Happy Birthday Maddie!!

Madison hit the big twelve on Saturday!!!

She was serenaded and smothered with kisses by her brothers.

Here's all four of them looking surprisingly normal....no funny faces, tongues sticking out or crossed eyes!

It's a birthday miracle!!!!

12 squiggly neon candles were carefully placed.



Wishes were made and......

another milestone passed!

The last year before she's an official teen.

sigh.

Tomorrow night I'm taking her out shopping for an outfit of her choice and then we'll have dinner together just the two of us.

Those of you who know me well know that I am challenged when it comes to making cakes.

I just can't ever make them look anything like I envision.

I stink at icing them and they dont usually turn out very moist.

Until now....

Check this baby out!

I am sooooooo proud that it is at least in the same ballpark of what I was trying to do.

It's supposed to be a small package on top of a larger one.

The original cake was supposed to be white icing with fondant polkadots, but Madison is a chocolate loving girl, so we changed that right off the bat.

And, I've seen it on "Ace of Cakes, but what the heck is fondant exactly and where can I get it?

Appartently they dont carry it at Safe-Way or Albertsons.

So, we opted to just make our own polka dots by coloring vanilla icing and squeezing it through a round tip directly on to the cake.

At first we spent about two hours squeezing about 3 million polka dots onto wax paper and freezing them.

We thought we were so clever until we tried to get the icing polks dots off of the paper and onto the cake with out squishing them into unrecognizeable piles of colorful goo.

So, we colored a second batch of vanilla icing and went straight from tip to cake this time.

Isn't it pretty?!!!

I know some of you may be snickering because clearly it is not perfect, but look at it this way.

I was making cakes that people would just look at, smile and awkwardly walk away from, and now I've made a cake that drew squeals of delight from my daughter and high praise from the men in my family.

It was yummy too!

Super moist!

My secret?

I wish I knew!

Happy Memorial Day!!!!

This morning at 3:30 am, I drove my husband to meet the airplane

that would begin his trip toward the middle east.

He'll be traveling for the next two days toward his destination in the Persian Gulf onboard the

USS Abraham Lincoln.

Our separation will be the longest that we have endured so far, almost 6 months.

I'm so proud of his willingness to serve our country and I'm thankful for him and for all of the men and women who sacrifice so much so that we can enjoy the freedom that we have here in America.

If you haven't already, let a service member know that you appreciate them this week.