Fun Times making Fun Cakes

This last Saturday we had a great time celebrating Easter as well as my niece's 2nd birthday!  I cannot believe she's already 2!  We had so much fun eating delicious food and hunting for Easter eggs.  Of course, there was plenty of preparation making fun desserts for her birthday!  Here are some of the pictures as well as instructions of how to do it!

The first cake was a flower box cake.  I thought it would be a fun way to integrate her birthday as well as Easter with a fun spring flair!  There are so many variations that you could make with this.  I thought about making a layered trifle, or doing a dirt cake, but this recipe was so fun and easier to transport up to the high desert! 

The original recipe called for a 13x9 cake, but I decided it would be easier to just do the cake in a loaf pan.  I made a chocolate cake, covered cut off the top to make it flat, frosted it in chocolate frosting, topped it with crumbled up cake (what I cut off the top), and then used the Pepperidge Farm Pirouette Rolled Wafers along the sides.  The Pirouettes needed to be cut in half with a bread knife.  The flowers and butterflies were cake pops.  You could do any kind of treat, though.  You could do cookies, cakes, or even just make little paper ones.  You could make flowers and bees, butterflies, dragonflies...anything you'd like!

The next thing we made were Cupcake Bites and Cake Balls.  We took this idea from Bakerella's Cake Pop book.  Both recipes start off with a basic boxed cake mix made as directed.  Let the cake cool, then crumble it up into a large bowl.  The smaller the crumbles, the better.  Then mix in a tub of frosting.  Using 3/4 of the tub makes them easier to shape...the whole tub makes them that much more moist.  Let the mixture cool in the fridge for a little bit while you clean up the mess.  This will make them easier to shape.  I then took a medium scoops of the cake mixture and rolled them into balls.  Placing them on a tray with parchment paper or wax paper will help to move them to the freezer for about 15 minutes to get extra cold. 

We then melted some melting chocolate and candy coating to cover the balls we had made.  You just drop the balls in one at a time and pull them carefully.  Be sure to allow the excess chocolate to drip off into the bowl of chocolate.  Then place them, again, on a sheet of wax paper or parchment paper to harden. 

If you want to make them into cupcake bites, then you can take a really tiny cookie cutter shaped like a flower to create the paper-liner look.  Let the excess cake mound on top to form the top of the cupcake.  After shaping all of the balls into the cupcake look, throw them back in the freezer for another 15 minutes to cool back down.  Then dip the bottom into the dark chocolate and let it harden.  Then dip the top with whatever color you want and decorate with sprinkles and a red M&M right away before the coating hardens.  You can store these in the refrigerator for several days!  They stay hard in room temperature. 

They were a total hit!  Everyone loved them and enjoyed being able to eat bite-sized pieces of cake. 

Enjoy!

Almost There!

Time has rushed by me at the speed of light and I find it so hard to believe that we are just two months away from the birth of Levi Knightlee.  Each week in and of itself has felt like a nasty little slug, slowly making its way through life.  When I look back, however, it all seems like such a blur.  Every day is filled with a new adventure, new excitements, new fears and doubts and it forces me to look to God with thanksgiving as well as supplication! 

Emery is growing so fast, and I am constantly curious about how he will react to the new baby.  He is seeming to understand a little more what is going on, but he has no clue what he's up against!  :)  I wonder if he will be helpful or turn into a terror.  I just pray that he would love his brother and want to care for and protect him...and that I wouldn't get so caught up in all the hustle bustle that I lose track of truly enjoying my boys.

Lately, Emery has been really funny.  He has become more active in decision making and it has been a lot of fun.  Of course, we let him believe he is making the decisions, but we really are.  For example, he will want something for breakfast and I will ask if he wants cereal.  When he says yes, I show him two different boxes and say "Do you want the blue box or the yellow box?"  He replies, "Oh.  Hmm..." and points to the box and says the corresponding color.  It's a good way for us to get him to eat healthier cereals.

He has also become more vocal about the things he sees all around him.  He is adamant about making sure that I know that there is a red truck driving next to us, or that we are driving past mountains or water...or anything else for that matter.   If there are fish on the TV, he yells, "Mommy!  Mommy!  Mommy! Fish!"  He repeats this until I acknowledge him and say, "Yes, Emery.  There are fish."  It doesn't stop after the first time, though.  He says it again and again until they disappear.  It is very funny, sometimes exhausting, and always cute.

As I watch Emery grow into more of a toddler, it causes me to wonder what Levi will be like.  Will he be anything like Emery?  Will the be completely opposite?  What will he look like?  Will he be happy?  I know that these things are not for me to know yet, but I am so very curious.  I know that, whatever he looks like and however he acts, I'm going to love him.  I just pray that he's an "easy to love" person! :) 

We are so very blessed to have everything that we have.  We have a beautiful little boy, a roof over our heads, another boy on the way, family and friends that we love and love us back, each other, and a God who continues to pour out His blessings on us.  We don't have all the "financial blessings" in the world: a nice new car, nice house, lots of clothes, lots of food, vacations...etc...but we have everything that we NEED.   For that I am thankful.  I look forward to bringing Levi into this family and being blessed even more by him.   I look forward to Emery and Levi growing close to one another and sharing childhood together.  I look forward to growing as a mother and watching Josh grow even more as a father. 

Just two more months away...Wow.  Two more months!