Cake wreck part II

For the following post I forgot to include a picture of Mary's birthday cake from last year, which does mean I hold myself to a higher standard...

Oh well. Since I have to make a cake approximately every 3 months around here I've got time to make up for it. :/

My own personal cake wreck!

If you've never checked it out and need a laugh, might I recommend another blog: http://www.cakewrecks.com/ Here she has pictures of some of the most horrifying, ugly and hilarious professionally decorated cakes you've ever seen. One of my sister in laws (naming no names: Molly) enjoys it so much she even bought the book: and loaned it to me. I thought it was hilarious. And, much to my amusement Nina and Mary loved it too. They spent hours studying every picture and picking out the ones they liked the best and fighting over what their next birthday cake was going to look like. Which is how we came up with this little cake: http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2010/6/16/our-world-cup-overfloweth.html

If you can't tell I believe it's a bee hive with swarming (and vomiting) bees.

Luckily I'm not a professional: so my standards aren't quite as high. Or at least they shouldn't be.

So: where to start? A few years ago I made a doll cake for Nina:

So: I started with that base. I also inherited a great cake book from my Linda-in-law that has cakes from all over America. It had a recipe for Caramel Cake, from the book: The Help.

Perfect! Caramel is honey colored.

(Making the caramel wasn't nearly as scary as making marshmallows) And for the most part the caramel stayed put and didn't ALL slide off the sides.

Now for those bees...

I knew things would probably go badly at this point, but I'm not a professional and figured I would just do my best. I ended up drizzling melted chocolate into the approximate shape of a bee. My wonderful husband's first comment: "they look like bats."

Well, heck it's almost Halloween after all!

Bumble bats it is then! Or maybe even bee-bats. Either way it tasted good and a few people even figured it out on their own.

Happy 3rd Birthday to my sweet Mary!!!

Pink-a-Nina-licous

Alright: first of all I do realize that it is nearly November and that Nina's birthday was back in August. She did not have to wait until now to have her birthday party, I promise!

But, I thought I'd at least put together a few pictures of her birthday cake.

For her party we had a pink-princess explosion. Everything was PINK. If any of you have read the Pinkalicious books - we put her to shame, lol.

We started with a pink lemonade cupcake recipe

and then we added pink food coloring

And, finally: pink frosting :)

Both delicious and pinkalicous!

A Day in the Nest - September 2011

So, what have the Robinson's been up to these many, many months?

Well, I won't bore you with the back to school, the summer vacation trip and the birthdays in this post. For those you can read the following posts, and I hope you do! :)

I know this is still going to be long;there is a lot to cover! So, go to the bathroom, get a drink and settle down for a good read...

We are still living in our house in San Tan Valley (just east of Queen Creek or right on the corner of Maricopa/Pinal county south of Apache Junction if you are looking at Phoenix area weather map) We seem to like living out here a little more all the time. Strange, I know - there is hardly anything out here and we have to drive almost 20 minutes just to get to everyone else's starting point! But, we have worked very hard at meeting friends out here and feel that we have built a community of friends that would be terribly difficult to give up. How have we done this? Well, the best answer would be that God led us to a church we never thought we'd end up at: Rock Point. In all sincerity in the 18 months since we started attending we have been blessed 10 fold. We went from having hardly any friends to finding some of the best friends I think I could need. We have an incredible support network and I know that any one of them would drop everything if I needed them to. Andy and I even find ourselves as the small group leaders for a home group that meets near our home. 10 years ago I would never have imagined that! Now I am volunteering to help with the child check in for the Sunday school program and Andy is one of a handful of members on a newly forming medical team there as well. The kids love it and are really upset when we miss a Sunday. So blessed we ended up there!

George: he is going through a bit of a transition at the moment. With heavy hearts and a lot of crying (by me) Andy and I came to the difficult decision to transfer him to a local charter school. His class at the beginning of the year had 34 students in it. We loved his teacher and were incredibly sad to have to leave her, but he was having a terrible time concentrating and the opportunity to move was basically forced upon us. The new school has a phenomenal reputation and his new class will have 15 students in it, so we are sure he will do well. He starts on Tuesday and we are praying for a smooth transition. He has also started Cub Scouts. I think I am more excited than Andy, but George loves it!

Nina: Loves going to school. She is fairly irritated that she isn't in kindergarten this year and at the beginning of every week always asks if she gets to go to kinder this week? One great thing about the charter is that she will get all day kinder and they really push and place kids to their ability, she will be fine and a little more mature this way.

Mary: still at home. So far this year we have enjoyed our "alone" time while the other two are at school With the new schedule, however, one or the other will always be home with her. She loves to boss them around though, so I'm sure she won't mind. Most of the time you will find her dressed as a princess doing "royal" things.

Andy: Is working as a captain/paramedic with the Rural/Metro Fire Dept. For the most part he loves being a captain. We have been very fortunate that for almost the last year he has been temporarily placed at the station closest to our house. We don't expect that to last, but are enjoying it while it does! He has also been teaching CPR classes and will start helping out a group called Hometown Heroes - which is a group of volunteers who go into schools and teach fire safety.

Jessica: Well, for the first time in more than 7 years I can add to the "still happy spending time at home with the kids." I have not gone and gotten a paying job. No, instead I went and got myself a part-time volunteer job. Over the summer a group of wives of firefighters got together and had an inaugural meeting of the Maricopa/Pinal Fire Auxiliary. At the time we really had no idea what we were going to do with it, what we would call ourselves or how much work would be required. We just knew that we wanted a support group for other fire-families. So, naturally, I ran for president. Yes, I am crazy and there is something wrong with me, ha! Honestly, this group has also been a blessing. I have met even more people in my neck of the woods who understand where I am coming from and would also drop everything to help me if I needed it. We're just getting the group off the ground and have a LONG way to go. But, we've made a TON of progress over the last few months. I have even designed my first website! So exciting and I'm very proud of it - if you would like to look at it or would like to know more about the MPFA and what I'm up to the link is in the left hand corner of this page.

Hoping and praying that we will continue to be blessed!

Until next time... hopefully sooner rather than later!

Nina's Pink Birthday Marathon

5 years and many more to go!!!

This year we decided to start a new tradition. Andy has had to work on August 19th for the last 5 years, and this year Nina is old enough to care about the date. So, to the fire station we went! First we re-enforced our old tradition of stopping a Paradise Bakery and picking up a dozen chocolate chip cookies. Then we took them, a pizza and the presents up to STA 842 and had a nice little party with the crew. Tell me of a better place to light things on fire! We stacked 5 cookies and sang the girl's favorite song. Had to cut it short though since Andy got an actual fire call while we were there. Ah, the life of a fire-family.

A few days later it was party #2. As many of you might know Nina and my niece Lucy's birthdays are only 2 days apart. This makes for a great excuse to get all the family together for one great-big party. Lucy's maternal grandmother and Nina's Great-Aunt in law once removed (aka: Lucy's Gran: Linda) offered to throw an awesome party for the kiddos complete with party favors, games and much needed adult beverages! It was a wonderful party and I will always remember it.

And, finally: the princess tea party. We invited her cousins and a few girls her age over with the dress code of "princess." They all looked beautiful. We made jewelry boxes and a necklace and then feasted on pink lemonade cupcakes with pink lemonade on pink plates with pink forks and pink cups. It was every princess' dream... George dressed like a "man" in jeans, boots and a fire shirt.

Phew! We made it to the end of August, which is good because Mary was starting to think cupcakes were a food group.

Skool Daze

Ok - I know that this is not the most flattering picture of my normally beautiful children but I can't help myself. I love this picture! Doesn't it just scream "first day of school, do we have to?!?"

George and Nina were actually very happy to be starting school again. I just happened to catch them all at a bad moment.

So, this year George is in the second grade. That's right SECOND GRADE! Where has the time gone? He started out the year with a fabulous teacher, who also happens to have been his 1st grade teacher and a very good friend of mine. We have been blessed by that this year. He loves to go to school and says his favorite subject is science, except sometimes its English and at others its math. He has also earned the responsibility of riding his bike to school all by himself. He is so proud of himself!

Nina is enrolled in a kinder-preparatory preschool class this year. She goes 4 days a week, 3 hours per day. We really struggled with what to do with her this year. She misses the "cut-off" for kindergarten by less than 2 weeks, so we had the choice to send her this year or next. Ultimately we decided that our sweet Nina really needed another year to come out of her shell. She can be painfully shy and there was absolutely no reason to push it with her. Next year she will be enrolled in all-day kindergarten at a school that places students in classes according to their capability, rather than just their age. And now she'll be the first, rather than the last, of her class to both drive and date. :)

Now I just have to get rid of Mary for a few hours a day...