Wedding Cake

My former boss asked me to make her daughter's wedding cake. She lives in a beautiful home on the hillside--and I meant to stop and take some pictures of the view of Cook Inlet from her backyard. But the thermometer was lingering at 3* and by the time I finished with the cake it was too dark. So I just grabbed a few pictures of the cake on display inside of her house.

After the cake was fully assembled, the bride decided she wanted it moved from the table with the other refreshments. I quietly gulped as I asked where she wanted to move it to. Of course it was my responsibility to safely move it to its final display, but it was a little scary. And very heavy. I was grateful that everything worked out.

Abbe's husband, Willie, is Native Alaskan. He wrote a memoir about his experiences growing up with his Inupiat family near Kotzebue. It was one of the most moving books I read in 2010--and would highly recommend it for anyone wanting to learn more about life as an "eskimo." I mention this because when I went to deliver the cake I met their friend Oscar. He was a visiting guest, quietly taking in the hustle bustle of wedding preparation. I learned that he is a whaling captain from Barrow, and I was honored to meet him because he is among a small handful of "whaling captains" in the state and even in the world. I probably haven't mentioned it before, but I really enjoy rubbing shoulders with the Native Alaskan culture.

I realized a few things in making this particular wedding cake--

1. I really like to do wedding cakes, even though they are stressful. I like the creative outlet.
2. Twelve hours before delivery, the wedding cake always looks like a flop. Somehow it never begins to look beautiful until the last hour or two before I deliver it to the blushing bride.
3. As long as I have a toddler under foot, the last day of making a wedding cake must include a sitter for my little person. A dear friend came over and had a playdate at my house with our boys. Everything else I was able to plan out and do in the week prior while David was sleeping.
4. Because I didn't want the cake to get in the way of caring for David, I made a detailed schedule of what to do each day during his naptime. Scheduling the minutae is the only way to go for wedding cakes.
5. The whole project was more fun than I've ever had simply because I took the time to plan and had the time to redo when it was necessary.
6. Did I mention that I like this as a creative outlet. The bride and her mother really seemed to like the final masterpiece, so I was happy.

Stretching

More pictures of monkey see, monkey do.

I'm glad it's his Daddy that he tries so hard to mimic.

Brilliance

Just a peek into what David is learning these days:

• He can count to 10 by himself. Sometimes he gets stuck on four or six, but for the most part he sails through. And he knows how to count objects, too. Sometimes kids learn to count as a rhythmic pattern, but David has taken it a step further and he can count objects.
• My favorite phrase from David is "piddy ride bat"--translation: "piggy back ride." With such a cute way of asking, he gets one every time.
• David knows his left from his right. He consistently gets it correct--and tonight when we quizzed him, he was sitting on his left leg. We asked him where his left foot was, and  he had to pull it out from underneath himself to shake it at us while he said, "weft poot" followed by "wight poot."
• David has finally found his love--even an excitement--for reading. He brings us books to read ("ead boot") until we have made it through a considerable stack.
• David can label many of his body parts--including hard ones like his elbow ("belbow"), chin and cheek. The other day I asked him where his thumb was. He opened his mouth and pointed inside. Hmmmm. Maybe that's the root of his thumb sucking--he thinks his thumb belongs inside of his mouth.

We, in our very un-biased way, happen to think our son is brilliant.

Purple

Thank you, Great Gramma Allen for "Purple."

David loves his colorful, cuddly friend!

Apprenticeship

After 15 months with a broken dishwasher, we finally replaced the vintage appliance. David was very excited to help Daddy.

 Do you see that sweet affection--David leaning his head against Daddy's arm? David absolutely adores his Daddy. And Daddy lets him show it, even when he's trying to install a new stubborn dishwasher.

In the end, the project was all-hands-on-deck. The pipes had been left unused for so long that we found ourselves running to Home Depot to replace parts of the plumbing. We started installing it one evening, thinking it would be done in a few hours. It took 3 days of running back to the store, calling the manufacturer, and doing research to figure out how to make it work. Of course I was expecting it to work any minute during those 3 days, so I didn't stand there and do too many dishes in that time. By the time we had a working dishwasher, we had 3 full loads to run. We finally found the clogged part, and our new dishwasher is whisper quiet.

Ward Halloween Carnival

We took David to our Ward's Halloween Carnival on the Saturday before Halloween. We enjoyed hot dogs, a cake walk (David didn't quite know how to choose just one number when the music stopped) and watching everyone else trick or treat. This year I didn't give David a trick or treat bag--simply because he seems more than a little indifferent to candy and I didn't want it around our house. It's true, we were the ones to take pretzels for our "treat." I know some people would want me strung up for such an idea--but hey, it worked out! At one point, someone gave David a dum dum sucker. That lasted about 12 seconds, then he wanted to find the "trash" to throw it away. I'm not going to push a sweet tooth on my son, so we obliged, and that was the end of the candy for the night.

In fact, on our way home we went to the store to pick up a few things to make milkshakes with friends the next night. As I sat in the candy aisle choosing a candy bar to mix in, I saw the irony, "Who does this? Who leaves a Halloween Party and goes straight to the store to buy candy?" It seems that we were very successful in meeting my goal to not bring home extra sugar on Halloween.

Apparently we wore our monkey out by the end of the night, because as soon as we stopped to chat with frends, he found Brother Nye to cuddle up to. I think they both enjoyed it.

 This skeleton went from scary

. . . to curious

 . . . to downright silly in the end. 

And just for the record, David loved his monkey suit long after the festivities were over.

Here's what I found one morning after I came home from my early morning workout:

That's our monkey!

Halloween Festivities

This year we celebrated Halloween on the Saturday before, because of the 31st landing on Sunday.

David and I began our day by making cupcakes for the cake walk at the Halloween Carnival that night.

I really didn't think David would be interested in licking the beaters because he doesn't seem to have much of a sweet tooth. Clearly I was mistaken--and David definitely approved of the chocolate batter.

  After we were done with our own baking, I took our little monkey to Great Harvest Bread for their annual Halloween Fest. Each child was given the opportunity to decorate a cookie or make a bug bread--and then (and this is the best part)--each child was given a coupon to come back and get a free loaf of bread.

 Here is David's finished product (with a little help from Mom).

 He really liked his "bud."

 And here is the setup at Great Harvest--they turned their usual baking kitchen into workspace for hundreds of children in a 2-hour period.

Smurfette is our friend Kirsten, and her husband was dressed as Papa Smurf. (She works at Great Harvest Bread here in town.) Jessica is on the right, and her entire family of eight was dressed as characters from Harry Potter--with amazing handmade costumes that she created! She inspires me to want to create family themes around costumes in the future.