Fleur de Aleta

Dear Son, You told Daddy upon his return home from a three day business trip, "I didn't make Mommy upset, not even one time."  Before Daddy left, he told you to behave and be extra good, because Mommy wasn't feeling well.  I had a sinus infection (which I'm still coughing from, but a thousand times better than last weekend).  My parents were out of town at the time, Daddy was away on business, but even with that.... you going to school and Mommy going to work and being sick, well, we managed.  But yes, I'm thrilled to say you were an extra good boy. I can't believe that in a few weeks you will be four years old.  You were such a sweet baby, loving cuddles and falling asleep holding strands of my hair.  Even as a baby, you loved to smile and see us make silly faces.  Now, as a boy, you enjoy making the silly faces, jokes about farts (boys, what can you do), and giving hugs and kisses. Just recently I watched a television show... there was a mom an...

I didn't have a real recipe to follow for the chocolate buttercream icing, so I went based off of what I know about buttercream and winged it.  I'm writing for future reference in the hope that I can "wing" it again. Ingredients: 2 1/2 cups butter at room temperature 1/3 of a Hershey cocoa 16 oz container 2 bags of 2 lbs powdered sugar 2 1/2 cups of hi ratio shortening splash of vanilla (1 tablespoon) splash of chocolate extract (1 tablespoon) splash of wedding flavor (2 tablespoons) hot creamer mixed (1 cup boiling water, 1 cup coffee creamer) - use 9 tablespoons of this Directions: Cream butter and hi ratio shortening in mixer Add vanilla, chocolate extract, wedding flavors and hot creamer in mixer After those are all mixed together, add Hershey cocoa - mix at low speed - should mix into a dark chocolate - you want this to be dark because when you add the sugar, it will lighten in color and chocolate flavor. Continue mixing at low speed and add in the powdered sugar...

Dear Son, We are ending another year, saying Goodbye to 2016.  This year your ability to understand what's going on around you has grown in leaps and bounds.  This Christmas, it wasn't just about the wrapping paper or the bright lights.  It was about Christmas, Baby Jesus, giving and receiving, Santa and being on the "nice" list, the consequences of your actions, writing letters to Santa (Oma was a big help in working with your writing skills) and singing joyful songs. At your school Christmas performance, you sang loud and clear, did the hand motions (for instance, hands above your head for "antlers") and even deepened your voice to represent Santa.  Your teacher told us before how you do great with knowing the words to the songs and how loud you are when you sing... it's one thing to hear it from your teacher, but really cool to see it in a performance. Your behavior at school is fantastic!  You rarely have your banana in the yellow.  Though one ...

Gregory's class had a Christmas party.  I brought a fruit tray and a Christmas tree cake.  I found a cheap Christmas tree pan at the grocery store, sprayed it so nothing would stick and filled it with the cake recipe that I like.  I had just enough icing to make the green tree.  While at the grocery store, I looked for the regular size M&M's to be the decorations, but only found the large M&M's - the kids loved them!  Super easy cake to decorate and make - I used a large tip to pipe the green - so it wasn't time consuming at all.

I knew I wanted to do a Thanksgiving Day cake for Greg's family gathering.  I saw some pictures, even cakes that look like an actual cooked turkey, but it was a long work week for me and time was limited.... no time to carve a cake to look like a cooked turkey. This picture was my inspiration: However, it was made of fondant and I'm not a big fan of fondant.  So I took the idea and turned it into buttercream and had some fun with the method of making feathers using a piping tip.  It was fun and had a 3D look because the layers of feather went on the last layer.