Maren's Baby Shower

Last month we celebrated Maren's baby shower.   Maren and Joe (Adam's Cousin) were waiting until the birth to find out what they were having so the hosts of the shower had a very neutral theme planned.  Imagine everyone's surprise when baby Grace decided to show up early, before the shower even occurred!  

But since everything was already in order, the neutral theme went on.  I was very excited when I was asked to help with the desserts.  I made this cute little gray and yellow birdy cake and some matching yellow cupcakes.  

Melanie's Reception

I recently helped frost about 300 cupcakes for Adam's Cousin Melanie's reception.  Her colors were light pastels.

Let him make cake!

This is what you get when you let a 2 year old decorate a cake

Focus

Determination

Creativity 

Eventually you just get on the table

Sneak a piece of candy

 

And prepare to dig in!

(P.S. as background to this post, it seems Brycen has developed an obsession with the show Cake Boss.... What else is an Aunt to do but provide one for her favorite nephew to decorate himself!)

And the winner is....

Ok, not me!  But, it was still way fun!

Saturday I took part in the first Cupcake Contest at the AZ State Fair.  It was also their very first live competition.  The contest was modeled after the tv Show Cupcake Wars, only modified since there aren't a plethora of kitchens at the fair!

Instead, the contestants had to bring 1 dozen unfrosted, unfilled and undecorated cupcakes.  Then we were given 1 hour to complete the cupcakes.

All our cupcakes had to be Citrus themed; everything had to be citrus: the cupcake, filling and frosting.

 

Here I am at my station working on my cupcakes

Time out to smile at the Camera!

. Almost done!!!

The whole time we were working, there were people walking around checking out what we were doing; both spectators and judges.  It was kind of fun telling people what I was making and then hearing them declare MMM and want to try them!

Here they are on the judging table ready to go!   I was contestant number 3.

 Very blurry side view

 Yep, thats a Popsicle stick in my cupcake.... My cupcake was an Orange Dreamsicle cupcake, so it works!

 Here I am describing to the judges and the audience what my cupcake is. 

And the judges tasting my cupcakes!

And ta da!   I get a big red ribbon!!

I was so please with second place!  I couldn't believe it!  Now I just have to wait to get my ribbon and my $50 check in the mail! (The fair kept my cupcakes and the ribbon to display through the rest of the fair)

All the winners! 

Yep, both 1st and 2nd went to men!  So funny, their wives also competed and at least one of them was SOOOOO mad her husband placed and she didn't.  Hilarious!

The contest was a lot of fun and I might just have to do it again next year!

What we did this weekend...

In addition to the typical weekend household chores, this is what we accomplished:

Canned 12 quarts of Salsa

Random Organizing.  I went to The Container Store... It was my first time, and well I got a little crazy!  The whole time I debated, ask permission first, or forgiveness later, in the end I went with forgiveness later!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this rack!  Since we don't have a real pantry, we turned our coat closet (cause really who needs a coat closet in AZ) into one and this cleaned up stuff so much.

Also grabbed a bunch of magnetic containers to hold some of my most used spices (I discovered many that I had 3 containers of because I was almost out, bought a new one and then forgot I bought a new one and bought another!  Well no more!  All right there for me to view on the Fridge!)

Baked 2 1/2 dozen cupckaes... from scratch.. not one, but TWO kinds with not two but THREE types of frosting!

First ones were more practicing for the state fair cupcake contest - Orange Creamcicle Cupcakes! Orange cupcakes with orange and cream cheese swirled frosting.  The second was a first, completely Vegan Cupcakes!  My bro in law has a food sensitivity to dairy so I made these for him to eat.  Chocolate Cupcake with Strawberry frosting.  They were actually good and the frosting was amazing!

Went to our Sacrament meeting this handsom young man was sustained as a counselor in our Bishopric; then got to hear him be ordained to be a High Priest and set apart in the Bishopric.  

Then RACED to Mesa for another Sacrament meeting where this little lady was blessed.

And our big weekend project, Kitchen Cabinet Painting!

Heres the boring before pictures

And here is the After!  

 LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!   We painted the walls red about a  year ago, but didn't do the cabinets because I couldn't bring myself to since they were new when we moved in.  Well, I finally decided they had to go!   So happy with the way it turned out! 

 

What a great weekend!

Well we tried....

In honor of the Suns, I made these fun little "cakelets". I promise, they were actually purple and orange though they are bordering on BSU colors!

Adam got me this fun cake pan for my bday, and I just had to try it out!

I guess it didn't really help the Suns win, but they were sure fun to eat!

More Surprises...

A few days after I got my dad's surprise b-day package in the mail, I got another package in the mail! So fun!

I got even more excited when I saw the return label
Oh what could it be!
Ha! Giant cupcake pan from Williams Sonoma! YEAH! I am so excited for this baby!

Mom also got me a dough scraper after watching me try to pick up donuts off the counter. Good one!
Thanks mom for some super presents!

Cast Party cake

For our Cast Party, we made a huge, crazy cake! There were at least three of us working on this bad boy and it turned out pretty fun! This was the top.. The only credit I can take for this one is I baked the cupcakes!

Obviously the top layer represented Lion King. On the next layer, you can see the red and blue striped. The opposite side of the cake had white, grey, black stripes and this was the Les Mis layer.

This was my favorite part! The bottom layer was Oliver and, well we didn't know what to do so we represented the sellers on the corner with the Knife Grinder, Rose Seller, Milk Maid and Strawberry seller. Aren't those strawberry's so Cute! Yeah I made those!.... But my absolute favorite was Wizard of OZ! Aren't those cupcakes sooo cute! And did you notice the Wicked Witch of the East legs popping out of the cake with Ruby Slipper?! HEHE!

Snips, Snails and Puppy Dog Tails!

Again, almost titled this one "It's a Boy", but again thought that would be very deceiving! Last weekend I got to host a baby shower for a lovely sister in our ward. And since I've recently become, well obsessed, with party planning blogs I had to have a theme and go all out! (Seriously, dream job alert! Anyone want to hire me full time?) Being my first attempt to create a dessert table, I don't think it turned out half bad!

The theme was Snips, Snails and Puppy Dog Tails and I chose to have lots of primary type colors; blue, red, orange, yellow and green.

Cake stands look familiar? Yep more homemade creations! The backdrop was simply 12x12 scrapbook paper and ribbons. I loved how it turned out and allowed us to open the window but not show just a big tree trunk outside.

I wanted most of the desserts to follow the theme, so first:

Here are the "Snips"

I wanted to get the "Nibs" brand of licorice pieces, but couldn't find any, so I cut up my own! Plus they are red so they work perfectly!

And the Snails:

These little guys were made out of peppermint candies, which by mistake I made the day before and their little red stripes "melted". They were housed on a bed of green coconut grass.

More snails, this time Sugar Cookie Snails!

Don't you just want to bite this little guys head off?

And of course the Puppy Dog!

Chex mix puppy chow (seriously google puppy chow and see if the first thing that comes up is not delicious chex mix!)

Followed by a sweet puppy cupcake.

These little buggers looked easy, but those darned ears had the toughest time staying on! Out of 1 dozen only 4 came out with both ears - all the rest lost exactly 1 ear, none lost both. How strange.

More close up views of the table.

We also had homemade lemonade (thanks again Adam!) and it was also the guest of honors birthday so I made the main cake a little girly, while still keeping in the color scheme.

Isn't that homemade cake stand awesome! And it supported that big heavy cake so well!

The shower was definitely a lot of fun to plan and I loved how it all turned out!