Sweet Girl turned 9 last March! Time sure flies these days. Sigh.

Anyway - she decided to do a ‘watermelon’ theme, which was fine with me… after all, she’s "one in a melon!" (Yeah, that was a horrible pun, I know!) We had the family party a couple days before her actual birthday; she had a great time playing with everyone, enjoyed her watermelon cake, and got some great gifts - and, as always, Uncle Mark’s box was the best!

 

On her actual birthday, we took a couple of her friends to a local indoor play place full of bounce houses and other inflated games. Bubba came with us, thankfully - he was out there playing with the kids, while I stayed in the quiet ‘party room’ and read a book!  I didn’t get a whole lot of photos there, and the ones I got were mostly in the party room while they had snacks. Mom of the year, I tells ya. ;P

Later that night I gave her a pedicure for her birthday… 

(She picked the colors and the stickers.) (And, no, I’m not great at putting on nail polish. lol)

Happy, happy birthday, my sweetest Sweet Girl! 

Bubba’s seminary devotional day was the day after St Patrick’s Day (sheesh! how many ‘days’ can I put in one sentence? LOL) so I did a rainbow cake. I experimented with new recipes, and it wasn’t so great, but the kids were sweet enough to say thank you anyway.  

Since this cake needed to be refrigerated, I brought it to Bubba’s seminary class & helped him serve it. While I was cleaning up, BroMo (the most awesome seminary teacher ever) was leading the kids in a game that involved throwing a plunger at the white board, LOL. Little Man seemed intrigued by it and was watching pretty carefully, so BroMo invited him up to take a few tosses. I believe the object of the game was to get the plunger to stick to the board within a points range, and your team would get the points if you could answer a question. Anyway… Little Man enjoyed throwing the plunger and he thought that was the silliest thing ever!

 

 

 

Another beautiful snowy morning.

Time for some hot cocoa. 

My nephew’s 12th birthday party was held at my brother-in-law, Mark’s, house. He always has the best toys. This time, there were new Nerf guns… and my kids tried to look fierce in battle, but they were just so darn cute, I could only smile and take photos.

As you can see, it was quite the battle… there was ammunition everywhere!

And through it all, Little Man made his awesome funny faces. I swear, this kid makes the best faces ever! 

In my web browsing last March, I had come across a recipe for browned butter chocolate chip cookies which I quickly printed off and vowed to try. 

Then I found her recipe wherein the baker had made her own Nutella chips to use in said browned butter chocolate chip cookies.

Made her own Nutella chips, people.

How had I never thought of that on my own? It was as if the heavens had opened and I heard the angels sing. 

Oh yes. The fusion of these two beautiful things was about to happen. 

And it was gooooooooooooooooooooood. 

I took her idea of mixing Nutella and butter together, then piping out little ‘discs’ of chocolate. But that got tiresome real fast, and I decided to pipe long tubes of the Nutella mixture, freeze it, and chop it into chunks.

Oh yeah, that was gooooood.

 

After that, I mixed up the rest of the ingredients and painfully let the dough set in my fridge for the full 24 hours.

Yes, 24 hours.

Yes, it was worth it.

Her instructions call for scooping out a large amount of dough - about 3 tablespoons - for each cookie, and holy hannah, that makes a huge cookie! 

 

I could barely fit 6 on a cookie sheet.

But on the plus side… one cookie is very decadent, and with a glass of milk, makes you feel very indulgent yet responsible at the same time… you only ate one cookie!

 

Look how many bites you can get out of one cookie! LOL

Go. Make these. Now. You can thank me later. I’ll wait.

****************************

OK, do you have your cookie dough in the fridge?  Cool. Wanna see some cakes I did in early March?

No?

Too bad.

Here’s a teaser of a cake I’ll show in a minute… no, they’re not bull’s eyes.

But they are cool looking, no? 

We’ll get back to those. First, let’s talk about some beefcake! 

My nephew Tarik was turning 12 and asked if I’d make his birthday cake. Sure, no problem! What do you want it to be? He didn’t know. I waited a while and asked again. He still wasn’t sure. A few days before party, he said he wondered if I could maybe make a cake that looks like a T-bone steak.

A T-bone steak? Like this?  

But in cake form? Yep, he said. That’s what he wanted.

All righty then.

I thought about it for a day or two, and this is what I ended up with. Not too bad if I say so myself….

 

Fun, huh?

I presented it wrapped in plastic wrap, to resemble a butcher’s packaging, with a label and everything.

Actually, I think the label may have been one of my favorite parts.

And, yes, it was red inside, too. And, yes, the birthday boy loved it.

Now, back to those bull’s eye cakes… we were having the big family first Sunday dinner the next day, so I still needed a cake for that. I made two.

I was experimenting with a different icing and technique. Wasn’t quite what I wanted, but I just told everyone it was supposed to be that way - impressionistic flowers - and they all thought it was great. Besides, the big surprise was inside… 

Vertical layers of cake.

Sadly, the center-most layer didn’t really hold up to slicing & serving, but the idea was still there.

And most importantly, it tasted gooood!

(Oh, and we only needed one - I gave the other cake to J, Bubba’s girlfriend, for her birthday that same weekend. It all worked out!)