Mom's 50th! John Deere Cake

We also had my mom's 50th Suprise party this weekend. OMG, with a toddler in tow, things are about 100 times more difficult. We managed to get the cake to the party and get my mom there without any problems and she really had no clue. Everyone had a great time.

Here's the cake:

I made an extra cake that was chocolate as well. It took me 20 minutes. The actual John Deere cake took 5 hours, but I like how it came out. My mom loved them, as did everyone else. I'm still learning so I see the imperfections, but everyone was really impressed. So what if it's not perfect? It was my first one and turned out great! We made it an early night because we had this little cutie :) She was my helper all weekend.

Fondant, Marshmallows, Chocolate & Blog Hopping!

I'm blog hopping today!!! It's no boss Friday, so even though I'm stuck @ work until 330, I'm online shopping and drooling over cakes :) I squeeze in work when I find time :p I am exhausted, my bestie came over last night and helped me color fondant and make chocolate covered marshmallows. I also baked 3 cakes for stacking. I'm pretty prepared for my cake making this evening. Here are some pictures to share....

Colored Fondant

Melted chocolate....

Smashed graham crackers

Pink sprinkles

Smore's Pop

A lot of pops :)
Super simple and fun to make :) Tonight I will be making cake pops with leftover cake scraps!

Monday already? Bad Groomer! Sign Tutorial

Weekends never last long enough it seems. Who's idea was it for us to have to work 5 days out of the week and only get 2 days off? I would be much more productive if it was the other way around.
I spent most of the weekend trying to catch up on everything that needed to be done; it didn't happen. I managed to make my sister in law her cake. Nothing too crazy, but she loved it anyways :)

I actually used purple and pink fondant, but it looks more blue in the picture so sort of looks like a baby shower cake :( I wasn't able to work on my mom's because it would dry out by next weekend.
Mercedes got her first grooming! She looks like a different dog and oh so cute! Mr. P shops price on everything, EVERYTHING. Belive, me I love saving money but he will call every store in MI and find out the cheapest place is the first one he called, more often than not. He found me a grooming place down the road from us that said it would cost $35-45 and it would take about 3 hours. I dropped her off at said groomer's @ 9:45am for her 10am appointment. I ran errands, baked the above cake and returned home. Poor cookie acted like her heart was broken since her best friend wasn't there chewing on her ears :(

Around 1:30 I still hadn't heard from the groomers. I called, they said they were running about an hour behind to call in an hour or they would call when she was done. 2:30 comes and goes without a phone call. By 3pm I had convinced myself they were stealing my dog. I drove the 2 miles up the street to where my dog was being held against her will made pretty. I arrived and she was STILL not done. I yelled at the girl at the counter that 5 hours was unacceptable, the groomer came out and said not to worry they had too many walk-ins today. Walk-ins? I was told I absolutely HAD to have an appointment or Mercedes would not be groomed?!?! How could they put these walk-ins in priority over my sweet adorable shaggy mop of a dog? They charged me $38. As soon as I swiped my visa I grabbed Mercedes and ran her to the dog run. Poor dog had been crated for 5 hours and was so relieved to tinkle. She jumped in my jeep and home we went where Cookie was the happiest Big Sister :) I will not be going there again and full intend to make a formal complaint today.

I was also able to finish my sign yesterday morning. It took me maybe 20 minutes. The weather was nice so while the dogs ran around in my back yard, I got to work with my paint pen :)

 As you can see, I made these up and decorated accordingly. It was super simple. Here's the final product.

Sorry the picture is blurry but the top sign says Ghost Town (with a lil ghost pic), then Witch's Warf, Skull Cave and finally Bat Alley. Then you just nail them to the stake. I can't wait to put this out front!