Sea Creatures Baby Shower Cake

And last but not least, the baby shower cake.  This one was for a neighbor's daughter, and she wanted a beachy/sea creatures themed baby shower cake.  I sent her a few ideas, and she chose one that was little blocks with sea creatures on top of them.  The baby's name is going to be "Jay," so it worked well to put three little blocks on the cake that spelled out his name. 

I find it so funny that Josh really, really liked this cake.  When he looks at my cakes, he usually says something like, "Yeah, I like it.  Maybe you could have done this..."  Or "Next time, why don't you... but it looks really good."  He's a pretty talented artist, so there's always room to improve in his book.

But when he saw this one for the first time, all he said was, "Awesome."  And then kept talking about how much he liked it.  When my neighbor came by to pick up the cake, I'm not sure that she was planning to open the box and look at it right then.  But Josh carried it out to her car for her, and he opened the box and showed it to her.  He said, "This is one of my favorites."  :)

Play-Doh Accessories

I was reading back through my journal tonight and found this:

Tuesday, 03-22-11:

Bennett is playing with play-doh in the kitchen while I’m in here working in the office.  He just came in here and said, “Look what I made, Mama!” and brought me a blue play-doh ribbon that he made in his extruder.  He said, “You may weah (wear) it, Mama.  Puh it on.”  So I said, “Ooh, is it an earring? (and held it to my ear) Or is it a necklace? (and held it at my collar bone) Or is it a bracelet? (and put it on my wrist)”  He said, “No.  It’s a darf.  Puh it on your net.”  And in case you didn’t get that - it’s a scarf, put it on your neck.  He just came back in with a necklace for me.  I put it on my neck and he had the proudest, happiest look on his face when he saw what he had made around my neck. 

I should have posted that a long time ago.  :)

"Bama Bound" Cake

Cake #2 this weekend was for a (I never can remember how all this stuff goes) second cousin?  First cousin once removed?  She's my first cousin's daughter.  Second cousin, right?

Anyway, she's headed to the University of Alabama this fall, and I made the cake for her graduation celebration Saturday.  Not being of the "Roll Tide" variety, I didn't have a good feel for the correct 'red' for this cake.  I, myself, prefer this kind of red.  I hope I got close enough to the right color not to cause a riot.

Congratulations, Taylor!

RO-
ROL-
ROLL T-

Nope.  Can't do it.

Marcie the Giggling Grouch

I've been meaning to write this post for a few days.  I've been feeling grouchy lately.  But tonight I asked Josh to make me one of those coffee/vodka drinks (I promise this is the first time in, like, a month at least), and now I'm not feeling so grumpy, but I still want to post it.  I just kind of imagined writing it with a scowl on my face, but instead, I'm giggling at all of these topics I want to mention.

I've just been making a mental note of all the things people do in my daily routine to irritate me.  And this could most certainly be a 'to be continued' kind of post.

But for now...

1.  It irritates the crap out of me when I pull up to a stop sign and come to a stop before the person perpendicular to me, but they feel the need to motion for me to 'go ahead.'  Uh...yeah, I know.  I was here first.  Of course I'm gonna 'go ahead.'  Grrrrr.......

2.  It irritates me even more when a car pulls up to a stop sign way before I get there, and waits for me to get to the stop sign and come to a complete stop before going.  Oh. My. Gosh.  Just go!  You don't have to wait for me to stop!  I'm still half way down the road from the stop sign!  Just go!  You're now making me wait for you!  I guess I can understand if you've been in an accident involving someone running a stop sign, but I would guess that's not usually the case, and it is quite obvious that I'm planning to stop when I slow to 25, 20, 15, 10, 9, 8.... mph as I approach you.  Go!!!

3.  I try to get to the gas station in the middle of the day, before everyone gets off work and floods the place.  Same with the grocery store.  But sometimes I can't help it, and I have to go fill up at 5:45pm and choose a pump to pull in behind someone and wait for them to finish.  I hate doing that, but sometimes you have to.  BUT.  Can I please just say that pulling up head-on to a car still pumping gas is never going to work?  You have to pull in behind someone in order to actually get your turn.  I realize that some gas tanks are on the opposite side of the car, but find a car that is like yours that you can pull in behind.  This woman is sitting in her car that is pulled face-to face with another car when another car pulls in behind the car that is occupying the pump.  The woman gets out of her car and goes walking, shouting, and finger waving towards the other car saying, "I've been waiting!  I was here first!"  I mean, really?  As soon as that car backs up and moves on, you know another one is going to pull right up!  Just go find someone that also has a gas tank on the right side of their car!

Okay, I think that's all for now.  I'll definitely let you know if I encounter more stupidity.  I guess I can't really call it stupidity.  I'll let you know if anything else just really irritates me.  How about that?  :)

Braves Baseball Caps Cake

I'm seeing cake in my sleep after the last few days.  This is the first time I've taken on three cakes in one weekend.  They were all due today.  I have to say, I think I handled it very well.  I never got overwhelmed or overly stressed.  My stomach did hurt from Wednesday to this morning, but that's just how my body handles stress, no matter how well I'm handling it on the outside.

It wouldn't be that big of a deal if you didn't have to wait until Thursday to start them.  You know, if you could make one cake on Wednesday, one on Thursday, and one on Friday or something.  But you can't do that.  You can't bake a cake that's due Saturday until Thursday, or else it won't be as fresh.  But you can't really wait until Friday, because the decorating usually takes up an entire day (especially when you have a 3 year old and a 1 year old).

I think I can thank my mom for my being able to remain quite calm while getting these cakes done this week.  Thursday morning, I stopped by there after dropping Bennett off for school to get a couple of the cake pans that I needed.  Does everybody know that my mom bakes cakes?  That's how I learned how to do this.  Though she now sends much of her business to me.  Anyway, she's got the huge stash of everything-you-could-ever-need-cake-related.  So I went by there to get some stuff, and she said, "Why don't you just come over here and bake your cakes?  I've got three ovens [yes, that's right - she has three ovens] and you could get them done in no time.  Plus, your Daddy's in Alabama today and I could use the company."  So Cannon and I went back home, packed up all our ingredients and decorating tools and headed back to Grandmama's house.

I think she got a little more than she bargained for, because we wound up being there for two whole days.  I went and got Bennett from school that Thursday and took him back over there, and we wound up spending the night.  Josh was in Atlanta visiting a friend, so we would have been at home alone that night anyway.

But just having her to talk to, drink wine with, and clean up after me was so helpful.  As I put things down, she picked 'em up and washed 'em.  Sometimes, just to have them picked back up and dirtied up again.

So anyway, let's get to the cakes.  I'm only posting one for now, because it's the only one I have a picture of yet.  Greg photographed two of them for me today and hasn't gotten them to me yet.  He had to leave before I had completed the third one, so I had to take my own photo of this one.

So this one was for the local reception facility that I used to work for, Le Jardin Blanc.  They e-mailed me a couple months ago and asked if I could do this cake,

except with these hats:

I said, most definitely.

If you know me, I will always try to do a better job than what is expected of me.  Especially when it comes to cake.  I feel like I accomplished that with this one.  Here's what I delivered to them today:

Music-Filled Evening at the Gibson Household

iPhone Etiquette?

Okay, I have a question.  I don't have a smartphone, therefore I do not receive e-mails on my phone.  I'm still in the stone age where you sit down at your computer and log in to check your e-mail.  Haha.

Anyway, it just occurred to me that there might be some kind of new etiquette about what time you should stop sending e-mails in the evenings.  I mean, a lot of times I'm on the computer late, responding to facebook messages and e-mails.  Just now I was getting ready to respond to a lady about a cake and thought - wait a minute.  It's 11:00pm.  Her previous e-mail to me had that familiar line at the bottom "sent from my iPhone."  Is it too late to send this?  Will her phone make a sound, letting her know that I've written her?  What if it were 2am and I wanted to write her back, because that's when I had the time to get on and take care of things?    

I mean, it's not 2am, and probably never will be when I'm writing e-mails, because if you know me, you know I love my sleep and wouldn't be wasting quality snoozing time writing e-mails.

But you get my point.  Do iPhone users turn their phones - or at least their alerts - off after a certain time at night, or is there some etiquette out there that I don't about that says you shouldn't send an e-mail after a certain time?

Somebody educate me!