Happy Halloween!

Well, it's here! I finally finished the boy's Halloween costumes, with a couple days to spare!! Go me!! This is one of the few times, if ever, I will be posting pics of the boys. They make such cute little models. They are thrilled to be wearing them, for the most part, which is a huge relief! Even #2, who, wants to put his on when #1 has his on, and take it off the same way. He wants to be just like his big brother!!

Here they are.... straight from their debut at my mom's group Halloween party this am!

Garfield and Odie!

Next week I'll do a side-by-side with the costumes I made and the ones I found from the internet that I was "inspired" by. I think I came pretty close! And I think my Garfield stripes are better!

#1 "Odie"

#2 "Garfield"

Tour of the Big XII cake series, Week 8 (Kansas)

Yall didn't think just because I'M IN HAWAII RIGHT NOW that I would skip this week! No Way! This week is Kansas! Ok, not much chatter for today, I'm gonna go have another mai tai!

Half-Marathon Training: 6 weeeks to go

I can't believe how close it's getting. All my training has been going well, and I DOMINATED my 10 miles 2 weeks ago. I was not worried at all about logging in my 12 miles (another record for me) this weekend! I wound up having to do it today (Monday) because we were out of town this weekend for my b-day (more on that later). Let me tell you, there is a world of difference between 10 and 12 miles! GAH! I finished it but barely. I walked alot. I did finish in my projected goal time frame, surprisingly, but still! At least I know if I can do this, I can probably squeeze out another mile for the actual half (13 miles). However, I still have a 14 and 15 mile run between now and then. I honestly don't know how I'm gonna do those!

So, that's all for now...I have 3 days to get ready for my trip to Hawaii for my brother's wedding this weekend. I'm going Thurs through Tues. Hopefully during that I'll be able to squeeze in a few short runs inbetween the mai tais! Now, somehow, I have to get crackin' on packing and all the other stuff I have to get done before we go...which is easier said than done since I can barely move!!

Tour of the Big XII cake series, Week 7 (Missouri)

This week the Aggies play Missouri. This logo is the last of the hard ones I think! God bless the easy schools with just big letters (N, OU, TT, BU, UT). I couldn't decide whether I was gonna put this guy on the white background or not because he has so much white on him.

October's Cupcake of the Month

Hello, My name is Jennifer. And I'm a project-starter.

(see also: Project Halloween, Tour of the Big XII)

So, if that's not enough, I decided I needed to do a "Cupcake of the Month". This will allow me to branch out with my cupcake flavors and try out how some of my favorite holiday flavors do in a cupcake. It doesn't help that we are officially in the "baking season", my bread and butter!
(mmmmm.....bread.....)

I decided October needed to be something fall-ish, but not to Thanksgiving-y, we have November for that. I guess I kind of already did this with the Candy Corn cupcake, but since I did that before now I can't really count it! So I decided on Carmel Apple. The idea was red, apple-flavored cake with Carmel Buttercream frosting. The trick is findng a recipe for apple cake that's JUST apple, not apple-cinnamon, or spice, or something like that. Not so easy!

I decided on trying out 2 recipes.
The first one was just adding a bunch of chopped apples into my regular vanilla cake. It turned out pretty good, it held the red color very well and was very moist from the apples, but it caused it to sink a little and be pretty dense. And not very apple-y, turns out.

The second was a recipe from Martha Stewart. It had cinnamon and nutmeg in it, which I added all of in against my better judgement. The result was more like muffin, an apple-cinnamon muffin, which was very good, but not really what I was going for. It didn't hold the coloring I put in it at all...it kind of went to the center. Wierd.

For the frosting, I experimented with adding different amounts of caramel to my vanilla buttercream recipe. Now that was awesome. If there's one thing I can do well, it's frosting! YUM!

All in all, neither one turned out indivdually to be exactly what I wanted. I'm not sure if I'll try another recipe or wait until November to try....

Half-Marathon Training: 7 weeeks to go & Komen 5k

This past week was and eeeeasy week of running, which was nice since my knees hurt for days after long runs like last week's 10 miles! My 2 short runs during the week were the same as before and will be from now on...just 30 minutes. I usually go a few min longer so I can get a nice, round, 3 miles in. (Mostly because I'm wierd like that. Better 3.0 than 2.78 or something. And it tells me my mile markers better on my Nike+ thing I use.)

From now on , I get about 2 weeks in between the super-long runs. And good thing, that works into my "life" schedule better. This past Saturday was my city's Komen 5k.

(my viewpoint before starting....waaaaay at the back of the runners, but in front of the walkers)

This has always been my favorite event. This year was my 6th race in 8 years. I'm pretty proud of that! It is such a well-sponsored, well-organized (well, mostly, depending on what city you're in. Dallas is hard to beat, but it is where this foundation is based) event. There's pink everywhere!

The breast cancer survivors are wearing pink race numbers so they're easy to spot. They have a parade of all the survivors according to how many years out they are before the race.

And about every 1/2 mile along the way, there's TONS of people cheering and holding up signs. Lots of the signs and t-shirts people make say things like, "Save the TaTa's" and this....right at the beginning, there was 3 big, athletic looking guys holding up bright pink signs with black letters. Since I didn't get a picture of it, here's my extrememly artistic recreation of one of them. It made me laugh out loud!

It's very empowering, in a way, if you're a woman. I spent most of the morning choked up! Good thing I have my sunglasses.

Anytime I do a 5k, my goal is always to finish in under 30 minutes. I only accomplished that for the first time last year at the Komen race and once since then. Last year my time was 28:48. This year I did a 5k on July 4th and my time was 29:27.

This year, my husband and I both think my body is more set in a slower overall pace in order to cover the distances I am covering. I didn't stop at all until about 27 minutes, and I knew then I wasn't going to beat my time from last year, so I walked for a few seconds to catch my breath. My time wound up being 29:49. Finished under 30, but BARELY!

(the hubs looooves when I wear pink to this race--he says it makes it hard to find one person or something. But I think my all-over fushia stands out amongst the pink and black!! )

Next week, I have my 2 short runs and then 12 miles, yes that's TWELVE, on Saturday. That's almost a half marathon right there. Oh yeah, and it's my birthday then too. So....maybe I'll do my mileage on Sun? Hmmmm, but will I really want to wake up early and do 12 miles after drowning myself in Deluxe Chicken Enchiladas and strawberry margaritas at Chuys? Prob not.

Tour of the Big XII cake series, Week 6 (Iowa State)

This week the Aggies take on Arkansas State in the new Cowboys stadium, so I'm taking the chance to do another team in the Big XII that we aren't playing this year: Iowa State. Again, with the hard logos!! On this one I had to use the "Rule of Oklahoma State", where I have to eliminate some of the microscopic lettering. Under "State", it says "cyclones". The scale of these logos is about 5 inches, so it's hard enough to cut out even normal sized letters!

This guy also had tons of blue swirly things all around him, I'm guessing to indicate movement?, that I just couldn't do with fondant. Maybe sometime I could try those food-marker things again, I never had any luck with them before.

post note: I've been lovingly reminded by my husband that we are playing ARKANSAS, not Arkansas State. Bah. Same thing.

Tour of the Big XII cake series, Week 5 (OSU)

Well, here's the OSU logo I should've done last week, but was too busy and needed to save my black fondant for the zebra cake! I decided to go ahead and do the logo that's on the Big XII logo,


but I had to take a little bit of "artistic licence" and left out the lettering above the "State" (Oklahoma) and below it (University). Those letters are teeeeeny tiny and there was NO WAY I was going to be able to cut them out of fondant. So sue me!

I also didn't put this one on a cake, because we have more than a few cupcakes around here and I just didn't have it in me to make another cake. So, you get logo a la carte!

Project Halloween, Day 6

This past Friday I had a WHOLE naptime (with a 4.5 yo in tow) to work on nothing else but the second costume. Since I already got the pieces cut out last week, I was able to get the front and back panels sewn together WITH zipper (which was MUCH easier to do backwards from the way the instructions said), sleeves on, entire front and back sewn together, measure on said boy, then add elastic. That's as far as I've gotten, but that's a lot for one day! I still have to make the hood, mittens, and shoe cover things for this one, and then all the details. It's pretty boring right now!

ZEBRA CAKE!!!

Ok. Yall.

Braces yourselves for this coolness.

I'm going to say this again, this is one of my favorites I've made!!

Half-Marathon Training: 8 weeeks to go

Wow it's getting close! I'm still having a bit of a hard time with my new shoes. I guess it's like a new car that you don't know where all the controls are at and it's just wierd. Good, but wierd.

My first short run (30) min was the first run in the new shoes. I don't think I had them laced tight enough, because they felt way too big and loose on my feet. Granted, they are a size bigger than I'm used to, that's supposed to help with the blistering. So for my 2nd short run, I tightened them up a bit. Too much, it turns out, because it caused the new insole arch support thingy to be too tight on my foot and I had hella blisters after just 3 miles! I was really worried about attempting 10 miles in them. I was prepared to take those suckers back after that. Should I put the large bandaid on my foot like I usually do so I can get the mileage in or give my shoes a chance to do what they are supposed to ? The consensus was give them a try and take them if I need them. I packed up tons of bandaids in my pouch and loosened the laces up a TON. And off I went.

For my long run, 10 miles, a new record distance for me, the weather was awesome. And by awesome, I mean COLD. It was like 45 degrees. Which wouldn't be too bad but it was really windy! I set out in a t-shirt and shorts, but had to call my hub to bring me my running jacket because the icy wind was cutting right through my chest! I really thought I wouldn't need it and would warm up quickly. Brrr!!

And...I did it!! Around 5 miles I was thinking...Ok, I'm ready for my foot to start hurting now. And...it didn't! It was so wierd! After 9 miles my knees started to get a little rickety and ouchy. But I finished in my time frame goal and got absolutely NO blisters. FOR THE FIRST TIME! YAY!!!!!

P.S. 10 miles is a frickin' long way yall. An hour and 50 minutes long. That's like a whole movie.

What I haven't been doing this week...

Well, I didn't get to this week's Tour of the Big 12 cake, because I need black fondant for the ::cough:: OSU logo (even though I am so tempted to make the "easier" logo they have on their helmets and field, not the one that's on the Big 12 logo circle, but whatever, ANYWAY, I have another cake this weekend that I need the black for, so I want to be sure I have enough first! I'm not sure when I'll get to it, but I will! I barely got anything done on the second costume this week either. I got the material pieces cut out, but that's all! I've been busy all week catching up on laundry and cleaning the house for the father-in-law to come for a visit this weekend. I have a super funny story about him I'll have to tell next time.

(Hopefully, me not getting the cake done before game time is NOT what made us lose...)

Anyhoo, I did make these little beauties for a famous musician's birthday this weekend. OK, maybe you haven't heard of him, but you should! He is the brother of someone my Husband works with--and she is one of my best clients :) -- and he has a show this weekend here in TN. They just wanted something simple, yellow cake with half vanilla frosting and half choc. Sometimes simple is the best!

I did the frosting a little different this time. The ingredients were the same, I just used my wire whip attachment instead of the beater for the frosting. It did make it very light and fluffy, and pretty much tasted the same, but I'm not sure I'm diggin the "air pockets" it leaves.


I hope he likes them! Here's his website if you want to give his music a listen. (I hope he and his sis are ok with me putting it here!) It's kind of hard to describe, but I really like it. It's so different!

Ernest Greene