What do babies dream of

Well now you have your chance to finally know what babies dream of.  Adele has answered all of this in simple photography. She sets scenes while Mila is napping and places her in a dream scene.  Here are some examples but you have to go see the website.  LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!

Attack of the 50 foot baby

Space Baby

Surfer Baby

How can you not SMILE when you see these pictures.  She explains how she does it and it doesn't take a long time and the baby is never disturbed.

What a cute idea!!

I love cheap and functional projects.  I also love scrapbook paper, but sometimes I can't figure out what to do with some of the sheets.  Well Carol, from Frugal Life blog, came up with this wonderful and creative idea. Best of all most of the stuff comes from the dollar store.

She took a stack of pictures from the dollar store, you know the wrapped canvas ones.

Spray painted the edges brown and trimmed some coordinating scrapbook paper.  Glued the paper onto the canvas and walla, you get this......

A quick, easy and cheap wall hanging.  I have seen stuff like this sell in stores for 6-8 bucks per canvas.  Since scrapbook paper has so many varieties the possibilities are endless.

I must go create this!!!

Lucas's 1st Birthday

Wow has this much time passed!!! My little nephew is 1 and I just realized how much time flys by.  My SIL went with a Baby Sesame Street party, I love me some Cookie Monster.  True story, when I was around 3 years old, my Mom and Dad were doing things on opposite ends of the house.  Well they both had a problem at the same time, so my Mom said "Hurry and go get your Dad".  I went back to get Dad and he said "I have a problem go and get your Mom".  Well I went back and forth with them saying the same thing and wound up crying not knowing what to do.  They finally figured it out and found me crying and they bought me a Cookie Monster doll to make up for it, I still have it but he is missing an eye.

It was his 1st birthday so we kept it simple and sweet, after all you can give a kid sensory overload. LOL

Again, I am very bad about taking pictures because I am always running around the whole party, maybe when Brenda moves here I can put her in charge of that. :)  Love you little sister!

I at least got a few pictures of the cake and Angela and Sydney before the crazy started.

Here was the best one, the others are blurry because of the smoke coming off the grill.  Yummmm, honey did a great job grilling again. Love you babe!

This was one of the cakes.  I have been working 40 hours a week and I had a UTI so it is not the best cake I have ever done.  I had another idea in my head but I had to change it due to time restraints.

Anyways I still love it because of Cookie Monster.

Even though he gave me the most trouble I still love him.  His arms kept falling down, we live in Florida and it was so hot.  So I used a cookies to hold up his arm.

Elmo on the other hand was easy and worked really well, The only issue I had was I ran out of white icing and did not get to cover the rest of the cake board under his feet, as you can see here. :)

I used the stand up Teddy Bear pan from Wilton and cut off the ears and nose. For Cookie Monster I cut into the head a little to form a deeper mouth so it would look more 3-D with the cookie in it.  I was baking cookies for the ice cream bar and just took a little dough and made smaller cookies.  After they cooled a pit some around him and broke on up to look like he was eating them.  The eyes are rolled fondant with black icing for the eye balls.  Elmo's nose is fondant as well.  The arms and legs are butterfingers, leftover from the crushed ones we made for the ice cream bar.

All the letters and numbers on the cake are made from rolled fondant and I used Wilton's letters and numbers small cutters.

This was his smash cake and I got the little figures from Party City, they are actually candles but they worked as decorations.  The reason why I did not do a way over the top smash cake was one reason only, red dye is so hard to get out of clothes, carpet, hair...etc.  I decided to go with the cookie monster blue at the very bottom and we removed all the figurines, it worked out very well. 

Now, onto the ice cream bar.  I had everything out already because I did not want to try to set it up while kids were running through the house.  Very bad idea!!!  As soon as the kids saw it, granted the ice cream was still in the freezer, it was all over.  I felt so bad, one little girl was pouting because her Mom wanted her to eat first, then she could swim and then have ice cream.  Sounds fair to me but when you are little and the table is at your height you figure why not. 

Again this is not as decorated as I wanted it but being sick for a few days it still worked. 

This is it partially together.  I still had to put the cherries in the bowl and rearrange a few things.  It is hard to see but I found little Elmo candy heads for the kids to put on the very top of the sundae.

Cookies in case someone wanted an ice cream sandwich instead or cookies in their ice cream.  I love Oatmeal Raisin cookies!!!

At the beginning of the line we have all the good stuff.  Toffee bits, peanut butter chips, white chocolate chips, Baby Ruth, Nestle Crunch, Oreos and Butterfingers (all crushed).  Next to that fresh blueberries, strawberries and pineapple. 

Next to that (not pictured) Reese's Pieces and M&M's and walnuts.

My favorite new cute item, the ice cream topper carousel, from Sur La Table.  They no longer make them and you have to locate one by calling different store and having it shipped to you.  Anyways, we put different sprinkles and colored sugars in them.  You can put hot fudge in the cupcake part, but I figured little kids and dripping hot fudge in the sprinkles. Ummmm NO!

Now onto the real fun!!! Smash cake time!!!!

Here is Lexi and Lucas, she is the little cheerleader. Come on Lucas you can do it!!

Tammy, his Mom, put his hand in it after he looked at it for a long time, not knowing what to do. 

He still hasn't really tasted it, he just keeps opening and closing his little hands.  Testing out the consistency of it, looks like Elmer's paste glue.  You know the stuff we all use to eat, OK maybe it was just me.  I can still smell that stuff to this day and it still smells appetizing. LOL

Now Sydney is in on it. I love that kid he is so adorable!  Lucas is tasting it and wait for it, wait for it, I think he likes it.........

Yep there we go this is how I eat my cake. :)

Lexi don't get to close or he might make you wear it too.  She is a cutie!

Here is Sydney again, this kid just smiles at me and I want to buy him a car. :)  All of his sisters and brothers are like this!!

Ooops, where is the cake go, Tammy took it away, smart woman!  The rest of the party he was wired and laughing as he walked around about 100 mph.  I love this kid, his eyes, personality cheeks and toothy smile!!

July 4th (I know I am late on the post)

We had a lot of people over for the party, about 50 or more.  We kind of had an open house which works really well so the house doesn't get so crowded, everybody seems to congregate in the kitchen.  We will have to rearrange the floor plan for the next party.  It did not flow as well as Easter did.  I, as usual, forgot to take photos and the only one I have is from a dessert I made.  I saw this little goodie in Williams and Sonoma, my personal toy store, and it was only $9.99 and I had a little spending money for it. 

It is called an Apple Pie Mold and they have different ones, they do not seem to sell the others online, just the apple one.

This side does not have a leaf cut on it.

This side has a leaf cut out on it

So to make the pie(s) you need the following

You need parchment paper, 1 egg scrambled (not cooked), pastry brush and pie filling.  Tape the parchment paper down to the countertop if it curls up.  Then place the dough onto it and if you have homemade dough start rolling it out. 

Take your dough and if it is premade, pull it out a little- just not to much you do not want it to tear.

Press one side of the back of the mold into the dough.  Unless you are planning on frying it then you do not need the side that has the leaf cut out.  You will want to make two of the side that does not have a cut out

Then turn it over and make an impression of the other side.

When you get done you will have two leaf cut outs and two non leaf cut outs.  Again unless you are frying it and then you will have 4 of the non-leaf cutouts.

Carefully pull the leaf cut out off the parchment paper.  The lift one of the non-cut out pieces off of the paper.

Put it on the side that has no crimp marks on it.

(Ignore this picture and the fact I did it the wrong way)

The piece should be on the non crimp side this was the first one I made but the only picture I have of the filling and egg wash.

Put about 2-3 Tablespoons of filling in the pie holder, then go around the edges with a little egg wash-this is the glue.

Then place the one with the leaf cut out on top and fold the apple mold back in half.

Press down to seal and then open it back up.

Remove from the mold and then do the next one. 

It seems like a lot of work but I made 16 of them very quickly since I bought pre-made dough already rolled out.  Wal-mart has their own brand that is about $1.27 per box and there are 2 in the box.

Now after you make them you HAVE to freeze them before baking.  So I made these the weekend before July 4th.  All I had to do the day of was pop them in the oven frozen and bake 10-15 minutes.  It worked better because they were more fresh and the dessert table always had fresh hot apple, cherry and blueberry pie. 

The bad part was as I got them out of the oven they were devoured and I did not get to get a picture of them cooked.  Well there will be more parties and so many opportunites to use them other than pies.  If you have kids you can make PB&J sandwiches and seal them for kids who like Un-Crustables it is a cheaper version.  Plus this means you can make it with real whole grain bread and natural peanut butter with a less processed jam. 

Giveaway from Bentobloggy for CSN!!

I love CSN Stores, everything under one Internet "Roof" that you can possibly buy.  I also love Bentobloggy, because she always has such wonderful and cute ways to get kids to eat their veggies.  She is having a giveaway right now for a $40.00 gift card and all you have to do is become a follower.  It is really like getting two prizes, once you become a follower you will always see her recipe and food ideas.  So go on over to her blog Bentobloggy and enter now. :)