What do you do with a 3 year old pickle?

Somebody found the extra frosting!

"Helping" out.

Throw it a birthday party!

Lame?

Pretty much, yeah, I am.

Anyshway, I was looking over some pictures and realized I hadn't shown off the birthday cake I made for my baby big boy. Le sigh. They grow up too fast, don't they?

Seems like only yesterday he was born. Now look at him with that big boy green Mohawk and rock star themed birthday party!

Love that kid! He is such a rock star. He loves him some "kee-tars."

This is the invite:

Cool, huh? Took me about 2 minutes to fill in the information on the website and it gave me the image. I just had them printed out at Office Depot on cardstock for 6 cents per page (I got 4 tickets per page). Cheap, no?

I also made up some backstage passes and had those printed out as well. They were nothing fancy. Just whipped 'em up in Microsoft publisher and slid them into name badge protectors! They looked cool.

I served rootbeer for drink. You can pick up a case of the IBC rootbeer in plain glass, brown bottles at Sam's club for cheap. I splurged and had waterproof, personalized "beer bottle" labels made up with Pickle's picture and the words, "Rocker's Brew" on them.

On to the cake! You can order cake kits from Duff Goldman that are rock star themed. I did that. I was kinda pissed when I opened it and there was one flame, a few picks, the neck of the guitar and a bunch of plastic extras. I dunno, I expected more gumpaste and fondant pieces for the money. I ended up making more gumpaste pieces to suit my likes. The body of the guitar is gumpaste, while the collar, spikes and chain are all fondant. I hand painted the flames and guitar. I also made extra guitar pics so I could spell out his name.

I iced the cake with that faux fondant again. I don't really care for real fondant and this stuff really smooths out nicely anyway.

My favorite part of the cake is the chain. How freakin' awesome is that?! And easy?! WHAT?!

I just rolled out some fondant snakes till they were the thickness I wanted. Then I cut off 2 1/2 in pieces and shaped them into a link. The 3D part of the chain (the links that stuck out of the cake) were just half of a link. The picture kinda explains it a little better.

**I apologize for some of the picture's quality. Some of these were snapped with my camera phone as I was too lazy to go and get my real camera**

They just keep growing.

Testing, testing...is this thing on?

Helloooooo!?

Echo...echo...echo...echo...echo...

Alrighty well, so I've been MIA quite a bit. I have no real explanation for that. I still read everyone's blogs, I just felt I didn't have anything to talk about.

This past weekend we held the girls' 4th birthday party and we had a blast!

Mostly, I'm just gonna throw a crap ton of pictures your way.

But first, let me tell you about the cake. OMG, it tasted SUPERFAB! The cake itself was alternating layers of vanilla almond and chocolate almond cake (one twin prefers vanilla, the other chocolate) with alternating fillings of whipped ganache and almond cream. Seriously, yum. I also tried my hand at modeling things out of gum paste. It is actually a lot easier than it seems. The twins love the movie "Ratatouille" so that was the theme of their cake and we made our own pizzas to keep with the chef theme

My first go at the character Remy turned out cute. Unfortunately he lost his head in "Pam falling out of the cabinet" incident and I had to quickly make a new one which did not turn out so cute...eh, whatever.

On with the pictures!

The birthday girls! This was their first outfit. They changed at least 3 times...by their own insistence.

The Dude and Twin A.

A MammaDucky and her ducklings

Pickles

Jumpin' around

I got plenty of kisses

Twin B

This, my friends, was an action shot. Seriously. I know, right? I should like, win awards for my stellar photography. Stop laughing.

I saw the girls drive their Jeep behind the bounce house. Then I heard cries for help amidst giggles. This is what I saw. My brain could not figure out how they possibly had accomplished a wheely in their Barbie Jeep.

It wasn't until I came around to the side, seeing The Dude nearly in tears from laughing so hard, that I saw how they had done it. They had driven UP AND ONTO a big ball. They wanted to do it again and again.

Holla at 'cha girl!

This is a very special MammaDucky entry not at all similar to the "very special episode of Full House" or any other dramedy.

Today, my dear friends, is my best friend's birthday! Yay! Shasty's birthday!!! I love me some Shasty. Do we all know the story of my Shasty and I met? Gather 'round kids. Everyone sitting Indian style that probably isn't P.C. anymore but that's what we called it when I was little. Rambler! No talking during story time!!

Ok, ready?

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...ok, so I'm totally stealing that line, but seriously, it was. Our brave men were off at war. Left behind, in a tiny little desert town, were two beautiful young wives hush, it's my story. Actually, if I'm gonna be completely honest, there were lots of young wives left behind. Entire neighborhoods devoid of men. Only women and children remained.

I didn't know a whole lot of people out there. We had wed less than 6 months prior and I had moved there within the 3 months of his deployment. It was a lonely existence. Back then, you didn't get emails, let alone phone calls or letters. We were slaves to our phones and the mail carrier...just waiting for any word.

We both found solice in a website support group for Marine Wives. Someone asked if there were any Twentynine Palms wives on the board and all of us out in the good 'ole "Stumps" started talking online. Eventually, someone got up the courage to host a BBQ so we could all meet up. I wasn't in the best of moods when I went. I was down about not hearing from The Dude in a long time and had just gotten out of the hospital after a rather nasty asthma attack the one where they thought I had SARS. Another friend insisted I go, so I did. I was uncomfortable, to say the least. I was shy back then.

We were all standing in the kitchen chatting when the host, who was visibly pregnant, opened her freezer to get out some ice. She pulled out a bottle of vodka and remarked how she used to LOVE drinking it. A cutesy brunette standing across from me quipped, "Oh, is that how you got knocked up?" I nearly peed my pants. Immediate thought was, I LOVE THIS CHICK! Oh my heavens, someone with a sense of humor...MY kind of humor. Needless to say, not EVERYONE thought that was funny, but we did.

We've shared heartache and happiness. Good times and bad times. Her hubs got out of the Marine Corps before The Dude left for his second deployment and they moved home to Colorado, but we kept in constant contact. Shortly before The Dude's return, Shasty called me with the wonderful news that she was expecting her first child. A few short months later, with The Dude safely home, we too discovered we were pregnant. Is that not every girl's dream? To be pregnant with your best friend?! We liked it so much, in fact, that we did it again a second time. This time, I got knockered up (at her house, tee-hee) and a short time later, she too found herself with child.

We live a great distance apart. I miss my Shasty every single day. We try to chat as often as possible, but you know how difficult that can be sometimes. She is a wonderful mother and amazing friend. I am truly blessed to have her in my life. I hope to see her and her beautiful family again very soon. Love you, miss you Shasty.

P.S. I couldn't interest you in a house down here, could I?? Hey, a girl's gotta try!

P.P. S. If you haven't already clicked on her name(s) in this post (which are links to various posts on her blog), click here and check out her blog. Leave some birthday lovin'.

The Big Reveal

I know you have all just been dying to see my finished birthday cake....ok, maybe not. However, I was fairly impressed with myself as it was my first time using this particular method of cake decorating.

Trying to show ya all angles.Of course, I could not have done it without these three helpers.

First, the twins. They were there ready to lick any bowls I put before them. I wonder if you notice that canister filled with powdered sugar just by Twin B's hand. Hmmm, yes. After I snapped this picture I turned around to continue working on the cake. Twin B took that opportunity to snatch the canister and run away with it. The Dude found her perched on the ottoman shoveling handfuls of powdered sugar into her mouth. Nice.

And this little guy.

What a great help he was, eating all of my cake cuttings. Super helpful! That is, until he dumped the plate on the floor and ran for the broom, crushing all the crumbs onto the floor.

**Tomorrow, or later, I'll begin posting the how to's and recipes for this little lovely.