Jul. 25, 2008
Cathedral Grove ~ Home to some of the largest trees in the world!!
Feb. 21, 2008
Show & Tell Friday ~ Ladybug Cake Tutorial
Feb. 8, 2008
Show & Tell Friday - Castle Cake Tutorial
Posted in Show and Tell Friday
I thought for this weeks show & tell I would share how I made K's castle cake just in case anyone has a birthday boy who wants one :)

The entire cake took 2 1/2 store bought cake mixes baked in 9x13 inch cake pans. I used Betty Crocker becaue I like them best *grin* With the first cake layer I cut off about 3/4 of the cake and split it into two layers. I then made a really big batch of butter frosting by mixing 1 pound of butter with 3 pounds of icing sugar. Beat the softened butter with the icing sugar until it is just combined and starting to stick together in a big ball. Using your dough hook works the best I found. Then add just a tablespoon or two of cream until it is the consistency of playdough. You want it to be really thick so that you can roll it out into ropes to line the edges of your cut cake like above to act as a dam for your filling so that it doesn't leak out when you put on the top layer.

Once I had the entire outer perimeter of the cake lined with icing I filled it in with vanilla pudding mix....

and then set the top layer on and the icing dam kept all of the pudding from squishing out the sides which makes it easier to ice in the end!! Repeat this step again with a smaller square for your top tower.

For the towers in the front of the cake I used my biscuit cutter and cut out three 3 inch circles for each of the towers and made icing dams for each of the layers and filled them with pudding before sticking them together. To fit your towers into your base of your castle take your biscuit cutter and place it on your cake base so just half of the cutter is lined up on your cake and cut out that section to make a half circle for the towers to fit into on each side.

Next I went back to the remainder of my icing and started to whip it some more adding a little more cream to it so that it would get softer and easier to spread. I had a bit of trouble making brown but if you add 6 drops of red, 1 drop of green and 18 drops of yellow food coloring it makes a nice brown. You may need to do this a couple of times to get the desired shade of brown :)

Once you`ve got your cake sections stacked on top of each other and the towers set in place all that is left to do is to ice it....

and add whatever decorations you want :) The tiny sugar cones work great for the turrets and you can make flags that are taped to toothpicks and then jam them into the top of the cones and shoestring licorice works really well for making windows and drawbridge chains since it is nice and light and sticks into the icing really easily.
Have fun making one of your own! To view more show & tells or to join in visit Canadagirl`s blog.
Blessings,
Dec. 27, 2007
Show & Tell Friday ~ Our Christmas
Posted in Show and Tell Friday
(click on the above graphic if you would like to view more show & tells or to join in)

I think it's been about 2 weeks since I've participated in show and tell so now that things have slowed down around here again I wanted to join in :) I thought that I'd share some photos of our Christmas.

My sister and her husband borrowed a car from a friend so that they could come up and celebrate with us :) We started our super duper, finger licking good buffet at lunchtime on Christmas eve *grin* This year we thought we'd keep it smaller with not so much food and more cold stuff that we could just pick at all day long. So instead of a hot turkey meal this year we had cold turkey with buns, veggies and dip, deviled eggs, pickled asparagus, onions and olives, potato salad, 7 layer seafood dip, rye 'n cheddar biscotti .....

spinach and shrimp stuffed mushrooms which were awesome!....

baked brie with cranberries and walnuts....

more cheese! Can you say cheese maniacs?! LOL ...

cinnamon stars, the kids love these. I made loads of them. I think I stopped counting around 148 *grin* and more. I don't know how we thought that we wouldn't have tons of left overs but we're set for the next week or two. LOL.

After we grazed for a couple of hours we let the kids open a couple of their gifts from their cousins. K got 2 Sudoku books and he and Opa had fun trying to figure out how to fill in the numbers :)

Baby M got a little loader and was ecstatic :) He just loves getting 'guys' *grin* We played Rummy-O and had one heck of a time trying to figure out the instructions. Dh and I have the game but we haven't played it for years and completely forgot how it went! We finally got it going and spent a couple of hours playing. Then it was on to more finger foods for dinner and then we moved into the sitting room to open the rest of our presents :)

K has been wanting a feather pillow for his bed stuffed with lavender for I don't know how long so my mom bought him the pillow and then made a whole new flannel casing for it so that she could put in fresh lavender from the garden and then sewed it up tight so they couldn't escape. Then she stitched on the cute little prayer above for him :) He was soooo happy!

L got spoiled with dress up clothes from everyone! We gave her the ball gown on the right and then my cousin had fun revamping some of her daughters clothing into play dresses for L to. She did up the fairy one on the left and she also made her another white one with all sorts of tuille and flowers sewn to it and my mom got her a blond wig that is all piled up on top with curls and then it has a tiara on it. It is so cute and she is going to have tons of fun dressing up!

Last year we got my dad a huge heavy medieval padlock with skeleton keys to open it and this year I ran across the above HUGE iron key. LOL. He's building a new 2 storey shop right now and I was teasing him that it was the key to his new castle *grin* I'm not sure what he's actually going to do with it but it was a fun little, er big gift :)
We had a great time enjoying the company of family, spending uninterrupted time with Dh and remembering the reason for the season :) I hope that each of you had a wonderful Christmas to!
Blessings,
BChsMamaof3
Nov. 30, 2007
Show & Tell Friday ~ Swappy Socks :)
Nov. 22, 2007
Show & Tell Friday ~ Victorian Christmas Ornaments
Nov. 15, 2007
Show & Tell Friday ~ Wet & Wild Weather
Posted in Show and Tell Friday
(Click on the above photo to view more Show & Tells or to join in)

We have been experiencing some crazy wind and rainstorms the last 4 days and since that is the most exciting and pretty much the main highlight of my week that is what I will share with you *grin* I posted pictures of our flooding and aftermath of the storm on Wednesday when the power finally came back on! There's also a link in the first entry to watch the news video of the storm destruction that took place on our end of the island. So please click on the links below to take a peak into my week :)
Pictures of our Flooding
Pictures of the Aftermath
Blessings from a much dryer
BChsMamaof3
Nov. 8, 2007
Show & Tell Friday ~ My HSB Swap Gift
Posted in Show and Tell Friday
(Click on the above graphic to see more show & tells or to join in)
The Homeschool Blog Awards gals have just started a new monthly gift swap and last month I was partnered up with a wonderful new friend from the blog The Homeschool Journey and she is right here in Canada! Well she sent me this lovely ceramic tealight holder and on the top of it is a little basin for dropping in some fragrance oil and water or even some of your favorite essential oils. It heats up the basin letting your essential oils emit their lovely fragrance throughout the room it is in : ) Accompanying it was a really cute handmade card with a little note inside of it. If you are interested in joining this months swap make sure you pop on over to the Homeschool Blog Awards site (don't forget to vote for you favorite blogs!) during November 10th - 14th and sign up. It was fun to meet someone new and to get a little surprise in the mail *grin*
Blessings,
BChsMamaof3
Oct. 25, 2007
Show & Tell Friday ~ Seaview Game Farm
Oct. 19, 2007
Show & Tell Friday ~ The Tale of a Tea Party Cake
Oct. 11, 2007
Show and Tell Friday ~ Ladies Tea Time
Oct. 5, 2007
Show & Tell Friday ~ Gobble Gobble
Sep. 27, 2007
Show and Tell Friday ~ The Playhouse
Sep. 20, 2007
Show & Tell Friday ~ I found another one!
Sep. 13, 2007
Show & Tell Friday ~ Antique Shopping
Posted in Show and Tell Friday
(Click on the above graphic if you want to view other show and tells or if you want to join in)
I love browsing through antique stores and in the nearest town to us there are a couple of good ones so on tuesday when we went in to run some errands we decided to stop by one and have a look : ) I have been wanting to get some nice dressers or highboys for the kids because the ones they have are those cheap press board type ones and the bottoms of the drawers are always falling out :( and I have always kept the idea of finding some really nice antique ones tucked away in the back of my mind just hoping one day I'd come across something that didn't need refinishing and wasn't out of my price range.

Well to my surprise I found this beautiful walnut piece just waiting for me! It is in great shape as the previous owner had stripped and refinished it a number of years back so it only has some minor defects. The drawers are dove tailed and it has castors on the legs for easy moving and it is really big. It is just over 3 feet wide and a little over 4 feet high : ) I bought it in a snap and lucky to because there was someone else really interested in it at the same time. I had to leave it overnight until I could get back in with the truck and when I got there there was another person looking at it and would buy it off of me if I wanted to sell it to them. I must have got something really great if that many people were itching to buy it : )
Blessings,
BChsMamaof3
Sep. 6, 2007
Show & Tell Friday ~ Alaskan Treasures
Aug. 31, 2007
Show & Tell Friday ~ Adventures with Stanley
Aug. 23, 2007
Show & Tell Friday ~ Our New Hay Cutter
Aug. 9, 2007
Show & Tell Friday ~ My new SafGard Pasteurizer
Jul. 26, 2007
Show & Tell Friday ~ Wedding Favour
Posted in Show and Tell Friday

Last week Karen had a beautiful magnet for her show & tell from Hungary and it made me remember the pretty little magnet that I got from my Aunt when she got married.

Both my aunt and uncle were currently doing missionary work in the Ukraine when they met and quite a few years later when they decided to marry they went back again and were married there where they had been living in Dnepetrovsk. Some of the ladies that they grew to know as close friends in the Ukraine volunteered to hand paint these pretty little wooden magnets with their names and wedding date to give out to their family and friends. Such a special keepsake for them and for those of us who weren't able to make it.
Blessings,
BChsMamaof3
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