Baby shower

Today there was a baby shower for sweet Helena and her new son Charles. I saw a shower cake once with a nursery scene and thought it would be neat to do a replica of little Charles' nursery for the shower cake. I was pretty pleased with the results and Darrell even helped finish off some of the woodgrain for the hardwood floor.










Then we went straight to the Saanich Municipal Hall where Brooklyn's little Grade 3 class had a recorder recital. Afterwards there were different stations around the hall where the kids could answer an energy quiz and win a pair of gloves, ride a horse drawn carriage around the property, go 'fishing' for toys and buy hot dogs. The kids kept disappearing from our site but we figured since the police station is right there and there were police-people all over the place, they were probably fine!
A fun Saturday.

Kids Say the Funniest Things.....

I've always loved children's quotes... how they see the world.... how they see other people.... how they see God.....
Darrell sent me this one from his work and although I often get emails like this that I've read before, this was the first time I had seen this bunch. Precious, precious, precious..... (& Johnny is very astute!)
LOT'S WIFE
The Sunday School teacher was describing how Lot 's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt, when little Jason interrupted, 'My mommy looked back once while she was driving,' he announced triumphantly, 'and she turned into a telephone pole!'


GOOD SAMARITAN
A Sunday school teacher was telling her class the story of the Good Samaritan. She asked the class, 'If you saw a person lying on the roadside, all wounded and bleeding, what would you do?'

A thoughtful little girl broke the hushed silence, 'I think I'd throw up.'


DID NOAH FISH?
A Sunday school teacher asked, 'Johnny, do you think Noah did a lot of fishing when he was on the Ark ?'

'No,' replied Johnny. 'How could he, with just two worms?'


HIGHER POWER
A Sunday school teacher said to her children, 'We have been learning how powerful kings and queens were in Bible times. But, there is a Higher Power. Can anybody tell me what it is?'

One child blurted out, 'Aces!'


THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD
A Sunday School teacher decided to have her young class memorize one of the most quoted passages in the Bible - Psalm 23. She gave the Youngsters a month to learn the chapter. Little Rick was excited about the task, but he just couldn't remember the Psalm. After much practice, he could barely get past the first line. On the day that the kids were scheduled to recite Psalm 23 in front of the congregation, Ricky was so nervous. When it was his turn, he stepped up to the microphone and said proudly, 'The Lord is my Shepherd, and that's all I need to know."


BEING THANKFUL
Rabbi said to a precocious six-year-old boy, 'So your mother says your prayers for you each night? That's very commendable. What does she say?'

The little boy replied, 'Thank God he's in bed!'


TIME TO PRAY
A pastor asked a little boy if he said his prayers every night.

'Yes, sir,' the boy replied.

'And, do you always say them in the morning, too?' the pastor asked.

'No sir,' the boy replied. 'I ain't scared in the daytime.'


SAY A PRAYER
Little Johnny and his family were having Sunday dinner at his Grandmother's house. Everyone was seated around the table as the food was being served. When Little Johnny received his plate, he started eating right away.

'Johnny! Please wait until we say our prayer.' said his mother.

'I don't need to,' the boy replied.

'Of course, you do,' his mother insisted. 'We always say a prayer before eating at our house.'

'That's at our house,' Johnny explained. 'But this is Grandma's house and she knows how to cook!'

HAPPY NOVEMBER!

Well it's November and you know what that means in the Richmond home - I can start decorating! Yep, as of November 1st each year I slowly start the Christmas decorating process. Usually just one or two things per week but I have so many fun Christmas stuff that to do it all in one or two days would just be exhausting. And besides, I like to enjoy it for the ENTIRE December month so this way it's less work and more enjoyment.

Big news at our house would be - Darrell & I went and saw U2 last week in Vancouver - AWESOMMMMMMME
Now to be truthful, the sound at BC Place is not the best and when the Black Eyed Peas opened up, if they played a song we didn't know we had no clue what the lyrics were. But, the sound was better for U2 and Bono's voice does not disappoint live one bit. They were incredible and it felt like a 'once-in-a-lifetime' kind of moment if you know what I mean. I almost cried when they played WITH OR WITHOUT YOU because my mind flooded back to an end-of-semester party with friends in England in the 80's, right before we all moved away to separate 6th-form colleges. Memories flooded back. Fantastic.

In other news, our friends Luke & Helena had a baby boy, Charlie (love the name!), which meant I led worship for a few Sundays while the new parents enjoy their new bundle. And I'm also going to be hosting an Adore Women Tea Party at our house in a couple of weeks. I just have to provide the house as the Adore Women committee are organizing food etc. But there will be a couple of English items I will be contributing - Devonshire Cream being one of them. YUMMY! I've also had a couple of wedding cakes, the last one being our friends Katie & Darron who had a beautiful wedding downtown. The next one is December 12th for Katie & Scott. And our good friend Kelly, is now engaged to Chris and will be going to South Africa to get married and live for a year - it's a great adventure for a girl we love to pieces and couldn't be happier for.

The kids had a fun Halloween which I will post pics of soon but I forgot to take my camera so will have to wait for the shared ones to appear. That's about it really. We've been very blessed with mild weather for being early November, Darrell & I even did yard work Sunday in the sunshine.

Hope all you friends are enjoying the Fall season wherever you are.

A few more pics from the 'Mother', plus one of my Mum, sister and sister-in-law at the sibs reunion in Kelowna, August long.

I've Returned

Well it seems I've been very absent from the blogging world but I'm back. I guess the allure of facebook with all of its speed pulled me away for a week months. Or rather, seasons. But the need to journal always come back eventually and here we are. I won't even bother to document everything that has happened since the last entry but will instead highlight a few great events.

There were weddings, babies, camps and parties!

The lovely Elise Michalski got married to Fred in the Spring in a lovely service at Glad Tidings followed by a reception at the Faculty Club at UVIC. I was fortunate to be asked to make their wedding cake; a Red Velvet Cake as it was the same cake Elise and her Dad would get every year on their shared birthdays.

Then in August Chelsea McQuade, a friend of several years thanks to teen camp - and a fantastic young, vibrant woman of God, married her prince, Johnny Sugrue. The wedding was beautiful at a quaint church in Brentwood Bay, followed by a vintage-themed reception at the Fireside Grill. I don't think I have ever had a friend who thought and planned any more for her wedding than this girl. She was organized! Every detail was taken care of including the vintage themed table at the reception with the vintage scrapbook she created for her guest book, and the gorgeous small wooden chest used to hold all of those precious money envelopes! The name place-cards were even little birds nests! I made this wedding cake too - a four-tiered ivory chocolate raspberry cake with Callebaut Chocolate Ganache and matching cupcakes that were presented in these gorgeous cupcake liners she bought online.

July each year brings camp and this year we had one at kids camp and one at pre-teen. PRE-TEEN???? SERIOUSLY??? But yes, at Nanoose Bay Camp if you're ten you go to pre-teen. Fortunately Zachary loved it and Brooklyn equally had a blast at kids camp where the speaker was none other than our last kids pastor, Caroline Bergeron. Teen Camp this year was a huge success, very few issues and overall extremely smooth. If you haven't yet seen our Katy Perry Hot 'n Cold video go to youtube.com and type in Nanoose Bay Camp hot n cold. I don't think you will be disappointed ;)
Then August brought possibly the funniest reason for a party we have ever had. One morning Darrell woke up to tell me about the dream he had. He dreamt we had a massive BBQ in our backyard, that he rented tents and tables and a huge industrial grill from his work and with a live band playing on our sundeck. So guess what? That's exactly what we did ! The band consisted of 3 of my friends who used to play in the old blues band I was in, Soul Commotion, along with my friends Luke & Park who I play with at church.
It was AWESOME~ they did two sets of about a half an hour each, maybe even 40 minute and everyone loved it! Brooklyn and I counted - we had exactly EIGHTY PEOPLE ! Which included 20 children who I have to say were behaved amazingly well. They all just looked after each other and the whole thing went like a dream. Darrell made homemade hamburgers and then everyone just brought something to share. So we had lots of food - and we even invited the neighbours - partly as a gesture of friendly neighbourness, and partly to prevent any noise complaints. We had six neighbours come and they had a great time! I was really happy about that because I remember as a kid our neighbourhood being much more of a community than I have experienced in Canada and I feel like sometimes people miss that sense of local community when they don't know the people who live on their own street. So yes, big success.
Well that will mostly catch you up. Throw in a couple of long weekends in Kelowna at Anna's house - one for baseball and one for a family sibling reunion along with my Mum - and that is pretty much our summer in a nutshell. And we're still enjoying summer as the weather has been gorgeous. Fall has started off well :)

April Update

As prompted by my sister-in-law, I am updating my blog.......

And, since my last post we had a little girl turn 8 (WOW!) and a son about to turn 10(MORE WOW!!) this coming Tuesday.

There is something eerie about having your first child turn double-digits. It's weird. It sounds old. And you can't believe you have now been a Mother for a whole decade! It is by far the biggest blessing (well two blessings actually...) in my life and I just treasure them both so much.

So for Brooklyn's birthday she decided she wanted a party at home (cheaper but far messier!) and would like to make AND ice her own birthday cake!! Girl after my own heart..... so we had a horse-themed party and she made a horse's head cake. Not bad hey?


Then today I finished my first of 3 wedding cakes; one every Saturday until April 25th. The colour scheme was gold and teal and this was by design of my meeting with the bride and groom.




Not much else to report but I guess there will be after Zachary turns 10 !!!

Showers, Babies and Birthdays

Well, since the Narnia party Aaron & Jeni (a.k.a. Turkish Delight!) welcomed little Benjamin Findley Norris into their lovely family. At 8lb. 2oz (i think re the ounces....) and born at 2:11am on February 3rd. What a little cutie-pie he is! So Sherisse (Aaron's sister) & I hosted a baby shower at the church and over 30 lovely ladies came out to welcome the little one.

So I haaaad to make a cake....! The plan was for it to be in the shape of a baby crib and in the colours of little Benjamin's nursery. And of course in honor of Jeni's awesome rock 'n roll vibe there were a few personal touches on the walls of the crib!
Then the Norris' along with Luke (whose lovely wife was up island) came over for supper and Brooklyn got to hold the little munchkin. So cute.


Then last night was my mother-in-law's birthday so I made a chocolate-raspberry cake covered in some of her favourite things - diamond rings, purses and shoes!!! Dinner was the Paesano meal at Macaroni Grill. Most delicious.

Pictures as Promised!