Tasty, Jackie-Made Treats

Recently (and by recently I mean the past year or so) I have been practicing the art of making tasty and beautiful treats. This post is to show off my accomplishments, because really why make something pretty and not take a picture of it.

We'll start with my birthday cake. The real challenge in making cakes is that Ammon doesn't like them very much. So this cake is no ordinary fluff cake. It is a layered pineapple upside-down cake. That means that the filling is the tasty pineapple, brown sugar mix typically found on the bottom of pineapple upside-down cake. mmmm... so good. I'm also rather proud of my decorations, though admittedly I'm showing the pretty side of the cake. :)

This next one I made for Easter. We had a bunch of Ammon's family over for a BBQ the Saturday before Easter. I asked Ammon what kind of dessert he wanted and he said trifle. Well, this was one tasty trifle. Fresh cut strawberries, real whipped cream, vanilla pudding with cream cheese mixed in, and delicious butter yellow cake. I also decorated some cupcakes (which I don't seem to have pictures of) so that such deliciousness wouldn't be wasted on unappreciative children. They didn't seem to mind too much. I think.

Have you started drooling yet? I have. 

Okay, the next item was made a while ago. I don't remember, maybe a year and a half ago. Ammon had recently gotten me a bundt cake pan and this was one of my creations. I couldn't tell you what kind it is anymore. It's been too long. Bundt cakes are often moister so Ammon approves of them more easily. Doesn't that chocolate look good?

And now for a less sweet thing. I like to tease Ammon about how he likes salty, greasy things. Whenever I ask him what kind of treat he wants at Christmas time it never fails that he requests a cheese ball. This one is from two years ago. I couldn't tell you what I put in the cream cheese mixture, but I found this neat design online and tried it out. It was pretty delicious. And just in case you can't tell, it's supposed to be a pine cone.

This last picture is not of a treat, but I wanted to put it somewhere. Mainly it is for Ann. Can you find a set? It is a 1 in 2500 chance that there isn't a set here. Still, we haven't found one yet.

That's all for the treat post. I hope you enjoyed it.

The First Post: A Catch Up Review

I have finally done it. Ammon and I have been talking a while about the possibility of a blog. Just to get pictures to family and friends and to fill them in on our life. There is no way we can play catch up with all of the things that have been going on this past year, so we'll just start with this month.
Lets start with Tommy. He has been crawling, walking, and climbing all over the place. It would be fair to say that he gets that third one from me. Here he is after a couple seconds of me turning my back.

Now he cries every time I close the dishwasher. It is so unfair not to be able to climb up on the dishwasher. We also have to move the silverware container onto the counter when it is open. Can't have him playing with knives!
Here he is in his new pjs. We got him a couple of cute pairs for his one year old birthday. He was such a stinkin' cutie that I pulled out the camera.

 As you can tell he is more than ready for bed. The train is also a birthday gift. He thinks it is the coolest thing. It makes noise, and most importantly it comes with little colorful balls! What a treat!

For Tommy's first birthday we decided to have a party and invite all of his little baby friend. He loves to be around other kids. He rarely fusses when there is someone to watch play.
So here are some pictures from the party. The theme of the party was hydrogen. For those scratching your head, hydrogens atomic number is one. In honor of the theme, I made decorated some cupcakes. If you are curious how these are related to hydrogen you can call me. I'll gladly tell you all about it.

 These next pictures are of the cake walk/crawl. We played the periodic table of the elements song and when the  music stopped the babies got a square quick (each square was from the periodic table) and I drew from a hat the winning square. I'm pretty sure the parents enjoyed the game more than the babies, though they weren't complaining about the cupcake afterwards.

Some other mischief and helping that have been going on around here. Tommy loves to play with the shoes on the shoe rack. It is not infrequent that you find a ball in your shoe as you put it on. He looks innocent, but don't let him fool you.

This is what I caught him at today. He would drag it across the living room, stop to sit and pat the bag to make sure it was ok, then start off again in another direction.

 Laundry has been a very fun time for us as of late. Ever since he could crawl he has wanted to sit on the pile of laundry, or rush over to the folded laundry to inspect it. Now with his new climbing skills, he also likes to help me unload the basket. So thoughtful!

This is the beginning of Tommy's first haircut. A friend suggested giving him a sucker to keep him occupied. It's the first sucker he has had, so it took some figuring out.

 That is one big sucker, but boy did he fit it all in his mouth.

This is the second part of the hair cut. He was totally freaked out by the buzzer. I tried to put the sucker back in, but he would have none of it. It took some rocking and soothing to calm him down.

Here's the last bit of fun for today. He likes to fit in tight places. He has climbed into the stroller pocket underneath the seat and then cries until I come and rescue him. In this picture he is on the bottom shelf of our coffee table. He likes to climb through there.

Well, this has been a long blog post. And it looks like the blog is going to be only about our cute little boy. Oh well, who can complain?