Cake Break

I am busy baking 12 cakes at the moment... yes 12. I have to have them ready for tomorrow for my class I am teaching at Imagine That tomorrow... its gonna be a long night. Anyhoo, while I wait I am catching up on the old blog. Here is what has been happening here.

First up, Ariel had her big Summer Finals pageant. It was a huge event, which she practiced for and invest lots of her time in preparing. They had an interview, introduction, talent and outfit of choice on top of casual and beauty wear. It was out in Langley so we had to be up early to drive out there, and that meant getting up early, ugh. When we arrived and checked in we got our program and SURPRISE - Ariel won Pink Photo back cover girl!!!! My other photo of her for natural was a runner up too, so Mommy felt good, hee.

Yes our pink lemonade photo I took won and she got a special large crown at crowning!!! Yay, here she is in her fancy crown, all of the girls were so excited for her... I can't stress enough how wonderful these girls and the moms are. Its like a big family... not toddlers and tiaras. We have made some great friends and Ariel loves seeing her buddies.

The event was awesome and Ariel was knocking it out of the park! So when they announced at crowning the winner and runner up was literally half a point. So when Ariel got called for runner up, I was so proud!!! She did her best and did so well. She won some optional categories, best introduction, prettiest smile and prettiest hair. She got lots of treats, including a super cute stuffed kitty that she LOVES. We will be getting some photos from the event in the coming weeks, so I will post them when they come in.

After our big day we had a big treat for our girly, we saw Mary Poppins!!! We didn't tell Ariel but took her down on the train and surprised her. She was thrilled and we all loved the show. We were in row 3 on so we were close enough for her to really see their faces and the dancing, which she really got a kick out of... especially when 'Bert' dances on the ceiling.

Today marked the beginning of Imagine That summer arts camp! Woot!!! My classes are packed full and all the kids are wonderful... I do have a nibbler in my older group (aka, one who is only taking the class to eat, she wanted to know when they get to take their cake home... and she ate all her bow loops for her cake instead of saving them, lol)  So, like I said at the beginning, I am baking 12 cakes, its a tad nuts and I am not sure what time I will get to bed but I need to get them done. They can only use the 'cake dummies' so long, haha.

Ok, back to baking... bye for now!

Lessons from a lemonade stand

This past week sucked... really sucked. Not only did I come down with some sorta nasty bug, but Ken had to leave for Miami on Wednesday until Sunday. Single parenting is tough enough, add on the illness and lots of work and you get a 'breakdown!'

The Monday and Tuesday before Ken left I was dead. I didn't move from bed, except to get Ariel to dance camp and pick her and her friend up who was staying with us until her mom got off of work. Thankfully the girls were good and Mommy could just lie down and rest. Xander had a touch of the bug too, and just rested with me for the most part. Wednesday came and at least I could stand but my throat was in serious pain. I plugged through my work because really I felt fine, but couldn't swallow without bursting into tears. Needless to say I lost 10 pounds that week because I could barely eat or drink.

Friday was Ariel's final class and the big show. It was great, and I was happy to be able to sit comfortably through it. This was her favorite dance, super cute!



Following the show, Ariel was invited to the water-park with her friend, so it allowed me a nice time to work with only Xander around, and he is easy going and mellow, so its all good.

Saturday came and all the cakes were done and ready for pick up. It was that morning that I realized we needed to take a few quick pictures to send for her Summer Finals pageant coming up. They had a side photo contest for natural and 'pink' themed shots. We needed to get a pink themed one and I thought ooh lemonade stand, so we made up a quick stand, she posed and we were done... I took the camera in, and came back to help clean up and Ariel was selling to the neighbors!

She was so excited! Ariel has been asking forever to have a lemonade stand (as a book she loves at bedtime has the character do one). Since we didn't have to go anywhere and just wait for people to pick up cakes, I agreed we could leave it up and she continued to sell happily. The afternoon came fast and the neighbors in our building dwindled, and Ariel soon realized the only way to get more customers was to move down to the street. Since Dad had come and taken Xander for a bike ride, we moved her stand and then I was just amazed...

... people would pull over in their cars to come have a lemonade and cookie with her. We met some amazing people from our community. A sweet old man who was visiting from Victoria who needed help to learn to dial on his new cel phone. A huge truck that pulled over that had identical TRIPLET babies in the backseat, so cute!!! The big man with the tattoos that had to stop because he remembered all the people who stopped at his stand when he was a kid. It just went on and on and the girl earned $37! We talked and decided that half would go to our Dalit project at church and the other half would go towards our family Disneyland trip. Ariel was pleased and wants to do it again soon... I have a feeling we will, it was fun!

This weekend we are gearing up for the big pageant. Ariel has been practicing her introduction and interview questions whenever we get a chance. She had a brief moment of forgetfulness with her talent dance but a few tries and working it out and it came back. Its a lot for her, and I am so proud she wanted to try something this big. They really spoil the girls so she will excited with her goodies but its still lots of practicing and work on their part. Go Ariel go! Here is her new head shot I did, LOVE it!

My throat is much better, although I am still hacking a bit. At least I can swallow now. Food never tasted so good the night I could finally eat again! Ariel is at VBS this week but also has an acro class at dance in the afternoons so its a full week of fun for her. Xander I think wishes he could go too, but next year he will be old enough, yay!

Blogging with pink hands...

I really need to go have a bath and soak my hands that are dyed pink at the moment. I just finished some super pink cupcakes with crowns on them, and yet I found myself wanting to update my blog since I haven't in a bit and I figured I should. Whats been going on since the last post? Well, summer finally showed up, yes after weeks of rain the sun came and has been going full force. I am happy to say our new place doesn't heat up like our old apartment... I don't miss that evening sun! Oh its nice and cool, ahhh. Xander's room is the only one that tends to get a tad warm, so he will be getting the fan I think, but his window helps quite a bit, and being able to have windows open safely is always a plus! Woot!

Ken and I celebrated 11 years of marriage on June 30th.... and he was still in Seattle. Haha, well he did get home late but I was working on orders so it was kinda 'meh' but we are hoping to do something fun later this summer as we have a free hotel stay at a fancy Vancouver place and various vouchers saved up from my work with the tourism guy, so we just need to figure out when is the best time to go between my work and Ken's summer travel. Ariel did draw us this lovely picture as an anniversary card, awww.

We celebrated both Canada Day....

and 4th of July by doing nothing! With Canada falling on a Sunday this year its hard not to say I am skipping church to eat pancakes and cake, lol. So Ken took the kids to church but I ended up sleeping off my illness/allergies. Not sure what it was but I felt uber gross that morning. Then the 4th we didn't make it to our annual trek to Point Roberts for the parade but instead had lunch with Kara and saw her new place. Woot!

We had a movie date with Ariel and took her to see the new Disney Pixar Brave. It was really good, and Ariel loved it. Nothing beats princess who kicks butt! She is eagerly awaiting a 'Brave' doll now haha. Xander stayed home with Grandpa since we didn't know if he would sit through the movie, but brought him some popcorn that made him happy.

I had a serious crazy week of orders, some big ones that had not only cake but cupcakes, cookies, cake pops etc. A few late nights of work and then I had some graphics work on top of it, so I feel a tad zonked today now that its over. I get a few days to recover before another busy weekend. As I said on facebook, its a lot of work, but the look on the faces of people when they get their order makes it totally worth while.... getting paid is awesome too, haha, but seriously its a happy business most of the time and I love it!

In the midst of the craziness, Ariel had a pageant. It was a pink 'glitter' theme, and she practiced a fun routine for her outfit of choice to the chorus of 'Material Girl'. We had gone through a few songs but she liked the beat of that one the best, and came up with several moves on her own, with me adding a few to smooth it out. Check it out!



 In the end it was great, the crowd loved it and she won Queen, the highest she could get as she got Supreme last time (they only let the girls win that one once in the prelims so more girls get a chance to win it, which is awesome!) She won a super cute kitty cat crown...

...and every girl got a Hello Kitty watch. She LOVES it! Can you tell?

This week Ariel is off at dance camp, woot! She is so excited, especially since her buddy Sarah is coming this year. We are also bringing Sarah home to help out her mom who works and so to have playdates daily is very exciting for our princess. I am looking forward to hanging with Xander who isn't feeling that great. He woke up crying at 4am with a fever, and has been clingy and feverish most of the day. Poor little man.

Ken preached the message today at church. He did a great job and had lots of complements from members of the congregation. If you want to listen to his sermon, check out the link here. Its called 'Shine on you crazy diamond'. Enjoy!

Well I need to get to that bath and pack Ariel's bag for tomorrow. Yay!