Fondant Fun

For Valentine's Day my wonderful husband got me some stuff to add to my cake decorating collection. Amongst the things that he got me were a bunch of fondant molds. (I was so excited!) Anyway, one night Lila and I decided to try out a few of the molds that he got me with some leftover marshmallow fondant that I had. She actually stayed up two hours past her bedtime creating with me. We had such a good time!

Lila did a really great job of rolling out her fondant to then use the fondant presses on. She was really loving all the different shapes and colors.

Here are some of the things that I can create. (A very small portion of the stuff that Micah got me)

Don't worry… I would never actually decorate cupcakes like these. It was really fun piling stuff on top though. :) Lila had a great time with it.

Micah also got me several new food colors from Americolor. I love their colors. I already had a few, but he got me 12 more. (Clearly I'm not afraid of food coloring)

With them I created some pretty cupcakes for my sister's bridal shower. Her colors are orange and red and she is having roses. I wish the pictures were better.

These pictures have nothing to do with cake stuff, but at the bridal shower we did some lip syncing and here are some cute pictures of my adorable daughter singing along. 

Whose Idea Was It To Get A Pet?

So today our dog Maggie decided it was a good idea to pee in her bed inside her kennel. Just so you know it wasn't like she really needed to go and we had just ignored her, she was just put in there while my sister was over and she must've thought she was in trouble. Anyway, it of course stunk up our bedroom, but I got her bed out of her kennel, cleaned up the pee underneath, gave her a bath, then started the washing machine with her bed inside. It wasn't too much of a process and that's where I thought I would be done with the whole mess. I was wrong.

The bed (which we have washed before so we know it was okay) somehow ripped a seam and all of the stuff on the inside ended up on the outside and throughout our whole machine. It stopped our machine from draining and therefore working. We weren't sure if it had actually broken our washing machine or if it just clogged the drain. We emptied the basin as much as possible and then pulled the front off the machine… that's where a huge mess lay. (I wish I would've taken a picture, but I didn't think of it until after). Anyway, we took the clogged pump (that drains the machine) off and water gushed everywhere… not so good when you live on the third floor. We were able to clean it all up with a LOT of towels and blankets, and none of the water made it's way to our neighbors. Thank goodness! 

The tote shows about half of the amount of towels and blankets that we needed to clean up all of the water.

Then the real work began. Micah cleaned it all out… hence the picture of the stuff in the garbage, which doesn't really allow you to see just how much there was in it. 

This was all over the machine, but a lot of it was stuck in the pump. This was causing all of the problems. The water just could not drain, leaving it all in the main part of the washer. It's amazing the importance of such a small piece. :) 

I then cleaned out the stuff that got stuck between the basin cylinder and the plastic cylinder surrounding it. It took a crochet hook (thanks Mom Pratt for buying me those! :) ) and a lot of pulling and tugging. A surprising amount of work, effort, and time. We got it all out though.

The arrow is pointing to the small amount that was in it after a lot of work. The oval represents how much was actually stuck in there when we first opened up our machine.

Micah taking a turn at pulling it out of the very small holes in the side of the cylinder.

Even though it looks like a small amount, this is how much was in that small black spot in the other picture. So really there was about 3 1/2 times that amount pulled out in all.

Finally, Micah got it all back together with a lot of patience and moving little bits around to be in just the right position. We have since tried the machine again and it appears to be working well. In all it took over 2 hours. I'm so grateful Micah was able to figure it out and we didn't have to pay a plumber to come and fix our problem. 

I also have to give a shout out to my little Lila Bean. She was a very big help to her daddy during the whole process. She would grab the tools that he needed and hold the flashlight in the right spot. I couldn't always be there to help because I was trying to keep Brighton happy and out of the way. I'm so glad Micah was patient and willing to work with her because she really wanted to help and was very curious about the whole situation. I hope she continues to learn from him. (I didn't get any pictures of her working with her dad. I did, however, get some pictures of her rearranging and putting away tools.) 

The joys of owning a dog and a house! We're slowly learning some good skills. :)

What kids say...

The other day we were at Walmart and Lila started bobbing her head to the song over the speakers. Suddenly she stopped in the middle of the aisle and said, "Mom, look at my cool moves!" She proceeded to do some interesting, almost break dancey type, moves. Loved it! 

A few days later as I was headed to the store to get Valentines, Lila again was with me. In the car she talked about how Dad loved me and Lila, and that I loved Brighton, Dad and Lila, but that Brighton only loved Lila. I asked her why, she said it was because he was little and she was little so he had "little" love for her only. I love how she thinks.

Finally, I just have to put in a few things that Brighton likes to say. It's interesting that at almost 21 months old he can say "medicine", "cartoon", and "don't push", but he still doesn't say "yes". That must say something about us. ;) He does however say a lot of "no", "nope", and "I don't". It still is very cute. His vocabulary is actually very big now. I need to record all the words he can say.

They grow up way too fast.