Winter Baby Boy Bear Cake

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, I helped throw a baby shower for my friend Sherrada who’s having a baby boy.  Her sister Kalei and I threw it at my pretty much empty house since we more than doubled our square-footage when we moved and  do not yet have much furniture downstairs and though I have some ideas what to do, I’m not completely sure what colors I want in those rooms yet.  We had a spread of veggies, fruits, cheese and crackers and meats and some sweets Kalei brought and then I made some breakfast casseroles: a baked French toast one and two different egg ones.

I also practiced by piping skills the night before by making a polar bear cake with a bow-tie the night before.  I love the 3D mold I used for this bear.  I bought it a while ago and was excited to try it out.  I think it is tempting me to buy a tilting cake turner so that I can get the detail better on the bottom when I make it again.  I used tip 233 for the fur because I absolutely love the fuzzy look it gives the bear….much cuter than stars in my opinion.

Here’s our “Brunch” spread.  Kalei brought such yummy things.  It was great that I had her help with the food! Here’s the detail on the bear.  It’s difficult to see the fur and it probably would have been cuter if I did it in brown but I wanted to have white butter-cream since it was a spice cake to go with the holiday season.    Here’s pretty Sherrada filling out a paper for one of the games.

This is her mom getting ready to guess how big (actually little) Sherrada’s belly is.

One of Sherrada’s husband’s  aunts made this with regular grocery bags from the store.  I thought it was such a great idea, I had to take a photo so I can steal her idea.  She mentioned that using lunch sacks with the same idea makes a really cute bag for little cookies or something.  Love it!

Here’s Kalei with her brand new baby and Sherrada with her darling baby-belly.  So much fun that these sisters are having babies around the same time!

Thanksgiving 2010

I had a great Thanksgiving this year!  It was extra special because one of my best friends, Dayna, came with her new husband Jeff, from Las Vegas to celebrate it with us in our new home.  We had a blast cooking all morning and then taking a break and relaxing and then finishing up at dinner time and having our Thanksgiving Feast together.  We decided that cooking Thanksgiving and having it possible to eat in the afternoon has to take more than one oven.  It really was okay that we had it about 6:30 pm with me.  In fact, I think I was less likely to stuff myself since I had eaten all my meals at a normal time that day and not held off because of the big meal.

Here’s an awful picture of Me and Dayna after cooking all day….right before I ran off to take a shower and freshen up…only to realize that I hadn’t found the box with my blow-dryer in it yet!

Here’s my husband carving the Turkey at the island.

These are my kids waiting pretty patiently for their meal (I gave the baby some faux gourds to play with).  I also am in love with her cute Turkey bib from Carters!

Speaking of faux gourds, I was really proud of myself for noticing some on the bottom self at Joann’s the Monday after Halloween.  They were 75% off and about the same price as gourds from the grocery store but the best thing about these is they will never fade, rot, and are pretty tough.  Love them!  Perfect decorations for a fall flavor.

This is Dayna and Jeff as he is trying to get the “oysters” off of the turkey.

 

My boy, checking out all of the food on the island and hoping to eat soon.  Really, I think he’s eyeing those sweet-potatoes that are my grandma’s amazing recipe.   They are so yummy.  When Dayna and I were figuring out what we wanted to serve for Thanksgiving she mentioned that she and Jeff both didn’t really care for sweet potatoes and I said that we HAD to make my grandma’s recipe and they would be converted, I was right (most people call them yams but I hear that’s technically incorrect so in order to try not to confuse those who call them sweet potatoes and have had really yams, I’ll just call them sweet potatoes).  Jeff went back for more sweet potatoes than anything else during the meal and even got more in the morning with his breakfast he liked them so much.  They are super easy.   Here’s the recipe:

My Grandma’s Sweet-Potatoes (or Thanksgiving Yams)

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Wash 6 sweet potatoes and pierce with a fork.   Bake Sweet Potatoes on a cookie sheet for 1-2 hrs until soft…just keep an eye on them, it really depends on the mass of them and how dense they are how long it takes but they start smelling sweet when they are getting softer.

2.  Let baked sweet potatoes cool.  Peel off skins or scoop out pulp.  Place pulp in a bowl.  Add melted butter, salt, and milk to desired consistency (just as you would make mashed potatoes).

3.  Grease a 9x13x2 pan and spread sweet potatoes out.  Sprinkle with marshmallows (about 3/4 of a package).  Bake in a 350 degree oven until marshmallows start looking toasty (about 25 minutes).

4.  Let cool for 10 minutes.  Serve and enjoy.

 

I’m so Thankful that we got to have our great friends join us for the holiday.  It was lots of fun, even if I was feeling a little nutty after moving a week and a half before.  It was wonderful to have them!

Baby Boy “Bear” Shower

I haven’t been blogging much lately, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been up to anything.  In fact, in the last three weeks, I’ve thrown two baby showers, hosted Thanksgiving and in between all that partying/work, our family moved and I have begun the task of painting and decorating each room.  Here are some pictures of the shower I helped throw for my friend Claudia on the 4th of November.  Her little boy showed up yesterday, so it’s about time I put up the pictures. My friend Brooktynn, who’s house we had the shower at thank goodness because I was moving the next week and my apartment was decorated with cardboard boxes from the grocery store, made this cute sign above the buffet table.  I loved that cute paper she used I wish it came out better in the photo.

Here’s my darling friend Claudia in all her glowing motherhood glory.  She is so cute! This is a photo of the spread.  Claudia’s been on a fruit and veggie kick since she got pregnant so I thought it would be appropriate to have Crudités and various dips, along with some wraps and French bread for dipping as well.  We had Hummus, Babba Ganoush,  herb vinaigrette, ranch and artichoke spinach dip for the dips along with broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, cucumbers, carrots, olives, tomatoes, baby corn and snap peas and a bowl of mixed fruit.  It was delicious and a pretty easy spread to put together.  The trickiest part was transporting it all to Brooktynn’s house.

Here’s the cake I decorated.  It has a mini bear on the top to honor little baby bear (that part was actually a brownie since who wouldn’t rather have a brownie than cake?).  The bottom cakes were white with strawberry preserves for the filling since strawberries are Claudia’s favorite.  It was delicious if I do say so myself.

We didn’t play any games (at Claudia’s request) but instead we put together scrapbook pages that Claudia can just add photos to since life gets pretty hectic once the baby actually arrives and that’s when you need it done, we thought that would be fun.

It was a little crazy to give a shower the week before a move but it was great fun and I’m glad I did it!  I hope Claudia enjoyed it too!