Homemaking

We're staying home for Christmas this year and this has given us the
opportunity to start some new traditions and spend more time with
friends as well.
Mid-month two of my homeschooling mom friends came over with their
families and we had a little Christmas party. We made Christmas pizzas
for lunch. I got the idea from this Pinterest link. The kids thought it
was way cool to eat a Christmas tree and snowman pizza!!

After lunch, we made a Gingerbread Nativity which in our case actually
used graham crackers. I got the idea from this Pinterest link. We had
lots of fun and I thought ours turned out well.

The first Sunday of December, Miriam was in a little Christmas musical
at church. We are blessed to have great little children's choir at
church which Miriam very much enjoys. This year they did "Just Believe"
the story of a church children's choir that doesn't get to do the
preformance they intended but along the way learns some important
lessons. Miriam played the part of a sheep. I know I'm bias but Cutest.
Sheep. Ever!!! I was so proud of her. She was in the front of the stage
the whole show and she did so well singing out and saying her Bible
verse (John 3:16). The last 6 months have seen a big jump in her
maturity and it show in places like this.

One final bit of proof that Pinterest is not a total waste of time... I
made this new decoration for our family. A felt Christmas tree the kids
can play with and decorate! It was easy to make and I think they did
enjoy being able to decorate over and over.

So this year Evan asked for a Spiderman cake and Miriam asked for a
princess cake. I wasn't thrilled with either requested and managed to
talk Miriam into a castle cake with princesses on it. But there was no
moving Evan off Spidey.

The Spiderman cake ended up giving me quite a headache. I was trying to
make a 3-D bust of Spidey. I made the body and shoulders out of cake and
the head out of rice crispies. I got this far...

But the head was just too heavy even with a tripod style dowel holding
it up. In 5 minutes it was obvious it would fall and take the cake with
it!

So we went to Plan B... star foam head. But the local craft story didn't have an egg or oval shape.

On to Plan C... lay Spiderman down. I think that worked well! Here he is:

Miriam's Castle cake actually took a lot longer but it all went as planned. I got the idea and some insight here.

Only part of the cake not eatable is the lower parts of the towers which are cardboard tubes covered in fondant!

It's been busy around here. But I found a little time to do a little nesting.

We finally got bunkbeds for the girls. (Although we left them as twin beds for now.) So now that Katie is in her big girl bed, the crib has been moved into the boys' room. (Love saying "boys' room"!!) The boys' room has not changed a whole lot beyond the addition of the crib, but the girls' room is quite a bit different. They seem happy with things, and Evan can't wait to have a roomie!! 

When you follow roads like these:

You end up with loads like these!

Then your kitchen looks like this:

And your sink fills with these!

Thankfully, I have helpers like these!

I've been busy turning these,

Into this! Yeah, we really need this much jelly! Seriously!

So what have I been up to lately?  Well, picking these from our tree.

Making this with them.

And doing this with them. We love peaches. :)

It's not been the best year for gardening with not enough rain then too much, but somethings have done well enough. The sunflowers look lovely, for example. :)

The blueberries have also done well thanks to the rain arriving just in time.

The tomatoes loved the dry weather we had early on so they are doing well too.

Miriam asked for a kitty cake this year for her birthday. So I decided to try my hand at my first real 3-D cake. I made the body using the top tier pan of a wedding cake. I cut it in half and set the halves together upright on their cut side. I made the base of the head from a small oven safe glass bowl. I then cut the tail, ears, front paws, and muzzle from a 9 inch round cake. I assembled it all with icing and a few toothpicks and cardboard dowels. After freezing the cake overnight, I sculpted the hind legs and face and did a bit of of general sculpting until I had the cat shape I wanted. I rough iced everything. Then, using a #233 tip, I piped "hair" on to the cat in three colors. I made the eyes, nose, and mouth along with the ball of yarn from fondant. I was very happy with the end result as was Miss Miriam. :)

As those who have been around awhile know, I like to make a special cake for each of my children on their birthday. In the past, I've done coordinating Sesame Street cakes for M & E, a candyland cake, Elmo, Veggie tales cakes, a barn cake, and an ice cream cone cake.

This year Evan asked for a Toy Story cake. (He LOVES Buzz and Woody). So, I did Andy's Room. I made a half sheet cake and covered it with fondant (this was my first time working with fondant). I used MM fondant made from this recipe. I added a small rectangular cake for a bed, covered with a fondant "bedspread" and made a headboard out of fondant, graham crackers, and pretzel sticks. I added fondant stars to the base for decoration. I also added miniature character toys I bought (they were easy to find thanks to the new movie coming out!) As you can see, Evan loved it!