From Christmas 'til Now = BlogFAIL...

Now, onto CURRENT events.

In preparation for Carina's birthday, I've been digging up recipes and 'how-to' sites for making festive and fun birthday cakes. I'm creative and have tried my hand at many crafts and ventures (lately I've been getting into crochet), but I've never really jumped into cakery. I'm all about frugality and being imaginative, but I just haven't been able to come up with a glorious homemade-version of a "butterfly" cake. I've had ideas and even watched a few videos online, but they just weren't what I had in mind. Fortunately for me, another kindred spirit had been feeling the same lackluster vibes as I had been from the do-it-yourself realm...

She decided to start her own site: The Cake Mistress. This is the one I am going to try my hand at: Butterfly Cake circa 1980 Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book. Looks simple enough to cut, shape, frost, and decorate, however I will be exchanging the black licorice ropes for frosting. Unless of course Jared has anything to say about this cake because he will opt for the black licorice ropes = ewww. We'll see what I can come up with. And a photo for reference: 

 Again, I'm hopeful about the results. I'll sit down later and figure out which colors and candies to go with and I'll post pics of the finished cake! Yes, it's 2 weeks til Carina's actual 2nd birthday, but since we are going to Nashville this weekend we are having a joint birthday party for her and Poppy. Poppy LIKES butterflies, but I don't think he'd be thrilled about having a butterfly cake, so I am going to do a Harley-Davidson cake for him (he doesn't have internet, so I don't expect him to stumble up on this blog...), and it will look kinda like this one:

I hope and 'kinda' is the operative word here.

Thanks for not giving up hope on me. I've just been treading water lately...

Ok, All Together Now: 'Hi-a-tus'!

December 18, 2010 through the Entire Month of January through yesterday, February 10, 2011, which means I've (un)successfully skipped Christmas, New Year's, 2 trips to Nashville, Carina's 1 year Anniversary of being in 'school' (2-10-11), and I've missed blogging in general, too. As in, longed for it, wanted to do it, but haven't had ENOUGH free time, which means there has been some free time, but not ENOUGH to churn out even just one haphazardly orchestrated slinging together of photos and typography. Boo. 

And now I'm overwhelmed with the catching-up process. le sigh...

"To post one GI-normous post brimming with everything from Santa to snow to family portraits, or not to post, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind..." Bah. Quit it.  

 There's a series of posts to be done. No room for dodgery or tomfoolery. 

And somehow I thought to myself, as each past day passed by, that I would get to this "tomorrow". I almost hit the mark for 2 months worth of "tomorrows". Burn. OR "Ouch, boo-boo!" as Carina would say.

'Brrrrrr, ice! COLD!'--Carina

Tennessee is getting ahead of itself lately what with all this 'Winter' weather, most especially considering the 1st official day of Winter is not until the 21st. It's beautiful to look at, lovely to hold, but if it gets icy, consider us HOLED (up)!

 She just finished wiping off the glass with a dish towel so she could see out. And, yes, she did that all by herself, no prompting. :-)

Hiii, Mama, brrrrrr! (Mama outside-looking-in)

With 1/4"-1/2" of ice on everything yesterday, we hunkered down at home with The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, fuzzy blankets, and Carina's antibiotics for her ear infection. 

 Jacques loves to be around his people: even if it means icy paws and slippery seats.

 Jared's Windshield

 The icicles were supposed to be in focus, not the tire. Oh, well.

 Took these for Carina. She loves Mamaw's bus.

  It was pretty blissful to have a full day together that wasn't a weekend since those seem to go by even faster than weekdays for us (boo!).

By the end of the day, we were all starting to feel a little cooped up and rapidly headed for 'stir crazy'.
Here's how we entertained each other:

 

You're jealous of our fun, aren't ya? ;-)

Carina was SOOOO excited to be going to 'skoooo' today for the first time all week and she's feeling so much better, too!

Happy Friday and only 8 days til Christmas!