Tinker Bell Cake and Dead Sexy Straight Hair



I'm giving this post a "cakes" label but don't be fooled...its just a way for me to show off my dead sexy straight hair.

This picture is post straightening but pre Posh Spice cut and color, which I got today. And yes, if you're doing the math, it was my precious mother's last day here and I did leave for 3 hours to go get my hair done by Salon Sara. Don't judge me until you see it!

I would promise you a picture of my Posh Spice haircut for tomorrow's post but you actually hold me to it and I can't handle the disappointment in your comments (Jen Roth) when I don't actually get the pictures up so I'm just going to tell you I'll get it up soon.

Oh, and for the label's sake: this is Roo's 2nd birthday cake. Tinker Bell themed but pretty lame in my book. I used a Demarle flower mold, colored the frosting purple and topped it with some Tink figurines I found at Walmart for 6 bucks. I used colored sugar for the pixie dust only to have Hot Jeff remind me that pixie dust is yellow and not green. Dude, I am not lying.

Bug, my cake decorating sensei said she is not disappointed but I really can't believe her because how can she NOT be disappointed, the thing is LAME! Oh well, Roo loved it and hasn't stopped playing with the figurines (who unfortunately have frosting in places that no lady should have frosting).

Here's a little picture of Roo with her parents on her 2nd birthday. I think she looks so sad because she knows only disappointment lies ahead of her with her lame-o Tinker Bell cake. Poor baby. Just more photographic proof for her to someday use in her argument that we liked Samuel better than her.

How We Celebrated

One of my all time favorite TV moments is from The Bachelor. Yes, I said The Bachelor. Andrew Firestone, heir to the vast Firestone fortune, was this particular season's bachelor and he was on one of the early dates with one of the women who get cut super early and then cry on national television because they thought they really had a connection with him after spending 45 minutes in a crowded room watching him look at other women's breasts. They were doing that get-to-know-you thing and he asks her what her favorite restaurant is and I kid you not she replies, "Olive Garden" and then he gives her this you-did-not-just-say-that-to-Andrew-Firestone-look and THEN she says, "What? You don't like Italian food?" And it is, and forever will be, one of my all time favorite TV moments and it probably goes without saying but she got cut that night. And seriously, just writing that and remembering that made me laugh so hard I snorted.

Yesterday I called Jeff AT WORK to ask what he would like for his birthday dinner. And being the sweetheart that he is he says, "whatever is easiest for you". So I press him and press him again and finally he says, "tacos" which I knew is what he really wanted because he loves tacos and he always asks for tacos on his birthday. Which I suppose begs the question of why I bothered to ask him in the first place. I guess I just wanted him to know I was thinking about his birthday dinner a whole day early. Which makes the following even more unbelievable.

At 4:00, precisely when Jeff was getting off work and heading home for his delicious birthday dinner that I had not even begun to prepare, he called. And I said, "I'm sorry but I haven't started dinner yet!" And then I gave a REALLY GOOD excuse: "I've been working all afternoon on your birthday cake and now my wrist hurts". Tip: All good excuses involve you doing something nice for someone and now being in pain as a result. And then, to add insult to injury to my pathetic excuse of wife-dom I said, "We can have leftover spaghetti or go out. I'll even let you choose". I will pause and give you a moment to choke.

Precious Hot Jeff, who by the way, is broke out literally from his head to his toes because of an allergic reaction to a new medication and is pretty much miserable from the itching and burning, chose the Olive Garden as it is quasi-sophisticated enough for a birthday dinner yet the kids could have macaroni and cheese. Someone please call the Pope because this man deserves Sainthood.

Here we all are, after dinner and back home celebrating Daddy's birthday! Before you go wondering why I'm such a crappy wife and didn't throw him a big bash let me explain. Jeff told me like 6 years ago if I even THOUGHT about throwing him a 40th birthday party or any other th party he would NEVER throw me another party for as long as I live. I'll let you in a little secret: you can get me to do anything for you by threatening me with not throwing me a party (I love a party in my honor) or by telling me you won't cry at my funeral.

40 DOES rock. Just ask Hot Jeff. This is the birthday cake that will make my right wrist require a cortisone shot and the reason why I didn't make my darling husband a birthday dinner of tacos.
Damn you electric guitar cake and your perfectly piped icing.

I just love that Emily looks so flippin' hilarious in this picture. It is also, coincidentally a picture of my 3 FAVORITE people in the whole wide world!

The Diss

On Monday I celebrated my 200th blog post. By myself. And I sang that Celine Dion song "All By Myself" really badly and really offkey. And I drank too much wine and drunk dialed an old boyfriend.

You all too busy to give me a little love over here on blogspot.com? I work my fingers to the bones to give you stupid crap to read and you go and let my 200th post just go by like its some regular ol' post. And to be clear, it was just some regular ol' post but come on people!

Bestie Kim? You have been with me from the start. Where was the love? Lori DeBacker? This flippin' blog was your idea. You are like my agent and where were you? Oh, finding out what the gender of what your new grandbaby is going to be? Puh-lease. Paula Deen? You know I love and worship you and not even you could bake me a Gooey Butter cake from pauladeen.com to commemorate the day? You could have had Jamie and Bobby make it; I would have known it was coming from your heart.

I love cake. Cake makes me happy. Really happy. When I was pregnant with the midgets and had gestational diabetes I couldn't eat sweets and I used to dream about cake every night. Chocolate cake, yellow cake, wedding cake...doesn't matter. Just love cake. I would have loved one of you to make me a cake in the shape of a "200" just like they do for sitcoms when they tape their 200th episode. We could have stood around it and taken pictures and then posted them on here. We would have also posted the recipe for the cake because I'm sure it would have been delicious and everyone would have been asking for it.

To ease my pain I found this cake on the internet and I'll pretend that one of my readers in the South made it for me but just couldn't logistically be here with me to celebrate. And I don't know who in the heck that old guy is but I'm sure he's lovely and well deserving of having his face on my 200th blog post celebration cake.

CoolestCakes.com, Here I come!
In the spirit of self-promotion (versus the self-loathing I'm also great at) I'm going to write about the Lightning McQueen/Racing cake I made for Samuel's 3rd birthday this weekend. As with so many other things revolving around his birthday, Samuel was pretty clear he wanted a Lightning cake. I snooped around on coolest-cakes.com and found some Cars and Racing cakes that I thought would be pretty easy to do in my novice-ignorant cake decorating state. I picked aspects of the many cakes on the site that I liked and came up with this one. It was super easy to do albeit very time consuming as I piped every little blade of grass on that darn thing.

I started with a basic chocolate cake mix and baked as directed. After cooling I flipped it out on my fancy-schmancy tissue-papered cardboard. I frosted the cake with vanilla frosting and outlined the 3 with a toothpick. Earlier I had blended oreo cookies (minus the icing in the middle) to replicate track asphalt. I filled in the 3 with the oreos. It was a little messy but I knew I would be icing over it so didn't sweat it.

After outlining the 3 with white icing I started the tedious work of piping on the grass. It was well worth the time and tendinitis as it gave the cake depth and detail, if I do say so myself.

14 hours later... (ok, only 30 minutes) after the grass was on I outlined the 3 in white again and added the little road stripes. Finishing touches were checkered flags (top, left), 3 candles and Lighting McQueen baby!! I love that a little matchbox car made this a Lightning McQueen cake. Voila. Oh sweet Samuel, you're so easy to please.

What was awesome was that after we sang him 'Happy Birthday' he, without prompting, stuck his whole face in the cake. How great is that? Its documented on video to blackmail him with down the road.

Emmy Roo's 1st Birthday
I turned 1 yesterday and if you thought I was fabulous before...well you should see me now! I'm all "Hey, I'm 1 and can eat honey without getting botulism so you better watch out". My family threw me a bash and I got presents and cake and a new dress to wear! Oh yeah! I thought Thanksgiving was good; well it's got nothin' on first birthdays. One question: can anyone tell me why Samuel got presents? Are we so worried about his feelings that we're not going to make it perfectly clear whose day it is? I'm not ok with this. Well, unless it means I get a present or two in April when he turns 3?? If that's the case, I can make an adjustment.

Me, my Mama and my Daddy. Don't I look just like my Daddy?

Lovin' the party scene

My cake: made by Mama!!

Presents!! Hooie!!

Mmm...frosting!