Have your cake....

A couple of weeks ago I was approached by a family at church to make their daughter's birthday cake. Honestly, I was pretty hesitant to say yes. While I love to make cakes and put lots of fluffy icing on them, I haven't done a ton of detailed cake decorating and haven't used my decorating tips since before we left for France.

I know. I will be going to pastry school and haven't used icing tips in over 2 years. Don't yell too loudly.

Anyways, I did say yes, only because they said they weren't expecting a masterpiece and I could pretty much do what I wanted as long as it said, "Happy Birthday". Those guidelines I can work with. Alas, the little girl was sick the day of her party and so the cake was frozen (again, don't yell too loudly) until Wednesday of this week. It came out pretty great, I think. 

Pepto bismal Icing anyone? Add some yellow and you have a pretty peach. 

Hopefully you can see my circles on the cake. I placed my polka dots with fondant cutters and went back with icing to outline and fill them in. Eyeballing a circle? Yeh. Right. 

 After. 

And, the top: 

So, what would I do differently next time? Make it 3 layers, more to decorate! Buy a smaller offset spatula. Relax. haha.  Hopefully, it won't be 2 years before I get to use my decorating tips again! 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Sweet Birthday Treats

I made my own cake... Strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting. Even John-the anti-cake man- loves this cake. Not too sweet, not too heavy, essentially it is the Baby Bear's porridge of cake.

And, my hubs bought me those tulips for my birthday too. Love him! 

Cake recipe: Pink Lady Cake from Smitten Kitchen

Somebody had a birthday!

And, it was me! 

Last Friday was my 26th birthday and my husband gave me a wonderful present, one that will be very handy in the coming months, a Kitchenaid Professional 600 mixer! 

Don't you love the wrapping paper? Shiny. 

I was excited! Can't you tell? 

The color is called "caviar" and it's kind of a shiny metallic black. Lovely! Tomorrow, I'll show you the first thing I made with it!

Big Day!

Today I have:

Baked a Cake

Wrapped presents

Put up a birthday sign

Bought the last things I needed for dinner

Cleaned the kitchen 8 times. ( I baked a cake, remember. It's a messy business.) 

Omitted telling John that one of his presents arrived today (Score one for me! I am not good with keeping gifts secret. I want you to have it NOW so I can see the look of joy on your face. Yeh. I love gift giving.) 

And now, I am writing a blog to tell my wonderful husband

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABE! Love you!

pictures to come later!

Next stop- Village number 2,795

Hello all! I am finally back.. Sorry it has taken me all week to get a post up! For whatever reason it has been a rather hectic week around Maison de Halliburton and I just can't get my bootie in a seat long enough to write anything! 

John and I had a wonderful weekend, the weather was a bit cloudy most of the time (Volcanic ash? Quite possibly.) but we still managed to make the most of it and see some more of our beautiful surroundings.We have become quite the "village visitors" lately but we just really love getting outside of the city. I don't think I could ever live in somewhere like the villages (I mean, being an hour away from a grocery store would be difficult for anyone.) yet they are so very peaceful and very different from what we normally see and do in Nice.

Looking out of the village

The village this weekend was Lantosque. Beautifully swished between two mountains, the town is quite large by village standards- about 4 restaurants, small clothing store, book store, even a hotel in the summer months. John had been told that it is actually quite touristy but while we were there we didn't see any tourists at all. Except for us of course... :-) Running beneath the village is the Var river which eventually makes its way to the coast not far from our apartment. The river can be heard from just about anywhere in the village and is just the most beautiful noise to accompany an afternoon of wandering.

We both love to visit the old churches inside the villages. Lantosque had 2 churches, only one of which still had services. Like many of the villages, there are not enough people or priests to go around, so they have a schedule. One week the Father would be here, next week across the mountain at a different church.

We had a fantastic afternoon as always. We even ate out for lunch! Woot! I had a pizza,which was delicious. John had a sandwich and then helped me with my Pizza and I had my Orangina.

I wish you all a wonderful week! 

More pictures from our trip are on my Shutterfly site.

Happy Birthday to ME!

It's my birthday! Today, at 11:06 pm (Nice time) I will be a quarter of a century old. I remember when John turned 25, he was such a pansy about it... "I'm a quarter of a century old. I'm soooo old." (kidding Hubby, you could never be a pansy...) I have no such qualms about my age. yet. We will see how I react to 30 in 5 more years. Birthdays are just fun. A day to celebrate all that is good about a person. And eat homemade birthday cake! (This is definitely my favorite part.)

I was a spoiled child. I am really beginning to realize that the older I get. And no, I don't mean that I got everything I wanted. I didn't. But I was spoiled with love, and with special memories, and traditions. 

Every year growing up, my mom made my a birthday cake. They were beautiful. And there is no way that anyone can convince me that a crummy cake from walmart is HALF as good as a cake that was made at home by someone that loves you, with homemade buttercream icing. Sorry. Which is why now, I make John's birthday cake every year and when we have kids.. a million years from now... I will make their birthday cakes. Mom was known (and still is known) as the Cupcake Mom. She made the best cupcakes and I always took them to school on my birthday. To this day, I have friends that ask for my mom's cupcakes.

The other birthday tradition growing up was that I could not open my presents until it was 4:06 pm. Mom liked to say that until that moment it wasn't reallly my birthday and so I couldn't open them yet. (She really just liked to make me wait. She is pesky that way.)

Yes, there are other traditions that we had that I'm not writing about- birthday dinner and getting to pick whatever I wanted Mom to cook, getting woke up by Mom and Dad telling me happy birthday, the phone call from my Granny and Grandpa Saylor and having them sing Happy Birthday in their very off-key voices from two different phone extensions. These are the things that kids remember. I don't remember gifts, I don't remember all of my parties, but I remember the traditions. The things you could count on happening, the things that made the day special.

So, Happy Birthday to ME!

A day in...a Package!

I improvised a little to make John a birthday sign.. he seemed to like it though..


I have always enjoyed getting mail. Luckily, I have a very thoughtful Momma who loves to send me things. All through college I would get cards, notes, and gifts from Mom. Now that I am married, John gets to benefit too!
Since moving to France, mom has sent us a few boxes of fun stuff. It is always nice to have those little touches of "home" that you just can't find anywhere here! For his birthday, Mom sent us a package- FULL of fun stuff for John... and for me too! Although, I must say that it absolutely drove me crazy waiting for John to get home to open the box! Hurray for Mom! It just made our day!

A day in.... A birthday!

Once again, I am going to cheat. Today is my wonderful hubby's birthday. Tomorrow, I will have pictures of the "birthday celebration". But, today is all about the preparation! Hope you have a wonderful day Hubby! Love you very much!
Picture is "borrowed" from here.