shorties funny farm

Monday, April 5, 2010

::garden beds and goat baths::

Today was the most amazing day! We went to town to get supplies to make my new garden. I was Josh's assistant and he got almost the entire bed frames done. My main job was being company and bringing him drinks. Just one more island bed and it will be ready for weed mat/compost! Building something new makes me so excited. I can't wait to see it when it's done.

I got out my fallen timber arbor that I made last year and set it in place. It isn't bolted down yet, but it was wonderful to see it in place. I built it on a fine summer day last year with Lily and Max helping. It was so fun for us. Of course once it was done Josh had to sneak over and add a bunch of screws to it to make it stable.

Once we really got out in the yard and started laying it out we made some improvements to the original plan. I think it is going to be even more amazing than I originally thought. I am dreaming of an old english cottage garden. I hope I can do it justice.

While Josh was digging the post holes he found some of the old burnt up tools that we lost in our huge barn fire in the winter of 2003. It reminded me that this garden is being placed on top of were a huge hole was dug and the burnt up barn was buried. What a nice thing to go on top of that horrible mess. I am going to tie them onto the arbor. I think they are good luck now. (No people or animals were hurt in the fire, but a new pickup truck did loose its life.)

Max worked very hard to help us out.

The Orkin man came out today to spray for ants and I almost kissed him on the mouth. They were getting so bad I fully expected to see a sleeping Max get carried down the hall by the little buggers. They just appear out of no were. I think they are so creepy. I have got no problem with them outside but they better get off the highchair or they are going down.

Emma got a bee in her bonnet and talked Lily into giving the goats a bath. The goats fought it every step of the way but it got done. Please note that we all decided we had to wear bandana's today. I'm not sure why. I can't even begin to imagine were the kids found theirs.

Lily fell and ran inside to make her own band-aid out of scotch tape and a cotton ball.

We looked around once to find Max on top of Josh's pet car. He climbed up all by himself.

The weather was perfect and the company could not be beat. It was one of those days that I wish I got to do over and over again.

::dump truck invites::

These were Max’s one year old birthday invites and I just loved them.

I downloaded a free clip art image I liked of a dump truck. I blew it up on a copier to a size that felt nice for an invitation. I made several copies of this size so I would make sure not to loose it. Then I visualized it in layers and cut out those layers from the photo copies. (The body/base, the dump bed, the wheels,etc.) Once I had those forms I traced them onto an old ugly piece of card stock and cut those out to be my templates.

I then traced each template on to the correct color paper, cut it all out and put it together. The wheels have rivets in the center of them. When they were done I added the hand written little "lift" note so people would be able to tell how they worked.

I hitch hiked the invite poem off an invite on etsy that I thought was cute. I love a cheesy invite poem.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

::ham cakes::

Here is the first of the weekly cupcakes that I am hoping to make this month. My dear friend Shelly brought a cupcake book to work and a used that books piggie idea as my starting point. I knew I wanted to make some cupcakes for Easter dinner but I didn't want to do traditional bunnies or something like that. I thought these little ham cakes had some irony to go with their cuteness.

I was in charge of icing the body and the upside down reece's cup. Lily placed all other parts of the cupcakes. M&M's for eyes and spice drop ears. We used brown icing for the nostrils and pupils. She did a really good job and it was a fun time spent together. I learned all about what every kid in her class brings for lunch every day. Very important information and delivered in her typically adorable manner.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

::purse cake::

We are going today to my inlaws to celebrate Emma's birthday with Josh's family. I decided to make her a purse cake. I got the idea from parenting.com

the idea

Take two nine inch cake rounds and cut the top and bottom inch off of each.

I wrapped a piece of cardboard in foil and poked toothpicks through the bottom. I held one round in my hand while I iced one side and then added the second side. Them I set both of them on top of the tooth picks. I worked paper towel under it so that if I got messy with the icing I could just pull the paper towel out and it would take the mess with it.

I iced it orange and them used twizlers to make the E and the handle. The handle kept falling over so I put toothpicks in the ends and that held it up. I also cut come purple twizlers to add to the sides.

Then Lily got the job of placing the flowers around the upper border.

Friday, April 2, 2010

::emma's 12th birthday party::

For those of you that don't know my oldest is my stepdaughter. Over the years and through trial and error me have developed a VERY peaceful relationship with her mother. We all just share and shut up. (How that all came to be is a post for a different day.) The point is that holiday's with Emma are always hard for me. I want to plan six months ahead like I do with my kids. I want to make a spread sheet and start a file and go totally off the deep end. But I am not the boss of Emma's birthday parties. And that's OK.

Jenni (Josh's ex-wife) does things differently than me. She plans it all out a week or so before and is much more relaxed than me about the whole deal. She is better than me about letting Emma really do the planning and she goes with her idea.

Jenni and Emma live in a very cute little small town near us. (Same school system, thank God!) They set up a scavenger hunt around the town for Emma's party. Things on the list were a used birthday candle, today's newspaper, clothespin, and a crayon. It was much longer than that but those are the few that stick out. The list was very clever and cute. I was so impressed. An adult or two went with each group. My group decided that we were going to RUN the whole time. I was so tired by the end of that one hour but we did manage to win. Jenni gave out one dollar bills as the prize. The 12 year old crowd loved it. I was nervous that people would be annoyed at these kids knocking on their doors. They didn't know about this ahead of time. But they were so gracious to us. It reminded me about the glory of a small town.

As Emma gets older it gets harder to decide what to make for her cake but all she wanted was the rainbow cake I made last month. How fun it was to make it again. I thought it might be too baby-ish but the preteens thought it was amazing. "Wow! Were did you buy this!" "Brooke, how did you make this?" "This is amazing." It was nice to hear because you know a gaggle of tweens are not going to worry about petting my ego just to be nice.

When I handed Emma her piece of cake she said, "This looks so good I could cram my face in it." And then she did. I thought it was so funny that I couldn't stop laughing. Sometimes that kids humor really surprises me.

We gave Emma a digital picture frame to keep in her room at Jenni's. I even loaded it up with some pictures already. I think she really liked it. She was texting me all week for hints and I ket telling her stuff like "it doesn't have feathers" "it is not a tree" "you don't have to feed it". She was playfully frustrated with me.