100 Days

Today is Henry and Grant's 100th day of school. Their school always has a fun 100th Day Party with all kinds of fun 100 activities. Earlier this week both boys took baggies with 100 items in them {Henry took toothpicks and Grant took Conversation Hearts} to share with their class. And yesterday the boys and I helped Grant's teachers hang 100 balloons from the ceiling of their classroom.

Yesterday I was also up to my eyeballs in cake and homemade buttercream icing:) Grant's teacher asked last week if I would make a 100 cake for their class, and I was more than happy to help out!

 Honestly making a 100 cake really isn't that hard. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that all you need is a rectangular piece of cake and two round cakes. I mixed up two store bought box mixes. One I place in a 13X9 pan and the other I divided into two round 9" pans. After the cakes baked and cooled, I stuck them in the freezer to harder up. I've learned the hard way that boxed cakes don't keep their shape well when you cut them unless they are pretty close to frozen. After about an hour in the freezer I pulled out the two round cakes and used a 3" round cookie cutter to cut a hole in the center. To make the one, I lined the almost frozen 13X9 cake up next to the zero and cut it as proportionally as I could {sorry I forgot to measure how big the one was}.

 After I had the cakes cut and ready, I did a crumb coat of buttercream icing. I used the Vanilla Buttercream recipe from Cookies & Cups and it work really well. After I did the crumb coat I stuck them back in the freezer to chill for about 10 minutes. Then I added the final coat of icing. It's not perfect by any means...one of the reasons I don't make cakes often is because I can never get the icing as perfect as I want it. But the pretty M&M's distract you from the imperfections:)

Just Some Rambling

I'm making a cake for Grant's class today. A "100" cake for their 100th day of school tomorrow. I'm thinking about trying homemade buttercream frosting. I've only ever made homemade chocolate and caramel frosting before and I'm kind of worried....but I didn't buy any cans of store bought frosting for back up so I hope it works. I've seen a few recipes here and there that look pretty good, but somehow all these yummy baking blogs make their cakes look amazing and I know mine will never look like theirs!

Eli and I are home today waiting on the Dish Network guy to come out and work on our dish. We've been having trouble with it for a few weeks....the one channel that we can't get to work {that we really need} is Nick Jr! Kind of crazy that the channel watched most in my house is the one that is messed up! So we are waiting from 8-12.

I was sick last week.  Like really sick. Apparently my low immune system means that when I get something like strep throat it really hits me hard. I seriously didn't get off the couch for almost three days straight. I only left the house one time between last Monday night and yesterday and that was to pick up my antibiotic at the pharmacy.I don't think I would have survived if my mom hadn't watched the boys for me last week though. She picked them up at school on Tuesday and kept them until Friday so I didn't have to deal with drop off and pick up each morning and afternoon. I'm feeling much better today, though I'm still a little tired. I guess that's what a fever, sore throat, and lymph nodes swollen to the size of house will do for you:)

We got a new puppy the week after Christmas. I tweeted a picture of the boys with her a few weeks ago, but I still haven't gotten around to taking pictures to share here with you. Our new pup's name is Phoebe and she is actually a pretty good puppy {and this is coming from me the not really a dog person}. She is a tiny little thing that is part dachshund part beagle, and she plays really well with the boys. Even Eli who is technically scared of dogs love to play with her and pet her. When we got home from dropping Henry and Grant off at school this morning, Eli reached down to pet Phoebe and said "I missed you Phoebe". Isn't that the sweetest thing ever?!?

Jason took the boys to sign up for soccer last week. Henry and Grant {who are just a little over 16 months apart} never seem to be able to be on the same team! It seriously blows my mind that they can be that close together and still fall into different age groups. It mostly has to do with their birthdays though. For spring sports Henry's birthday is three weeks ahead of the age cut off, and for fall sports Grant missed the age cut off by 22 days. That means in most cases, Henry has to move up but Grant is too young to move up so they end up on different teams. So we are back to the same thing we had to deal with during football....Jason is coaching Grant's team and Henry is hopefully going to be on the team that our friend is coaching.

There are still a few traces of Christmas hanging around my house. I still have out some cute green polka dot {with red accents} napkins out, and I still have a Christmas printable in my kitchen frame. I have been brainstorming some ideas for a cute picture printable similar to the "I am Thankful for..." printable that I made for Thanksgiving. I have also been trying to think of a cute {original} Valentine for the boys to take to school, but so far I've got nothing!

The boys got their report cards last week. They both did really well and made all A's. I made a copy of their report cards before I returned them so we can get some yummy free donuts at Krispy Kreme one day this week. Krispy Kreme is so not on my diet, but a yummy chocolate iced donut sure does sound good right now:) I need to get back on my diet after being off for a week while I was sick...though I actually lost about three pounds while I was sick because I all I did was drink Diet Sprite and each chocolate pudding!

Now that I've talked about donuts and pudding, I'm hungry...so I'm off to find some breakfast. Have a great day! I hope to be around soon to check up on all the bloggy goodness that I missed last week!

January Un-decorating & Redecorating

We took down all of our Christmas decorations last week. The tree had been down for a few days, but all the garland, wreaths, and pretty sparkly stuff was still hanging...and since it was almost two weeks after Christmas, it was time for it to come down. But for some reason the house seems so bare once all the pretty Christmas stuff comes down. Our front door is empty...no pretty wintery wreaths here {when the temps have been in the 70's it hard to put something that says "Let it Snow" up!}.

So since we aren't really into celebrating winter when we don't get to experience one...I decided to just jump right into Valentine's Day decorating! The first thing I did was dump out all the peppermints from my Candy Jars and add in the Conversation Hearts that I saved from last year:) No sense in buying new candy every year when all it is used for is decorations! After Valentine's Day last year I poured all five jars of Conversation Hearts into a Ziploc bag and stored them in the back of the pantry. And now they are SUPER cute back in my jars again this year for Valentine's Day!

Since I'm in the mood to get ready for Valentine's Day I figured I would share a few of my favorite past project just in case anyone out there is looking for some V-Day inspiration! 

Valentine Hula Hoop Wreath

My Funny Valentine

Tootsie Roll Bank Valentines

Love Note in a Pancake

Heart Shaped Cupcakes

Now I'm off to find my Hula Hoop Wreaths from last year so my front doors don't look so bare. Then I may start working on a yummy Valentine's Day snack to share with you {after I work on getting the three mountains of laundry put away first}!