AJ's 7th Birthday Party-Justin Bieber style!

Yes, I made these, after being inspired by eBay. $2 a piece? Kiss. My. Butt.

Trial cupcakes...Bieber-style. We wanted to make microphones, but it didn't work out too well. :)

Cupcake stand-first time used! Bought on clearance! :)

All ready for her Justin Bieber birthday party! :)

Yes, I let her have blue hair for the day. :) I'm the coolest stepmom ever. :) Just ask her.

Head table. :)

Turned out pretty good. :) Found the Bieber add-ons on eBay. :)

I just like her face in this pic...right after she blew out her candle. ;)

 Very Justin Bieber purple. :) Lots of compliments. :) Thanks, guys! :) <3

X-Mas 2011

I got a kick out of AJ's present to Kyle...haha

 







Their gifts to each other, paid with their own money. :)



This is what happens when both of your parents show up, separately announcing their engagements to other people while you're hosting X-Mas for the first time since your marriage and your parents' divorce. Thanks, guys. Thanks. 2 drinks and a cigar before noon, this is how I looked. :)



Kyle got AJ eye shadows for X-Mas. :)



Looking at herself in the camera. lol



He got a ton of Zombie books...this one from Santa. :)



Carving pumpkins!

We didn't have the kids for Trick-or-Treating this year, but we still carved pumpkins! 

 This is frightening...

She'll watch open-heart surgery, but she found gutting a pumpkin to be disgusting. Really? 

Mine...

Alyssa's...

Kyle's

.

It's party time!

Every year, Jim's sister and brother-in-law have a costume party. People really get into it. This year, I was a football player (but I forgot my football at home. boo!) and Jim was a blind referee. :)

Things to do on a quiet day...

Target had these Halloween cookies on sale....it came with frosting and candy. Sadly, they were disgusting and could break a tooth, but it was something fun to do. :)

Here's mine. 

 Jim's cookie...

 Kyle's....

 and Alyssa's.

I'm no cake boss...

Okay, so I've been wanting to start making the birthday cakes for the kids' birthday parties for years, but in the interest of saving time and my sanity, we would end up buying a cake instead. However, the last few cakes that we have had have been extremely disappointing, especially since one of them came from Cake Gallery, which is supposed to be one of the best bakeries in Omaha. I decided I wanted to try to make a Michigan jersey cake for Kyle this year. I found a recipe for marshmallow fondant and made my own from scratch. To save time, since I was simply wanting to practice fondant, as I can make cakes from scratch without difficulty, I used a boxed cake. BIG MISTAKE! It fell apart as it cooled. So, needless to say, it showed once the fondant was on, despite my buttercream frosting I used to put it back together. You'll notice that the fondant is green and yellow. Well, I'd forgotten to save some for blue, so I ended up with green WHOOPS! Anyway, I'm not too crazy about making fondant...it's very time-consuming, EXTREMELY messy, and very temperamental. 

Jim asked me to try to do buttercream instead. I didn't want to, as it doesn't look as sleek as fondant...well...maybe it would look better than MY fondant, but you get my point. :) I made a buttercream frosting from scratch and attempted again. Here is what I did with the cake after it cooled. Nevermind one of the sleeves is backwards...this was just my trial cake. :) 

 Here is my buttercream frosting that I made. I split it up so that I wouldn't accidently color all of it the same color. :) 

 Once it was colored, I used one of my Wilton bags and a small tip to decorate. 

This was very hard to frost. I realized midway that a butterknife is very helpful with buttercream! I decided to make his jersey Number 11 since that's his birthday age. 

Jim liked the buttercream better, and I was surprised by the yummy taste, so we decided to go with that instead of fondant....this year. :) However, Michigan changed their jerseys this year, so he asked me to follow suit. I did not, however, make stripes on the sleeves. :) I'm still a newbie at this! Here is the actual birthday cake!

I realize the M has some issues, but I did this after working a 14 hr shift, I was also on-call at this time, and it was at least midnight. We finished around 2 am. I was a bit tired and stressed out. :)