Saturday, July 17, 2010

my love for the sky...

I have always loved taking pictures of the sky...sunsets, sunrises, storms, etc. Sometimes the cloud formations look like a doorway to something else going on in the heavens...
Tonight is no exception!



Chattanooga, May '09


November, 09 out of our front door


Fall sky, November '09, out of the back door...


Trip to Chattanooga, May '09


In the back yard of our 1st house in Royalwood, Jan '03


In the front yard of our 1st house in Royalwood, June '03


Out the front door of our MS house, June '05


...and tonight's beautiful display in Fishers...





the other guy outside with us taking it all in...




Friday, July 09, 2010

Biggest. Cake. Disaster. EVER.

Ok, so I learned my lesson. That was the last time I pridefully tell my sister, the PROFESSIONAL CAKE DECORATOR, "no, thanks, I got it" when it comes to one of my kid's birthday cakes. I thought I had solved all of my problems when I was so smart and bought the silicone Big Top Cupcake mold at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. It's worked very well for me twice, but not so much tonight. No, tonight is a very different story...one in fact that might scar my oldest son Joshua (enter menacing echo) "FOR - EVVVEERRR".

All he said was that he wanted a lemon cake with Batman on it. I thought, "well, I'll just slap one on top of the Big Top Cupcake!" In fact, it was Josh's idea. So, here we go...grease the SILICONE mold just to make sure it doesn't stick, and bake away. 10pm the night b4 the party, try to unmold said cake and start mixing the homemade colors of icing. Oh...no...

So, of course both parts of the cake stuck, so I tried my best to
begin covering the all of the imperfections (um, all of it) with white icing


and the homemade colors didn't even come CLOSE to being right...


...and I had put them in the freezer to get them to harden up
faster so of course they were now too hard to work with...so
naturally the bags started to get multiple holes in them...


but I pressed on b/c I couldn't completely fail at this, right?
So, filling in the top, with the wrong color mind you, b/c the
bat symbol is supposed to be yellow and the background should
be black...


but of course it had to break some more while trying to spread it out


most people would stop now and throw it out, right? Naaahhhh...


ok, it's hideous but it's the flavor Josh asked for and at least mommy tried...
so I must press on and attempt the Batman symbol:


...and one might think to stop there and call it a night...but no,
for the sake of self-torture, I decided it clearly needed to be
filled in...my gray, not black, Batman symbol...


oh my goodness...this is now officially worse than any of the
work of any awake 6th grader in Home Ec class... so, I thought
I would just spruce it up w/ some the completely inappropriate
baby blue I made to match the color of Batman's cape,

but then, naturally, the icing bag busted open so all hope was now lost...


So, for my beloved son's 8th birthday, here is how
I've decided to bless him with utter embarrassment:



now, if all of you would please make a note on Todd's wall to
take pity on me and allow me to purchase a last minute cake
at Kroger in the morning, I would greatly appreciate it. As would,
I'm sure, Joshua.

Good night..."zzzzzzzzz"