Happy Birthday Isaiah!

Whew…we made it through our month of birthdays! It was fun, but I’m glad to be done. I’ve decorated enough cakes for awhile too.

So, I found a motorcross cake in the most recent issue of Family Fun magazine. Isaiah liked it so we decided to give it a try….NO blue frosting (see Daniel’s cake) and NO crazy toppings (see Joshua’s cookie/cake).  I showed Dave a pic and he had a better idea about how to make it. It helps that he used to ride motorcross. So…I got the cake baked, added some frosting and he went to work:

Look at all my handsome guys!!! Oh…and the cake too:

Isaiah and his cake:

Not a bad family pic:

Here is his Star Wars tattoo he got from McDonald’s, oh, and his “tough” face to go with it:

Here they are building the Lego set he got:

It was nice to be able to do a little party for each of them. While in Indy we did one big party. However, poor Isaiah thought his turn would never come. It’s still hard to believe how big they are all getting. I’m reminded that I really need to make sure I’m taking time to enjoy this stage in their lives…I’ll never get it back. Although, there are days when I’m also thankful for that. God has truly blessed our family. It’s hard to not have our own home and our own stuff, but you know what? I have the most important thing: MY FAMILY. I love them all more than I ever imagined possible.

Happy Birthday Daniel!

It’s so hard to believe he is six! He wanted to make frog cupcakes for his school friends. His teacher has their classroom decorated in frogs. He helped make those.

 

We saved 3 for the boys for after supper.

I also made him a Lego cake for here at home. It was BLUE!

Here’s what happens when you eat it….

And here’s a picture after losing those two teeth the week before his birthday. As you can see the others are in pretty far already.

My Italian Chicken

I’m not one to use recipes most of the time. And even when I do I end up changing things around anyway. Here is what I made for supper the other night.

I cut up boneless, skinless chicken breasts into small pieces (bigger than bite size, you can do whatever size you want..even whole).  I then dipped them in Italian dressing and then into a mixture of parmesan cheese and flour (probably about 50:50 or so).  Then I fried them in some oil in a cast iron skillet. It would probably work to bake them too. SOOOOO Yummmy! And no…no pictures. I had mine on a salad and it was TASTY!

And the best part…all 3 boys ate it without complaining!!!

Fruit bouquet

I am in charge of the food for our Mothers’ and Others’ brunch. I am doing my best to keep costs as low as possible and yet still have a nice selection of food.

I’m not exactly sure what made me think of it, but I remembered seeing edible fruit bouquets. I thought this would be a great way to dress up the food table and save money. It would provide a beautiful centerpiece (or two) and also be edible. So, I did some searching online to look for tutorials and to get some ideas. I lots of good resources, but mostly just looked at the pictures on sites that sell these bouquets.

So, yesterday afternoon I went out and got the fruit I needed. I bought a pinapple, honeydew melon and strawberries. I had a cantaloupe and grapes already on hand. Oh…also a head of lettuce. The lettuce is used as the base and then the fruit is put on skewers and poked into the lettuce.

I was very happy with how this turned out…especially for a first try. There is room for improvement, but I knew this was for practice. There are sooooo many ways to make these. They could be made as individual mugs, dip some of the fruit in chocolate, cut other shapes or just whatever your heart desires.

This isn’t the greatest picture, but it was late when I finished and didn’t feel like dragging my light box upstairs.