It's a Cookie Swap!

My friend Erin and her sister Kristi hosted a cookie swap tonight.  What a WONDERFUL way to stock up on some FABULOUS Christmas cookies for all of the holiday entertaining we have coming up.   Here's a sampling of what we got to take home tonight.   

The Reese's peanut butter ones were mine.  Those are MY favorite.

Josie and Mara had a great time decorating a Gingerbread house!  This was an awesome project for the girls.  Thanks again for thinking of them, Erin!

Here are all of the bakers!  What a great turn-out and SUCH a fun party!!!

After a wonderful snack-filled dinner, complete with hot chocolate, Erin and Kristi supplied boxes and festive waxed paper for their guests to take their goodies home and Erin gave us all a Christmas CD of her favorite Christmas tunes and a jar of her homemade jam.  

Honestly, it was so awesome to be so spoiled!!!

Merry Christmas to you all!!!!!

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Back in November, Oprah announced her "Favorite Things" for the holiday season.  I was so excited to get my "O" Magazine and look through all of her fun ideas.  What it must be like to be Oprah. Anyway, I came across this picture of Cordial Cherries made into a Nativity.   I LOVED it and knew that I had a cake to bake for my daughter's Christmas party for school.  

I was not going to spend the $44+ on this set when I could make them myself.  I purchased some cordial cherries from a fundraiser at my daughter's school and I was good to go!!  (I made two sets, by the way.  I plan to duplicate this cake for my Christmas dinner...)

Here's how mine turned out.  I clearly based mine on the set from the "O"Magazine and created a nativity scene out of brown sugar (sand), coconut (hay) and a gingerbread stable.  

I wanted to decorate the rest of the cake to look like a starry night.  This cake is my chocolate-flecked cake with buttercream filling and frosting.  I'm super pleased with how it turned out.

And here's Josie's class - excited to celebrate the real reason for the Christmas season.  Bless them.  

Mrs. D's 49th Birthday Celebration!

Today was a very special celebration day.  Josie's teacher would be hitting a milestone over Christmas break, so they decided to celebrate her birthday today, the last day of school for the year.   I was super happy to make cupcakes to commemorate the special day.  Mrs. D could distribute these to whomever she chose (the kids got another special treat today...more on that later).

So here were her cupcakes.  Chocolate cupcakes filled and topped with vanilla buttercream and topped with fondant/gum paste decorations.  

Mrs. S ordered 50 balloons.  There are 10 kids in Josie's class, so each kid was able to deliver a bouquet of 5 balloons to Mrs. D this morning and wish her a happy birthday.   As the kids waited for the balloons to arrive, they read through the book they made for her.  This is the first time they got to see it all done.

Balloons arrived!!!

One at a time, they headed into the classroom.  

Here's Mrs. D with her already growing grouping of balloons.  

"Happy Birthday!!" 

What a fun morning!  And what a great way to start the day!!!

I think she loved her book.  :)

A very Happy Birthday to you, Mrs. D!!!  We hope you have a wonderful celebration over Christmas break!!!

Gingerbread Stage Coach - Yee Haw!

It all started when my husband's coworker, Jon, brought him a picture of a personalized gingerbread train.   He wrote on the side something like, "Stagecoach?"  To most people, that relationship wouldn't make sense, but both men work at Wells Fargo, kind of known for the whole stagecoach thing.

Anywho, my husband showed me the picture and I said, "I'll do that.  But!  YOU have come up with the template.  I'll make the dough, I'll bake it and decorate it, but you have to do the design work."  And that's how this started.

When I asked people to guess what this was on my Facebook page, I thought for sure I'd hear hedgehogs or something.  Nope.  People did guess turtles, nativity scene, oven mitts and salmon-flavored bagel cake.

On this one, a few guessed correctly, but I was excited to see Santa sleigh!  That's a cool idea!!

Here's the finished product.  All assembled and ready to go.  I used large marshmallows to cushion the stagecoach and level it out a bit.  I frosted some sugar cones to make trees (learned that one from my daughter's first grade teacher).

I added some candy and my own baked goods to the tray.

And Jon (center) approves.  Thanks for the idea, Jon!

I hope everyone enjoys their treats and has a very Merry Christmas!  

A Simple Cake for James

So Angie emailed me requesting a cake for her husband's birthday this last weekend.  She said that he hasn't stopped talking about Kalli's birthday cake that I made for her a few months ago.  Can I just say that I LOVE getting messages like that?  And James is SO on the right page here, because my chocolate-flecked cake IS really good!  ;)  

Angie needed a small cake to celebrate, so I decorated it simply with some vanilla buttercream and called it a day!  James' birthday, that is!

I hope he enjoyed this one and it was just as delicious as he remembers it!  Happy Birthday!!

Polka Dots!

Last year it was Hello Kitty!  This year - POLKA DOTS!!  And I can't think of a better way to decorate a cake for a 13-year old!  

Abby wanted a confetti cake with chocolate frosting.  That's on the inside.  On the outside, I used vanilla buttercream and fondant polka dots.  The border was made out of Sweet Tarts!

Happy early Birthday, Abby!  I hope you had a great party and I wish you the best birthday ever!!

Birthday Turkey

Yesterday was Sheila's birthday and this year, she was going to celebrate her birthday with a Thanksgiving meal.  Her birthday cake was to have a turkey on it and I couldn't resist.  I don't know what I love about googly-eyed turkeys, but I think they're the cutest.  And this one is wearing a Pilgrim hat!  He's all dressed up!

The cake is Sheila's favorite: Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.  My little turkey is made out of gum paste and fondant.

Happy Birthday, yesterday, Sheila!  Happy Thanksgiving today!