Helllllloooooooo out there!!!!!

It's only been a couple of weeks since my last post, but MAN has it been busy!!! We had Jillian baptized this past Sunday and I was preparing everything for that, Dominic began swim lessons, and hubby was out of town for most of one week. No time to rest, yet, Dominic's 3rd birthday is right around the corner and we're have TWO parties: one for friends and one for family.

For Jillian's baptism I made a new cake. It's an orange creamsicle cake. It was pretty good, but VERY sweet! Here's the finished product:

And here's the recipe:

Batter:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/3 buttermilk or sour milk (sour milk: 1tbsp. lemon juice or vinegar + enough milk to = 1 cup. Let stand 5 minutes.

1/2 cup shortening or butter
1 tsp. vanilla
4 egg whites

And the secret ingredient:
1 pkg. (0.15 oz) unsweetened orange Kool-aid

Pre-heat oven to 350*
In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and 1/8 tsp. salt. Add buttermilk, shortening (or butter) and vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping bowl. Beat on medium to high speed for 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Add egg whites and Kool-aid (dry) and beat for 2 minutes more, scraping bowl. Don't overbeat the batter. If the Kool-aid isn't thoroughly incorporated, use a spoon or spatula to gently mix in the Kool-aid. Do not overbeat!
Pour into greased and floured cake pans.
Bake for 18-23 minutes. (mine took exactly 18 minutes) or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 10 minutes.

Vanilla Cream Filling:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup shortening
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 pinch salt
3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Make filling: In a large bowl, beat butter and shortening together until smooth. Blend in confectioners' sugar and pinch of salt. Gradually beat in 3 tablespoons milk and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until light and fluffy.

Orange Buttercream Frosting:
1/3 cup butter
2 cups sifted powdered sugar
1/4 cup orange juice
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
Orange zest from one large orange

In a bowl beat butter until fluffy. Gradually add 2 cups of the powdered sugar, beating well. Slowly beat in the 1/4 cup orange juice and vanilla.
Slowly beat in remaining sugar. Beat in additional orange juice if needed. If you're going to spread it, you might need to add more liquid to get it to the right consistency. Gently mix in grated orange zest.

Assembly: After cupcakes are completely cool, fill with cream filling using your preferred method. Frost as desired.

I also had candle favors for guests to take home. I found a nice scripture containing the word "light" and incorporated it into the candle idea. What do you think?

Cute, huh?

For Dominic's swim teacher I made her a little gift of thanks and appreciation for teaching him how to swim. Those who know me know how paranoid I was of him going underwater and she was so calm and awesome that he did it on the very first day! He cried, but he did it! Now we have a bona fide swimmer!! YAY!! Check him out:



Anyway, for the gift. I noticed that she always had a cool drink of some sort with her on the side of the pool since it's been record breaking heat this summer. I found a neat cool-keeping cup at Starbucks and filled it with Hershey Nuggets. What gal doesn't like chocolate, right? As expected, she loves chocolate and raved about the cup. Sadly, I forgot to take a photo of the completed gift. I had it wrapped up all pretty.

Here's the card that I made for her:

I took photos of them secretly and made a little photo booth looking slideshow on photoshop. Cute!

A Day in the Life: After Meds...

I was looking back through my old posts and was struck by how different life is since Jillian has been taking prevacid for her reflux. I wasn't sure that life would ever be sane again and I am so happy to report that it really is!!

So, in honor of our ladybug's new (and almost cry-free) existence I decided to do another day in the life as a sort of then v. now.

Thank heavens for medicine!

Next weekend we are having Jillian baptized and the week following is D's 3rd birthday! Such important events coming up.

For D's birthday party I made air-dry clay pirates for each of his guests. Here they are in the early stages of production:

Dominic is the captain and Jillian is a mermaid. <3

I am excited to see them atop the pirate ship cake!

St.Dominic's Feast Day Celebration

St.Dominic was a passionate follower of Christ. He dedicated his life to God and not only lived as an example of Christ, but was a passionate speaker of Christ's love. So much so that an entire order of priests is dedicated to him.

St.Dominic's feast day was originally August 4th, but due to Vatican2 was moved to August 8th. This is good for us because we missed the 4th and were still able to "catch" it yesterday.

St.Dominic is rumored to have brought the first oranges to Rome and so he is often depicted with an orange in his hand. Also good for us! I made an orange cake for Dominic and we sang "Happy Saints Day to you!" before digging in. I rudimentally explained who St.Dominic was to Dominic. He smiled but I'm sure he had no idea what I was talking about. He just knows they have the same name- and that's enough for him. I mean, that's a great reason to have cake, right?

I found this quote from St.Dominic and thought it was perfect for my little pirate: "I kept on digging the hole deeper and deeper looking for the treasure chest until I finally lifted my head, looked up and realized that I had dug my own grave."


I also designed Jillian's baptism invitations. I am VERY proud of the outcome.

I must admit, I copied the idea from tinyprints. I hope I didn't just violate any copyrights by admitting that. I won't link to the exact one, but if you are curious feel free to check the baptism cards on their site and I know you'll recognize it! I think I'm okay since I'm not selling them. Had I ordered them online I wouldn't have gotten them in time to allow for anyone to rsvp!

My mommy friend, K, is having her son, A, baptized the same day at the same Mass as us. It'll be special to have both of our babes baptized together! We were going to have a dual reception following the Mass, but she had to change plans since she has many family members who will be flying out of town that afternoon. Bummer.

We are inviting a few of our church friends to attend the reception, too. I know of 2 who will definitely come and the other 2 are maybe's (in my assumption).

I plan on making a creamsicle cake. Sounds good, right? If it turns out good, I'll be sure and post the recipe.

Now, back to the birthday planning!!

Avast me hearties!

Since Dominic is totally obsessed with pirates lately I have been doing some research to have a perfect pirate party for his 3rd birthday next month. I can't believe it's already birthday time again!!

I've come up with some fun stuff for this fun theme. The invites are out and I must say, they are simply adorable!

I bought a four pack of Sutter Home mini-wine at the grocery store. In case you are wondering, the four mini bottles make one full wine bottle. Good for the hubster, no?

I took the labels off and added my own, complete with a personalized pirate name for each guest.

I used construction paper to make the treasure map insert. I charted each guest's course on their invite and included a cute pirate code for the details. I rolled them up, tied with raffia and dropped them in the bottle for delivery. All in all, I am very pleased.

Next craft: favor bags. I used the crayola studio website to create a personalized pirate coloring book. I'll include a small pack of crayons, too.

I have been wanting to make the next craft for about a month now and was so happy to be able to adapt it to my pirate theme.

What is it, you may ask? It's a spyglass, edu-ma-cational style! I bought a bottle (plastic) of dragees and emptied it into a ziploc bag for future use and filled the bottle with rice about halfway up. I bought some alphabet beads (in the jewelry making section at Mike's) and put all 26 letters in and then added more rice. I superglued the top on and wrote the alphabet along the rim of the lid.

This will be a great quiet game for the kids to play with whenever the need presents itself. Think long car rides, waiting room trips, church, you name it! The kids have to rotate the bottle this way and that to find all 26 letters. I will also be making some bingo-type cards that they can use to find certain letters. Cute idea, huh? I figure they can be presented as a pirate spyglass.

I know I'll have more posts about our pirate party the closer and closer we get to the party, so stay tuned!