happy first birthday Crissy (cake edition)!!!

One of my dearest friends Stacy had a baby girl about a year ago and this weekend we celebrated her first birthday! Stacy and I grew up two houses down from each other and I consider her more family than friend. I was honored to be invited to the celebration and even more honored to bake for it! Actually, Stacy baked and made the frosting for the cat cake and I did the rest!

The cat cake was chocolate with chocolate covered in vanilla fondant. The cupcakes were vanilla with Swiss meringue butter creme. The cakepops were vanilla/vanilla pop dipped in white chocolate.

This was my first real trial at cakepops. I had tried a few before cupcake camp because I knew that at camp I'd be meeting and learning from Bakerella - who 'invented' these little things, but they'd all been flubs! While at camp I learned about the real difference between melting chips, which is the coating on the outside of the cakepop. Then on Friday I visited my friend Megan who I made this farm cake for a few months ago, and she happens to live a few blocks from The Decorette Shop in Portland! There I bought too many just enough new supplies to make me happy :)

On to the pictures!!

Crissy's kitty cake!

The set up. Stacy did a wonderful job making it all look pretty!

Setting up the cakepop station! Please mind the mess.

Patting and Patting the cakepop!

Look at them!!

My favorite. Mrs. Purple cat cakepop.

My second favorite!

Pretty pretty cakepops.

Cupcakes! I always forget I have this stand :-)

Happy First Birthday Christine Elizabeth!!!

dinner menu ~ week two...

Here goes another attempt at planning weekly dinners. And here's to hoping we eventually get 5 days in a row :)

Sunday: Dinner at my parents house :)

Monday:
Meatballs (since we missed them last week)
Mashed Potato's
Broccoli

Tuesday:
Homemade mac & cheese
Carrots (raw for me, cooked for Jason)
Celery & Peanut butter

Wednesday:
Chicken ChowMein (Mom's recipe)
White Rice
The veggies are in the chowmein - carrots and celery

Thursday:
Baked Chicken
Cheesy Potato's or Cheesy spuds as Jason wrote ;-)
Broccoli

Friday:
Burgers
Potato fries
Salad

We are leaving the weekends open for leftovers, dining out, and football food (nacho's and beer)!

dinner menu week one - update...

Well it is Friday night and the dinner planning went "okay". Well, not really. But we'll call it okay for good measure.

We did make it successfully Monday - Tuesday and Thursday. Wednesday and Friday fell a bit short.

Major problem, the last ground beef we had for meatballs (Wednesday) had a hole in it so we didn't use it. So Wednesday after both working pretty long days we ventured out for dinner...ug!

Thursday I improvised and instead of having beef tacos we had turkey tacos because we had ground turkey in the freezer, they tasted a bit different (to me, not Jason - which he suggested might mean my opinion was all mental) but were still good. I suppose we could have done that with meatballs but the thought didn't occur to me that night...alas!

Friday, well, Friday happened. I was out and about all day visiting Megan & Lizzy, shopping for cake decorating supplies and getting a massage. Rough, I know. Jason worked from 4:30am - 6:00pm. Pizza it was. Tomorrow we are off to WINCO & COSTCO to load up for the rest of the month...

*I did take a picture of Monday's meal but that was the only one...by the time dinner was done on Tuesday and Thursday I was too hungry ;-) Maybe next week...

**I am really writing all this down to attempt to hold myself accountable as well as take suggestions from anyone as to how they do their dinner with two people in the family working :) Feel free to share!!!

sunday snapshot (on a monday)...

cheese competition. yes please :)

dinner menu ~ week one...

Well now that Jason is off in the working world (it is 6:45 currently and he's not home - and now it is 7:23 and he's not home) the dinner making (chore) has now fallen into my lap. I am really not a fan of cooking dinner, it kind of stresses me out. I LOVE baking because you mix, mix, mix and then bake and volia! food. Dinner, you plan, you time it, you bake 4 things at 3 temperatures in 5 contraptions....ug! It is so frustrating to me.

For the last few weeks I've also been sick which has only added to my dislike of cooking. But last night we sat down and planned out the meals for this week. The weekends are still Jason's domain but I am going to try my hardest to get on the wagon with cooking dinner. We're starting simply and trying to stay on the healthy side all while saving money and not getting overwhelmed...here goes nothing!

Here is what is on the menu this week:

Monday:
BBQ chicken sandwiches on the Safeway Sandwich rolls we love. We actually made the meat in the crock pot on Sunday afternoon. Just some chicken broth and chicken in a crock pot. Gets it nice and "pull able". Added BBQ sauce to it when it was done, warmed it up in the little oven.
Pasta Salad (left over from dinner on Sunday)
Cornbread (from a package)
Broccoli (from the freezer and steamed on the stove)

Tuesday:
Chicken Alfredo Lasagna. I've made this a few times. I just put lasagna noodles (though next time I am going to buy the ones that don't requires to be boiled), onions, ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese, spinach - all to taste and supply. I made this tonight (Monday). Actually, I made two. One for tomorrow and one for the freezer to use in the next month. Well, we hope to use. This is kind of an experiment. We bought the foil pans from Safeway to make two smaller portioned lasagnas.
Rolls
Corn

Wednesday:
Meatballs. To be made Tuesday night by Jason so all I have to do is pop them in the pan to cook. I am also not a fan of raw meat.
Parmesan pull apart bread.
Green Beans for Annie. Corn for Jason.

Thursday:
Tacos. This I can handle because you just plop and stir :)
Salad
Carrots

Friday (I don't have to work, hense the fanciness):
Parmesan Chicken (recipe here)
Creamy Orzo Pasta
Salad

Oregon Coast Cupcake Camp...

I spent this last Friday and Saturday at cupcake camp! By now you know I love baking and have began to dable in cake/cupcake decorating. I found out about this camp through a friend I went to high school with who was one of the main volunteers. And then once I found out that Bakerella was going to be there I was SET! I also got to meet, take a class from, and actually assist Michelle Bommarito!!! I also entered some cupcakes into a contest and donated some to the worthy cause of Donate Life Northwest. You see, this whole cupcake camp was a charity even put on by Celeste of Nye Beach Market in Newport, Oregon. Everyone there had something to share, learn, or give about this event. I myself am an organ donar should that time ever come. It was a toucing, exciting, fun, and pretty much "one of the best things I've ever done for myself" kind of weekend.

I'm going to post some pictures tonight and I'll write more about the events of the weekend soon! Jason and I are currently cooking like crazy in the kitchen - we're finally trying to make a menu for one week, go shopping for the 'little' stuff that week (we do our big grocery shopping at Winco or Costco once a month). This will hopefully make us become more mindful of our food, our meals, and help us to not eat out as often, though that is still on the menu, but only a few times a month... baby steps :) More on that later too...

Onto the cupcake camp pictures!!!

:) Can't wait to make more cake pops!!

Meeting Bakerella :)

Dipping a cupcake pop in Bakerella's class.

Myself and Michelle Bommarito

Look at all the cupcakes! And they were all donated!!!

I bought some cupcakes!

The judges eating MY Marionberry cupcake!!!

moving...

...kind of.

I've made a new blog. This new blog will be about the baking/decorating/scrapbooking/sewing side of life. This blog will remain, but more for the family/friends/fun side of life. Eventually we'll have a family and I'm not sure yet how I feel about all the information and pictures about our future children being freely published on the internet.

So now you can find my homemaking adventures at...

http://madebyace.blogspot.com/

ACE, for those of you not quick on the uptake, are my initials. It is not to imply I am an ACE at anything :) Who knows what this blog will evetually become (famous....heehee?!?!?). One can only hope :) So check both our blogs now. Family Eeds (this one) for the family stuff and madebyACE for the crafty stuff :)

Over and out...