Ballet Shoes Cake

My niece turned 1 on the 15th, and her party was yesterday. 

For her birthday, I made her a ballet shoes cake.  The inside was uber-yummy, by the way..triple yellow butter cake layers with chocolate fudge filling, raspberry preserves, fresh raspberries and chocolate ganache spread in between each layer. 

More Monsters.

Or pseudo Uglydolls, if you will.  Remember Pucky? Well, Pucky now has friends.  I finally got Leah's doll done, and then made an additional one for our good friend Liam Stowe for Christmas this year. 

Soooo....say hello to Pucky, Lula, and Deuce. 

Lula is Leah's new dolly, the orange one in the middle.  Here's a close up:

I think she's kind of reminiscent of a bunny or something, except with dracula fangs...which I happen to love.

Here's Liam's new friend, Deuce:

I came up with the name Deuce from looking up synonyms to the word "Devil", because that's what he reminds me of...and lest anyone get concerned because this doll looks evil, let me just say that Liam is 13 years old, and hearts all things scary and vampirish.  Therefore, this was a perfect gift. 

Here's some monster buttocks:

Now, what I wouldn't have given for a sewing machine.  I could have whipped these babies up in literally minutes.  But handsewing, well, that takes a while.  But no matter, I think they turned out cute and I'm excited to put them in the kid's stockings at Christmas...Ho Ho Ho!!!

Outtakes.

Okay, not really outtakes, but more like additional fun of my two kiddos.

Remember this recent photo?

I was just going through the probably 30 pictures I took of them sitting in that laundry basket, and I couldn't help thinking that some of them were so funny!

The only picture I got of both smiling was the original post I did, but let's see what the others looked like:

Ahem.  Alex was screaming here, "NOOO, MOMMA! NO TOUCH ME, SIS!"

"What's going on?  Why are you trying to wipe the drool off my face? I like it there!"

Alex: "Get offffffff me."  Leah: "Ooooo, I like your HAIRRRRRR..."

This one would have been perfect if she would have had even the teensiest little smile.  But...she didn't.  Miss Serious Pants here.  By the way, to get him to smile like that, I was taking pictures with one hand and screeching "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and doing the motions with the other. 

And, finally....both are smiling.  Success! 

Curiosity.

This girl is one curious kitty.

Zoo Animal Cake!

This was the mini-cake for Drew...

And here's the big cake.

I think one of my favorite things is the crocodile "swimming" through the fondant.  That was fun. 

Hopefully Drew likes his birthday cake.  Happy 2nd Birthday, Drew!

Awwww.....

I had to put them in a laundry basket to do it, but I finally got a cute little picture of both my babies...

Pay no attention to the chapped lips, crusty noses, and drooley chins. 

I'm not.

Beets.

Oh, I knew that word would surely peak your curiosity, right? I mean, everybody loves beets.

Okay.  I know.  Everybody does not love beets.  In fact, probably about 80% of the people I know or have questioned say that they absolutely hate beets.

I, however, do not. 

This confession might gross you out, if you are in the Beet Haters of America Club.

I can eat beets any old way.  My favorite way is pickled, like I had today, with my grilled cheese sandwich. See?

And yes, I did pickle them myself, and even got some help this year from my mother, because I had just recently given birth to my tiny daughter not even two weeks prior.  Canning with a newly re-opened c-section scar just does not feel so good, let me tell you...but we got it done.  And now I have the fruits of my labor (so to speak) to eat all winter long.  Yummo!

I have actually tried beets raw (really, really crunchy, and definitely not as tasty - I only had one bite), cooked and peeled and ready to go, etc. But when I am in a pinch, I will eat them cold from a can with maybe a little bread and butter on the side.  I know...weird.  But sooooo good.

I'm not sure what the point of this post is, except that I was thinking as I was eating lunch about how good beets tasted on a cold winters day, and that I wished everyone in the world was in the Beet Lovers of America Club, instead of the other way around. 

Watch out World...I'm gonna change your beet hatin' minds, one beet at a time.