Nelsen Corner

Still very amateur, but this is a phone book cake I made for my brother to ask a girl to a dance. He left clues in the book as to which page to turn to to decode both his first and last name. Cute, but I had no idea how hard it would be to frost a smooth layer of frosting over a saran wrapped book!  Here is my version of a Tinkerbell waterfall cake I made for my niece. I even wrapped the waterfall around to the back and had Vidia there too. To make the water look a little shinny I added some blue food coloring to some light corn syrup and spread it all over the water. I was pretty hay with how it turned out, especially since I am making this up as I go!  For my nephews birthday, all he said he wanted was a cake that had toys on it. I finally got a little more from him when he said he would like a Cars cake with Mater coming out of the cake, so here it is!

Adam and his family have always been huge Disney fans, and yet we have never seemed to make it there with our own family. In fact, since having kids, we haven't ventured out on a single family vacation -until now! This November we walked into the park after a long drive, a 24-hr flu bug for the Carter man, two nights of no sleep because both kids got the croop, and over an hour in guest services because of mix-ups with our tickets, and we had a blast!   Adam and his family have always been huge Disney fans, and yet we have never seemed to make it there with our own family. In fact, since having kids, we haven't ventured out on a single family vacation -until now! This November we walked into the park after a long drive, a 24-hr flu bug for the Carter man, two nights of no sleep because both kids got the croop, and over an hour in guest services because of mix-ups with our tickets, and we had a blast!    We were lucky enough to have one day in Disneyla...

I am to the point of being a stay at home mom where I start to wonder if at the end of the day I have accomplished anything! Hence the need to find a new hobby where I can actually see the fruits of my labor, or in this case, the cake of my labor. This was a great month to start this new goal especially where we had three big birthdays in my family as well as my brothers fiancée's bridal shower for which I was partially in charge. Some are definitely better than others, and they are surely all ammature work, but I can't believe how much fun I have had making them, and even cutting it up and eating it afterwards! So, with that great intro, here they are! Rachel Belles 3rd Birthday Tinkerbell Cake Carter Mans 1st Birthday  Adam's Pool Party cake       complete with Jello swimming pool (harder than it looks!) Robert and Molly's bridal shower cake               ...

We were able to finally get family pictures, with our whole family -Carter included! We are so grateful to have such a good friend Matt Christensen be willing to spend so much time with us to make them perfect! Rachel is a two and a half year old doll who loves to laugh, dance, and make her brother happy! She is incredibly smart and ahead of the game. She has been potty trained since she turned 2, knows all her colors, shapes and even the whole alphabet! Carter Man is a little angeland knows how to work his cuteness to get Mommy to do anything he wants! He has been crawling for months now and absolutely loves to play peek-a-boo! He is also an eating machine and wants whatever we are having, none of this silly baby food stuff for him.                                        We are s...

   Wahoo! I finally have a hobby I enjoy that I can do easily, no matter the season, at home! I used to love to design dresses on cartoon figures when I was a teenager, but it never amounted to more than paper and pencil because the sewing machine intimidated me too much. For Christmas this year however, I got a sewing machine (white and lime green -my favorite color!) and I have been having some fun putting some ideas into practice. I haven't made anything super fancy or unique yet, but I am definitely just a beginner so I'll have to give it some time! Good grief, zippers are going to take me some time to figure out! It looked terrible on the pink dress, so I decided that the detachable flower should go right there and only you and I will ever know! Besides that, I think even my primitive dresses turned out pretty well, it helps when you have a really cute daughter to model the dresses you make and inspire the excitement to create! Isn't she adorable! ...

Halloween hasn’t held the same magic and excitement for me since the day I grew too old for people to load up my pillowcase with sweets at their doorstep simply because I was a cute little kid in a makeshift costume. This year however, I got to re-live the excitement in the shadow of my little Cinderella! Rachel absolutely loves princesses this year and it was a great treat to put on her Cinderella dress made for her by Grandma Becky and experience her first real trick-or-treating! Our whole family dressed up for the day, Adam as a leprechaun, Emily as an Egyptian, Rachel as Cinderella, and Carter as Charlie Brown (the hair squiggle wasn’t great but remember, this is a 7 month old squirmy little boy I was working on here!).   We met Adam at work and started by trick-or-treating on Main Street in Logan. The first few stores went pretty well and Rachel was very polite to always say thank-you, but then she discovered the power of the words “trick-or-treat”! Soon she was off runn...

I love the moments when we learn something about ourselves from our children. This past week I was reminded by my precocious little two year old, how strong my love for my faithful companion really is… From the get-go, pediatricians will tell you that it is very common for babies to have a fussy time of day, where they aren’t hungry, messy or sleepy, they don’t want to be held, set down, or bathed, they are just grumpy. From the day Rachel was born, that time of day was always the hour before Daddy got home -no matter what varying time that may have been- she (and I) would get just plain grumpy. Rachel is two and a half years old now (don’t ask months, I lose track after 12) and the grumpy time continues. By now it has become second nature to me to hear the whines begin and just say “You’re okay, Daddy will be home in one hour Rachel, you’re just fine.” And then move on with whatever I’m doing. The other day I had a tender little moment with her when the tables had turned. Th...