Does anyone else think my breastestes look stupidly big in this picture? I swear, looks bigger than Pickle's head! THIS is why I want a reduction people!
Shortly after this picture was snapped, Twin B pulled back and declared, "Ok, that's enough. No more kisses or hugs." Ah, the love was short lived.
So, the cake was a huge hit and was yummy too! The cake part was SUPER easy but made a huge impact once cut.
Once mixed up, I divided the batter into three bowls and colored them in the traditional Mardi Gras colors of purple, gold, and green. I baked three 9 inch cakes. Cool and trim the tops. Now let's make the almond cream filling!
1 Cup half and half
Pour half and half into medium saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean, add them and the bean. Bring to a simmer. Remove from heat, steep 15 mins. 
Combine sugar and flour in bowl. Whisk in eggs, then warm half and half mixture; return to pan. Add almond paste. Whisk over med. heat until paste dissolves (10-ish minutes). Remove from heat. Add white chocolate and butter, whisking until smooth.
Press plastic wrap onto custard (we don't want a skin, yuck!). Chill for a few hours (the custard, not you). 
Remove the vanilla bean and toss it. Beat the cream to stiff peaks (we need it stiff so it can withstand the weight of the cakes). Fold the whipped cream into custard. Cover and chill.
On top of that, I placed the yellow cake layer. I did the frosting ring again, but this time spread raspberry preserves. I would say I used about a cup.
Mmmmmm, layers!
I took a bit of the (still) white frosting and did a crumb coat on the cake.
I colored most of the frosting a deep golden yellow with a small amount colored purple and gold. I used a large star tip to pipe purple rosettes and green....ummm....I don't know what you'd call those.
The inspiration for this cake came from a magazine that the hostess of the party brought to me. We're a tad sick of King Cakes at this point, so we thought this would be a nice change. Still festive, but different.
Recipes to follow!
then pour into large bowl filled with cool water. Add your eggplant sticks to the bowl and weigh them down with a heavy plate.
That didn't photograph too well did it? Fear not, my new camera arrived! No more crappy pictures...well, no more pictures that are crappy because I don't have a lens on the camera!
After they have soaked for about 30 minutes, take them out and dry thoroughly. Prepare two bowls for breading the sticks: one for the egg, and one for the bread crumbs. Combine the bread crumbs and cayenne pepper, add oil and mix.
Dip the sticks, first in the egg, then in the bread crumbs. Place breaded sticks on well oiled baking pan. 
Bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes, flipping halfway through.
Serve with marinara sauce for dipping.
Really, these are super delicious. Cut the cayenne pepper if you want, but it really doesn't add that much heat. If you use plain bread crumbs, you'll obviously need to add salt and pepper.
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I can't help myself! Here are some pictures I snapped with the new camera! These are from the Mardi Gras parade they had at the preschool. Note: despite the fact that the Pecan Street Preschool Mafia led me to believe that EVERYONE was going and NONE of them showed up, I enjoyed myself. Take THAT Alpha Beauty Queen Mom!!
This hat is goofy.
I think I have more shots of this kid from this angle than any other. Why is that?
Ok, I'm no child psyche expert or anything, but I'm pretty sure that unless you want to scare the living crap out of your students, you shouldn't dress like this if you're a preschool teacher.
WARNING! CLOWN PICTURE AHEAD
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I know, I'm sorry. The nightmares. Can't sleep, the clowns will eat me!!!
Check out those lips! Ok, but how she got it is not so pleasant.
Looks about a brazillion times worse this morning. She's alright though. She came home, gave her sister her sucker (she's a better person than I am!) and asked for TWO hot dogs. I've never seen this kid eat that much....ever. yes, I feed my children hot dogs. Yes, I know what they're made of.
I honestly don't think Twin B was trying to hurt her sister. I think she wanted her to move and they just so happened to be on the stairs at the time.
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On a side note: when I went to Walgreen's to get her prescription I discovered that the store brand children's Tylenol and Motrin were on sale two for one! Sweet deal dude. A quick glance around revealed A LOT of the Walgreen's brand meds were on sale two for one. Check it out and stock up!
Even if it did, mine would probably look a little more like this
Seriously man. Talk about not thinking about anyone else. How ridiculous is it to ask that people throw down this kind of money to partake in the celebration? Not to mention the numerous gifts we have to buy for the showerS and wedding. Oh oh, and lets not forget the $350 we have to shell out for two nights at the hotel where the wedding is being held. The money we're throwing out for this wedding is more than we spent when we got married (granted, we eloped, but still!).
I apparently need to head to the bank and secure a loan to pay for all this crap. God help me if she invites me to the bachelorette party. I may have to sell one of my kids to pay for that! I'm kidding, I would never sell my children. The Dude, on the other hand...
The most any other mommy-wagon around there has is a "My Child Made Honor Roll at..." bumper sticker. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the stuff on the back. Won't take it off till it cracks and peels. It just sets me apart...more.
By the way, these things are friggen awesome! I bought it for two reasons: A.) it was on sale at Walgreens, and 2.) I thought it would make painting the twincesses nails easier. Ya just pump it and paint. It dries super quick too. Anyway, the color I bought was a very bright hot pink (ya know, for the kids) and probably NOT the color of choice for prim and proper mommies.
The Dude had last changed my radio station. I usually keep it fairly low cuz the kiddos prefer Mommy's singing to the radio. Anyway, I notice he had left it on the alternative rock station which isn't a big deal. In fact, they were playing one of my fav Incubus songs (Incubus reminds me of California and the dating days with The Dude). Next song was a Bush song followed by old STP, so I left it. I turned it low as I approached the school. As I hopped out of the car to help my girlies into the car I bumped the volume knob and BLASTED the rather sacrilegious chorus to Alice In Chains' "Man in The Box." Not familiar with that one? Go ahead and Google it. Oh, did I forget to mention that the preschool is at a church? Hmmmm, yeah.
As I fumbled (with my wet hot pink nails) to turn the volume down, my bright, lime green phone slides out of my pocked and smashes into the ground. I try to quickly scoop up the pieces and usher the girls to their seats, begging them to put their seat belts on so we can get the heck outta there. As I drive away, I notice that the Alpha Beauty Queen Mom had been watching the whole thing as she leaned against her SUV...nice.
Oh well, easy come, easy go. I had even dressed to impress in my fancy new rust colored leather jacket I had gotten during that shopping experience from hell. 
I'll be honest, I feel a little Fancy Nancy wearing it, although, the Afflack salesmen that just left complimented me on it. Hmmm, perhaps I fit into their little clique.
P.S. Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" is playing on the station here in the office, ah, takes me back.
I trotted over to the lumber yard where my girlfriend works and described my project. She went out to the lumber and brought me a piece of wood, a 1 x 6 with a slight lip in the bottom (which I adored, gave it that little something extra), and it was about 5ft long. I also picked up some colored chipboard letters at the Walmart, and some alligator clips (ok, first I bought the wrong kind, which is why they are crossed out in the pic).
The Dude cut my board down to roughly two feet. I didn't measure, I just eyeballed it and said "cut here."
I had that feeling. You know, where you feel like someone is watching you. So I look up.
He was supervising, see. He declared that I was doing it all wrong and promptly took over.
After he finished, I stepped back and decided I didn't like it plain white, so I went to scrounge through my scrapbook papers and pulled out these.
The Dude protested, "Wait! Why did I just paint this thing then?!" I don't know, why did you?! Sheesh.
When it was completely dry, I sanded the edges cuz they looked like this:
Here's a close up of the clips I ended up using. I also tied a little ribbon on them, ya know, to jazz it up. The clips were attached with a roofing nail. Why a roofing nail you ask? Well, because the heads were big enough to keep the clips from falling off. On the site I linked you to, they used smaller nails and just made the clip hole smaller by tying ribbon around it. Your choice.
At the party, when the presents were opened, my gift got the biggest response from the mothers. Lots of "Where did you get that?! I need one of those!!" Picture the smug grin on my face as I proclaimed that I had made it. "How do you have time for that?" "Oh you're so creative!" "You should sell those! I would absolutely buy one!" 
