what's been going on...

A lot has been going on so far in 2010. I've been taking a big-time break from the photography business... but now I'm slowly catching up on all my editing. It's been a really nice break! Some friends and I hosted a baby shower for another friend (see cake baking disaster post below). We had the shower at my house, and it was so cool to see so many people in it. It works great for parties! We had a good turn out for the shower. Only a few minor issues with the fact that we have a long, skinny driveway and if one person needed to leave, everyone behind them had to back out onto the highway. Note to self.... we need to create a turnaround point in the yard...

Speaking of cake baking disaster. Our second attempt actually turned out pretty good for a bunch of amateurs! This time we sprayed each pan with Pam (instead of crisco shortening) and we also put some parchment paper down inside of them. We had ZERO issues with the cakes sticking. WOO HOO! We whipped up some vanilla instant pudding to use as a filler between layers. Then we iced each tier (2 layers each) with the homemade buttercream icing and then let them chill in the fridge. Then came the most difficult part... rolling out the marshmallow fondant. This junk is sticky! It didn't matter what we did, it wanted to stick to everything! Also, the only fondant that turned out pretty darn good was the orange color. We have no idea why it turned out better than the other colors. It was a little harder and less sticky. All the others were still soft like marshmallows and wanted to fall apart...

Anyway... let's cut to the chase... the cake tasted yummy! Everyone kept asking where we got it from or who made it. Yippeeeee!!!



What else has been going on.... well let's see. There was this puppy named Gumbo. Was... is... basically what I mean is that we brought her back to the breeder. I know... I'm a HORRIBLE person... but I did what was best for 1) gumbo 2) our sanity. Gumbo was a beautiful puppy and really such a sweet heart. Some family is going to be lucky to have her! While I enjoyed the fact that she wanted to be a lap dog, she just couldn't deal with being left alone. She HAD to be touching you at all times. Otherwise, she'd whine and howl like it was going out of style. And that was just during the day time. At night... it was 10x worse! We just couldn't take it any more (yes, I already said I'm an awful person). I KNOW puppies need attention. I KNOW puppies whine a lot. But this was something different. It's not like we never raised puppies before. I mean, technically, Buster is still a puppy even though he's 80 pounds!

Ok, I think I'm really just typing that out for myself as a reminder that we did the right thing. Even as cute as she was (and boy, was she cute!)... it was the right thing.... IT WAS THE RIGHT THING!

hahaha ok... on another note... HUNTER IS GRADUATING!!!!!! This is his last week of Basic Training Academy. His banquet is this Friday night, and his graduation is on Monday. For our 4 year (dating) anniversary... which is tomorrow... he is driving home in his unit! How cool is that??? I'm so stinking proud of him. Seriously... I know I couldn't do what he's been doing the past few months. And I'm even more proud at how well he did on his weekly tests. He really surprised me with that!

We are throwing a big party for him at our house on the 30th. With some assistance and guidance from dearest Jenny, I made these super cute invitations:



Hopefully I'll remember to bring my camera to all the graduation festivities so I can post them on here!