Missionaries and such

Lots has been going on lately. We've been busy getting ready to send two missionaries on mission. We just sent Justin's brother Kevin on a mission on Thursday. We had a great night at his parents house for the setting apart and saying goodbye to Kevin. We know that we will be blessed for his service to the people in England and we know he will touch many hearts and bless many people. We miss him already. If you want to get updates on Kevin his blog address is:

http://www.elderballantyne.blogspot.com/

Then we just went to the temple with my brother to get his endowments out. His farewell will be May 30th at 9:00am at my parents church. He is going to the San Fernando California Spanish speaking mission.

My sister is silly, She insisted on peeking into the picture! Goof Ball!

Something was really funny, I don't remember what haha!

I've been busy preparing and getting ready to make wedding cakes. I actually just finished my first one today!! It is such a huge accomplishment! It was a great success! Go to my cake blog to see the cakes and things I've done lately!

http://www.emscakedesign.blogspot.com/

I'm still here!

Hey everyone!

I know, it's been FOREVER. I'm sorry. Life just gets so busy sometimes! Here's an update of the last month!

First, I started a new job! I now work for Prime Alliance Bank in Bountiful. It's so great because I am 5 minutes away from home. Instead of driving 15 minutes and filling up on gas every week and a half, I drive 5 minutes and fill up ever two and a half weeks. I love the people I work with. They are all so great and easy to get along with. They've been so welcoming. I work in the Credit Administration department doing the payoffs & reconveyances, appraisals, and loan bookings. I love working in that department. I'm learning so many new things, which I love. I think it will be great having more knowledge of what goes on in different departments at the bank.

Next, I've been busy making some cakes! I have made 3 in the last few weeks! I'll post them on my cake blog, so go see them!

Then, my sister just came into town! She got here on Saturday and will be here till next Sunday! It's so great having them here, I've missed them SO much. My nephew has grown up so much, it's unbelievable! He knows his letters, numbers, colors and is even potty trained! My sister is such a good mom, I know who to turn to when we have our own little munchkins(No, not yet)!

On Sunday we celebrated my mom and brother-in-laws birthdays! My mom's was on the 10th and Cody's is on the 18th. We had a yummy steak dinner, and then the grandparents came over and we had cake and ice cream!

A tote for my mom to put her jewelry making supplies in!

Pictures of our family pictures that we had done in AZ!

Lincoln blew out the candles for his dad!

I colored the inside of the cake green, it's my moms favorite color.

Then we just hung out! My little nephew is so outgoing, he runs around the house calling out anyones name that will play with them "Emily, Kyle, Justin, Papa!" It's so fun! My nephew has become obsessed with a game on my dads iPod. I don't know what it's even called, but we call it "Go Fast" Its a traffic car game where you try to get as many cars through the intersection without them crashing. Lincoln will sit and play it for HOURS! He sits and goes "Go fast, Go fast, Oh no, watch out!" then he'll crash and be like "OOOHHH, Crash the blue." That means that the blue car crashed, or whatever! Here's a video of him and kyle playing with the iPods. My brother taught him the pound it and blow it up! I love it! And he's catching on to "I love you"

And now...

PRESENTING!


MY SISTER!!

(I turned on my camera to upload these photos and this is the surprise I found from her )

HAHAHA! This last one is classic! I couldn't help but Laugh Out Loud when I saw these!! I love my sis!

Busy, busy busy!

I've been busy lately!

I've made two more cakes!

Go check 'em out!

Thanks!

Em's Cake Design

Fondant & Gum Paste

First off, sorry for all the confusion with getting to my cake blog. I had to change the link and I thought i fixed them all but I missed some. The address to my cake blog is:

www.emscakedesign.blogspot.com

I just took the "s" off designs. Sorry if that threw you off, but my links should all work now. Let me know if they don't :0)

Anyway! I went to cake class on Saturday and learned some new techniques! So check out my most recent cake on my cake blog.

This week = 3 BIRTHDAY CAKES! SO STAY TUNED!!

New cake post

Click here to go to my cake blog and see the final cake I made last night!

It went a little something like this :

New cake blog!

Since my cake decorating is becoming more and more, I decided to create a separate blog especially for cakes! That way I can blog about my personal family adventures on here and on my other blog I can post ALL ABOUT CAKE :o)

The website is:
http://www.emscakedesign.blogspot.com/

Also, I was able to create some business cards that have a website on them, so I wanted to be able to put a cake website, not just my personal website.

So if you enjoy keeping up on the cakes I am making, take a look at our new blog!

Thanks everyone for your support!

Course 2 final cake

Last night I had the final lesson for Course 2 of Wilton cake decorating. We learned the basket weave and actually it was easier than it looks! Then during the course we learned how to make all sorts of different flowers made out of royal icing. Royal icing, for example, is the stuff that you can buy at the store that say {H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y} on it and you peel them off individually and put them on the cake, and they are edible. Same thing..

Melissa and her final cake! So she did a great job!

Stephanie's final cake! So Pretty!

My brother-in-law's 19th birthday was Saturday the 22nd and he LOVES BYU. If you ever see a blue sports car driving around with 2 BYU flags on both sides of the windows, That's Him! I'm OK with this cause I'm a BYU fan also. So I asked my teacher if instead of putting flowers on it that i make it into a BYU cake for Kevin's birthday. She said that it would be fine as long as she saw that I had made all my flowers and color flow birds and If i put the basket weave on the cake. So this is how it turned out... I know it's not perfect, but hey, it's the first basket weave I've ever done!

After class I had to go home and add a Y to the cake. So i cut out a template out of paper, laid it on my rolled out fondant then cut it out. Then i put it on my cake and outlined it with the rest of my blue frosting. I started running out as i was outlining it so it kept sputtering, stupid frosting! Oh well, Kevin LOVED it!

GO BYU!

For this cake I wanted to try something different than just white cake. So i made a chocolate devils food cake and then put an Oreo filling in the middle, it was SO delicious! Yum! I will definitely be making this cake again!

Here's my piece of cake, I accidentally took a bite before I took a picture! And i wish now that i would have gotten a picture of Kevin.

Well, I've officially passed Course 2... Now onto Course 3 - Fondant & Gum Paste!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEVIN!

Bridal Shower

So I'm sure all of you are wondering what my last cake was for. My good friend Lindsey Sweat is getting married and so we had a bridal shower for her. I had so much fun making this cake. I still have to say the best part is bringing the cake in and seeing the reactions. I'm so glad I was able to go to the shower! There were SO many old friends their that I have missed and I loved that i was able to catch up with them. I shouldn't wait so long to see old friends!

People asked me if it killed me to cut the cake that i spent about 5 hours on. But no, i don't think it does. It's the satisfaction knowing that I've helped and made people happy. That's the best feeling ever.

So on Wednesday evening I started this cake, but first I found out what Lindsey's colors were: Lime green and bright turquoise blue.

My Messy Kitchen. This is a White cake with Strawberry Cream filling, and white butter cream icing.

Getting ready for the bow!

These are the loops for the bow. I had to let them dry over night.

The border is butter cream, Not fondant like the circles and bow.

All finished! I love the way this cake turned out. I'm so happy for Lindsey and Ryan. They are such a cute couple! Congratulations you two!!

Also, I want to thank Kiley for throwing such a fun shower! You did awesome. But we're going to miss you while you are in Brazil. You will be such a strong missionary and will touch so many lives. We love you Kiley!!

Sneak Peek

STAY TUNED FOR THE REST!! :)

Final Course 1 cake & Nikkie's Bridal Shower

I've officially completed Course 1 of my Wilton cake decorating classes! Last night our instructor had us bring a cake already frosted so we could put decorations on it in class. Last week we started learning how to make roses. I was struggling. But for some reason last night i whipped those flowers right up! It must have been the consistency of my frosting cause it made such a difference. Our instructor told us that if we wanted to write on our cake to do that first. Well i did my flowers first. Then i decided i wanted to write... Bad Idea! I was nervous i was going to bump my flowers so the writing didn't look very well. So then i finished the cake, put the border, leaves and everything on and felt pretty good about it besides my writing. Then, I really don't know why, i did that UGLY purple squiggle... UGH! So horrible, I think i did it out of boredom because everyone else was still working on their flowers. I will never do it again! Haha!

My Flowers. Of course, they aren't perfect but for my first ones, I think they are pretty good. My edges are really ragged but that will get better with practice.

Our friend Nikkie Brown at work is getting married in two weeks. So we decided to throw her a surprise Bridal Shower. Stephanie and I (who is taking the class with me) decided that we would bring the cakes as dessert for our little bridal shower. So today we decorated Nikkie's desk behind the teller line and then got a bunch of food for her. Cache Valley Bank was nice enough to pay for it too :)

This is Tina. She was really excited to be decorating. But i caught her off guard with this picture. I think she looks cute :)

Nikkie loved her decorations!

My cake on the left, Stephanie's on the right.

Our party!

We also ended up getting Nikkie some gifts off her registry. Congratulations Nikkie & Casey on your upcoming special day!