Cakes For Sale

Because of this wonderful winter snow we are having, Ben has not been to work lately. Making our bills have just gotten harder. So I have decided that I want to try and sell some cool, fancy cakes to help our income situation. If anyone is interested in buying a cake, please let me know. You can email me at malchicken@gmail.com. Thanks!

Computer Problems

Saturday night my computer died. We are not sure what happened, it just peeled over and died. (Well maybe not that visually, but that is what is feels like! So on Sunday we take it over to a neighbour who tells us that either our motherboard or CPU has fried itself. You can't see any burn marks or smell any smoke. I felt that he diagnosed the problem way to quickly and so I called my trusty computer friend, Micheal (should have called him first!). He thinks that my RAM has just died - I like that problem better, it is cheaper to fix. Micheal can only come around to bring life back to my computer on Friday, he is writing his finals this week. So until my computer is fixed, I have to use the computer at the library. Thus making it a little difficult to post on the blog. Lets just hold fingers that only my RAM is the problem and that we can fix it on Friday!

Thanksgiving

We were invited to join my Aunt and Uncle for Thanksgiving in Provo this year. It was great fun to relax and hang out with extended family. It was held at Charne's sisters house. So there were many South Africans at the party. Cynthia loved every moment of being there.

Here is the turkey on top of the cake that I made. It was made in a rush the morning of so I don't like it ever much. I think that it could have been so much better.

Cynthia loves Layne. She kept wanting to play with him.

Cynthia is marvelous at getting just about anyone to do what she wants them to do. Over the course of lunch, I think about 4 people fed her from her lunch bowl.

Layne and Cynthia playing outside. She followed him around most of the day. Every time Layne asked her if they could go inside she said no. If you enlarge this picture you can see the big smile on her face.

This just a quick video of Cynthia playing around at lunch. She would bounce from on person to the next.

Thanks for a great Thanksgiving!


Friday night, Layne came up for dinner. Ben's work gave him a ham, so we cooked it up and I tried my hand at making fried/roasted potatoes - the way my mom makes them. They were a success and tasted so good. Cynthia followed Layne around. If he went to the bathroom, she waited outside the door. It he was on the computer, then she was on his lap. I think Layne has made a friend for life!

Just Plain Cynthia

Cynthia is a true one of a kind little character. She has her own agenda and her own way of doing things. Tonight while I was at my final cake class Cynthia and Ben had a little fun. The story goes as follows:

Cynthia finds a pair of my pink socks all folded up. She unfolds the socks and promptly puts them on her feet. Ben and Cynthia play around, kicking the soccer ball, putting daddy's socks on over mommy's socks and a few other things. Next thing she runs over to the back door - where I left my slippers - and puts them on her feet. (She loves to where my shoes!) Then she is back chasing the soccer ball - slippers and all! Here is a little video clip that Ben took of Cynthia and her shoe agenda. If things don't work out she throws them away and then goes back and tries again - notice her throw the slipper away. This is Cynthia being herself!

Cake Decorating Class 1 Week 4 - Final

Tonight was my final decorating class. This is the cake that I made. I found a picture online and just mimicked it. I changed the colour to yellow instead of pink. Underneath the icing is triple layer lemon cake. The colour is a little funky in the pictures. The side of the cake is more a pale yellow and the roses very from a bright yellow to a buttercup yellow.

Thanks Layne for this wonderful birthday present.

Black and White

A few months ago I got this idea for a dress for Cynthia. I have been waiting until we had some money so that I could buy the material that I needed for the dress. Last Sunday I went to dress Cynthia for church and discovered that most of her dresses were way to short. I think that she had a growth spurt this week because most of her jeans are suddenly to short as well. So this week we bought all the material that I wanted and off I went. I used a basic pattern that I have and altered it to what I wanted. All the black is part of the alterations that I made. Originally there was supposed to be a white flower on the black waist band and the black chest was not going to be part of the dress. The flower I got was to big and never looked good so I went to plan B. There is also a second layer under the dress with mesh stuff to help give it flare. I think that it is darling. What do you think?

The front

The back

Cake Decorating Class 1 Week 3

This week's assignment for my cake class was to either decorate cupcakes or an 8 inch cake. The book that we are working out of suggests that you make a clown 8 inch cake or flowers on cupcakes. I wanted to be a little different. I enjoy walking through the cake section in stores. Last week we were at Walmart and saw some super cute cupcakes. They had taken two cup cakes and made them into an animal. There was a dragon/lizard thing, a bear and a little puppy. I decided that I was going to copy the puppy, but instead of using two cup cakes I used my mini loaf pans. That way when you want to eat it, you don't have to fight the paper cup holding the cup cake. They were super easy to make and they were a hit.

Up close with one of the puppies

All seven looking forward

A different angle of the seven