Grace's 6 year old pictures

Since the nearest Sears Portrait Studio (where I normally have the kids' pictures taken) is online, I decided to do Grace's 6 year old pictures myself.  There are a few photographers around, but I figured that I've got a nice camera that takes really good pictures, so I was going to give it a whirl before I forked out a bunch of money to have someone else do it.  After all, a good camera plus a beautiful subject can only equate to wonderful pictures!

There is a little park on post that has a fountain and a "river" along with some bridges and benches, and since it was right across the street from where she had her soccer game later in the day, we headed there.  I only took a hundred or so pictures, so I whittled them down, and here are some of my favorites.

I think she enjoyed having me take the pictures, and I know Tristan had a good time because he got to run around in the "forrest" and play with sticks and throw rocks into the water!  I think I will continue to do the kids pictures now that they are at an age where they follow directions pretty well and can smile decently on command.  A professional may be able to do some better, but as long as we're happy with the end result, what does it matter?

Cakes, Cakes, and More Cakes!

Thought I'd take a minute to show you what I've been doing since moving to Korea.

I was at a birthday party for one of our neighbors' daughters (where I met my now wonderful friend, Jami), when we got to talking about cakes.  About a month later, Jami was going to have a birthday party for her youngest 2 children, so I offered to make them each a cake.

Her daughter Ahriel turned 3 and chose this cake.

Miguel, the only boy of now five children, turned 1.

That sweet boy is going to have his work cut out for him sticking up for all his pretty sisters!

After that, somehow my name got out as someone who decorates cakes.  I don't know who to blame thank for that... Jami or Kim.  Anyway, I was approached by one of the moms at Tristan's preschool to do a cake for her son who was turning 3.  She said she wanted a bowling cake of some sort, preferably a ball, and I went into a panic.  I said, "I'm not that good, but here's what I can do for you..."  She seemed rather disappointed, but accepted an alternative.  I came home and talked to my wonderful husband about what this "crazy" lady wanted from me.  And he said, "So, what's the problem?"  He's such a motivator. :)  But, with his confidence in me, I began to think, "Maybe I can give her what she wants."  So, here's the final result:

Despite the fact that the bowling ball looks like a face, I was pretty proud of myself for actually being able to make a sphere cake.

For the bowling pins, I found a picture of a bowling pin, printed it out, enlarged it to the size I wanted, and cut it out of a 9x13 cake.

 

For Grace's birthday, she got leftovers... I have had a cake pan that Judi gave me several years ago that I haven't had a chance to use yet.  There was just enough cake batter left over from the bowling ball to make this teddy bear: 

Poor thing - she even got leftover frosting...

I call this my tie-dye bear.  I just kept adding frosting to the bag, no matter what the color.  Makes for some cool color mixes as it comes out.  Love my sweet Grace - she was just happy to have a cake on her actual birthday, even if it was hideous!

These cupcakes that I made for Grace's party were super easy!

And because the drawings weren't super crisp in the book, it was okay that they weren't perfect.

Shortly after I did the bowling cake, I was approached by a lady who was at that party who wanted me to do a cake for her son's first birthday.  I believe her message said "...nothing too fancy, just something with a 1 on it and a cupcake just for him..."  I thought, perfect!  I have just the thing!  Then in communicating with her a little more, she sent me a link to a professional bakery's blog and said, "I want this."  GULP!!  Now this lady really is crazy!  And again, my fabulous husband, the motivator, said, "Just give the lady what she wants."  Really?  REALLY?!?  I can't do that!  You're both out of your minds!  But, I thought about it and looked at the picture some more, and decided I'd give it a shot.  How hard could it be?  It's cake, if I screw it up we'll just have to eat it.  So, here's what that other "crazy" lady got:

It looks almost exactly like the original.

The lady was thrilled - said it was better than the original.  I have a hard time with compliments so it was hard for me to agree with her, especially since I saw all the flaws, but I thanked her for being so kind.

 

This was his "smash" cake.

I made it out of a 5x5 pan, printed a 1 out and cut it out of the cake.

I've enjoyed doing these, and even got paid for the last 2 ladies' cakes!  David says the only reason he "allows" me to bake and decorate cakes is because he gets to eat all the scraps... Frankly, I'm sick of cake, and I still have one in the fridge and about half a dozen cupcakes left.

Also, for Jami's baby shower, I tried my hand at a diaper "cake".  That was kinda fun to do too and I think it turned out pretty cute.

Even though I haven't been able to do any scrapbooking yet, I have still had the opportunity to be creative!

My Big Brave Girl

Grace had a life changing event last night...

She got her ears pierced!  Okay, maybe it wasn't a truly life altering event, but when you're tired and sitting in this chair, its questionable...

 Despite having asked, and asked, and asked for the past several months (to include yesterday afternoon), she was terrified! 

We have asked everywhere we could think of to try to get her ears pierced and everyone had said "no" and they didn't know where we could get it done.  David and I weren't keen on the idea of taking her to a tattoo/body piercing shop (not to mention that its against Army regulations to do so), so we had resigned ourselves to the fact that we wouldn't be getting it done until we returned State-side.  Well, we went to AK Plaza last night and saw a jewelry kiosk and asked, and what do you know - the lady said YES!!  And the cost was only 5,000 won (that's a little less than $5)!  David and I immediately said go for it, but now that the option was really available, she wasn't so sure she wanted to do it. She cried, and said that she didn't want to do it any more, and there was no talking her into it - I'm pretty sure the lady would've done it anyway since she was in the process of marking her ears when this picture was taken... 

So, off we went with ears still intact, and had some supper.  All the while David and I were building her up for the big moment.  She said, "Every time you asked someone if they did ear piercing, I always imagined how brave I would be, but now I just can't be that brave, and I just think I should wait until I'm older, like at least 7 or 8."  Apparently she had asked several friends at school if it hurt and got yes answers enough times to really frighten her.  I took the approach of everyone feels things differently and you're pretty tough, playing on the idea that she told me that she didn't even have to brush off anymore when she fell down playing soccer.  But, she still didn't want to do it.  Then she remembered that her friend Kelsey (someone she loves, loves, loves) said that it didn't hurt a bit.  Hooray!  With that bit of knowledge (and an ice cream bribe offer), she was ready to go.  I marked her ears with the pen I had in my purse (so she didn't have time sit and think about it and change her mind again), and we headed back down to get the job done.

This is me looking terribly nervous for my baby girl as the lady just pushed the earring through her ear - no gun.

I couldn't see her face (she's sucking on a mint), so I didn't know what her expression was, all I heard was a sucking in of air, and then a huge sigh followed by, "That didn't hurt that bad at all!"  Whew! 

This is our pretty princess after both ears were done.

She said, "I can't believe I finally got my ears pierced!  I'm so happy I can't stop smiling!" 

And as all good parents would do, we followed through on our bribe offering of ice cream. 

Even after walking around the mall for a while and coming home, she still had that smile painted on her face! 

Pinkalicious!

I started this blog on Saturday night, but it has taken me (or should I say the computer) this long to get these pictures uploaded!  Needless to say, I've been really frustrated!

Saturday we celebrated Grace's 6th birthday with a Pinkalicious party.  She originally wanted to have a Barbie and the Three Musketeers themed party, but it is really difficult to find party supplies over here, and the only Barbie and the Three Musketeers party supplies I could find were from the UK and they were charging $75 for shipping alone!  So, that idea was out...  Grace loves her ballet, so the idea of doing something with tutus got stuck in my head (thanks to the fabulously cute tutus our cousin Rachael makes - check 'em out here: Fairytale Tutus).  I first thought of Fancy Nancy - Grace says "No, I don't like Fancy Nancy."  Why?  "Because she's not so fancy."  So then I thought about Pinkalicious, and what do you know - it was agreeable, AND there were party supplies and ideas for it!  I wish I could say that the entire party was all my idea, but I'm simply not that creative...  I took some suggestions from other bloggers and the Pinkalicious website, added a little twist, and voila!  This is what we ended up with:

Not only were the tutus party favors, they were party decor too.

It got pretty pink in our house!

We had to decorate the outside too so we were sure people knew where they were going.

And I really like to decorate for parties, so it was just a convenient excuse!

If you've never read Pinkalicious, here's the low down:

Pinkalicious loves all things pink, so she and her mom made pink cupcakes, and then she proceeded to eat a bunch of them.  So many that she turned pink (then eventually red), and the doctor told her that she had to eat nothing but green foods in order to return to normal.  So, all of our food was some shade of green - to include the fabulous green bread one of my girlfriends made for me.  We also had sweet pickles, grapes, broccoli, celery, and green peppers with green ranch dip, potato salad, and guacamole.  I decided that we should eat the green food before we ate the cupcakes (I made them just like the ones in the book), to insure that we didn't suffer from pinkitis too.

In addition to the tutus for party favors, I tied some ribbon to these wands (from Oriental Trading Co.) to make them look "just like the one Pinkalicious has!"  (I so love it when Grace gets excited about things)

We played pin the cherry on the cupcake

(again, not my original idea, but I did draw the cupcake and Grace cut most of the cherries out)

Even Tristan (the lone boy) got in on the fun.

We also played musical "thrones" while I read Pinkalicious.

They walked around and had to find a seat every time I said the word "pink".

Time for gifts!

(I get a little nauseated looking at these pictures with all the pink in them)

This is the purple boa that Tristan bought (with his own money) for his big sister.

It was the cutest thing - she leaned over and gave him a hug and a kiss after she opened it, and she did it in front of all of her friends.  I wonder if that will happen when she's 16...

Y'all know I love to make cakes, but Pinkalicious had cupcakes, so that's what I had to go with.

I just love this picture.

It shows just how much fun the girls were having.

It is quite impossible to get 10 little girls to look at the camera at the same time and all have smiles on their faces.  Then you throw in wands and tutus and decrease your chances even further!

Everyone seemed to have a good time, and I had a really good time putting it all together too - especially since I got to have some quality "girl time" with two of my friends while they helped me make all the tutus!  If only little boy parties were this much fun...

Everland

We took advantage of the nice day (well, it was supposed to be a nice day) yesterday and went to Everland.  It is an amusement park similar to Disneyland (just nowhere near as big).  I think one of the things we liked best about it was the way it was all decorated up for Halloween.

This is the view from the park entrance

There was a really cool interactive tree right in the center

We finally ventured over to some rides that the kids could get on.

Is it wrong that we put our kids on this ride?

David and I figured it would be pretty harmless, but Tristan really didn't like it (he started shaking about 30 seconds into it), and Grace didn't care for it after it started getting high either.

This was a much better choice

Grace and I got the front seat

This was our view

I had a great time!

There were some beautiful views

We had a great time in this ball fort!

Take a look at Tristan's face

My loving husband... shooting at his wife and kids.

I can't get this boy to be serious for a minute!

They even had their own version of "It's A Small World".

This was David's favorite...beer, imagine that.

I am so excited to be somewhere where the leaves change color!

They also had a parade in the streets.  We kinda caught the tail end of it, but we had a bird's eye view which was nice.

The kids love feeding the birds, and they had a place to do just that at Everland too.

We tried to convince them to ride the camel, but they chose to ride the pony instead...

Of course, cowboys don't ride camels, so Tristan said no way.

Taking time for a little target practice.

They had a really neat safari ride too.  They took you around in a bus and you got to see the animals up close, and they were just roaming free in this area.

This isn't a very clear picture because it was getting dark and I couldn't use my flash because of the glare on the glass, but I had to include it because this bear is standing up to get food from our driver.  The bears would just walk around on their hind legs when the bus came through because they knew the driver would feed them.  Really gave a good feel of how big a bear really is!

We had a lot of fun and plan on checking it out again a couple of times during the different seasons to see the changes in the park.  We may even get season passes as they have a huge water park there too and it's easy to get to.  Yep, I said it, we found something in Korea that is easy to get to, and it took us less than an hour each direction to get there!