice but we did have 12 people present. That occupied my doings on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday I worked on recovering from Tuesday and baked a cake for Jodi Newton's Bridal shower which was on Thursday. Thursday I decorated the cake and made a trip to Urgent Care for another eye infection. Friday I made snowflakes for Jodi's wedding cake which I'll be making this week (the 31st). Every time I do a snowflake cake I vow I'll never do another one...this is the third one. Since I can count on 50% of them breaking I do double of what I think that I'll need. These also have to be brushed with iridescent sparkle which takes extra time. This week looks like this: Monday - make additional snowflakes and make final purchases for cake, Tuesday- Make all of the icing, Wednesday - bake the 4 full sheet cakes that will be needed (each of these have to bake a little over an hour so until I bake, cool, turn out and refill that's probably all I'll get done) Thursday - bake all four layers of the tier cake, Friday - ice all the cakes and decorate the sheet cakes, Saturday - set up and decorate the tier cake, 5:30 is the wedding. And there goes my week! For those who have been asking - yes, we're still homeschooling and Allan absolutely loves it. He begs to go to school on Saturdays and actually last week I allowed him to do that. This week he's going to learn how to tell time and I know that's going to tickle him to death. Daniel enjoys learning right along with him. Stephen is doing great and is now taking two naps a day and sleeping from 9:30 to 7:30. I hope to put him in the crib the first of February...he doesn't have much room in his bassinet anymore.

Synopsis of This Past Week

Tried to explain to Daniel why a whole roll of toilet paper (save three feet or so) will not flush down the toilet.





Made a baby shower cake for Jackie Bishop.







Enjoyed the smiles our little guy so readily gives.













Enjoyed the little bit of snow that we had but the frigid temps were hard to endure....the hot water pipes froze on Thursday night. The hot water froze because the pilot light went out on the gas heater and caused the pipe to grow cold since it's right by a vent to the outside.





I did not take any pictures of the mouse we were able to snag in my kitchen...it wasn't pretty!

Weird week

As I said, with school dismissed it made for a really strange week. We were able to do things together as a family that I didn't think we'd be able to do again until next summer so that was fun.

On Friday the 19th we celebrated Daniel's second birthday. Because the pregnancy induced carpal tunnel was very uncomfortable he didn't get the cake he originally wanted but he seemed quite pleased with the dinosaur. We went to the Brown's and celebrated with a seafood dinner and cake and ice cream. It's hard to believe the little guy has been in our family for two years already. He has added a whole new dimension to our growing family ... and given us a few gray hairs in the process!

After celebrating his birthday I came home to work on some projects Friday evening and Saturday while the guys went camping at the Brown's in our new tent. Someone placed a sum of money in Philip's mailbox at school and we used some of it to purchase a tent to go camping. The boys had a blast. They built a fire and enjoyed the great outdoors with their daddy. I went an picked them up at suppertime on Saturday. This gave me some added rest and time to work on projects that need more than 15 minute time blocks.