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 .

Successful items from Silas's first birthday party

        So let me start this post off on the right foot - I am not a chef by any stretch of the imagination.  In fact, for anyone who knew me about five years ago you would swear that I could NEVER learn how to cook.  Everything that I used to cook was a failure - even if I followed the recipe word for word. 

         Once I got married and had children I started to become more aware of my need to provide sustenance for my family.  It seemed like an almost overnight switch where this light came on in my brain and I began to be able to differentiate recipes that I could be successful with and recipes that maybe were not the best fit.  I started small and have worked my way up to a small repertoire of recipes that have numerous lovers - because anyone can like their own cooking. 

         I now begin my search on Pinterest, of course.  In my opinion, if your recipe has numerous people that have pinned it, it must at least sound good.  I knew that I wanted to make most of the food for Silas's party myself.  Normally for my children's parties I use this awesome cake woman near my house.  Heather from http://www.asweetfix4u.com has made several cakes for us in the past.  She is inexpensive for the quality of cakes that she provides and they have always been a hit.  She has always been able to take my crazy spaced out ideas and turn them into an awesome masterpiece that was exactly what I wanted.  Unfortunately, Silas's party snuck up on me and I was too embarrassed to call the week before and ask her to squeeze us in. 

         So began the search for a cake pan to match his star theme http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?sku=2105-2512  and a recipe deserving of the party.  Now I have made several cakes before from scratch and countless cakes from a box mix - not nearly as awesome and/or brag worthy.  However, none seemed to be awesome enough worth repeating.  Luckily I found an awesome sounding chocolate cake: http://fabulesslyfrugal.com/2012/04/easy-made-from-scratch-you-cant-stop-eating-it-chocolate-cake.html that turned out to be AMAZING.  Unfortunately, when the back of the star cake pan said it took a normal cake recipe to fill it, it meant that a normal cake recipe was going to overflow and be way too much in the pan.  Luckily, this did not alter the taste nor the texture.  I decided that I wanted Silas's smash cake to be vanilla and so another recipe had to be found.  After about an hour reviewing recipes that contained either items that we didn't have or didn't sound like the taste that I was looking for, I resorted to a vanilla boxed cake and it turned out fine.  I did make two full recipes of vanilla buttercream frosting as well:  http://savorysweetlife.com/2010/03/buttercream-frosting/  This is the standard recipe for vanilla buttercream that I have always seen but I wanted to give credit to the source that I used.  It was awesome and had many compliments. 

          We also had "copycat" Pizza Hut pizza sauce for dipping with two pepperoni pizza rolls made with Rhodes bread dough, pepperoni, mozzarella, olive oil and spices.  Both are always a hit and super easy to make.  I also made cake balls which is a super braindead item but it takes SO much work.  I don't like them but I always make them for other people and it really is too much work.  I have always told people that I could train a monkey to do it, but people love them. 

The good news:  We all survived the party.  Silas had an awesome time with his family and friends.  We ate some awesome food. 
The bad news:  We all have super bad allergies today and have been in general the mopiest family this side of Texas. 

Until tomorrow:

-Sara

Silas's first birthday party

Today was little man's first birthday party *tear*. Thanks to all who came for your presence and gifts! He had an awesome time and loved his cake. Post tomorrow with recipes of items made for the party - they were all a hit!

Teething baby + Sick Toddler = awesome day

Silas turned 1 on December 31st.  He is my last baby.  We will cover the sadness around that subject sometime in the future.  For now, let's just say that he is enduring the worst part of baby/toddlerhood - teething.  Specifically cutting molars.  I have always told someone that if it was possible for babies to cut all of their teeth in like two days, I would much rather that happen.  Unfortunately it does not. 

We are currently on day 5ish of molars coming in.  Let's regress a second and relive our lives months ago when Silas cut his other eight teeth in like two weeks.  He gets a fever, is up ALL NIGHT, and just generally a ridiculously cranky baby for days.  Isabella was never a problem with teething.  No fighting, no crying, no whining or anything.  We always attributed it to the amber teething necklace that she wore.  I have told my husband that we should have Silas look like Mr. T with so many amber necklaces to combat his teething.  We have one on him that he has worn solid since he was about 2 months.  Please don't judge - I am the worst amber owner ever.  I don't take it off of them ever... I don't wash it... I don't sun it... he just wears it.  I am currently researching how I should go about washing it but I am kind of afraid to remove it because of how he will react.  Currently he doesn't even seem to notice it and I don't want to draw attention to it in any form or fashion. 

So, we are on about 5 days of not sleeping for Silas, me and my husband.  Needless to say our house is in an awesome mood. Because the universe sometimes likes to throw all kinds of fun at you at the same time, Isabella woke up this morning and said that her ear was hurting.  I got instantly anxious because she has had HORRIBLE double ear infections before and not said anything about pain.  After a doctor appointment for the both of them it is determined to be nothing serious except teething for cranky baby, ear infection for Isabella and totally shot day for mommy.

Today is the day before Silas's first birthday party.  I have a million and one things to do.  I am finally getting a second to breathe after making a cake from scratch, cake balls, prepped fruit salad, prepper the dip for tomorrow, cleaned the kitchen, made the banners and got as much prepped as possible for the food tomorrow.  I hope to be able to take some pictures and post them tomorrow.  For now, I am going to pass out while the second cake cooks. 

-Sara