The Grooms Cake

When I went out for Christmas my Mom kept asking me to order Fatu's grooms cake. I couldn't believe that it hadn't been ordered yet. There wasn't much time to get something custom ordered. We came up with an idea that we liked. We thought it would be super simple to put together. All we would have to do was order some tuxedo strawberries to put on top of a chocolate cake. Voila! Super simple right?! Wrong!! I called every single bakery, and chocolate factory in the Salt Lake area and NO ONE made tuxedo strawberries!! I couldn't believe it!! It was too late to change the concept of the cake so  we decided to make our own chocolate strawberries. I showed Fatu a tutorial and he laughed and was pretty confident that he could make them. He does a lot of art, but I was a little hesitant to trust a guy with the task. We decided to turn it into a contest. Yeah, our family is super competitive haha. So we held a contest between him and Sila to see who could make the best strawberries.... and Fatu won.

We did a couple of different styles of strawberries and added them to our chocolate cake. Voila! Fatu's finished grooms cake :) BTW, the coconut ones didn't make it to the cake cause we ate most of them haha.

Teacher Appreciation: Smore Kits

I didn't realize that the boys last day of school was on Friday, until Thursday. So I scrambled to get gift ideas together for their teachers. Thursday Mote had a pack meeting for scouts so I didn't have any time to work on the gifts. Friday when I got back from work I went straight to bed and woke up at around noon. I got to Walmart at around 1pm and made it home by 2 o'clock. I put these quick smore kits together and was at the school by 3pm. JUST before the bell rang... phew!

Check out the customized white ribbon!
I got them in the mail just in time to add them to our gifts.

Merry Christmas!

Craft Night

This year, due to work, I was not able to make it to our ward's Super Saturday :( I was talking to my sis-in-law Toa about it and we came up with an idea to have our own craft night. So last night we had our "Terrific Tuesday". Toa came over with Moli and Ini and together we chit chatted, ate, and made crafts. Toa and I each came up with 2 crafts to share.

Toa helped us make framed monograms and personalized CD holders.
(I totally forgot to snap pics of the monograms before everyone left).


My 2 crafts were these Christmas countdown blocks

and these simple Holiday plates
With each trip to the craft store I had to fight the urge to come home and set up the Christmas tree. Why does Christmas decor have to be so cute and tempting?! I am resisting until Thanksgiving- which is exactly 1 week from tomorrow. I can do this!

Halloween 2010 - Mama Mia!

In my personal blog I've gone into detail about the process I've taken in putting together Halloween costumes this year. For this blog I'll spare you the details because I'm too lazy to go into depth about my journey :p

I said last year that I was so disappointed with the quality and prices of Halloween costumes. I took an oath to learn how to sew so I could make their costumes for the following year. And so that's what I did... kinda... ok not really. I didn't learn how to sew, but I still managed to somehow create 3 costumes that the kids approved of. We went with Super Mario Bros with a modern flair ;)

Challenge #1: convincing one of the boys to be the bad guy. Seniority won out and the little brother got stuck with the villain role.
If you ask me it actually suits him well.

2nd oldest pretty much got 2nd choice... the side kick

and the oldest of the bunch of course got dibs on the lead role. Doesn't it always seem to work out that way?

So Mario Bros. was cool and all, but how to take the "coolness" level up one more notch? Aaaah yes... add in some speed!

Voila! Mario Kart Bros!

Happy Halloween!

July Birthday Board

We have a birthday committee at work that designs a board spotlighting those who celebrate birthdays within the current month. Last month my manager Brian asked if I would help him with the Birthday board for July. When I saw Brian's sketch of what he had in mind I was super excited to be on board. He came up with a whole Independence Day theme and wanted to create a sky scape with fireworks and rockets shooting off. We decided that instead of giving the usual candy filled goodie bags we would fill ours with sparklers, party poppers, and super snaps. I was in charge of making the rockets and this is what I came up with. July is the first board to go 3D... thank goodness there were only 6 birthdays this month! Last month we had a ton.

Personalized Scriptures + Tote

Sila finally sent me the pics of Lisi's gift that we made. I thought this would be a perfect baptism gift for Lisi. I think they turned out pretty cute for it being our first attempt. The next time we make these we know from trial and error what not to do. We made a personalized cover for her Book Of Mormon and a cute little tote for her to carry them in. Along with the scriptures I filled the tote with bubbles, hair accessories, lip gloss, and nail polish because Lisi is a total girly girl.