Happy Times

Yesterday morning Trevor and Jackson spent most of their time outside.  Trevor was putzin around doing yardwork and Jackson rediscovered all his 'summer tractors'!  It was like Christmas!

I also pulled out his Christmas present while Trev was washing the car!

Can you tell this boy is happy as pie to finally be playing outside!?

Park Weather

The weather is finally starting to warm up - why oh why is it taking so long?!  I don't remember feeling this strong of a sense of longing for summer in the years past!  With the warmer weather and the melting snow, we went to the park tonight.  It was just nice to get out of the house.  Two things I learned...1) I need rubber boots 2) Sawyer may not like the swings anymore.

Can't wait for Trev to come home Thursday. These last couple of days have dragged on!

iPhone Misc.

Melts my heart when they try to hold hands from their car seats!

Jackson giving Sawyer a squeeze

Moosey loving his Moose

Sawyer loving his new bouncy house

Jackson talking to who knows who!  I thought this was so funny!

Sawyer's tummy's been upset which is causing his poor little bum to be sad...so we had some naked play time in our bathroom and this turned into naked cuddles.  I'm not going to turn those down whether there's a risk of being pooped on or not!  I'll take em!

The house I grew up in and miss dearly.

His pucker just kept getting bigger and bigger!

Dinner Night

Last week we were invited to our friends' place for dinner - and who can turn that down!?  Yummy dinner + delicious cesaers + kid play time = great evening!  Especially with this family!

The Race

We hit up the Mom, Pop & Tot Fair this weekend and at the end they had a race set up.  Sawyer loved it as it was the most freedom he had to move all morning!  My favorite part is it shows how Jackson loves him.  He could have dominated Sawyer in this race, but he just sauntered along giving Sawyer the freedom and time to finish.  He really rocks being a big brother.  I'm proud of him daily, and for a 2 year old, that ain't bad!

Sawyer & His Horse

Sawyer got a cool new horse for his birthday from Grandma & Grandpa Brown.  He's been a little unsure about it - but is warming up to it every day.  Jackson loves it and Sawyer learns the best from watching Moose...so he's coming around!

Sawyer's First Steps

The morning after Sawyer's birthday party, he took his first steps :)

He isn't walking on his own yet, but toddles a couple steps here and a couple steps there and walks while holding one hand now.  He's on his way.  He can take his time though, as I just love a crawling babe and I will be sad when that stage has passed!  

Sawyer Finds His VOICE

Sawyer is definitely the quiet one out of the bunch of us.  But the night before his Birthday Party, Moose roared at him - and he found his voice!

I laugh every time I watch this.  Welcome to the dinner table with two boys!

The Making of Sawyer's 'Bear' Cake

I knew I wanted to make Sawyer a bear cake...and this picture here was my inspiration...

I realize it's much better than my finished product - but at least it was a bit of inspiration!  I liked it because it was more 'bear' like than 'teddy' like.  The Wilton cake pan was too teddyish so I found this one...and ordered it from the states... The BUILD-A-BEAR PAN.  Sounds like it would be more teddyish than Wilton, but I found that it was more workable!  Maybe I'm just nuts!

So - in true Kristy fashion - I got excited about the pan BEFORE reading reviews and ordered it!  After we had the pan and I was about to bake (three weeks before party as trial run) I started to panic.  The reviews were quite similar...'great pan and amazing quality'.........'hard to keep cake in one piece....head too heavy'!  YIKES!  Well, away I went for my trial run.  Iced and all.  The next morning we came downstairs to the kitchen to a decapitated bear.  Head shattered on the floor.  PERFECT!  I avoided making the cake again for quite some time.  I left it until the last minute.  But I had a new plan.  A new cake recipe.  A new plan for cooling and icing!

It worked and the cake was awesome :)

I appreciate all the blogs out there and the reviews and tips and tricks.  It surely helped me - and I hope my post will help someone else!

Trevor was a big help in creating the base of the second cake!  We used this recipe...

When the cake pan was out of the oven we let it cool.  Once cooled, we flipped half the pan out.  Iced the middle of the cake and put them together.  We let that set in the fridge for a bit.  Then, when I was ready to ice, we took the whole cake out of the pan and put two wooden dowels in at an angle.  So far it was all solid!  A little side note...we struggled getting the cake out of the pan.  I had a panic attack when it was stuck in there.  My husband, the genius, thought, lets take a hairdryer to the pan (I never would have thought of this!) - it worked like a dream :)  I knew I wanted to use a base cake to look like grass...and I think sticking the dowels through into both cakes helped create some stability.

Another thing that I learned was to get the coloring I liked (dark brown) food color was not cutting it.  Adding cocoa and altering the buttercream recipe a bit was the way to go...and tasted way better than icing that was overdone with food coloring.

The grass icing tip is tough and took some practice getting used to.  It also required some softer frosting in order to get your hand to not give out on you!

All in all - it was a learning experience and it turned out just fine in the end :)

Sadly, I only took iPhone photos of the process...but they are better than nothing!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I used almond slivers for the claws.

And yes, we made a second one for his cake smash...