Busy, Busy, Busy!

Things have been CRAZY here these past few weeks! I havent gone one weekend without at least one cake order--most weekends usually have two or three! This past weekend was fun; I did my first cake tasting for a couple's wedding--although it was more of a "dessert tasting" than anything. They are going to have a mini dessert bar at their wedding, and after the tasting on Sunday, we decided on 100 each of: mini banana puddings with nilla wafers in shot glasses, mint oreo truffles, mini chocolate chip cookies, mini lemon bars, mini apple pies, mini peach cobblers, mini strawberry cupcakes with buttercream frosting, and buckeyes. Their order is going to be so much fun to make and I feel honored that they hired me to do it.

This coming weekend is going to be a CRAZY busy one for me: I have 3 cake orders--one of them being a wedding order! The first order to be picked up will be a 10" fondant Jake and the Neverland Pirates themed cake; I'll be making and preparing most of the fondant today so that it can be ready to go later this week. The second order up is for a 1st birthday party: it'll be 30 strawberry cupcakes with a black buttercream frosting, complete with hot pink bows on top. It'll also include a 6" buttercream cake with black fondant polka dots and a hot pink fondant bow on top. To cut down on costs, the woman decided that she just wanted regular ribbon bows on top of the cupcakes--which works for me because it means less work--I'll be busy! Lastly, the biggest cake order of the week will be for a wedding: 150 vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting and 3 fondant flowers with pearls in the middle on each cupcake, complete with a small 6" fondant cake with a quilted look on it. Luckily, I'm done making all 500 of the fondant flowers; all I'll have to do is put them on the cupcakes!

These are all going to be so much fun to make and I can't wait for the end of this week to come!

This past weekend we attended my cousin's engagement party. It was at a winery that has a barn in it, and it was probably one of the cutest parties I've ever attended. It had a very rustic feel to it, and it was baseball themed; favors were cracker jack boxes with their engagement pictures on a baseball card; their guestbook was a baseball bat to sign; and they had the CUTEST dessert table ever: it was a cookie bar where they had little paper bags (like the kind you'd get popcorn in at a baseball game) that you could fill with cookies, then they had little glass jugs of milk for each guest. It was a very well-thought out party and we had such a great time relaxing and catching up with family.

Yesterday after my clients left after their dessert tasting, Joe and I decided to treat the kids for being so good lately. Yes they still fight and throw fits, but considering how busy I've been with all of my cake orders, they've been AMAZING. We took the kids to the movies and saw Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2--the kids (and Joe and I) LOVED it! I think I might have even liked it more than the first one! I was so proud of both kids for making it through the entire movie; Maverick has been to the movies with Joe a few times, but the last time we went to the movies together was last year when we took the kids to see Brave--and Madison flipped out the entire time. I think she may have just been too young, because she did great yesterday.

Overall I'm just feeling very blessed lately; my business is going GREAT, my kids are growing up and are healthy and happy, Joe loves his new job and is doing great, and overall everything seems to just have fallen into place. I can't believe its almost time for the holidays.. its going to get even crazier here!

October Already?!

I seriously can't believe it's already October. Where has this year gone?! I think we all know by now that I am obsessed with the holidays, but this year It seems to be creeping up on me and I don't feel ready for it! Call me crazy, but I'm actually a little stressed out that I haven't started Christmas shopping yet (I know its only October--but I shop early so that I can have TONS of presents under my tree when I set it up). I'm going to design my Christmas cards this week and START addressing envelopes so that when the time comes, I can just pop them in the mail!

I'm doing all of this now because I've been SO busy lately, who knows how crazy busy I'll be during the holidays! As you all know from my blog a few weeks ago, I went out on a limb and started my own cake business. I went into it with an open mind; if I make some money off of this, great, but if not, then it's no big deal. I was not prepared for what was to come! I have consistently had cake orders every weekend; I have 2 orders this week alone! I'm having so much fun doing it and feel so blessed by the amount of support I've received thus far, and I can only hope the cake orders continue to roll in!

If we're friends on Facebook, then you probably heard about Madison's health scare. Two weeks ago on Tuesday, she woke up with her voice sounding completely different--almost like a deaf person talking. For someone who usually spoke very clearly, this was a huge red flag. I took her to her pediatrician and she said her soft palate wasn't closing properly and we needed to figure out why. We went the TWO ENTs: the first one we didn't agree with whatsoever so we went and saw the Head of the Department of Airways at Children's Hospital. Shw said that she had seen many cases like this where it turned out to be viral and solve itself, but she wanted to do an MRI just to cover all of our bases. Thankfully, I'm so relieved to say that Madison's voice has progressively gotten better and I don't think we'll be needing to get the MRI done. Thank you all for your prayers--they worked!

So now, here I am--crazy busy and not bloggibg as much. With cake orders coming in left and right, keeping up with having a ckean house, abd trying to be the best mom and wife I can be, there's just no way I can keep up with the daily blogs like I was doing. I'm now going start posting new blogs every Monday to fill up in on what's going on at the Hawes household. We're in for a BUSY rest of the month here:
-two cake orders this week
-attending a wedding on Saturday
-working on Sunday
-couple pumpkin patch trips the following week
-attend an engagement party the following Saturday
-a wedding cake order with 150 cupcakes and a small fondant cake
-attend another wedding
...and then it'll be November! When am I supposed to Christmas shop?! I'm sure I'll figure it out ;)

So I'll end this with a huge thank you! Thank you for praying for Madison when she needed it. Thank you for supporting me in my new cake adventure. And thank you for being terrific friends. I knoe I've been really busy an not able to hang out a lot, so thank you for understanding.

If you haven't already, "like" my facebook page at www.facebook.com/frostingfanatics and spread the word! <3

A Beautiful Love Story

This past weekend I had the honor of attending one of my oldest friend's wedding (and by oldest, I mean we've been friends since elementary school--she isn't old ;)). Funny enough, the guy she married was one of my best friends. They have such a beautiful love story and they are perfect for each other--so its only fitting that their wedding would be as beautiful as they are. Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Beall--I wish you both a lifetime of love and happiness! <3

Festive Bunting Banner

Yesterday I was in a very crafty mood, so I drove to Hobby Lobby and bought a few different crafts to do. This one was a bunting banner; it was supposed to hang across my fireplace mantle but it turned out WAY too big--so it's now hanging on the wall in my front living room (I'm going to make a smaller version for the mantle). This was very easy to make, and I think it makes a huge statement.

All you need is some burlap, some fabric of your choice, a hot glue gun, and some paint. First, figure out what size you want your triangles to be. Cut one, then use it as a guide to cut  the rest of them so they're the same size. Lay out your fabric then hot glue gun the burlap triangles onto it. Cut the fabric bigger than the burlap so that you can see it. Lay all of your triangles out and hot glue gun string across the tops of it so that it makes the banner.

Once the glue has dried, flip your banner around and paint whatever saying you want onto it. Once the paint has dried, then you're all done! Go hang that banner up!

(I understand that all of this couldve been done with a sewing machine instead of a hot glue gun; my sewing machine isnt working correctly and I didn't want to wait till it was fixed). ;)

Have fun!

The Two Year Escrow Anniversary

Today is the 2 year anniversary of us closing escrow on our house! Its been a great 2 years of living here--we absolutely love living in Murrieta! Having space throughout the house and having a backyard for the kids to play in has been the greatest thing ever. Here's a quick look at some of the befores-and-afters of some house projects we've done--ranging from bathrooms, to the kitchen, to the backyard, to the bedroom, to the closet--we've done a lot to this house, and there's still so much more to do! Owning a house is the best <3

Nutella Cookie Cups

Yesterday I was craving something sweet so, like always, I hit up my pinterest desserts board. I've wanted to try these nutella cookie cups for a LONG time--nutella is amazing, and who doesn't like cookies? Sounds like a win/win situation to me! These are basically just chocolate chip cookie dough without the chocolate chips, topped with nutella. Little bit of heaven in your mouth, if I may. These are best right out of the oven, but still amazing days later. Maybe popping them in the microwave for a few seconds would re-create the just-out-of-the-oven effect? That'll be an experiment for later today ;). Let's get started!

Ingredients:
1 cup of butter, softened
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of packed browm sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. of vanilla extract
3 cups of all-purpose flour
1 tsp. of baking soda
1/2 tsp. of salt
Jar of nutella (the medium sized jar)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease your mini muffin tin and set aside.

2. Cream butter and both sugars in a bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla until fully incorporated. Gradually beat in dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda) until all of the flour is mixed in. 

3. Roll dough into 1.5 inches thick.

4. Pop them in the mini muffin tin and bake 10-12 minutes until golden brown but not too dark around the edges. 

5. When done, remove from oven and let sit 2 minutes. Then make wells for the nutella using a shot glass, similar object, or a spoon. Add 1 Tbsp of nutella to each cup; it will start to melt quickly so you can swirl it around and make it nice and smooth. 

6. Let cool 15-20 minutes in tin. Nutella will solidify in an hour, which makes them easier to transport. 

Enjoy!

Summer days slippin away!

It's actually starting to feel like Fall! it's finally cooling down; we haven't had the AC on the past few nights while we slept, and I currently have my back sliding door open, letting the cool breeze in. I've waited so long for this! Although I'm so thankful that we have working AC in our house, I hate having to use it. There's nothing better than a fresh breeze blowing through the house.

Guess what else is coming up? The pumpkin patch! Bates Nut Farm opens in 15 days!! I'm so excited to go this year (especially since I have a car that has working AC now for the drive out there!). I plan on taking the kids a few times :)).

Even though I'm SO excited for these next few weeks (pumpkin patch, cake orders, friends getting married), I have to take a step back and literally be blown away: is it really almost October?! So crazy. Ever since I've had kids, the time just flies. This coming up spring we'll be enrolling Maverick in kindergarten for the 2014 school year. Where did my little guy go?! He's not so little anymore!

I'm bracing myself for these next couple of months; this year flew by and got us to where we are today--guaranteed these next couple of months are just going to fly! Halloween parties and Christmas parties, anyone? :))

Saturday Fun Day?

Sunday fun day came early for us this weekend. Yesterday was a day full of parties! First we went to a party for a new friend of ours; we met through my friend Kailey and it was such a fun party. Her son was turning 5 and she threw a "Brennan's World" themed party; they had this GIGANTIC water bounce house with a slide that looked like so much fun--I almost want to have an adult party and rent one of those and just go to town! It was so hot outside but that water slide cooled everyone off and the kids had a blast. (Pictured below): they even had an "ice cream hut"--complete with action figure and princess themed ice cream flavors--it was such a cute touch and the kids loved it!

After Brennan's party, we headed down to Carlsbad to celebrate my friend's birthday AND her husband joining the Army. At this party, they announced that they found out the sex of their baby--and its a boy! It was so much fun seeing friends, eating great food, and just having a good time. All together, yesterday was such a fun day! Now we're getting ready for some football--Saints style! Happy Sunday everyone!