Things That Make Me Smile... When I Think No One Is Looking!

Little Stinkers!

Great Grandpa Pritchard stealing the thunder of this unexpecting lady.



Mamaw

She's so beautiful..... My mother wasn't even thought of yet, but for some reason this photo makes me want to say, "I miss those days..."



My Great Grandfather, Hugh Pritchard.

I never got to meet him, but EVERYONE's stories of how loving, compassionate and funny he was makes me miss him and look forward to seeing him one day... right next to my Papaw, Hugh's son.



My Papaw, Elwin Archer Pritchard.

I'm not sure what to say... There's just so much! I sooooo miss him and often, when I'm visiting Mamaw, I forget that he's not there. I expect him to come walking down the hallway... I have guilt when I bring a drink into the living room or eat his favorite ice cream out of his bowl... well, not completely guilty! He was so smart and loved to tell riddles and solve old fashion puzzles. He was a huge stinker! He used to wave at us everytime we left his house through his huge picture window. Well, one day my Aunt was leaving and as he went to wave goodbye, flipped her off instead! LOL! I always wondered if that was what he really did to us...


Old Pictures.

My Mamaw and her sister and mother... and I believe the original "Radio Flyer"!



Paw Prints.

While I was working in the garden my kitty came out of nowhere and marched right up my backside to rest on my shoulder. What a weird cat! Unbenounced to me, she left her mark. Which my husband so kindly brought to my attention later.



Juneau.

Juneau was a mitten pawed cat that arrived one day and decided to NEVER EVER LEAVE! She was such an amazing doll that we decided to keep her.




Naughty Sophia.

My sneeky, back climber. Super funny to watch. Never thought I'd be saying that... I feel like the cat lady! Truth be told, if I knew all of my kitties would be like her, I may consider the position.

Rosco and Cletis... sigh...

Though my thoughts of throwing them out of the window has lessoned as each day passes, I really couldn't imagine my house without them.



My men.

Pic says it all... These are the best guys on the planet! Son's taking right after his papa, who (after 14 years of marriage) still opens my car door.

Not embarrassed. Mind wandering.

The best girl I've ever met! It's like I don't even want to tell you everything amazing about her bc I wanna keep her all to myself. Cliche it may sound, loving, giving of herself to the point of slaving for others, uses her brother as her puppet and best friend, funny.... she just gets it!





Make up!!!

You do mine and I'll do yours!!!! LOL!

Aaaand... Another Cake!

Ya know? I thought, "Wow. It's been so long since I've blogged maybe I'll post my latest cake masterpiece." It's kinda disheartening, tho, realizing that the last blog I posted was so long ago... and it was a CAKE! Maybe that's telling me something.

Well, anyways, I was beseached by an aquaintance to help her make her daughter's grad party cake. Long story short, she told me she wanted (non-school) colors of pink and yellow and that the idea was all abt welcoming the summer. So, this is what I came up with:

This was my pitiful sketch of the idea I was going for... I thought, hhmmm... I could have a beach bag laying on its side and its contents spilling out. Course, then I got to thinking more (eeeehhh) and thought how cool it would be to make the sand and water and props and a beach ball (in case the bag wasn't enough~ yeah right. Only 1/2 of the beach bag cake ended up being eaten in all!).

This is what I ended up with:

And I love it!

The beach ball was layered cake that I had carved into a dome. I didn't have a pan for this, tho, I've heard you can buy them. The 'water' was made from a recipe I found for glass sugar kids use to bash over their buddy's heads. Sounds good! It's from sugar, water, corn syrup, and cream of tartar.

Then, I wanted a beach towel coming out of the bag, too. My kids were like, "What is THAT?" Oh well... Those at the party seemed to know!

I made all of the fondant to cover the cakes and make the props myself! It's similar to a great, edible playdough. I made the flip flops and added purple twislers for the straps. The ipod, spf lotion and daisies are all edible, too. Everything was! The sand was brown sugar.

A girl's gotta have her lip stick at the beach!

Her sunglasses were supposed to be hanging over the side of her bag, but I thought this made it look like it was part of the bag... Oh, well. I'm not very good with the technical stuff yet.

However, I did add "seamwork" to the bag to make it look sewn.

And that's that.... Tho...

I had a very highly dissappointed boy on my hands for about 5 days! Poor guy! Don't worry, tho, everyone got the leftovers!

CAKE!!

So, I was commissioned by a very dear friend to make a cake for her sister's baby shower. Though, I've only made... 4 other cakes, I completely welcomed the challenge. I'm really liking this cake business and I learn sooooo much every time I make one! It's usually involving my demise, but I still like it... And, honestly, even if it was a clump of cake covered with icing, what woman is going to complain? So, I felt less pressure, but still hoping the it turned out nice and 'creative'...

I made all 9 cakes the day before. Got up at 6:00 am and made a ton of icing! Yumm-O!

Sometimes this happens! :-/ But! Icing covers a multitude of sins!

The Baby's room was going to be pink and brown themed, so my idea was to make a neopolitan cake. 3 layers and each layer had vanilla, strawberry and chocolate cake. It was really pretty when cut and completely matched the icing colors. It was a good idea, I think..

Mmmm.... This was all I needed! And if you think I didn't stick my finger in this and lick it right off, you'd be crazy! My mamaw has always said that no recipe is complete until it has a little bit of spit! LOL! NO! I did NOT spit in it. It's just that the laws of double dipping don't apply to the woman cooks in my family!



It's a bit difficult to transfer the layers on top of one another, so this happens.... Oh well, more icing!



I used buttercream icing. Is there any other kind? ;-) I would like to try to work with a few kinds of jams or fruity icings.

See? All better! I set the cakes aside in order to allow icing to dry. Then, I can work on smoothing it a little more.

2 down, 1 to go!

I found these miss matched designs of ribbons that fit nicely and stiched them together... Took 4 ever. I may rethink this, too, in other future cakes. It was a bit expensive.... So, we'll see.

I masked the edges of the ribbon with a bead of chocolate. This is the bottom layer.

This is the top layer. I tried the Japanese blossom look.

I had this cake powder that was beautiful, but it would not look right on the cake, so I furred the top. It turned out MUCH nicer this way, anyways. So, I'm glad it happened.

Here's the middle layer. Wrapped a piece of ribbon around it and chocolate pearl accents.

Here's all 3 layers.

Here it is at the party! PHEW! It made it! Part of the theme of her party for her sister was, girly, girly, girly! Diamonds and Dior! Fabrics of pink and flowers! Major femininity ruled the air!

It all went really well and Melissa made sure the party was B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L.!!!!!!! I was happy to be a part of it!

So long winter...

(Deep Breathe) I love spring! It's as though all of my friends are coming home for a visit or returning from a seasonal journey and staying at my house! I'm speaking of my precious friends growing in my very, very tiny piece of earth. They may not impress anyone other than myself, and I am completely okay with that! If I only had 1 pitiful little daffodil, I would probably feel contenment.

As corny as this may sound, I felt this tree kind of resembles the survivals that we undergo, yet can't let go of the things that have passed or been spent. Through the winter, this tree has survived, yet never did it let go of the leaves that needed to be returned to the ground...

A pinched version of a beach, Springfield, Ohio has a wonderful reservoire that, though it may contain a bit of urine and beer bottles, displays a beautiful bit of scenery for all of us to appreciate if we allow it. The snow gives us the feeling of white sandy beeches...

The snow and ice began to melt in the warm, 60 degree weather. I thought it made beautiful patterns in the slush covered body of water.

Gotta love my kitty, Sophia.

As the winter was leaving and the snow began to subside, often I'd awake to see a mist of humidity scaling around our neighborhood. I truly love waking up to sights like this.

This "in flight" bumble bee loves my redbud!

My redbud makes me feel like a great gardener! It always grows so fast and shows up right away!

When these (there were 3!) birds flew overhead while we were at a park a few days ago, I thought a kite was flying overhead! It's wingspan was so large that it shadowed the sun atop our heads. Neat!