Birthdays

Today my daughter turned 9. so for the next month I have a 12 yr old, tow 9 yr olds and two 7 yr olds, none of them twins. My daughter and step son are exactly 11 months apart to the day, so for 1 month a year they are the same age. And my son and step daughter are just under 5 months apart, so they are the same age for 7 months a year.

I always make a special cake for the kids birthdays, and for todays I did a cute gummy bears at the beach scene/theme.

I cut out a section of the top cake layer and filled it with a mix of blue and green jello, and added gummy sharks. The floaty tubes are gummy peach rings and of course gummy bears. I used marzipan for the beach blankets, ball, sand pails and scoops. The sun shade is a small truffle paper on a toothpick with gummy pieces securing the cup. I used a tooth pick broken off to make the footprints in the sand. It was pretty fun to make, and the kids liked it too, jello AND cake!!

Tomorrow I take my first official polymer clay bead making class. Which is being  taught by my RL friend Elaine of   http://www.tooaquarius.com/ She has wanted to teach me for a few years, so this should be fun. Later in the week my 2 eldest daughters are taking classes from her as well on making critters. I may post about it tomorrow, IF I remember my camera. I am awful for forgetting it and wishing I had it.  I'll try to remember to put it in my back pack for tomorrow.
C'ya!

Family stuff

I have been rather busy with the family lately. My middle daughter Kaylens birthday is in Aug, so if she wants any friends to come to the party we have it in June. I always make the kids special home made cakes, and she wanted a flower garden with her name in roses and gummy worms all over. I have very little skill with icing technique. So I used skills learned from polymer clay sculpting that my friend Elaine of Tooaquarius taught me and used marzipan to which rose extract and red food colour was added. The girls liked it.

The same weekend there was a big annual Picnic in the Park, a family fun day, with games, food and live entertainment. My eldest daughter was a volunteer face painter and got to paint her littlest brothers face.

And the museum put on a mock trial and used volunteers from the audience.... yeah they picked me. I was told to improv my lines if I wanted, so I hammed it a bit. It was fun, and a nice end to the day.

Alyia, our youngest daughter had her friend birthday party this past weekend, she asked for a unicorn cake, which is much easier than the rose garden was!

And I leave you with the PS2 family airband, Kaylen is in the back on drums, Alyia is our lead singer, Braydon and Geran are our guitarists, Adaira isn't in the photo, I guess she must be the manager, LOL!! Note the rockin' PJs onstage!

Easter 2010

Easter has come and gone for another year, PHEW!! My family and their extensions always get together good friday and rent the hall in Eastend to colour eggs together while the men play poker. 40 dozen eggs folks... and I think 16 or so kids.



wouldn't be fun without greenish blue digits after either!

Before the eggstravavganza we had supper with my folks and my brothers family. we got all 7 of the grandkids on the couch for an adorable photo moment.


Ok so aside from Easter the first United Church had a weekly rummage sale. I haven't gone for awhile. but the past one my pal jaime went to and called saying there was a bunch of yarn I might like. She picked me up and I got all this for $6. Sweet!

Speaking of whom I also just finished her purse order for her mom, zipper and all!


I also did a custom pair of earrings for a lady who is in my knitting and crochet group and recently our Tuesday makers meeting.



So that's what I have been busy at the last week!

zombie blog

I keep forgetting to post every day or week, and months later I am sitting here going "well lets revive this puppy" My poor dead blog must be a zombie all the times it's died.
So I have had a lot of interest in my work recently.
I am being featured in a blog on the 22nd and doing a give away from there:
http://naturemanipulated.blogspot.com/
There is a local shop called Eden's Apple and the owner saw me out with my pop tab purse and wants to make a whole sale purchase for her shop. I LOVE this shop it's full of funky cool stuff.
There is now a local crochet and knitters club in town, yay!!
the local art gallery is having me do a wire crochet demo this Sunday! Totally pumped there!
There is a local crafters club starting tomorrow and I volunteered to do a demo for the members once we get established enoguh to do them.
I have 2 craft sales this month as well.
Whew all of a sudden there's a lot on my creative plate!

Kaylen my 8 yr old went on air with her school for a major provincial fundraiser, so yesterday every TV station in the province showed the telethon. They even got to sing with original Sesame Streets Bob. Too bad none of the kids had a clue how cool all of us parents thought that was LOL.
I was so proud of her! She is NOT happy being on stage at all and this was a huge event. She did tell me that she will never perform again but wants to sing with the choir for practices only. This is odd to me as she is normally the wild and crazy extrovert. But maybe it's different at home... which is a good thing, wild and crazy at school can cause problems.
Anyway This should count as a revival, ad I am off to make biscuits to go with the ham and lentil with wildrice soup for supper.

Baking with kids

MMMM cake!!

This week I have a few baking projects to do. I have a cake for a church function happening today, cupcakes for my sons kindergarten class Valentines party, and a B-day cake for my friend and fellow etsy artist Elaine aka Tooaquarius.

Last night I started making the cake for the church, angelfood cake hollowed out and filled with chocolate mousse. My daughter age 7 wanted to help sooo badly. I made the cake and she made the mousse, measuring out and adding all the ingrediants, and using my hand mixer like a pro. Actually her mousse was as good or better than mine! And the best part for herwas licking the beaters off! For me the best part was cooking with my daughter, like my mom used to bake with me. Oh the memories, and lessons learned, baking is a fun way to begin teaching the kids to cook, and they are so proud of themselves! At moms hip was where I began my passion for cooking, and I think my middle child here has it too. One of my goals as a mom is to ensure all 5 of them can cook. At least enough to feed themselves before they leave home. Mac n cheese are all well and good on occasion but I don't want them to have to live off of it. Here is the final result--> She did a great job!

Tonight I make the cupcakes and I will be getting my boy to help me with them as well, at 4 he could flip pancakes, so mixing up cupcakes should be no problem! Now, who to help with Elaines cheesecake...

blog block

Right, so i have been meaning to blog all week, and I still have no idea what to say this week. What do you do when you know you should but dunno what to blog about really? So here is what I am up to lately.

Currently I am working on a series of projects based on colour, all in shades of whatever colour, like this one: --> Which I call "Midnight Sky" last night I did the brown and right now I am working on white, and will likely go through the rainbow. Some will be necklace and earring sets some bracelets. MIGHT do 3 part sets for a few, I dunno yet.

Hubby and I are trying to plan a few days away from the kids during Feb. break. However just as we made that decision all sorts of $ drains showed up, the energy bills practically doubled, needed some bulk basics, ect. So the "go to the spa" idea might not happen. We still need to go away and relax though, he is an accountant and tax season is about to kick in and he's stressed before it starts, NOT a good thing.

The kids are amusing and frustrating all at once. The youngest girl is left handed and keeps wanting to write backwards, the middle girl is ambidextrous (sp?) and will occasionally write the letters backwards. The eldest is old enough to be going to school dances and some of her friends have boyfriends!!! Isn't 11 a bit young, sigh! The eldest boy had a fit over an assignment that was to find a compliment for everyone in class, I mean crying pouting "it's too hard!!" fit. I don't get it. The youngest boy seems to be doing alright, but he keeps talking himself up, and I think he could be a bully magnet if he doesn't tone it down.

And on Monday I finally made an appointment to see my Dr for a physical and to look into my depression and cycle concerns. However I can't get in until Feb 23! Good thing I'm not sick or anything. Also I want to do something different with my hair, but it's so short I don't know what I can do that is easy to do in the morning. I don't have time for curling irons and detailly things. Maybe I'll shave it all except the bangs and dye them purple....

My kids are so silly

So, I have noticed lately that my kids all have different, but very silly humour. In the top we see my son who asked me if we could play kangaroo and baby, so being an intriging idea I found my stretchiest pants (I used to use them as maternity) and tucked my joey in my pouch.
Here we see my 3 biological kids stacked up with the middle child (age 7) on the bottom, eldest in the middle (11) and the youngest on top (5) Now this is especially amusing as the 7 yr olds teacher last year tols us she had very little upper body strength... she really looks weak here doesn't she?
Now this is what happens when you put a cap of bubblebath in the jet tub, so my 11 yr old discovered. Looks like a lotta fun actually. Yeah my kids keep me busy and highly amused. You just never know what will come out of their mouths or what you'll see them doing next. I love my job. Well except for the laundry.

Birthday Party

I'm ba-ack!

This weekend was BUSY!! I had parent teacher interview with my eldests teachers, and it wasn't good. She's very behind in her math, and her math binder is so disorganized that she's done 2 of the assignments twice. So we got the binder organized, and got her down to business and all caught up, phew!! The interviews with my step kids were much better, both are doing well, and Alyia is adjusting to kindergarten very well, even if she can't remember most of the kids names LOL!

Sat Adaira had her 11th B-day party which was a sleep-over, or rather a no sleep over. The girls were up allnight chatting and giggling as only a gaggle of pre-teen girls can. I always make a fun cake for the kids and this year I did a switch a roo for the 11th, the main course wasa 2 layer meatloaf which i frosted with mashed potatoes and filled with cheese. I even wrote happy birthday on top in ketchup and told the girls that we were having cake first since 11 is the same forwards and back. They were pretty impressed with this turn of events and then were amused when it ended up being meatloaf. The dessert I made was a 3 layer cke made to look like a hamburger, the middle layer was left un frosted as the patty and the filling was coloured icing as the cheese, relish and mayo and strawberry jam as ketchup, I used almond slices as the sesanme seeds on the top "bun" too.

Last night we did a bit of shopping and then i decided to try playing with polymer clay again. I made a couple warped faces and an eye cane that I rolled a bit wrong and the iris is not really round. I dunno how long it took Elaine to figure this all out, but I know it won't come quickly either.

I'll get better with more practice, and now that i am done with craft show season I might concentrate more this winter on learning the how to's.

AHHH!!

I am feeling slightly frustrated just now and decided to drop everything and chill for a minute.

My first BIG craft show is in 3 days, so I am very busy trying to get ready. Hubby has called me 6 times today, "can U do this?, That? and don't forget to other thing" Kids had today off school, so it's been " M-O-O-om, can I do this, ot that, I'm hungry, why can't i eat a school snack now? I'm bored, and I need this that and some other stuff!" AHH, no, you are grounded again remember, then you should have eaten lunch, because I said so, you have an entire basement full of toys go play with them!

So it is now 5:00 I made 2 necklaces and matching earrings all day. Go me, I quit, not worth the effort. Now i get to find the step-kids stuff they need for tomorrow, and make sure all kids have clothes for the week, do the dishes, call the sitter, mend the sign that the kittens climbed (NOT happy) and TRY to get the damned sewing machine to hem my table cloth so I can iron it. make up a things I need to bring to the craft show list, and start packing said list up.

Why doesn't the laundry fairy visit my house?

Not the blog I wanted to post for the week, but there it is the life of a SAHM crafting addict.