Drake's Fifth Birthday Party

Our little dude turned five! We celebrated with a jungle theme party...

 snake watermelon basket!

 The cake...buttercream with fondant monkeys and gumpaste flowers.

 I bought the crate new at Michael's and aged the wood for a vintage feel.

 It's a jungle in here!

 Monkey pinata hanging out in the fruit crate!

 I did some face paint on the guests...

Happy, happy birthday, Drakie!! We love you!

Happy Fourth!

Kanab

Kelt got put on orders to go to Kanab, but we got to go with him this time due to the holiday!

We visited Moqui cave:

 and the Little Hollywood museum:

We had a great trip, and it was so nice to go out of town with Kelt insead of just waving goodbye!

Lydie K and Home Improvement

Little doll!

 I picked this rug up for $4 at the DI, and painted the H!

 The large container was $8 at the DI and was a cream color, so I spray painted it.

 I've been scouting for some rad curtains and couldn't find any, but I did see these awesome tablecloths, so I used those instead...

Baking In a Finished Kitchen!

I've found a new hobby...

 Gumpaste flowers!  Palma recently asked me to make a cake for Kristl's birthday. I decided to give gumpaste a whirl. As it turns out, it's a really simple and rewarding medium!

 For the cake, I decided to try marshmallow fondant...

 it was a bust. It tore and had tons of air bubbles. Perhaps it was me, but it just wasn't panning out, so I used regular old Wilton fondant instead...

 It turned out great!

 Poor Kris was accosted by a mob of sugar fiends...

 In other news, our kitchen re-do is finally, finally finished!

Before...

After! Ta-da!