A nice day off!

It was a nice day off today, though it was overcast and threatened to rain for most of the day the temperature held around 60 F for us and gave us a chance to get outside and play.  Em and Aiden were especially excited to get outside and enjoyed a friends swing set and some time at a local park today too! Otherwise we did some last minute wedding shopping and got new shoes for Em and swim trunks for Aiden.  I feel bad that to transport the wedding cake I have to leave one of my kids behind with Mom and not take them to the hotel with the indoor swimming pool, but sadly we will not all fit in the van with the cake!  So far Izzy has volunteered to stay with Grandma an extra night and come down the morning of the wedding, but we will have to make sure she still feel that way when I see her tomorrow.  If not, I have nominated Aiden to stay with Grandma since I know he will have the opportunity to go swimming in the next month anyways....and yes we though about taking two cars, but it's a little over an hour from Christiansburg and we would still need to both arrive around the same time so that I had help with the cakes and the kids....hmmmm....dilemmas, dilemmas, dilemmas... At least Izzy has been having fun with Grandma and I get to see her for a little while tomorrow! :0)

A Beautiful day on the Farm!!! #Gardening #Chicks #Cake

I made some great progress on the wedding cake today and I think that it looks pretty nice just the way it is, but I think maybe it can be even better... I have a few ideas I am mulling over in my head as I take a break and step back to let my creativity flow.  For now the cake is
securely stored in the freezer...it used to vacuum nicely shut, but since it has stopped doing that I secured it shut with a pole in the basement...lol...smh...you just gotta do what you gotta do sometimes... :0)

After getting my cakin' done for the day and making extra icing for that just in case moment... I headed outside and helped Mom build up the bonfire pile.  Whenever one of the kids came to complain about what another one said we made them take sticks to the pile...seemed to help a little, we may have to try that more often.

The chicks are still just a little too little to go outside, but we let them get a taste of the yard while we changed their bedding today.  They seemed very intrigued by the grass and weeds in the yard and played with some dried leaves in the pen too.  They are growing so fast and are going to be beautiful birds.  So far the Rhode Island Reds are the most docile.  The Black Australorps are very dominant, but the Auracanas will jump into my hand if I have some feed that they can peck on first. I really enjoy raising chickens and hope that I can continue to do it for years to come.

After getting the chicks taken care of we loaded up into the van and truck and headed to my brothers to collect cement blocks to finish building the garden bed all the way to the left in the picture above.  We originally were only going to build it two blocks high to save on cost, but then my brother traded Mom some cement blocks for her aquaponics system pieces and now we can make the bed high enough that it will be easy for Mom to work.  So far the  wobble top fence has kept the birds out, except for when they knocked the gate down...Lol...so we decided to uncover the peas and asparagus today so that they could be watered a little better.  We are also doing good at growing potatoes and the first set of red potatoes that we planted is about ready to move up to tire #3.  Mom thinks that she is going to get to stop at 4 tires in each stack, but at this rate we are going to have at least one rather large potato tower.  The white potatoes in the second tire stack have not sprouted yet and we just planted the third potato stack...so it will be at least a couple of weeks before we see growth there. :0) 

While we were at my brother's house we noticed that some of the violets had blossomed in the yard and along the driveway and the kids and I helped her harvest some to get a start on her Violet jelly for the season.  It has become a favorite for her customers.  Izzy decided she wanted to stay with Grandma so that she wouldn't miss Wonderful Wednesday at BUMC and Aiden, Em and I took off for a couple of days while the kids are on Spring Break.  We will stay gone til Thursday night or early Friday morning and then we will go back home where I can finish packing for the wedding, I am going to make a few more flowers for the cake and get my emergency decorating kit together for any possible mishaps.   Then it is off to Galax to deliver the cake to the reception hall and put it in the refrigerator overnight to start thawing/finish thawing after such a long trip...We are going to have to bundle up so I can run the air-conditioner and keep the cake nice and cool as we go down the road.  Getting it there on Friday will also give me enough time to make sure it is perfect and awesome! I will put it out shortly before the wedding and then help them serve the cake at the reception as well if they need me to.  

  

Busy day today!

Well I got most of the wedding cake done today ...all it needs are a few flowers and some borders and I ran out of icing!   No big deal right? Just make some more...Right? Well I ran out of butter and had to go to the store before I could make more and I wanted to make sure that I used all of the same ingredients down to the brand of butter in the icing.  I headed to the local Food Lion first to find out that they don't carry it...then back past the house to the Walmart in Bedford, still no go... back to Bonsack Walmart where I did my initial shopping and finally I had the missing ingredient.  It took awhile to get it, but now I am ready to make two more batches of icing in the morning and finish the cake up! So far everything is going well, but this is when I start to get nervous. I still have to get this cake to a reception hall 2 hours away and I think the best way to do that would be to drive it straight there, but I really want to go to Christiansburg tomorrow and it's halfway to the reception hall, but I don't have a freezer big enough there to store the cake until the wedding on Saturday so I will have to come back for the cake. 

What to do? What to do? It's Spring Break and the kids are out of school all week long so it is the perfect opportunity for us to go spend the evenings with their dad so I'm going to  finish the cake tomorrow and get my morning work done and head up the mountain.

Farm living is the life for me.... #ShovelingShit #Gardening #BabyChicks

After testing a slightly different icing recipe I moved onto decorating the actual wedding cake for the Glessner Wedding coming up on April 2nd.  I was able to complete the flowers around the fountain and get the 6" top cake completed today and I plan on doing the 12" and 16" layers tomorrow if I can.  I am super excited about how well this cake is coming out and can't wait to share pictures, but this project has been put under wraps until after the wedding, per request of the groom's Mom. (she wants the finished cake to be a surprise for the couple, but once it has been served you can bet I will be showing it off!)

The kids have been enjoying playing in their "construction site" over the Easter weekend and throughout today.  When Aiden was given the job of making a strawberry garden he even took his cones with him to mark his new work zone and he took them back to the construction site when he was done.

He put black landscaping fabric down on the bottom, gathered all the bricks, did a good job of staggering the bricks as he stacked them, put a layer of hay in the bottom and watered the bed down for us.  Then I added two wheel barrels full of manure and Mom added some strawberry plants.

While Aiden was working on that and Mom was planting and replanting onions, (The ducks and chickens were pulling them up as fast as she could get them in the ground...lol) I was tackling the load of manure that my nephew delivered to us on Easter.  What a load of crap that was...lol...and worms...I have never in my life seen so many worms in some dirt!  

The ducks and chickens were loving every wheel barrel full that I brought into the garden...

...until we ran chicken wire around it that is...and then they got mad at us and told us all about it...Lol!

Since we were able to complete this bed last week we have been looking forward to getting it filled with dirt so that it is ready to plant in the next two months.  Around here we are in growing zone 7 and tend to wait until after Mother's Day to put out the frost sensitive crops, but that date is fast approaching and I will be on my own to get the planting done this year...so the beds need to be ready to go!

On the left in the picture above is the back of the garden and this is where we intend to plant our tomatoes.  I got the bed about half full and just need a few more rocks and I will have it built up to the right height in the front.  This will be the next bed we finish before going around the corner and working on the final garden bed.

Since we have gotten a good start on the garden, and the birds seem determined to help us tend to it, we went ahead and installed a floppy top chicken wire fence around it.  Basically we took tomato stakes and pounded them down so they were between 3-4' tall and then we used zip ties to attach the chicken wire...the catch is that we left the top 8-10" of the fencing loose and flopping towards the yard.  This is supposed to keep the chickens out because the top of the fence is not sturdy and they will not land on it to jump over.  We are going to test it out some more tomorrow before uncovering our peas...but if all goes well we may be able to remove the mess of cages and wire that you see on the right in the picture above this week!

 

I'm glad I took the time to play with a couple of the chicks today before I started shoveling, because tonight I am beyond exhausted.  We have had our hens for 3 weeks today and they sure are getting a lot of feathers!  The two I got pictures of today were Aiden's (left) and mine (right).  I will try to get a new picture of all of them tomorrow to share...for now I hope everyone has had a wonderful day ...I am going to bed!

Hope Everyone had a Happy Easter!

We had a busy Saturday before Easter followed by a great Easter Day!   We all went to visit Momma since she had to work on Easter and wouldn't be able to make it ot our dinner. The kids loved their Easter baskets even though Aiden is obviously over me taking pictures of him. Boooo!

While we were in town I got the last 3 flowers that I need for the upcoming wedding cake and we stopped by Ci Ci's Pizza for lunch which is usually a hit with all of the variety, but I was disappointed in the selection on the buffet and didn't come to a buffet to wait an extra 10 minutes for a personal pizza.  Bring back the Zesty Pepperoni and the Spinach with regular crust! That flat bread crust is a little too thin and not quite crispy enough for how thin it is! (maybe they just need to use a little less sauce?)

 

Then I came home and made a couple of cakes.  I am testing out another white chocolate frosting recipe using whipped butter that is a little less yellow and absolutely delicious.  Since it is a buttercream icing, it has to be refrigerated once it has been made.  So if I don't use it right away I have to let it soften before I can ice the cake.  I also wanted to see how it would do if it was frozen.  So I made a rabbit for Mom for Easter and a pink teddy bear per Emma's request that was frozen.  We are going to thaw out the teddy bear tomorrow and see what we think...hopefully it's still just as yummy! 

  

Mom went to sunrise services this morning so that she could come home and finish getting things ready for Easter Dinner so I took the kids to church by myself today.  During Sunday School I helped hide eggs for the kids and then we went to services together and hunted eggs before coming back home.  

 

The Easter bunny did leave some awesome baskets at our house this year for the kids to find Easter morning and then he came back while we were at church and left us some eggs to hunt too. 

 

Aiden wrote a cute note for the Easter Bunny and even got a response!  I love it!

It is funny though, he is normally very good at spelling and I really thought he would have gotten "something" correct...lol...at least his handwriting is getting better! I really love to see that and he is even very interested in cursive writing and has been practicing reading at writing in cursive.

Last year I didn't put the Easter eggs away for a month or longer because the kids were still staging their own egg hunts.  I love how well it keeps them entertained and I hope they continue to enjoy playing with them for years to come.   

The kids love their cousin Victor and he is great with them.  He doesn't mind when they climb on him and he loves to help them out...even when that means climbing on the roof to rescue a boomerang...I felt kinda sorry for him when he said he was scared of heights, but he wouldn't be "The Best Cousin Ever" if he didn't do it...and he was told so too...lol...Plus he took Izzy for a bike ride and shot nerf guns with the kids....

We also got to see another one of my nephews, Anthony, for dinner.  He is warming up to the kids and loves to pick on them.  They aren't quite sure how to take it sometimes, but they still want him to come visit and to give him hugs even if he just stops by for a minute or drives through the field to check on things....I think it's a great experience for them...Everyone should have at least one family member that "wouldn't pick on you if they didn't love you".

Spring has sprung and it was a beautiful day to be outside!

Ever have those days when you know you've done a lot, but you don't feel like you've accomplished a thing?  I had one of those days today.  First thing this morning, after getting the kids to school, Mom and I took my van to the shop for some maintenance and repairs.  Then she brought me home so I could borrow her truck and go to the school for the girls Egg Hunt.  

I met up with their teachers and sent them off to lunch and then I hung out with my son during recess while I waited for the playground to clear out so I could spread their eggs about.  I actually ended up being at the school about an hour early, but it was nice to be able to see all of the kids without really disrupting anyone's day too much.

Since I had a little bit of time to kill before I could set-up the egg hunt I also took the opportunity to check out the Winter Gardens that the 2nd graders at MES planted last year.  About half of the garden beds are in a partially shady spot and half of them are in pretty full sun.  The ones in the sun definitely thrived better than the ones in the shade, but overall for not really being tended to, these kids grew some pretty nice plants.

  

Though this looks like a really easy egg hunt, bear in mind that the kids in the girls class range from 3-5 and all of the eggs had names on them.  It was a great learning game for the kids since they were only allowed to take the eggs that had their name.  Some of the kids struggled a little with the reading part, but once they caught on it was great fun for all.  Once the kids were done with their egg hunt, they took their baskets inside and dropped them off before returning to the playground to burn off their extra energy before nap.

I then checked Izzy out of school for the day and we headed to the Dr's office for a follow-up on her ear.  Though I was able to get a lot of wax out, I am no expert and really wanted to make sure I didn't hurt her while I was irrigating her ear.  The Dr. said that I did get the blockage taken care of, but the ear is definitely infected.  So, we will be continuing with the ammoxicillian and if she is still having any fever or ear pain by Saturday we have to go back...I truly hope that she will feel all better soon.  By the time we were done at the Dr. we had enough time to run by Moneta Farm Supply and buy some scratch before Izzy and Mom had to take off to go pick-up my nephew and I had to go back to get my other two kids from school.  ((I did get to leave a little later than them and got a little vacuuming and laundry done.))

Spring is definitely my favorite time of year, with trees blossoming, new plants growing and baby animals all around.  I stopped to cherish some of these gifts today and I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I did.

Our chicks are growing rapidly and getting lots of feathers.  The kids have been helping out a lot for the past couple of days and making sure that the chicks get lots of love and attention.  I am interested to see what they will look like all grown up, but I also love to watch them transform from fluffy little puffballs to beautifully feathered birds.

Project "Glessner Wedding" progress

Today I got 3 of 6 layers of cake baked for the Glessner wedding cake plus I got most of the flowers done for around the fountain.  This is going to be my first cake with a fountain under it and I am totally excited about that!  It took me a little while to figure out exactly how the flowers should be arranged on the cake, but today as I was working it all came together for me.

Originally we had talked about flowers that cascaded down and around the cake, but then we added a cake pick and changed the way the layers would be stacked and put on columns and I had to rethink the flowers.  The last thing I want to make is a cake that is too busy!   

 

The grooms aunt asked me at the bridal shower if I had a picture of the cake I am planning on making and I do not.  I like all of my cakes to be original, though I do take inspiration from other peoples work. The pictures above show some of the details that will be included in this cake, such as the way it is stacked and the use of basket weave on the sides.  We have decided on a round cake with the bottom being a 16" cake and the middle being a 12" cake and these will be stacked.  Then the top will be a 6" round cake that sits on top of columns.  All three layers will have a basket-weave on the sides and they will be accented with roses, daisies and hydrangeas that match the bridal bouquets.  Last, but not least, the whole cake will be put on a stand that has a fountain and floral arrangement below it.  I can't wait to have it finished and photographed!  This is going to be one awesome cake!

Sick kids and Cub Scouts! #GrowSomething

Em finished up her antibiotics on Monday morning and Is came down with a fever Sunday night...and she still had it Monday morning when she woke up! So after sending Aiden and Em off to school I headed to the Dr with Is...we had her tested for strep and the Flu...nope... she does have so much wax in one ear that the Dr. couldn't see the eardrum...so we are guessing that she has an ear infection.  I really hate the guessing part, but at least she is now on antibiotics!  We did have a little trouble with the pharmacy, but after we convinced them the girls were twins and it was a different kid getting this new prescription they finally filled it.  We have been battling a fever that just doesn't seem to want to break for a couple of days now and I think her it is finally gone....I hope so at least!  If I can get her fever free by tomorrow morning then she will be able to be at school for their Egg Hunt on Thursday!  Poor thing already missed spring pictures, but at least there's a make-up day for those usually.  Egg Hunts, not so much!

 We have been pushing the liquids and popsicles, giving fever reducers, getting her to eat when she felt like it and the fever just wouldn't let go.  So we finally resorted to piggybacking Ibuprophen and Tylenol every two hours and I think we finally got it to break, now hopefully it will stay gone!  I really just want my baby to feel better so that she can enjoy spring break and Easter this year!

While I have been doctoring Is, I have also been working on Mom's taxes...I think I mentioned this about a month ago, but I hate taxes....I didn't realize it until last night, but even just putting information into a tax program put me into a grumpy mood. I didn't feel like eating, blogging or anything else.  Today I got to take a break from taxes and work on Cub Scouts, Cake and Flowers instead and it was a much better day!

 Last week at scouts we started our "Grow Something" belt loop! We tried an idea I found on Pinterest and planted seeds in an ice cream cone.  Unfortunately, we forgot to open the ziploc bag that was supposed to be helping our seeds sprout and our cone grew mold instead of plants! Yucky stinky mold!  One of my scouts reported that their plant grew about 1/2 an inch and another scouts dog knocked theirs off the table, so we have had a little bit of a rough start, but I think tonights meeting put us back on the right track!  Now, I enjoy growing plants and I am usually pretty good at it, but this project is being difficult!  Soooo...I planted new seeds in plastic cups and I took replacement "seedling cups" for each of the kids just in case they had run into difficulties too.  Even if they hadn't I still gave them some newly planted seeds to try their luck with.

We did two more "Growing" activities at the meeting tonight and Is helped me get them ready before the meeting.  First we had to get jars, toothpicks and sweet potatoes together so that we could plant some potatoes in water and watch them grow.  Plus we took the potato that Aiden and I put in a jar of water two weeks ago so they would know what to expect out of their potatoes.  If you look just below the blue toothpick you can see our one little root that is about 1/2 inch long and hasn't changed much for days.  I am hoping that one day it will grow leaves...I did let him plant another one tonight at the meeting to give him twice the chance of success.

 

 Then we got involved in making a terrarium.  Whenever I do a project with my scouts I always try it first so that the boys have an example of what we are trying to accomplish. 

 Is was so excited to help me make my sample terrarium and I let her put in the rocks, charcoal and dirt.  We were very careful to make sure the layers were easy to see so that I could talk to the boys about why each layer is important and what it does for the terrarium.  I used a larger jar than the ones I took for the boys as well to show them that you can literally put a terrarium into any clear container and we talked a little about open and closed terrariums.

 

 This is my terrarium! For this project I used small stones for the bottom layer, this provides drainage.  The next layer was activated charcoal to keep it smelling good and to deter mold growth.  Then I added pre-moistened dirt and planted a couple of Hens and Chicks in it, plus a weed that was growing by them outside that I liked.  Last, I finished it off with some reindeer moss and misted it with a spray bottle!  Wa-la! My own little terrarium!

 

This is Aiden's terrarium and it is even sitting on his night stand already!  The boys really had a lot of fun with this project and I hope their hens and chicks last for awhile!  I also got them a couple of sheets of bug and flower stickers that they used to decorate the outsides of their terrariums when they were done and they were all excited to have a plant of their own to take home.  I am hopeful that I chose a hardy enough plant that the boys will be able to keep them alive for at least a little while and I can't wait til our next meeting when I can check in with them all to see how their plants are doing!