Party Preparations...

Can't believe my baby girl is turning five years old next month!  Time is truly flying by.  It's extremely bittersweet, but I know I am probably preaching to the choir about that. 

For the big #5, we are throwing a Sweet Shop Party for my sweetie.  I will have an array of delicious goodies for the girls to nibble on.  I saw this cute little bouquet on Pinterest (of course) and the party wouldn't be complete without it.  I bought a 6" styrofoam ball and used 4+ bags of Dum Dums on it.  We'll be sucking on lollipops for the next year.  :-)

Still have to work on a few finishing touches for the party, but it's going to be FABULOUS!  Can't wait for my girly to enjoy it with her friends...

...to be continued.  :)

On an unrelated topic, we ran the Warrior Dash this past weekend!  While I would have liked to have been in even better shape, I did it!  I finished in 1 hr. 16 min.  The Warrior Dash is essentially a 5K through rough terrain, with 12 obstacles, finishing with jumping over fire and swimming through a pool of mud under barbed wire.  It was incredible...challenging, fun, exhilerating and most of all, DIRTY!  We loved it!  We all had a blast.  The others are already talking about next year...I am letting my body heal before making that decision.  But, I am very proud of myself.  :-)  I still have some baby weight to lose and I have taken up yoga once a week in addition to strength training and cardio.  I love it!  I'll be posting more about it, specifically my Warm 60 class, Bikram yoga in 90 degrees...it's fantastic.  Trust me!

Have a wonderful Monday!

First Newborn Session

Baby Jayla was a bit more alert than we would have liked, but with a little patience and persistence, we got her to sleep for a brief amount of time, and I was able to get these lovelies.  I love newborn babies...

Boys, boys, boys...

This is by far one of my most favorite sessions to date!  How cute are these guys...and the husband and wife are some of the nicest people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.  We had a gorgeous day for some pictures!

Mother's Day Photo Wood Transfer

Mother's Day...it's a tough holiday.  Let's face it.  I am a mom, I have a mom and I have a mom-in-law.  And, many, many a Mother's Day (particularly when I was a teenager) was spent driving early morning the day of, to get some flowers from the tent in front of the convenient store.  Being a mom now has definitely made me more aware of the holiday, but I have been known to, in the recent past, drive to the flower tent the day of...I'm being honest!

But, not this year, no sir!  I had a "light bulb" moment about a month ago.  It was an unseasonably warm day, so I seized it and took pics of the kids with a chalkboard and the words "We <3 you."  I have been wanting to try the wood block transfer with gel medium for a while now.  This was just perfect.

They (one for Nonni, one for Grammy) turned out great!!

BUT, not on the first try!  Here is a serious word of advice...if you are planning to do this with any kind of text, you MUST make sure the text is written/typed backwards (mirror imaged) or your text on the block will be backwards.  I ruined the first two that way...

Here is the actual picture I took.

See, backwards.  This way when you put the paper face down on the wood block, it will come out right.  I really wish someone would have told me that!  :-)

And, for the longer block, I had room to write Happy Mother's Day. (Poor baby girl got a knot of wood in her head - but, you can't win 'em all).  :-)

And, here is the one I actually printed...mirror image.

I did this in CS5, so all I did was type my text, click on the "move" tool (plain arrow on left) and click image, image rotation, flip canvas horizontally.

I found a LOT of tutorials on these wood block photo transfers, but this one by PetaPixel is by far my favorite.  And, I love the music, too! 

So, there you have it!

Now, I am just hoping my mom doesn't decide to read the blog before May 13th!  :-/

Hope everyone has a wonderful and fulfilling Mother's Day!

:-) Erika

There's A Party In My Tummy..

My daughter's 5th birthday is coming up and I am throwing her a candy shop birthday party.  I have been busy planning the big day for about 6 months now...cause that's how I roll.

I've got the invitations, the favors, the decorations, the gift...just needed to figure out what to do for refreshments, namely the cake, or in this case cupcakes.  I wanted to stick with the theme and found these Heath Bar Cupcakes in the Betty Crocker Big Book of Cupcakes.  I bought this book at Amazon recently.  You see I usually enlist my bff, Natalie over at A Turtle's Life For Me to make my birthday cakes and cupcakes.  She's phenomenal, but also very busy these days with two blogs, a part time job, PTO meetings, and the list goes on and on.  And, I have really wanted to try my hand at baking.  I am pretty good at following a recipe, so when I found these yummy creations, I just knew that I had the perfect party cupcake!  We are big Heath Bar fans in this house.  :-)

And, I should mention that while I love cupcakes, they are perhaps THE messiest snack food known to man.  So, when I saw this idea for a cake in a jar, I basically jumped for joy!  So, for the party, the group of girls will be enjoying their cupcake in a jar with a nice cool jar of lemonade...

So, here is the Betty Crocker heath bar cupcake recipe.  I have also attached the Big Book of Cupcakes at the bottom.  I can't wait to bake more cupcakes!!

Here they are going in the oven...

And coming out of the oven...the center will sink a bit while cooling.

The whole family gives these two enthusiastic thumbs up! The recipe makes 18 cupcakes, so we shared them with our neighbors, because it would be very dangerous to keep 18 of these in our home!  :)

Happy Hump Day!


:) Erika

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