Monday, May 28, 2012
Katie's Birthday Cake
So I have become a Pinterest devotee. I do understand those with reservations about it, but I have to say, I adore all the creativity and fabulous recipes on there! It has been so inspiring for me. And thus, the idea for my friend's birthday cake was born. I love the champagne cupcake recipe I found and used a double recipe to create the four layers. And I've ben DYING to do an ombre cake so I had fun with blue gel coloring as well. I have played with royal icing in ways that would never have occurred before and hunted down edible gel pens so I could place great literary quotes on the cake. I am a believer in the idea that a truly great cake should taste as good as it looks. So everything on there is edible. And I can't wait to perfect some of these ideas in the future!!
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Happy to be awake!! :)
I love to come in and hear Colin waking up from a nap as he is (usually!) very happy. So I remembered to bring the camera and film him this time! :)
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Do you remember....?
I was out today, getting in the ol' exercise in the rain (of COURSE in the rain. Nine times out of ten in the rain!! :) ) and my mind started rummaging around in the memory department as one's mind tends to do. And it delved into the toy box of my own childhood memories. It's done this a few times now, when I've been out walking with Colin, and I decided to write some of it down because hey, it makes me smile. So this is for my siblings, but the rest of you can read over their shoulders if you feel like it.
Do you remember those summer trips to the Carnegie Library? The way that the carpet smelled and the dark blue velvet chairs? We piled as many TinTin and Garfield comics as we could into baskets and then Mom would pick out books that we HAD to read before we could peruse the lighter side of lit? (And it was a good thing too... usually. :))
Or the old Ghormely pool where we all had swimming lessons, even though the shower rooms were ancient and rather dank and dark. When we were little enough that Pop could launch us off his knee and into the water? I still remember how fun it felt to fly through the air. Sometimes they would surprise us with a trip to the pool in those long, warm summer evenings. And we got Baskin Robbins afterwards. Remember how cold it felt to walk in there after being in the warm car?
Do you remember wearing our goggles to the pool so we could watch everybody underwater? Or sometimes, we had friends come along and then we could play Marco Polo. And the ancient sound system played Oldies while the teenage life guards tried to look really official, but usually looked bored.
Seth do you remember setting up the kiddie pool at the apartments? We had a tiny little postage stamp yard in the back, but it had room for the pool. And at the time, it seemed really big. Kajsa could sit in it too, but Mom had to be there watching since she was little.
How could we forget the giant tractor tires in Lena Whitmore Park? They were brilliant to play hide and seek in when you were five, because you could tuck yourself up into the top of it and balance on its rims and it looked completely empty. And the infamous wooden play structure was there where Seth split his chin open. I remember your face looking over Papa's shoulder as they took you to the emergency room and I went to the neighbors' house and had Mexican food.
Do you remember building snow slides with Deacon in the apartment parking lot? We thought they were HUGE and it took us a long time to complete, but it was really fun to play on later. Or we made tunnels and they connected to rooms. It seems like we had a lot more deep snow then doesn't it? Probably global warming. :) We always had to have a snowman with all the traditional features. He used to wear that ancient, long red scarf and have a carrot for his nose and charcoal for eyes and mouth. Didn't he sometimes have Papa's wool blue hat as well? I remember we made a girl one once shortly after we moved to Concord and it wore that red and white apron of Mom's. How about our old porch, before we had rails on it? We could walk straight off it into deep snow. Of course once it had rails we could JUMP off them into deep snow and that was really cool.
Or the play fort that Papa made for us and it was great to go out and swing on after dinner on summer nights. I recall that it was a castle many times and Seth used a series of plastic medieval swords to defend it.
I forget if we actually ever owned a slip 'n slide, but I know it was in our back yard a few times and it was awesome even over our hard, bumpy ground.
We loved building blanket forts in the living room, using mom's wooden cloths pins and that old heavy Indian blanket on kitchen chairs--until Kajsa would knock some element of it over.
I remember Kajsa going through the phase of collecting those little fuzzy animal toys, what were they called? Whatever they were, they had furniture that was really useful when we made our block and book skyscrapers.
Remember playing with Seth's legos? We all had hours of fun with those, but it was much better to create our own castles rather than use the templates.
Or when we older three put on the Christmas story for Mom and Pop as well as Grandma and Grandpa Olsen? I was the donkey and director, Kajsa wore that blue satin Halloween costume to be Mary and Seth wore the Superman cape backwards to be Joseph. Well, he also had a towel on his head and a paper beard that I drew to complete the picture. And I believe we used Kajsa's toy baby 'Carwash' to complete the picture.
Do you remember when we started calling Kathryn 'Doots'? I don't. It just happened and it was perfect. Or how fun it was to have her be the passenger in our taxi when we tied the wagon to our bikes and rode around the neighborhood? Of course, she tipped out several times, but she was usually unharmed.
Or how about when the fields behind our house were still fields and we could make forts out of old wood? I think I was the only one who liked to go feed the horses, but I'm okay with that. I'd come back home and my hands were green from picking grass to give them.
Do you remember barbecues at Grandma and Grandpa Olsens'? When we sat at the metal picnic table on their back patio and the purple clematis gave us some shade. And Grandma's gorgeous snowball bush would bloom and we girls loved to take some home. Or when we played house in her basement? The green and orange carpets down there were awful but provided house division. And remember her blue cookie tin? I think it had monkeys on it. I must confess I would get disappointed when she'd open it and instead of biting into a chocolate chip cookie, I got oatmeal raisin. Kathryn was it you who liked that kind? :)
Remember story time at night? We girls were usually in the flannel nightgowns that Mom made us. And we could sit with our knees pulled up on the couch and tuck the hem under our feet to stay warm. And Pop would read from Narnia or Lord of the Rings or Patrick McManus.
I could go on, but I just had to write those memories down, even though my style is rough. Love you guys!
Do you remember those summer trips to the Carnegie Library? The way that the carpet smelled and the dark blue velvet chairs? We piled as many TinTin and Garfield comics as we could into baskets and then Mom would pick out books that we HAD to read before we could peruse the lighter side of lit? (And it was a good thing too... usually. :))
Or the old Ghormely pool where we all had swimming lessons, even though the shower rooms were ancient and rather dank and dark. When we were little enough that Pop could launch us off his knee and into the water? I still remember how fun it felt to fly through the air. Sometimes they would surprise us with a trip to the pool in those long, warm summer evenings. And we got Baskin Robbins afterwards. Remember how cold it felt to walk in there after being in the warm car?
Do you remember wearing our goggles to the pool so we could watch everybody underwater? Or sometimes, we had friends come along and then we could play Marco Polo. And the ancient sound system played Oldies while the teenage life guards tried to look really official, but usually looked bored.
Seth do you remember setting up the kiddie pool at the apartments? We had a tiny little postage stamp yard in the back, but it had room for the pool. And at the time, it seemed really big. Kajsa could sit in it too, but Mom had to be there watching since she was little.
How could we forget the giant tractor tires in Lena Whitmore Park? They were brilliant to play hide and seek in when you were five, because you could tuck yourself up into the top of it and balance on its rims and it looked completely empty. And the infamous wooden play structure was there where Seth split his chin open. I remember your face looking over Papa's shoulder as they took you to the emergency room and I went to the neighbors' house and had Mexican food.
Do you remember building snow slides with Deacon in the apartment parking lot? We thought they were HUGE and it took us a long time to complete, but it was really fun to play on later. Or we made tunnels and they connected to rooms. It seems like we had a lot more deep snow then doesn't it? Probably global warming. :) We always had to have a snowman with all the traditional features. He used to wear that ancient, long red scarf and have a carrot for his nose and charcoal for eyes and mouth. Didn't he sometimes have Papa's wool blue hat as well? I remember we made a girl one once shortly after we moved to Concord and it wore that red and white apron of Mom's. How about our old porch, before we had rails on it? We could walk straight off it into deep snow. Of course once it had rails we could JUMP off them into deep snow and that was really cool.
Or the play fort that Papa made for us and it was great to go out and swing on after dinner on summer nights. I recall that it was a castle many times and Seth used a series of plastic medieval swords to defend it.
I forget if we actually ever owned a slip 'n slide, but I know it was in our back yard a few times and it was awesome even over our hard, bumpy ground.
We loved building blanket forts in the living room, using mom's wooden cloths pins and that old heavy Indian blanket on kitchen chairs--until Kajsa would knock some element of it over.
I remember Kajsa going through the phase of collecting those little fuzzy animal toys, what were they called? Whatever they were, they had furniture that was really useful when we made our block and book skyscrapers.
Remember playing with Seth's legos? We all had hours of fun with those, but it was much better to create our own castles rather than use the templates.
Or when we older three put on the Christmas story for Mom and Pop as well as Grandma and Grandpa Olsen? I was the donkey and director, Kajsa wore that blue satin Halloween costume to be Mary and Seth wore the Superman cape backwards to be Joseph. Well, he also had a towel on his head and a paper beard that I drew to complete the picture. And I believe we used Kajsa's toy baby 'Carwash' to complete the picture.
Do you remember when we started calling Kathryn 'Doots'? I don't. It just happened and it was perfect. Or how fun it was to have her be the passenger in our taxi when we tied the wagon to our bikes and rode around the neighborhood? Of course, she tipped out several times, but she was usually unharmed.
Or how about when the fields behind our house were still fields and we could make forts out of old wood? I think I was the only one who liked to go feed the horses, but I'm okay with that. I'd come back home and my hands were green from picking grass to give them.
Do you remember barbecues at Grandma and Grandpa Olsens'? When we sat at the metal picnic table on their back patio and the purple clematis gave us some shade. And Grandma's gorgeous snowball bush would bloom and we girls loved to take some home. Or when we played house in her basement? The green and orange carpets down there were awful but provided house division. And remember her blue cookie tin? I think it had monkeys on it. I must confess I would get disappointed when she'd open it and instead of biting into a chocolate chip cookie, I got oatmeal raisin. Kathryn was it you who liked that kind? :)
Remember story time at night? We girls were usually in the flannel nightgowns that Mom made us. And we could sit with our knees pulled up on the couch and tuck the hem under our feet to stay warm. And Pop would read from Narnia or Lord of the Rings or Patrick McManus.
I could go on, but I just had to write those memories down, even though my style is rough. Love you guys!
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