Corry's Birthday Weekend Celebration

We didn't initially plan this trip to celebrate Corry's birthday, but it lined up perfectly with his 40th birthday this year.  Our friends that we met through NTTE wanted to go camping and it was decided that we were going to visit Lake Murray State Park near Ardmore, OK. 



 We decided to leave Thursday night, which was Corry's birthday, and head up there after work.  Luckily, it didn't take us that long to get up there, get set up and relax with our friends.  We stayed in the Rock Tower area of the park and it was awesome!  The first night there were very few people there and we got awesome camping spots right on the water.  The area was very quiet and the spots were spacious and ideal for a larger camper, which you don't always find in a campground.   This was our first time to camp at this state park and we definitely will return.  They have several hundred campsites in the entire park and awesome amenities like an ATV area, fishing, swimming, play grounds, etc. 

 

 

As I have mentioned several times before my children absolutely love camping.  I will admit that I am stressed for days before a campout that at least one of my children isn't going to sleep well at night, isn't going to eat what we are serving, is going to fall out of a camper and injure themselves - wait... too late on that one.  Needless to say, my children would live in the wild if I would allow them to.  They love being outdoors and have no problems just wandering around playing with bugs and dirt.  By the end of the evening, they are both so worn out and dirty that they really should be hosed off before going to bed but they couldn't even stand up long enough for that. 

 

 

 

Because we now have Grace living with us, we had a different sleeping arrangement this time than we normally do so we could give her the most comfortable sleeping placement possible.  We moved Isabella to the table bed and let Grace have the fold down couch bed.  It works out fine, especially because Isabella could sleep on a log, I think, if she was tired enough.  Most nights she sleeps so well that she ends up with awesome bed-head like this.  We called this her 'I went to prom last night' hairdo.  Silas slept amazingly well in the 'baby-jail' situation that we have set up for him in the bunk house portion of our camper since it gets dark and mostly soundproofed in there.  Our friends have children that are older than Isabella and Silas, and they have so much fun with their children.  They love other kids and are starting to not freak out 'stranger danger' style around our friends.  

 

Of course because it was actually Corry's birthday, we definitely had to get a cake.  And, of course, because we were ordering a cake I contacted Heather from A Sweet Fix bakery to make it.  She went so above how I thought this cake was going to turn out.  Everyone was amazed and oohed and ahhed over how awesome it looked and how great it tasted.  It was rich and chocolatey and delicious.  Corry agreed that this was definitely the best tasting cake that we have ever had from her.  I know that I have talked about her and her business in several blogs before but definitely if you are in the DFW area and in search of an amazing cake, you have to check her out.  This cake was an amazing chocolate inside and chocolate buttercream on the outside.  I know that buttercream is not what she normally deals with but it is always excellent.  She made these awesome donut shaped cookies that my kids loved as well.  She really goes above and beyond what I could expect every time that we order a cake from her.     

 

 

 

All in all we had an excellent weekend with family and friends.  My parents came up to bring the cake and celebrate with us.  We also met some very nice new people while we were camping who had some very sweet children.  I definitely could not have asked for a better weekend for my husband's birthday. 

 

What would be your ideal birthday weekend celebration?    

   

Review: A Sweet Fix cakes

So, back up to my daughter's first months of life... stress had already set in about her first birthday party.  I knew already from television, my friends and the Internet that one of the single most important things you can do for your child revolves around their first birthday party.  I am kidding... I think... but the first birthday party is huge to some people.  With that information logged securely in my brain, I set out to find a place to purchase an awesome cake. 

We live in the DFW area of Texas and I knew that, ideally, I wanted to stay local to the Ft Worth area since I didn't want to drive all over creation to get a cake.  I had a cake made from another local bakery the year before for my baby shower and it was expensive and not really worth it.  I wanted a better experience.  I began looking for local bakers with decent pricing.  I will say that even though a person doesn't seem to have their ducks in a row on their website or in person they sometimes want to charge an arm and a leg for their cakes and I wasn't down for that either.  I do understand the cost difference between a grocery store bakery and a baker making us a custom cake and am definitely willing to pay more for the craftsmanship and quality. 

Mission: Find a local bakery who provided consistently good cakes, good flavors and decent pricing.  Who would have guessed this would be so difficult to find?  Most wanted to offer a single layer cake or cupcakes for the price that I wanted to pay for everything.  Or their cake flavors were sub par.  Also, I look a lot at online reviews.  I always figure that if you are upset enough to go online and write a poor review then you must have a had a bad experience. 

Then I found Heather from A Sweet Fix on Facebook.  *angels singing and a harp playing* 

 

She offered numerous pictures of her cakes, from all angles and multiple different categories, like birthday, adult themed, etc.  Her website included flavor lists, what she normally offers for cakes and it's obvious that she does custom work.  I really enjoyed looking through the pictures of the cakes that she has made in the past for inspiration and was glad that I got to take full advantage of that before I called her so I was semi-prepared.


 I called and spoke to her right away.  She was so friendly!  We talked about what I wanted (hot pink, black and white Minnie Mouse for Isabella's first birthday party) but other than that I was open.  I knew that I wanted a layer cake, 2 smash cakes (one for pictures and one for the actual party) and some cupcakes.  I was open to flavors and decorations on the cake.  We decided on a layer cake with vanilla cake and vanilla buttercream for her bigger cake, chocolate cake and vanilla buttercream for her cupcakes and vanilla cake and vanilla buttercream for her smash cakes.  Other than that, I left the decorations up to her.  She quoted me a price well under what I was expecting and I almost fell out of my chair!  Based on what we had seen from other bakeries this seemed too good to be true!!

This is what she came up with!!  We thought it was amazing.  I will admit that we did leave the cake out in the hot for a bit too long and so it slid a bit but the taste was AWESOME!  As you can see Isabella loved it as well!  The cake was so moist and delicious!  The buttercream was sweet but not overly sweet, which is a delicate balance that not many people can get correct.  The chocolate cupcakes were great!  I was completely happy with our order. 

 

Of course, I was so pleased with our first order that we went back to her on Isabella's second birthday and this was the result.  Again I left it open to her creativity and I was super pleased.  Forgive the nameplate - she made an error but fixed it ASAP!

Again, it was delicious!!  This time we decided on vanilla cake on one layer and strawberry cake on the other.  This tasted like actual strawberries and not some fake strawberry gross flavoring.  It was AMAZING!  We had a relatively small party and managed to have less cake leftover than the last party where we had one of her cakes.  It was a hit! 

 

I will say that normally she works with fondant on cakes but we don't usually care for it so she makes our cakes with buttercream.  Even though she doesn't normally make them that way, I think that she does an amazing job.  I have recommended Heather to all of my friends, family and anyone that I know from Ft Worth who is looking for a cake.  She does awesome work and you really feel like you are getting a fair price considering all of the detail work that she puts into her cakes.  You can tell from the pictures above that she attended to all the little details, like even the little hot pink bows on the Minnie Mouse heads were perfectly shaped.  It's the attention to those kind of details that really make her cakes stand out.  I envision that we will be ordering cakes from Heather for years!! 

 

For more information and details you can visit Heather on her website http://asweetfix4u.com  or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/asweetfix .