Baby Shower Cake for tomorrow!

I've been practicing!  So I needed 'excuses' to make cakes so that I could get some more practice time in. :) So, I decided to make a baby shower cake for the party I'm going to tomorrow.  The lady in charge of the party was real excited, so hopefully it came out as good as she hoped.  :)   But, I do have to say, for my third cake, it's not too bad.  :)

I made the fondant buttons ahead of time, then made two 10 inch cakes and two 8 inch cakes.  Then filled them with the raspberry filling that everyone loves and iced them with buttercream.  And today I put everything together and decorated.  Icing still takes me WAY too long, but the more I do it, the better I'll get at it.  

So here it is!!!!  What do you think?

Armadillo River Adventure

Daryl had the day off on Labor Day so we decided to go back to the hiking place we went to before at Lucy Park.  We discovered different trails and came across quite a few surprises.  :)   Enjoy the short movie we put together of the day.  :)

*  It is much bigger and has better quality but I am limited to the file size I can download on here.  :(   So unfortunately it's a little hard to see  *

It has music so make sure your speakers are on!

You will see two videos here. . . the top one has great quality the bottom one has the music.  To get the full effect click play on the top one first and as soon as you see it load click on the next video.  I know .  . . confusing, but if You Tube and Blogger weren't so frustrating it would be good . . . 

Hiking, Water, and Hissing Cockroaches

I actually got to go outside today!  The weather was under 100 today for the first time in. . . forever.  In the morning the hubby and I did some road side clean up for his work.  It was pretty much cigarette butts all day long, but I just so happened to come across a 10 dollar bill.  LOL  That was fun.  :)

After the clean up we decided to go home and pick up Gorgi and go explore the hiking trails around Wichita Falls.  We packed up the backpack full of water bottles and picked up some lunch on the way with the 10 bucks we found.  This was Gorgi's first hike and she loved it.

See . . . She was already smiling before we even started.  :)

We were really surprised at how green it was here.  Because let me tell you, Wichita Falls does not look like this.  It always looks like a desert wasteland.  So, we were pleasantly surprised to seem some beautiful trees and so much green.  :)

We had to cross a bridge that moved up and down like crazy.  Gorgi seemed to really like it.  I bet if she could jump so would have been jumping with us.  :)

Our new camera has a really cool 'panoramic setting'.  It was really cool to be able to get the bend of the river in one photo.

These are the falls at the end of the first hike.

I played with the shutter speed on my new camera to 'slow and soften' the look of the water.  I think it turned out pretty cool.

I think at some points she felt like jumping in.  

She kept getting 'hog-tied' in her leash! Lol

After the hike there was a nature center with butterflies, plants, and a lot of bugs.  This is me actually holding a hissing cockroach!  And it hissed at me!  I can't believe I actually did it, but at least I got it on camera so I could prove I did it! LOL

These were the prairie dogs the conservatory had.  This guy was really intent on getting out of his cage!

Daryl took some gorgeous photos of the butterflies at the conservatory.  You can see more of them on our facebook page.  :)

We had so much fun today and will definitely be planning a trip back there in the near future.  We'll have to wait for a break in the weather again of course, but this place was a definite must.  So for those of you who plan to come visit, this will be on the agenda.  :)

1st Cake Decorating Class

I had soooo much fun last night!  I went to my first Wilton Cake Decorating Class at Hobby Lobby.  I had signed up a few months ago and have been eagerly awaiting my first day.  :)  I don't know what it is about cake decorating but I've always wanted to try it.  I blame those cake decorating shows . . . like Cake Boss.  Or I'll walk into a bakery and wish that I could make those beautiful birthday and wedding cakes.  And of course it will take me longer than one class to actually make a nice looking cake but I am excited for the journey.  :)

The classes are normally around $45 dollars for one course, but I used a %50 off coupon and only paid like $20.  :)  The classes are two hours long and I have them once a week for four weeks.  I'm already excited to take the later courses once I'm finished with this one.  There are three courses total.

Last night I learned all the basics.  Recipes for the cake and frosting.  How to hold the frosting bag and I made beautiful frosting star decorations on some sugar cookies.  Not much for  the first night, but next week I actually will be bringing home a cake that I decorate from start to finish.  :)   Super excited.

Daryl has been so supportive of my cake decorating classes.  I know he wants me to be able to enjoy what I can out here in this small town, but I also think it's because I'll be able to make him delicious looking cakes.  He'll even see something online and say.. "Oooo, you could make this into a cake!"

And. .  I was going to take pictures of my cookies that I decorated so I could post them on here, but before I could get my camera . . . Daryl ate them!!!  So, after next class, I will take a picture of the cake before he is even allowed to have a slice.   :)