Sod Party

Before...

Saturday morning family and friends came over to help us lay some sod in our backyard. It is so amazing to watch the transformation of dirt to green in just a couple of hours. What is it about a green lawn that just makes you feel good? Most of our yard is desert landscaping but this small square. I love it, Lloyd loves it, Tig loves it, the dogs love it! All around its a good thing ;)

After...

Here is a few pics of the work crew having some breakfast before work begins. I have to say thanks to everyone that helped... Devin, Morgan, Ashley, Forrest, Shayla, Josh, David, Britni, Grandpa Pruet, Tigone (the official grass tester) and of course Lloyd. What a great bunch. Thanks guys!

Finally more than a couple of almonds...

My small but wonderful almond harvest :)


We have lived in this house for more than 13 years now. In all those years I have planted (and replanted) fruit and nut trees in the hope of actually being able to harvest and eat what the trees produce. Can I just say, yeah right! It may sound silly to be excited over 4 dozen little almonds, but that is the most any tree has produced that is edible.

It is like UGHHHH... Every year I have this nice orange tree that produce the best "lemons". Pomegranate bushes that, this year cracked and dried up by August, and a lemon tree that still has not produced one lemon! I have had horses and dogs eat my trees several times and have had to start from scratch again. So those cute little almonds are very exciting...

Almonds bring back some great childhood memories for me. In our back yard we had these two big beautiful almond trees. I remember as a kid going out in the fall and picking the almonds up off the ground, shelling them and eating them right there. It is funny, but I love raw almonds. No salt, not roasted or candied. Just plain straight from the tree raw almonds.

For those that haven't seen almonds from a tree this is what they look like:



First they have a fuzzy outer shell that when ripe opens up.



the hard inner shell is what
you see in the grocery store
when you buy them in the shell.



after you crack open that shell
you have the yummy almond.


Hopefully someday, I'll have more than a few dozen almonds. Who knows maybe I'll actually get pecans, peaches, apples, pears, apricots and whatever else I get planted :)

Cakes, Cakes, Cakes!

The beginning of last summer (2007), my MIL Gayle (the best MIL ever!) and I took a series of cake decorating classes. It was a whole bunch of fun. By the end of the summer we were pretty tired of cake and frosting :). Yes it's true. Me the frosting addict was sick of it! It didn't last long...


Here are most of the cakes we made for class... (I forgot to take pictures of a couple of the very first cakes! No big loss trust me ;).






First layer cake made. The Jesse is on there
as a joke. Jesse HATES clowns! Writing was
harder than it looked.









Course one final cake.






Course 2 final cake.








Lloyd's Grandma Shorty had a
a birthday a couple days after
the end of course two. So we
used a mixture of both Gayle and
my royal icing flowers to make her
cake. She loved to garden and her
flowers at one time.










In course 3 we worked with fondant.

Course 3 final cake. Had to

be a tiered cake. This was the

last class we have taken so far.

There is one more in the Wilton

series. Gum Paste and Fondant.

Maybe eventually, but I still use

it and play with it ;) Even found

some fondant that taste half way

decent. Easier to work with too.

My FAVORITE Nephew (JK, JK, sorry-

family joke) Dillon had his 16th birthday

the month we finished classes. This was

my first official none class cake. It

turned out really cute. Dill wants to be

a farmer and live off the land. The cake

was a blackberry cake with blackberry

frosting. YUM YUM! Dill loved it and

he doesn't really like cake.

Time flew by, and I'd make a cake now and

then. I forget to take pictures frequently. Ugh...

This last year I have found a couple awesome web

sites that have really given me ideas and instruction

of do's and don'ts etc. You can find them on

my links list. Cake Wrecks is hilarious! Sometimes

disturbing, but always makes me smile. Cake Central

is just awesome. It feeds my cake and candy making

addictions. ;) When Britni moved in and we started

doing a lot of wedding stuff, I really started doing a lot

of things in the kitchen again. It has become my latest

thing...again :).

I decided in the beginning that I wanted to make different

flavor cakes and frosting's. So, they are all homemade or

semi starting with a regular cake mix. Some have been hits...

some not so :)...

Here is a few other cakes I've made this year.

Ashley turned 16 this year. I made this

cake for her SURPRISE birthday party.

It was strawberry with strawberry frosting.

This was her sweet sixteen cake for

our family round-up weekend that

fell on her birthday this year. The

Sponge Bob cake was an inside joke

between Ash and I. She would make

jokes about wanting a Sponge Bob cake

for her 16th B-day. This one was also

strawberry.

Tiggy turned two. She is totally into horses and My Little

Ponies! They have to go everywhere with her. This is

the cake I made for her.

My very cute niece (they are all gorgeous!) turned 18 and

graduated the same week. She was having a "Hippie Party"

and wanted me to make a cake with that theme in mind.

She also wanted an unusual flavor to go along with it. The

first cake was a trial cake. It was grape flavor. Britni loved

it. Everyone else, not so much... The second cake is the cake

that went to the party. It was a watermelon cake with straw-

berry/watermelon icing. She absolutely loved it.

This is the cake I made for Britni's

bridal shower. The flowers were fun.

The bride/doll cake was doing great,

until I tried to put polka-a-dots on the

skirt like her real dress. The top layer

and doll were watermelon flavor, the

bottom layer was banana pound cake.

Watermelon has turned into most of

the kids favorite flavor.

The same day I had Britni's shower, I also

had told my neighbor I'd make a princess

theme cake for her great-granddaughters

first b-day. This is what I ended up doing

after the shower on Saturday for Amaya's

party on Sunday. It was strawberry/banana

flavor.

In an earlier post I showed this one. It was for

my dad's 73rd birthday. It was a lot of fun. It

was a dark chocolate fudge cake with a Boston

Cream filling. The frosting is vanilla flavored.

It was a your life theme cake. Totally FUN to do!

The front desk girl where Lloyd works (Heidi) is pregnant.

I had been wanting to do something for her. She has been

looking forward to starting their family. It was kind of funny,

cause I did the think pink theme as a joke. The day Lloyd

took it to work she had her first ultra-sound. It's looking

like the think pink mantra is working! It was Chocolate

fudge cake with Boston Creme filling also.

Anyway, so far these are the cakes I or Lloyd,remembered

to take pics of. I totally enjoy doing them. If you need a cake,

I need practice! Let me know. I'll do them for free, you pay

for speciality materials (like things for the top, or special fillings

or ingredients).