Happy Birthday Grammie!

We celebrated Grammie's birthday on the weekend with decorations, presents and most importantly, cake! Fondant is her favourite so we tried a new design this year and it turned out quite nicely. Bright colours and polka dots made for a tasty festive treat! I almost hated to cut it, it was so pretty! Luckily we did because it tasted as good as it looked (if I do say so myself, and as the writer, it's up to me to report these important details!)

                              

1 Year Old!

The boy had his first birthday last week! There's still a lot of puppy in him though! Thursday is the busiest day here so we ate dinner after school, went off to different activities and all met back here for cake. Checkers was quite enthusiastic about his piece but didn't much care for posing with the cake while it had the candle on it! He also go some special treats and a new toy. The girls wanted to have a big party with everyone else that has a dog but that wasn't possible on a Thursday!

Wasn't that a party?

My birthday celebration in October was quite festive! the girls put up banners and signs and made some sweet cards. They helped Murray decorate the cake and they did a great job! My family came for dinner and Murray's parents made the trip too. The girls got Murray to take them out shopping and picked out their own presents. Sweetie insisted on paying for everything herself and I think she really spoiled me! She also used her sewing kit to make me a purse out of fabric she had.

Murray got these little camera earrings for me, aren't they the cutest!??!? Love them!

Tabby

This fall I couldn't talk anyone from my house into going apple picking! Luckily my friend Tabby loves me enough to invite me along with her. She had the same problem with her house. So we went together and found lots of tasty apples. Unfortunately I mistakenly picked THE best (ie most expensive!) eating apples instead of the cooking apples I was actually after. Oh well. Pies, crumbles and applesauces this year were a little on the decadent side and we'll be more careful next year!

It was Tabby's daughter's bday shortly after mine and way back in June she'd had a rough time at school. Tabby is a healthy eater and doesn't have much dessert at her house. (how she puts up with my extravagant dessert lifestyle, I'll never know!) She made the mistake of showing her daughter the pool cake I made for the girls' bday party this year, and her daughter was bemoaning to me how lucky my kids were that I made stuff like that for them. I told her I'd fix her up this year for her birthday and marked the date on my calendar. Little did I know at the time how tricky that was going to be! When I looked at the week's line up when it appeared on the calendar, my heart fell. Her birthday ended up being during the weekend that I was going to Banff! How was I going to deliver on that promise!??!? I had to get the house in order for my departure, I had clients waiting for their proofs, I wanted to get meals and desserts in the freezer so it'd be easier for Murray while I was gone. How was I going to prepare and deliver a cake while I was halfway across the country?!?!?

Then I remembered I could freeze the cake! She was really excited about the Kit Kat candy cake idea I'd sent her so I decided to stick with that and keep it simple. No fancy icing manoeuvres required! I baked the cakes and put it all together, tied it with a ribbon in her favourite colour and boxed it up and delivered it Wednesday morning and then flew out that night. It was a big hit at her birthday and thawed out just fine. I know it wasn't fresh but nobody cared and she felt special and enjoyed the spoiling so that was the important thing. Her brother's eyes almost popped out of his head and I think I'm going to have to even things up for his birthday or I'll be in trouble with him!

The Cake!

When we decided (ie convinced them) to have a backyard pool party, the next topic was "what's the cake going to be???" I turned to my new best friend in all things crafty, Pinterest, and found some great ideas! The winner for me was a cake shaped like a pool. Honey really wanted fondant but the other 2 didn't and this was an easy fix, one section with and one without, perfect!

I started baking the cakes late Wednesday evening. On Thursday morning, Lovey got up and came to the kitchen for breakfast and saw the single layers in the cake container. With obvious disapproval in her face and tone, she asked "is that our CAKE???" Bracing myself for an unpleasant scene I told her it was. "Well, is that it??? It's TOO small!" Honey chimed in about the some fondant/some not idea and that made Lovey even more cross. She hadn't been in the kitchen for 5 minutes and I was ready to lose it! I told her I wasn't finished baking all the layers and that she was making me cranky and better get to work on her breakfast and quit critiquing the cake work!

Despite the harsh criticism, I was excited to put this cake together! The design was simple but with the small decorative touches, it was going to be a fun one. Most years the cake takes SO much time (hello castle cake!) and this one was so straightforward but still looked so neat & festive.

I finished all the baking on Thursday night and started assembly on Friday afternoon. The fondant section got done first, then iced the second "pool" and put them together. Making the little pool accessories didn't take too long and added nice touches to the look. Everything except the slide was done Friday night. I had trouble getting the fondant to hold its shape but left it overnight and by Saturday it had firmed up enough to stand in place.

In the end I got 3 gold stars of approval and had more than enough cake to go around. Just in case Lovey's concerns were justified, I baked a 5th layer to have as extra but didn't end up needing it. Instead I converted it to a Happy Father's Day cake for Rick since he'd missed the party :)

The guests at the party were in awe when I brought it out. Then they found out I had made it myself and jaws dropped as they exclaimed "you MADE the cake?!?!?".  Their astonishment cracked me up. I'm pretty sure I could have saved myself quite a bit of time and trips to the store for extra icing sugar if I'd ordered it from a baker. But it's much more fun and rewarding to make it myself and the girls love watching the process. I'm not sure how long before theme cakes get old but for now it's something I can do for them!

So yes, this was a whole post about a cake. I was so excited & proud of it that I decided to give it a whole post of its own! It's my blog and that's how I roll haha!!!

Birthday Boy!

Another year down and lots more to go! Murray's birthday was on the weekend and his parents came to spend it with him. The girls had a great time preparing for their arrival and turned the house into a hotel! There were signs all over "Welcome to the hotel"  "Hotel Information", a check in desk, room numbers, do not disturb signs, room keys, the whole works. It was very serious business getting it all done. You should have seen housekeeping turning the guest suite from a hockey storage locker into deluxe accommodations. I should tell them we're having guests every weekend!


Friday night was pretty low key and we just stayed home but Saturday there was gymnastics and a violin rehearsal and Rick & I went to check out home building projects at a local event. Saturday evening we got treated to dinner out and Murray got his favourite salmon dinner! We came home afterwards for birthday cake and it was yummy! Once dessert was out of the way it was time to get the popcorn for family movie night. We watched Doggie B. or rather we suffered through Doggie B. Guess who's turn it was to pick? Yep. Lovey. I can't remember the last time we saw a non dog movie on her night. It's getting to be pretty slim pickings! It was the longest drawn out boring story I've seen in a long time. It was so lame at times that I thought for sure even the girls would be complaining but nope, they thought it was great! Well except for the part when the little dog did the triple aerial somersault, that might not have been totally authentic but everything else was great!

The next morning we got everyone cleaned up for church while the hotel guests were left to fend for themselves. (this might have negatively affected housekeeping's tip haha!) We managed to arrive with a couple minutes to spare and found the whole congregation assembled in the hall instead of the sanctuary which threw us off! I thought we'd somehow missed an announcement and were late for service or something. It turned out the boiler wasn't working properly and the sanctuary was too cold. Whew!

After worship, Lovey, Sweetie and I ran around picking up the last of Murray's gifts and got back just in time to grab some lunch before Lovey had to head off to her recital. Honey, Sweetie and I stayed home to prep for the birthday dinner while the others went to the concert.

We tried out our new beer butt chicken roaster. (official name unknown, just go with it) The bbq needed some parts replaced so Murray got those taken care of and we fired it up and roasted that bird to perfection. Ok so I stayed inside toasty warm while Murray worked the grill but I did the seasoning and assembly!

Murray's parents had to get back home for their next birthday celebration so the kids gave them a big sendoff, chasing their truck down the street and hollering and waving. Nothing says love like that does it??? Just as they lost sight of the truck, Grammie & Grandad came along and they hitched a ride back to the house. Perfect timing!

Lots of celebrating & lots of fun with family!

Our latest hair creation, the princess crown of hair!

Birthday Boy

I'm so behind on blogging events so this is out of order, but it's and my official blog motto is "better late than never".

We celebrated Dad's birthday here and had movie night so the girls had the best Saturday night they could imagine! A cake! A party! Grandparents! Family movie night! and let's not forget, movie SNACKS!!!

Thanks for sharing your birthday festivities here Dad, a good time was had by all (especially those who remained awake for the feature presentation eh? ;)))

Birthday Pool Party

So far behind in pictures and posts!!! Now that we're on summer vacation, I should have more time right? WRONG! Hopefully I'll get back on a routine soon and get caught up! I'm still working on pictures from the workshop in Michigan. Some days I don't even get my camera out because I know that's just another pile of files that will add to my to do list!

The pool party was a big hit, lots of little girls were able to make it and a good time was had by all. It was rather noisy at the beginning as we waited for everyone to arrive so we could do the cake & presents. Once they were occupied with food and watching the gift opening, things moved along well. I gave up trying to watch what each girl opened. They were all ripping and tearing at the same time so it was impossible to catch everything. I just tried to stay on top of keeping the gifts & cards out of the garbage.

Once they'd gotten through the pile, it was time to suit up and hit the water so that worked out perfectly. I stayed in the pool area for awhile, got my shots and then cleaned up the party mess and loaded everything back into the car while they played.  As soon as the guests left, we were ready to roll so I liked that!

 

This year's cake wasn't nearly as fancy but they liked it so that's the main thing and it looks like I can safely retired the castle kit! I was afraid they'd never get tired of that thing! I had the birthday message on the front as I forgot to leave room on the top for that! Then I put one name on each of the remaining sides so it worked out perfectly. I totally meant to do that too. ;)))

Mumma's Milestone!

Ok, so April was just crazy. seriously crazy. as in, crazy busiest month ever.  Everything started off well enough, had the nice little Easter weekend, Murray's birthday with the family and so on.

Then Lovey was in a violin competition with extra rehearsals, lessons and performances. Where by the way, she shone!!! While that was going on, I was also preparing a huge event for the multiples club involving a ridiculous amount of prep and 427 emails a day from participants, vendors, committee members and random inquiries from the public! Then Murray went away for the weekend to his mom's retirement dinner with 2 of the girls (Lovey had a violin performance that day & couldn't make the trip). Then we had a small celebration for my mom's 60th birthday and then later that night it rained insanely and our basement flooded all while trying to figure out what went wrong at our multiples event as some of our numbers were off and required a week long hunt to figure out and reconcile.

Soooo needless to say, I'm glad to see May arrive!!! and there better be some awfully nice flowers to make up for the problems from those messy April showers!!!!!!!!

Mum's birthday was on a Monday.  Anybody recall my insane Monday schedule around here??? Luckily, violin was cancelled that day! I picked up some flowers & cupcakes, grabbed the kids from school and hit the highway. Operation "surprise!" was underway! It was a total success if the look on her face as we stormed her workplace was any indication! It was the smallest and fastest birthday party ever though. We had no more than 15-20 minutes to get our birthday greetings done, eat a cupcake and get back on the road in time for dance class at 4pm. Luckily her bank is just off the highway so we were able to make class just in time!

We celebrated properly the following weekend with a real cake, candles and presents! Everyone came to our house Friday night for supper. As soon as the girls got off the bus, I put them to work, tidying and gathering up around the living room & kitchen. They take their parties very seriously and had everything looking pretty good before the guests showed up (early of all the nerve!!! LOL). Poor Dad had to finish the vacuuming so I could get the cake decorated! We had a special chair decorated in balloons and paper flowers for the birthday girl, signs were hung and more balloons put up. Murray barbecued in the rain and did a great job on some yummy chicken!

Although this is a little late in getting posted, Happy Birthday Mumma, you make 60 look good!!!

New Year's Festivities!

We brought in the new year with Murray's family this year and had a whirlwind of a weekend! Murray's on vacation til the girls are back in school so we were able to stay longer than usual. This allowed us to fit way more stuff in!

We arrived at midday Friday and grabbed a bite to eat and then went skating with Nanny and Auntie KK. Unfortunately some punk with a whistle decided the snowboarding helmets were not up to par as they were not CSA approved. We then had to get in a loooooooooooooooooong line to borrow appropriate headgear for the girls. That's all fine and dandy and I like to follow the rules and all that but let me tell ya, I was incredibly annoyed EVERY time we passed someone towing a kid in a freaking' BICYCLE helmet on the ice!!!!!!!! We wasted 45 minutes in that stupid line when what we should have done is hopped the fence in a different place! The guy that stopped us explained that it was because the helmets were only single impact and not multi impact. He didn't appreciate my promise that we would only let them fall once!

Sweetie was NOT living up to her moniker in her hockey helmet. She was determined to be miserable because she thought other people would think she looked dumb in the helmet. Skating lackadaisically, slumped over, at a snail's crawl with a big frown didn't look dumb at all though I guess. I'll take bad attitude for $200 please Alex! oh and a 15 minute time out when I get home! There wasn't any fixing her on the ice so I gave up, dragged her around until she forgot she was supposed to be miserable and by then the skate was over anyway. Lovey was on the other end of the spectrum of course and gave Nanny a workout trying to keep up with her. Honey very appropriately and cautiously skated at an enjoyable pace and observed all safety regulations!

I thought the skating and fresh air might tire them out and have them asleep early but the excitement of camping out in Nanny's room overpowered any sleepiness they might have felt. It was well after 10pm when they finally conked out!

The next morning I went out to meet a couple of friends I used to work with when we lived there. We had a great chat and many laughs as usual as we got caught up on each other's happenings. It went much too fast and I had to cut out early to make it to our next family event!

Murray, the girls & I, Nanny, Auntie KK, Uncle Andrew, Aunt Mandy & Mr. Bojangles all went swimming at the new facility in town. A very swanky pool with awesome waterslides, a huge pool, lots of floaty toys and lots of floor fountains to play in! The girls thrashed and splashed for almost 2 hours before we headed home.

I got ready and went to meet my friend Alisa and get her pictures ordered from the newborn session we'd done last time I was in town and I also got fed lots of yummy New Year's Eve snacks! I went from there to the party at Andrew & Mandy's where we played Balderdash while the kids ran wild, watched tv, stuffed their faces with cheesies and I'm not sure what else! We didn't make it to midnight though, but the girls got surprisingly close! We thought Lovey was going to check out when she crawled into a warm cozy bed in a dark room to watch tv but she & the others all hung on til it was time to go home. The quiet car ride was no match for even their staying power though. They were out like lights in minutes!

Sunday was a more relaxing day and our only activity besides lounging, was dinner at Karen & Paul's, Chinese food yummmmm!!!! We'd been wanting some for awhile so when Karen told us we were getting take out a couple weeks ago, it was pretty exciting news! (yeah, I know. but remember, we don't get out much!)

Today I dragged the kids out of bed by 8:30, trying to get out of this sleep in all morning, party all night schedule we've got going on! We drove home through a rainstorm and got here just in time to make some supper. (tuna noodle casserole that was met with much scorn from the little people!) We also enjoyed the reject cake I saved from certain destruction at Nanny's!!! :))) Yay for screw ups!!! haha!

A few snapshots from the weekend away!

Too Early!

The new bus schedule is killing us! Honey especially has been bearing the brunt of the 30 lost minutes of sleep. She could sleep an extra half an hour on the OLD schedule! Being shortchanged an additional half hour is wreaking havoc with her moods & attitudes. Today during math homework, she had a complete meltdown over the idea that they could all have a little teaspoon of icing if they got all their questions right on the practice questions I gave them. The wails of "it's not faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaair!!!!" bounced off the walls, before she'd even begun the exercise! Finally she was full out crying, still bemoaning the unfairness, uttering her hatred of math and concluding that she'd just rather not be alive! I told her she'd better go take a break in her room and come back when she was feeling better and told her to forget about the icing. Lovey never said a word and did all her questions correctly but in the subsequent chaos, her treat got missed. Sweetie was also upset at the "unfair" deal and started fussing also. I repeated my "whiners get nothing" stance and told them to forget about any icing sample.

Eventually Honey came back and worked through the questions. She likes to be quick and often skips questions by mistake and writes her numbers backwards. Before correcting her work, I asked her to make sure she hadn't missed any or gotten any numbers reversed. She glanced at her paper for a second or two and tossed it at me. Right away I saw 2 unanswered questions and a couple backwards 3's and told her she had missed a few things and circled them for her to finish/correct. More whining and crying and back onto the Great Icing Rip Off. I warned her that if she kept it up, there'd be no icing at supper or cake either for that matter. Rather than subdue it, the nagging was cranked up a notch. "why can't I have another chance??? please can I have a taste of the icing??? why? no FAIR!" and on and on (obviously forgetting that she had blown the previous "correct answers wins the treat" deal). I remind her at this point that that deal isn't on the table anymore and now she's risking her dessert serving of Murphy's birthday cake!  That halts her in her tracks momentarily and Sweetie stops completely and whips through her questions! I give Honey at least 2 more warnings on subsequent whining and sauciness.

Murray got home around this point and took over the math duties while I finished getting supper ready and then moves on to practicing her spelling words. She makes no effort to spell them properly and makes mistakes in a fairly successful effort to annoy us both and then whines when he asks her to make the corrections. After all these extra "chances", I tell her she's out of the running for the birthday cake. Then I feel bad because we're celebrating Murphy's birthday and I hate to "deprive" her!!! but I let her go when she runs screaming to her room.

Aunt Cathy arrived for supper, the table's not set, the food isn't quite ready and everybody's cranky! Welcome to our humble home, please enjoy yourself amidst our emotional chaos!!!

Once Honey had calmed down a bit, I went to talk to her. At the end of the whole drama, I had realized that the girl is just overtired. On weekends, they all sleep an extra 2-3 hours past the usual wake up for school time. They just aren't getting enough sleep through the week and it has taken its toll. I went in and talk to her and told her this and that we need to change our routines to get her body more rest. She pulled me into a hug, crying and said "my body just wants more sleep!!!!". I also told her I'd changed my mind and she could have dessert. So much for taking a stand!!!

HBDTM!

Happy Birthday To ME!!! I turned 40 the other day and what a great day I had! When I turned 30, I was a bit disappointed in the lack of hoopla and I may have casually commented half a dozen times on this oversight..... sooooo when I woke up on my big birthday this time, there were 40 balloons in the kitchen, hanging from Happy Birthday signs! Then as I was getting the kids ready for breakfast, they announced my birthday on the radio!!! We listen to the same morning show every day and I always phone in their birthdays and this year Murray & Sweetie won the draw on their birthdays & we got to to out to a restaurant with their gift certificate prizes. I was bracing myself, pretty sure that no one would have thought of it and was really excited when my name came on!!! He remembered! and went to the trouble of looking up the number and sneaking in the call from another room without me noticing!!! The girls sang Happy Birthday several times, right til the walked up the steps to get on the bus :)))

As the bus was coming, Lovey got concerned.

L (sad worried voice: )Mummy! it's your birthday! and.... we're going to school... and Daddy's leaving for work!! you're going to be all alone on your BIRTHDAY!!! What are you going to DO????

I assured her I had made plans to keep me from getting too lonely while they were all gone. After they left, I checked my email and got a message from Rocky Mountain Chocolate wishing me a happy birthday and telling me I won a free chocolate bar and to come pick it up.

To keep from getting too despondent, I went to my morning class at the gym, ran a couple of errands, got my chocolate & then met a bunch of people from the gym who were meeting for lunch to try out a new restaurant. (which was yummy and someone picked up my tab!) After lunch I went for a pedicure which was awesome and so relaxing. Must remember to do that again someday! By the time I was done that, I had to race home to meet the bus. 

We had nachos for supper and enjoyed some birthday cake then we all curled up on the couch and watched a couple episodes of Little House on the Prairie. A perfect & cozy evening with my fave peeps :)))

Once the kids went to bed, I cracked open my birthday present that's been sitting in the spare bedroom for a few weeks and hooked it up to the computer and I'm in love!