Carrie's Cupcakes

First day of Kindergarten!

2010-08-19T05:36:00.000-07:00

Lydia had a wonderful first day of school! She is so excited to keep going back. We took these pictures just before we all walked to school.

Showing off the new shoes.

Lydia waiting to be taken back to the classroom.

Rachel held on to Abram in the wagon on the way home and the poor little guy fell asleep in her arms.

And just so I don't need to make another post I give you one of my excuses for not really blogging this summer, lots of cakes!

Rehearsal dinner cake.

Tommy's Buzz cake.

Rachel's birthday cake.

Giant shark cake for Lydia's swim team.

And Lydia's birthday cake that I never put up pictures of.

lots of stuff.

2010-06-02T11:33:00.000-07:00

Lydia had her ballet recital a few weeks ago she is a beautiful dancer.

Hurray! we got a new camera.

Memorial Day fun.

Classic Rachel face.

Swim team started this week.
Oh, and I did a party for lydia's 5th birthday back in April but I don't have the pictures so if you want to see a few you can go to almataitphotography.com it's the Alice in Wonderland party.

DISNEYWORLD!

2010-03-05T13:54:00.000-08:00

We just got back from Disneyworld and I loved it. We had a blast the food was Amazing and really you just can't beat Disney for ambiance. So I don't want to brag too much but it was such a great vacation it was our first time to d-world and what I love is that it didn't make me love d-land any less it's all Disney.
This is what I want for Christmas it's only $37,500.00.
So we started with Magic kingdom but I think we took a lot more pictures at Epcot so I will try to limit them to one per country.Epcot is having it's Garden festival so we had to spend 2 days there just to get through it all. (it seriously made me want to plant a garden)

We started in Mexico
Then to Norway
Then China
This Display was near Germany
Italy
Morocco
We had dinner in France one day and Chef Remy prepared our meal it was seriously cool he talks and sings and everything.
England
This is a bad picture but on our second night at Epcot we ate at Coral Reef it was also great.
This was at animal kingdom we had a Safari breakfast in the morning and then we went to Animal Kingdom Lodge and ate at Boma (awesome!)
Hollywood studios This picture was taken just after our favorite restaurant The Brown Derby
So lots of fun!

New Post!!

2009-11-09T05:43:00.000-08:00

This is no longer what our little boy looks like now he is our big happy smiley 3 month old.

I know I have been so bad at blogging so here is the longest post ever.
We closed on our new house two weeks ago and I have hardly packed up this house. We had our ward trunk or treat that weekend Lydia was a mermaid, Rachel was a butterfly princess and Abram was an adorable little dinosaur. My mom made their costumes again they were so cute but I'm really bad at taking pictures so sorry.

Then we went to California, it was so much fun. Thanks to my mother-in-law we scored tickets to Club 33 at Disneyland and the whole experience was amazing it was seriously the best food ever and I have had great food, but this was ambiance like only Disney can do.
Lydia also got to go to the Bibbity bobbity boutique it was so cute watching her get fussed over by the Fairy Godmothers.

She loved every second. She kept putting her hand over her mouth and giggling. Rachel was a little too young but maybe next time.
So California was great we got to eat at all of our favorite places and I also got to see my sister and her boys.
For more pictures of our Disneyland Club 33 experience and Trick-or-treating in California you can visit my sister-in-laws blog, Josh and Christina Tidwell.
Now we have been home for a week and their is so much to do but it will all get done I'm sure.

My Little Pirate!

2009-08-29T07:32:00.000-07:00

Alma took pictures of Abram almost two weeks ago, I love them. She is so creative I'm so glad to have such a talented friend.
We took hm to the doctors yesterday and he still hasn't reached 10 lbs. which is normal I just keep thinking he is already so big but it put it into perspective he is still so little.

Baby pictures!

2009-08-04T11:49:00.000-07:00

I kept forgetting to have Tim download the pictures of Abram off his iphone before he went to work, He put some on facebook but I know that doesn't help some of you. For those of you who don't already know Abram was born last Tuesday on his due date at 12:05 in the afternoon. The delivery went great he's cute and perfect. The girls just LOVE their little brother and Lydia is asking when the next baby is coming. (probably because I still look a little pregnant) The recovery is also going great a lot easier than the c-section. So far he wakes up at 1:30 and 4:30 every night to be fed. He's a great sleeper but all of that can change in an instant.

We also bought a house the day before Abram was born so with all of the paperwork and inspections things have been a little bit crazy. It is a cute house and we are very excited though we wont be moving until December when the Kings get home from their mission. Our closing date is Oct. 23rd so we will have time to move slowly and make any changes to the new house.

Tim also took on a crazy freelance project a week before Abram was due it was a lot of work to get done in such a short time but I'm so proud of him (he hardly slept) The game that he did will be carried by Walmart. Exciting stuff huh?

Thanks Abe,

2009-07-12T16:42:00.000-07:00

Fourscore and seven years ago (actually about a month ago) we went to the Abraham Lincoln museum in Springfield, IL. It was stinking fantastic! and we would definitely recommend it to anyone and everyone. After a fun day of shows and looking at old stuff through glass we stopped to pose with the Lincoln's for this photo. What a great day!

In-N-Out

2009-06-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

I made my dad this "cake" for his birthday today. He loves In-N-Out but we don't live anywhere near one so I thought this would be funny. The buns and the burgers are yellow and chocolate cake and the fries are sugar cookies.

Sugar Roses

2009-05-17T11:20:00.000-07:00

I have made gumpaste Roses before but I have never made the gumpaste myself for fear that it was too complicated and that it wouldn't work. But I went to a new cake store and the owner gave me a recipe that she swore works every time. And it did. I also watched an online tutorial from a british lady and she had some great advise. A lot of the time I have to figure things out on my own because I am not a trained pastry chef so it's nice that there are very specific instructions out there, you just have to know where to look. If you like learning about cake stuff cakejournal.com is a great place to go.

Here are some red roses I did this week for a cake and I loved them Roses are not my personal favorite flower they can be kind of grandma-ish especially if you work for Wilton, But I have a new love for them they really are a classic and beautiful flower even if they are a bit overused.

Lydia Drawing

2009-05-14T13:27:00.000-07:00

I love having such a talented husband. He drew this of our Lydia last night while I was at mutual.

Grant's Farm

2009-04-26T16:14:00.000-07:00

We had a blast at Grant's Farm. We Have lived in St. Louis for almost 5 years now and we had never been there until yesterday. Boy were we missing out, it was small but the girls loved the elephant show and feeding the baby goats.

This is the home that Ulysses S. Grant grew up in.

And this picture is hard to see but it is the Bush family's personal residence. This is as close as we can get. How would it be!

Lydia is 4!

2009-04-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

I think Lydia had a very fun birthday. Unfortunately she was sick but I think it's just a cold so we went to the Zoo anyways. Tim took off work and we enjoyed spending the day together and letting Lydia choose everything. My mom joined us at the zoo and got Lydia the cutest Build-A-Bear Kangaroo with a fairy dress and a little joey, Lydia named her Flutter-oo. By the time we got home yesterday both girls were zonked out. and Lydia woke up worse this morning she just said she wanted to sleep so that's what she's doing.

Tim has more pictures on his phone so there may be more to follow but I won't put any pictures of the cake it tasted great but it looked horrible we have all been sick and I just couldn't spend enough time on it.

I thought I would include these in the same post this is what I did for conference weekend. The cookies ended up not tasting good so the "real" cookies are underneath the better looking ones. I was experimenting.

And the stool is something I bought at Goodwill a long time ago I just needed to paint it. I love doing crafts!

Kiley's Cake

2009-03-30T07:44:00.000-07:00

What a busy week! Here are some pictures of a cake I made for my niece Kiley it was her 9th birthday. She had a My Girls party they picked up all the girls in a pink limo and took them to their store where they dressed up and got their nails painted and hair done. I think Lydia had lots of fun she couldn't stop telling people at church yesterday.

On Wednesday I taught the Laurels how to make cookie bouquets if you want to see pictures of how they turned out press here.
Today I went to the doctors again and the baby is still a BOY! Yeah something new for us!

New Beginnings went great!

2009-03-13T08:28:00.000-07:00

We just had our New Beginnings program for our young women. I am so excited because it went great. The girls did a fantastic job. We found a script for a program that we kind of liked and we thought that if we made a few changes it would work. but when I was talking to my creative husband he started shooting off ideas so fast that we ended up with some crazy fun ideas. And lots of work. But since we have such great leaders who are all willing to do so much it turned out great I wish we had pictures but of course I was a little distracted and forgot my camera.
So I've been debating about weather or not to bore everyone with all of the details then I thought if you don't want to read about it stop reading now.

New Beginnings program
The original idea that we found online was called Virtue Deli, where they took the new value "virtue" and they created a cooking show where they built a sandwich using the values and their colors as inspiration for ingredients on a sandwich.
Our idea was to use that part of it and create a cooking show that was a challenge and had an apposing deli called the Greasy Spoon. where they built a more "worldly" sandwich using ingredients not based on values but whatever they are feeling like eating at the moment. With my husbands help we created some funny and gross stuff to go on the apposing sandwich. And with the girls help it was a huge success we were able to pull in this years theme "Be thou an example" because one of the girls decided at the end that she didn't want to work for a place like the greasy spoon and the girls from the virtue deli invited her to work for them. then our fantasic judges one of which was wearing a tux concluded by telling the girls that in life if you will make good choices and live a clean and virtuous life you will see that it is a much more satisfying and spiritually nutritious way to live and others will fallow your example.
Rebecca made a DVD for each girl if you want to see it it's on her blog It's amazing! (Click on Rebecca the movie is in the right top corner) and my mom made aprons for each girl to go home with (She's amazing!) for refreshments we had sandwiches from the winning "Virtue Deli" (Subway) and chips and cookies. It was the easiest food I have ever done for a young women program.

Locked out!

2009-03-06T07:11:00.000-08:00

So yesterday was a little scary at our house. It was such a nice day so me and the girls went outside to play. After playing for a while Lydia said she was tired so I told the girls to take their shoes off while I round up the balls and tricycles, it took me 2 seconds, then it happened my 18 month old suddenly developed super human strength and was able to shut the back door completely (the door sticks so this is very hard to do) then she pushed the little push lock button because she can't resist a button. Had Lydia been inside she could have just turned the handle and unlocked the door but she was sitting on the step taking off her shoes. So Rachel is on the other side of the door yelling for me to open it and I'm trying to get her to turn the handle but she is just too little. So I ran across the street to Susan's house but she wasn't home and I could see Michelle outside playing with her kids so I grabbed Lydia and we ran with my arms waving trying to get her attention when she saw me I told her that Rachel was locked in the house so she came running with Darcy and her cell phone. I called Tim but he didn't answer which meant he was in a meeting I called my dad and he said he could be here in a half an hour. I called a locksmith but nobody could get there any faster than my dad. I coaxed Rachel to the sliding glass door so I could see her and me and Michelle decided that if she got hurt we would break one of the windows to get to her but if she was okay we could just wait. Rachel would cry a little not really understanding why I couldn't just open the door and then she would get distracted by Lydia and Darcy pulling faces at her through the glass. I finally got a hold of Tim and he left work but with traffic he was still 30 minutes away. When my dad got there he couldn't do anything either (although he sure tried, A for effort Dad!) and by that time we figured we might as well wait for Tim because he had a key. So after 1 hour and 45 minutes Tim was home and Rachel was free and I now have a hide a key in my garage. :)

Cake Displays

2009-02-27T14:13:00.000-08:00

So this was one of the things that I was working on for a while. These are hung up in the Michael's store in the Valley.

This was a guitar cake I made a few weeks ago. I did a hunting cake yesterday but I forgot to take pictures oops.

Fun Getaway!

2009-02-24T06:19:00.000-08:00

So me and Tim took the girls down to Branson for the weekend. We have never been there before and a friend of ours has a timeshare that she was sweet enough to let us use. The resort was awesome and it was so nice to just get away and explore some place new. Tim and I have been working really hard. Tim has a big freelance project due and I just finished some cake displays for Michael's (I forgot to take pictures so I will go do that today so you all can see why I haven't posted anything in a long time.)

Can you believe this was Tim's idea! He saw the sign and he said that he thought it would be funny to get all dressed up. I was a little more nervouse because I couldn't wear the old western prostitute stuff (not that I wanted to), so we went for a more victorian theme. Tim pulled funny faces in almost every picture of course. the employees couldn't believe Tim wanted this one but they just don't know my husband, I think it's funny.

We only have a few pictures of the fun stuff we did. We ate some great food, played miniature golf, shopped and even went to the fish hatchery wich was serprizingly entertaining. Lydia loved feeding the thousands of fish.

This is Tim and the girls getting some of their energy out before we headed home.

Tim's new Children's Book

2009-01-12T10:22:00.000-08:00

Tim just received some copies of a children's book that he Illustrated last year. We are so proud of him. Here are some pictures of Lydia reading it to Rachel.

Magic House

2009-01-12T09:58:00.000-08:00

We love the Magic House, they have a new story telling exhibit complete with Cinderella's coach and a Jack in the Bean Stock play area.
Lydia and Rachel love the grocery store. I think they like it even more because we hardly ever get to go. (Tim does most of our grocery shopping at the mini grocery store at his work.)

Rachel loves the cash register.

Christmas Vacation

2008-12-31T07:32:00.000-08:00

We had such an amazing time in California! It was raining on Monday so we went to Legoland Sea life aquarium since it is so close it was lots of fun.

Tuesday we went to Disneyland and Lydia got to meet her favorite fairies. Pixy hallow was actually our longest wait (35 min.) but it was worth it. Lydia's face was priceless.

This is Rachel eating at our favorite mexican resturant in D-land.

Wednesday we went to Tim's uncles house for some crazy Christmas eve festivities. (sorry no pictures) Thursday Christmas was wonderful. Lydia got a Bakery for her American girl doll. Cutest thing ever I have been playing with it as well. Rachel got lots of toys and clothes.

The rest of the week consisted of shopping, this is the Hot Dog at the Carlsbad outlets the food still tastes so good and Lydia loved it just as much as I do :)

We ate out breakfast, lunch and dinner every day so if you see that I have gained a few pounds it's not because of the baby. Last but not least we were able to be there for Tim's brothers farewells. The twins did an amazing job speaking and the chapel was so full that there were tons of people standing in the back.

Baby #3 is on it's way!

2008-12-30T12:36:00.000-08:00

It's still early but we are very excited about the new baby. I went to the doctor today and I love that he does an ultrasound every time it's great to see the baby even at nine weeks. Anyways everything is great if you go by the heartbeat it's another girl, if you compare the way I'm feeling with the other pregnancies it's probably a girl because I'm not very sick and it was the same way with the other two. So there you go Fun news for today. Also if anyone out there has ever done a VBAC or if you just have an opinion about doing a regular delivery after a c-section I'd love to here your thoughts, My doctor wants me to make up my mind pretty early so that I at least have some delivery plan.

Tim's Pirate Party

2008-12-15T11:17:00.000-08:00

Okay, so my friend kristen took a couple of pictures of Tim's birthday and I am so glad because I didn't take any I was so tired by the time the party arrived I wasn't thinking I should have just given my camera to someone. Oh well the party turned out geat, thanks everyone for coming I think it made Tim's birthday really special.
For those of you not able to be there I did a Pirate Party (I know you are thinking a pirate party for a thirty year old? well if you know my husband it makes sense) We had lots of kids come so it was perfect :)
I painted the table cloth to look like a map.

I made the sword out of cardboard. I was trying to make it look like it was stabbed through the table.

The cake was a giant compass and the trophy was for the winner of the pirate game that we did not play because we were having too much fun talking.

Christmas Card Pictures

2008-12-10T08:01:00.000-08:00

I know I have not posted in a while so I thought I would today. I love the pictures that Alma took of our family and I wanted to put them up sooner but I didn't want to spoil the surprise when you all get our Christmas card. but since I still don't have ANY pictures of my husbands birthday party I thought I should put something up so here you go. I don't think I have ever posted Black and white photos before so I thought it would be fun to post them all in B&W.
By the way it was like 25 degrees outside I'm surprised that the girls smiled at all it was so cold.

Tink Original Artwork!

2008-11-05T07:43:00.000-08:00

Last night while I was teaching Tim, Lydia and Rachel made this wonderful drawing. Tim told me last night when I got home that they did an art project together, but I didn't see what it was. Then this morning Lydia showed me what they did and I LOVE IT!!! I just hung it up in Lydia's room. If you look closely you can see some of the letters from Lydia's name and some grass and such I love that Lydia is so proud of it.

2008-11-03T06:14:00.000-08:00

I know that this whole blog is just me bragging about my family but I just thought I would take a minute to write about how smart my little girls are.
So, Lydia has always talked a lot and she says the funniest things most of witch I can't think of right now but the words she comes up with are not just random words they actually make a lot of sense like "lastermorning" instead of saying yesterday morning. Or "sprayinator" instead of spray bottle. She notices things like when we went Trick-or-treating I thought maybe she was getting tired so I asked her if she wanted to go to the next house and she said "Ya, maybe these people will invite us in." And I realized that she's thinking we've been regected by all of those other people who have just handed her candy at the door instead of inviting her in. I'm not sure wheather to share this next one it may embarress her later but she's only three, one of our friends was over with her little boy and he went in to go to the bathroom and Lydia started to fallow and I stopped her and told her to give him some privacy and she said "Mom what kind of front bum does he have?" Obviously we have since talked about what certain things are called, it just makes me sad to have to do that with a three year old. Rachel is pretty funny too. She tells me she's stinky and brings me the wipes, when I'm done changing her diaper she gets really excited and runs the diaper to the trash then expects cheers and hugs all around. She also sings all the time you can totally make out the tune of the song but not really the words. Both of them love to perform they stand on the fireplace and sing at the top of their lungs this is especially funny for family night when we are trying to move on to the lesson. Anyways I guess the reason that I am writing this is because lydia's pediatrician always says that kids are like little computers that remember everything you say and do. And while he's right I'm also realizing how smart and creative these little ones are without any help from me.

Halloween Costumes!

2008-10-27T06:20:00.000-07:00

Saturday was so much fun we went to the Boo at the Zoo it was great there were so many kids in costumes and they were all cute but Rachel's took the cake. She was the most adorable little thing and even though she could hardly walk in it she still wore it the whole time (Tim carried her most of the day!). Thanks mom for making their costumes!

Lydia was so beautiful My mom made this fairy costume by taking apart my sisters prom dress and using the fabric. She is so smart!

My attempt at fairy hair.

Then we went to the Trunk-or-Treat at the church and got even more candy we're almost candied out and it's not even Halloween yet. For the costume contest Rachel won "Most Adorable" and Lydia won "Prettiest."
Grandma Brazier came to visit and we had so much fun with her I wish I had some pictures but we were having such a great time I guess I didn't get many of her. Thanks for coming Grandma we will miss you!
We went back to the pumpkin patch with Alma and she took some more pictures so I thought I would post a couple of them.

Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-09T20:03:00.000-07:00

Fun Projects!

2008-10-05T07:49:00.000-07:00

We've been busy! I made this cake for a friend. I wanted to do something different so I baked one cake mix in a "14 cake pan and then cut it into wedges and stacked it. So it was still a pretty big cake.

My friend Lori invited me to a lady's house that makes jewelry and she showed us how to mold silver clay. Some friends of ours have these really cute mothers necklaces that say their kids names so we made these. She didn't have small enough type to do their whole names so we just did the first letters.

I was trying to be creative and I made a cupcake shape for my girls Lydia was wearing hers.

These are a week old but I just love this picture of Lydia riding Star it was so beautiful, the kids had so much fun running around how would it be to live on this much land.

Horsback Riding!

2008-09-22T08:24:00.000-07:00

OK how happy does she look! Lydia was in heaven this weekend. She got to ride Magic, a beautiful sweet horse. She was so excited she sat up strait and tall not at all nervous.

Radio Disney was also at the park playing music and games with the kids. They had a drawing for the grand prize and Lydia won!!

The coolest part about the basket full of stuff was some tickets to go see the only showing of Tinkerbell the movie in the theaters.
It was a fun day we played at the park, colored some pumpkins, and even toured a firetruck.

Willy Wonka Party

2008-09-16T13:30:00.000-07:00

What a great day! We had a Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory party it was so much fun.

I think the kids really enjoyed it and apparently so did I because I didn't take enough pictures of the kids. My friend kristen made the cutest cupcake boxes so that each kid could take home a cupcake and Tim made me Wonka wrappers for the chocolate bars, they were awsome!

and last but not least my mom came over yesterday to help me decorate the house, didn't she do a great job?

Japanese Festival at the Botanical Gardens

2008-08-31T19:57:00.000-07:00

We had such a fun time his weekend. This was our first time going to the Japanese festival and it was so beautiful I'm so glad we went. We got to see Sumo Wrestling and it was neat because I leaned so much about the sport that I didn't know before. They also had great food, who doesn't love sushi?
Lydia had lots to do in the childrens' area with the slides and the boat (pirate ship) and she even got a purple parasol not that we are trying to spoil her completely it was just so cute.

Rachel was glad to have a place that she could walk around too. I thought these plastic flowers were so fun but I couldn't get a picture of her playing with them because she was too fast for me.

The lakes have the biggest Koi fish I have ever seen they must be at least 2 feet long maybe 3. And this really nice girls gave Lydia a whole oragami boat full of fish food we sat there forever while Lydia threw the pellets into the water one at a time. I think the fish must have been so full because they weren't all clamoring for the food like i've seen them do before. In truth most of the fish food probably sank. But at least the view was nice while we waited.

2008-08-25T18:14:00.000-07:00

Welcome! OK so here I go with my very own blog. I think this will be a great place to show what I have been up to. Well mostly I'm a mom so I do a lot of laundry and dishes but besides that I'm a cake decorator and I teach cake decorating classes once a week. So here is a picture of my latest wedding cake. What do you think?