Andi's Birthday! Woohoo!

Most people that know me, know I love birthdays, holidays or any reason that gives me the chance to do something nice for the people I love or even the ones that are close to me. The special event this past week was Andi's 29th birthday. So to begin this story, you should know all of our family have become addicted to watching cake shows for the last few months and we each have our favorites "Cake Boss", "Charm City Cakes" etc. Well I wanted to do something extraordinarily special, "Over The Top" if you will for Andi on her birthday. I started early Tuesday morning gathering all the supplies for this special cake. Keep in mind I have never attempted to make anything like this before, this is was my first. The "creation" is created with moist red velvet cake with cream cheese icing, covered with rolled fondant. Flowers were made with gum paste and colored with pink pastry luster dust. I also used brown floral tape to make the stems look more realistic. On the larger portion of the cake I piped blue frosting to form tranquil water that was bordered by realistic looking rocks (jellied candy). On the top of the smaller portion I poured brown sugar and made designs and placed rocks in the "sand" to portray a zen rock garden. Finally I finished off the bottoms of the cake with a chocolate fondant band. I was so happy with Andi's re-action to her birthday cake, she said she nearly fell off her chair when I unveiled it. lol It was a great day, and we will be having dinner with some friends this weekend to finish off her celebration. I hope this is something she will remember for the rest of her life.

HALLOWEEN 2009!

Well here we are, post Halloween 2009. This was a packed fun day of adventurous mayhem. First Andi and I took the kids out to lunch at one of our favorite little cafe's called Southern Recipe Cafe in Richardson, TX. Then we promptly dropped the kids off at the local library for some Zombie fun and activities which include face painting, movies and learning to dance to Thriller! in which this video maybe on Youtube in the near future. So while the kids were enjoying there fun at the library Andi and I went to target to scope out cool baby paraphernalia, hehe. Looking at strollers, car seats, baby bath stuff and all kinds of other goodies. Of course with all the fun we were having time flew by and we had to pick up the kids to head out to Andi's mom's neck of the woods so they could enjoy some well deserved trick or treating. As we picked the kids up I noticed there makeup wasn't as cool and scary as I hoped so I dugout some good ole' oatmeal, toilet paper, liquid latex and of course some Karo syrup and red food coloring and made my own masterpiece. In fact while my daughter was trick or treating one of the neighbors told her, "She would scare God himself"! Like Andi said in her blog, that is a heck of a comment to any Zombie Teenager. lol My Son was going to be a vampire like Andi and I but he found my goulish Mask from last year and went with that instead. Andi and I popped in our prosthetic vampire teeth and handed out candy with her mom which was tons of fun. I haven't seen so many Gouls, Goblins & Bumble Bees since I was back in my small hometown in upstate New York. This has been by far one of the best Halloween's I have experienced in my 8 years living in Dallas. I enjoyed my beautiful vampire girlfriend, the kids and the small town atmosphere in which I never knew how much I longed for and missed. A void has been filled and now I can't wait until Thanksgiving and Christmas. Happy Halloween Ya'll!