Welcome Home Elder Hill!

He's HOME! And this time for reals. His plane landed at 7:30 pm March 2nd. We weren't there at 7:30 oh no we were early! Which really doesn't help the anxiety much, but there we were!

Now I don't have any pictures of the arrival because we thought the camcorder would give a better depiction of the events! And boys does it, Audio-Visual hysteria captured for time and eternity. Only thing, this blogger lady doesn't have a clue how to get the video on here so TOUGH LUCK BOY-OS!

What pictures I do have are from Tuesday (the day after) So these I'll have to do until his homecoming, or if he decides to create his OWN blog and put more up between now (Friday) and then (Sunday) but I doubt it, he's too busy catching up on Movies/TV shows and Video Games. :P

Oh and Cell Phone Novelties:

Did I mention games?

But whats home without family?
Allysen and Joey came down from their new home in Washington State.

Nick couldn't wait to show Jake his Lacross skills

The Chaos!
Everyones together at last!! (except Nicks been put to bed and I'm behind the camera.. the injustic of this picture is lying next to me: The Tri-Pod!! I so could have been in this picture!)

Oh and food:
Before you are fixings for the Sushi Grant made for everyones enjoyment. And when I say everyone I mean Jacob, Grant, and Joey, and Kimberlys disgust after being tricked by her own plan and having to swollow her words along with the sushi!

Grant making said sushi! Good thing my moms islandbar is LONG we used it all.

HE'S HOME!! HE'S HOME!!

(jacob is second from the left)
Well not YET but as of 7:30 tonight my baby brother will be home from a 2 year mission induced Absence!!!!

It's completely surreal, when he first left it felt like he'd NEVER come home 2 LONG years!

Then life just went on, every monday we'd hear from him, and we'd all look forward to that, but after awhile it just felt normal! Like this is how it is. So now that he is coming home.. its just so WEIRD! Don't get me wrong I can't wait!! Today will probably be the absolute longest day of his whole mission! For us more then him though...

As of last night we are ready and set for his return, complete with Welcome Home banners and Elder Hill Posters and, because sense just vanishes after 10:30 at night a Irte A Casa poster which Grant helped us translate.. not really sure HOW it translates but I asked him how you say"Go Home" in Spanish, and it took him a while to respond... Anyway the posters made and my little brother is excited to show it to Jake.

For those of you who are doubting our pure intentions with Nicolas' sign-enthusiasm ... Yes we actually DID steal Nicks poster with his cute little picture of him and Jake and put the mean sign on the back of it. Why? because we ran out of posters!! Are we ashamed of ourselves? No, no we're not. In fact it had us rolling around laughing for hours, heck I'm still giggling, and I wouldn't past Kim or Allysen to be doing the same

Well that's all I have to say really because anything further I write will just be more varying statements of He's COMING HOME!

There is more to life then Cake.

But wouldn't life suck without it? Not literally of course (could you imagine *giggle..) but you can't say that cake doesn't just liven everything up! Whats a birthday without cake? What a wedding without cake? Whats a podiatrist visit without cake?! Just another day, that's what it is! So in the words of Marie Antoinette "LET THEM EAT CAKE!"

And they shall! Just not yet I have to fulfill the blogs title statement:

Yes there is more to life then cake, contrary to myself above. What is it you may ask? (For those of you saying Pie your punishment is to go buy me one and bring it here so I can have pie and you can't! Pie? I ask you...)

Any who sport fans, what I'm actually talking about is lately Grant and I have been squishing our money into the house. All of it in fact, but we're pretty pleased with the results so we're OK with eating rice for weeks on end (I'm kidding. We like rice, really!)

What we've got now instead of a very scary room that we still affectionately call the dungeon, is my craft room!!! And where once was an insignificant L'd off space in the main room is a cute little bedroom for working out in and/or hiding.. er storing things.

And I even have pictures to prove it; and their numbered, Aren't you special? (that's not a rhetorical question btw) :

1-Dresser I had growing up-also an on going project
2- Yes I really do keep my money in a piggy bank. Which I made btw
3-Audio distraction
4-Visual and Audio Portable Distraction
5- Antique Monitor and Computer (hey they were free, and work wonderfully for my needs ie: writting & surfing the interwebs)
6- its a cork board that I like to call my muse, it holds all sorts of inspirational things..
7-Story Binder

8-LOVES!!
9-Yes thats a pillow on a kitchen chair, and I like it JUST FINE thank you very MUCH :P

10- (box in corner) Contains ready to go projects, which I like to think I can get to when I'm ready

11-Awesome Sewing Machine, currently residing upstairs for unknown reasons

12- (i'm sorry you can't see) Zidane my fictional boyfriend
13-(again sorry) Daggers' name Sake: Princess Garnet aka Dagger

14-Binder full of odd written goodies
15-Yes.

16-Stick-it labels so I can find things

17- the most awesome pictures in the world

18-(on top of 19) The Angel from a couple blogs ago

19- Sharp things go in here

20-My Motto is: If it fits in a box, it goes in a box.

21-ok if you enlarge the picture you can see that 21 is a Sims expansion pack..my guity pleasures

22-(is pointing to top two shelves) Literary Inspiration, which also double as suitable distractions.

23- What I do with bags that are not in use.

24-again enlarge photo, its the big pink binder, which also happens to be my first ever scrap book I did myself. Please for all that is good if you ever see it don't open it

25- Grant made this whole shelving system. His talents astound do they not?!

NEXT ROOM!

1- Object in which to exercise on if so compelled ...heehee

2-Another spot for the Portable Audio-Visual Distraction

3- ANIME!!!! and Star Wars. Ultimate Movie combinations!!

4- Awesome new windows. Check out the awesomeness.

5- Crib Mattresses. Because we can.

6- Hidden stuffs

7- This little alcove will -once we eat enough rice- have a desk or vanity in it

8-Link Costume

9- Aragorn Costume

10- Obe Won Costume

11- M'Lady Costume

12- Potentially cruel and unusual punishments.

Hey Doc! I've written relatively short blogs lately so you just buck-up there, its almost over.

I haven't talked about CAKE yet remember?

So I was inspired to create this next work of cake by Bakerella.blogspot.com It didn't turn out nearly as cute as hers did, and I have only myself to blame, I skimped on the fondant, and I can't dip a chocolate to save my life :( however I persisted and was rewarded with a fairly decent finish.

Piece of Cake

Actually it was 5 pieces of cake, and they looked something like this:

Personally I think it's the best cake yet.

And I'm not done ...

just you wait

Angels Above

Hallelujah! I've got the cake bug back! Thanks to my cute Sister In-law Ginny who helped me bring out all my tips and decorator bags once again.

I haven't decorated a cake in over a year, mainly because I had reached the limit of my frosting knowledge and needed to do some major studying. Which as my mother can attest, I've been trying hard to avoid doing since Jr. High. I know its a lame reason but I don't learn from reading I learn from DOING, but every time I tried to Do i would fail and then get furious and then.. well the cake would end up.. say for the sake of the Blog Title, In cake Heaven.

Also I don't like decorating cakes without a reason, and as I've said before Grant and I don't eat cake much so if I made one for fun it would just sit around the house not getting ate*! Not wanting to waste cake I just would wait for a reason, and surprisingly the world really doesn't have many events where a cake is needed, well at least not in my world.

However this bug really bit hard, so I pulled out our oldest cake mix (Spice! ::shivers::) and proceeded at my own pace to create and decorate a cake!

Four days from the initial Bake I now have this displayed on my kitchen table:

Cute Huh?!

To me she is NEARLY PERFECT, from the leveling of the cake to the tip of her wings! Its the best frosting job I've ever done! I should have taken a picture of that!

Nearly? yes Nearly. She is also the product of many experiments:

Ex #1: though you can't see it I've tested out a new butter cream recipe

Ex #2: The Fondant is Marsh mellow made! YUM

Ex #3: If you notice, the blue is a bit...off in places. I used a spray coloring instead of directly coloring the fondant. I don't like it, but I'll have to practice some more

Ex #4: the swirls are made from me still experimenting with the spray coloring.

Ex #5: Which isn't actually an experiment, just a miscalculation. She is supposed to be looking down on the world.. however for the size the world is, she should be amongst the stars.. which means she can't be on a cloud, but she is, and I wasn't going to change it. So what did I do? I did THIS:

Now she's looking down at a hill with a house on it and the blue is water not sky.

I don't really care though because I'm still very proud of my angel!



isn't she the cutest?

And this is just the beginning! I have many more planned! ::ignoring groans from Grant:: However while this cake has lived its 2 week old life on my counter the proceeding ones will not. I've come up with a solid strategy: The Doorbell Cake ditch!

~See you later~

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The Worst Cake I've Ever Seen...

Or at least it was until I became a victim of the wonderful http://www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

Have I ever mentioned that I used to decorate cakes! No? Well that's a down right sham for I am the fondant and butter cream Guru. Marzipan extraordinaire! I Create utter Masterpieces that I deigned to shared with the world! ~and when I say masterpieces I mean Uniquely made, completely original, truly one of a kind, oddish cakes made by me:

isn't it a treat? (I hope you all hear the sarcasm in my voice..)

On ward and up ward, for Christmas this year I received an awesome cook book from my Mother in-law. Now I'm a Baker not a Cook (yes there's a difference) so I eat up recipes, heavens knows Hamburger Helper wouldn't be the same without one! So I'm browsing through and I stumble upon a recipe that makes my jaw drop!

Queen Anns Lace Cake!

Life isn't complete with its little ironies, and here's mine: I'm not a fan of cake, I would much prefer a pie to most any sweet-breadish confection. But this one, this ones special. And here's why:

~ It's a Chocolate Pudding Cake!

~ It has Whipped cream AND Cream Cheese frosting

~Its name sake was a person of some high standing

I think a little explanation is in order: You see sports fans it looks the way it does because I didn't really want to decorate this cake, its all the frostings fault, it was the deciding factor in the creation, so it would have been pointless to leave it out. So for all intents and purposes its decorated ok!

And for all you cake critics out there thinking: TISK* She's a sloppy one, letting crumbs into her frosting like that! To that I say BOO! I'm fairly proud of my frosty job thank you very MUCH, what you see are chocolate bar shavings, not cake crumbs.

Though my pride didn't stretch to far, as you can see the cakes a bit lopsided.. a little bit.

After the whole ordeal I had to apologize to my inner perfectionist. I think she's been traumatized. She kept trying to make it look nice, and to be fair that's her job. I'm not entirely heartless I tried to comfort her: 'No ones going to see it but Grant (which wasn't true Jason and Aaron both stopped by, and for good measure had a taste) 'It will taste the same no matter how it looks! (she didn't like that one) 'You have neither time nor room to make it the proper way so get over it already!!! Shes still refusing to claim it. But I'll have you know it was mighty tasty!!!

So if your wondering why I'm posting my biggest failed cake to date, your not alone I'm also a bit curious.