The Road to Home

Sesame Street’s 39th Season starts tomorrow. And as always, the folks over at the Workshop have enlisted some big names for all of our enjoyment.

Oh Wow.

We’re watching the Olympics and Ladybug keeps saying, “Oh Wow.”

I have an idea that this will go on all evening.

Well folks, I would like for you all to meet the newest addition to the family.

Here’s Emma!

What’s that? You can’t see her?

Well guess what. Dr. D and I can’t either.

Ladybug has been using the toy phone from her kitchen set to talk to Imaginary Emma all night long. Here’s what I know so far: Emma lives in Michigan too, and she pooped on the potty this afternoon. Evidently she gets M&Ms as a reward, too.

I don’t know where Emma came from, but I do know that I’m not ready for the imaginary friend phase.

Dr. D came home recently talking about a new guy that he was working with.  The New Guy also has a 2.5 year-old daughter.  And a wife that was up for a playdate!

So we went to a nearby park and let the little girls play, while the big girls talked!

I’m calling this her “Hollie Hobby Pose.”

See?  Holly Hobbie!

This is really the only picture of the two girls together.  They are exactly a month apart, and they were fast friends.  Ladybug has even been “talking” to her on the phone this afternoon!

I can’t wait to get together again!

I just heard Ladybug singing it over the baby monitor. She’s supposed to be going to sleep, but I could hear her singing, “bah bah bah..bah bah bah bah…” I just love that!

I think we have a pet!  I’m pretty sure that he is the same little squirrel that was in this tree.

I was getting ready to let the dogs out, and this is what I saw from my back door.

He sat under the table for a few seconds, then he jumped up to the railing.

In the words of my grandmother, “He’s a fat lil’ dude.”

Ladybug thought that he was being shy.

Then she asked if he was itchy.

You lookin’ at me?

He scooted along the rail like that for a few feet…it was adorable!  Look at his round little head!

Then he jumped over the staircase, hopped onto the grill, then to the other side of the deck.  When he finally stopped, he was up in this tree, just peering down at us.

I think we will have to name him!

…but I thought that the cake turned out fairly well. Considering my lack of cake-baking expertise, that is.  Judging from the comments and emails, you guys thought so too!  A few folks have even emailed me directly asking how I made it.

So, here you go.  I regret that I didn’t take “step by step” photos a la PW Cooks, but I’ll know for next time.

Here’s what I did:

• Woke up to the stomp-stomp pitter-patter of Ladybug’s feet finding my sleepy body in bed.
• Allow Ladybug to watch TV in my bed while I try to coax my eyes open.
• Finally drag my lazy bones out of the bed and decide to make Dr. D a birthday cake.
• Pile into the car and go to JoAnn Craft Store to get supplies, as I don’t tend to keep fondant on hand.
• Once in JoAnn’s, decide that I need a new cake pan, icing spatula, patio dishes, and shepherd’s hooks.
• Head home with my newly acquired supplies and start baking.

Because I’m not a gourmet baker, I relied on my friend Betty to help with the recipe.  I used Ms. Crocker’s Butter Recipe Chocolate, and it was a nice cake.  I also used this fantastic spray for the first time.  It beat the pants off of Pam.  I will totally use it for all my baking from now on!

Since all the cake pans that I have are glass Pyrex dishes, I decided to get a new cake pan at JoAnn’s.  Folks let me tell you.  The cake turned out better than it ever does in my glass pans.  I had NO idea that a true “cake pan” would make that much difference, but it did.  The cake turned out to be leveler (is that a word?) than it ever has for me.  So all y’all run out right now and get you one of these.

While the cake was baking, I used that time to start working on the icing.  I learned a few very important things while working to make black icing.  DON’T start with white icing.  DO use chocolate instead.  It took an entire pot of icing gel tint to turn my white cream cheese frosting into iPhone black.  I did it in steps, thinking that it wouldn’t take as much tint as it did.  Fortunately for me, it turned into a frosty greyish color that I was able to use for the silver bits of the cake.  I just reserved a portion (less than 1/4) of the grey icing to use in the decorating phase.  Then I got back to tinting the rest of it black.   My fingers were purple by the end of the process, but I ended up with a beautiful glossy purple-ish black.  It turned even darker as it was sitting, waiting to be used!

After the cake cooled, I turned the cake out of the pan, using just a regular cookie sheet (turned upside down) as my cake base.  Since the cake rose slightly in the center, I used my serrated knife to level out the top of the cake.  Then I just brushed all the excess crumbs off that I could.  Next, I used my newly purchased angled spatula to spread a dollop of icing for the crumb coat.

Ever since I have been old enough to notice, I have always wondered what an angled spatula could do that a butter knife couldn’t.  Now I know.  I will never frost a cake with a butter knife or a regular spatula again! The smooth texture that this spatula made was just mind blowing.  I knew that the crumb coat would make a drastic difference, but I swear that this spatula was the true star.

This is what it looked like after I got the black icing smoothed out.  There were still ridges, but I was afraid to work it too much more.  I didn’t want the crumbs to start poking through.  Next, I started working on the icons.

For the icons, I used some pre-colored fondant.  I just took a little piece of fondant, flattened it with a roller, then used a square cutter to get the shape and size that I needed.  Then I used a round cutter to make the flower and sun shapes.  After I got all of the shapes rolled out, I cut a tip off of a plastic baggie so I could use it as a pastry bag.  Then I piped the reserved grey icing around the edges to create the silver border of the iPhone. I also used the same grey icing to make the silver background strip on the lower half of the screen.  Then I placed the icons where I wanted them.

After they were placed, I used an icing writer to do the fine writing work. I used it for most of the white writing on the icons, as well as writing all of the text.  Here’s the finished product:

See how much “blacker” the icing turned?  I wonder if it would have done the same thing even if I had added less black coloring.  I may never know!

We served it on our new patio dishes that I found on sale, 70% off at JoAnns.  Ice cream was optional!

Dr. D’s 29th Birthday was yesterday, so we celebrated by having a few friend over for cake and ice cream last night.

Black icing is very bitter…though it didn’t slow her down one bit. I still don’t know how she managed to get it all over herself!

I’m still slightly exhausted from all of our activities yesterday. We had our annual Art Fair and it’s a HUGE deal around here. There are close to 30 city blocks full of vendors selling their wares and showing off their creations. Ladybug got incredibly excited when she saw a little boy that had his face painted like Spiderman. I explained to her about getting your face painted, and she finally decided that she wanted to try it out.

So here is how my Little Ladybug turned into my Little Mariposa, if only for one day!

Trying so hard to sit still.

She didn’t look too sure about the whole process.

Still pretty skeptical…

Glitter! What girl doesn’t like a little glitter?

Can you see her big grin? She started out looking rather upset, then she just burst into a HUGE smile!

So proud.

She kept begging me to take pictures of her “makeup” so she could see.

My favorite!

Smudged and sleepy.

She wanted to pretend to be a butterfly in the backyard when we got home.

We picked up the tiara (and a wand too) at the Art Fair. She had to put it on as soon as we got home.

She explained to me that butterflies check on all the flowers, so she had to also.

Proving that her tiara, does indeed, match her tutu.

What a fun day we had. This was right before she hopped in the tub to become a Ladybug again!

In case it wasn’t obvious to you before, I’m just a little excited about our new backyard! The weather was beautiful here again today, and we took full advantage by playing outside for most of the afternoon.

This evening, I took another walk around the yard with the camera. Here’s what looks the prettiest today!

I’m not really sure what this is going to be, but it is at least 9 feet tall. I think that it is some kind of coneflower, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see!

I have about 5 of these guys in addition to the pink ones from the other day. They look like tiny little suns dotting the yard.

And finally, here is some of the sweet pea. I’ve got a 5ft section along a fence that is just covered in this stuff. It is incredibly pretty!

I wonder what I’ll find tomorrow!