Mexican Christmas!

So Randy and I haven't been very good about blogging lately, but we're back!  I've recently started a new job (same company), but now I'm a supervisor.  As if that isn't exciting enough, I'm the supervisor for a team that is a new initiative at my company, so it's kind of like a start-up and very entrepreneurial.  It's super challenging and really fun, and I love it, but when I get home from work every day, I'm drained.  Randy has something similar going on at work - not a new position, but he's working on a new objective for his company too.  We're both getting confused about what day of the week it is because we've been working Saturdays, but have a random Friday off...  I'm not making excuses, I don't believe in excuses, but I thought I owed an explanation at least to myself.

So anyway, let's jump into Christmas!  It came quick this year, didn't it?  With Thanksgiving so late and Hanukkah so early, it really threw us for a loop!  But this is the Christmas we have been waiting on for a while...  Mexican Christmas!  And we're hosting!  And I can't stop exclaiming!

You might remember Southern BBQ Christmas last year at my brother's house, and Cajun Christmas in 2011 at Randy's brother's.  We have a tradition of hosting a themed Christmas every year based on a chosen culture.  Since Randy's family is jewish, and mine is catholic, we decided to start creating our own traditions together rather than make Randy's family fit into our traditions.  And I was totally fine with giving up the ham on Christmas day.  Sorry, Mom.

So for Mexican Christmas, which later became Merry-achi Christmas, we started with this.  I found the star at Target.  It was pretty rustic looking, and it was $5.  Sold.

Instead of our traditional red tree skirt with snowmen, I wrapped our Penn State blanket around the tree Linus-style, which the cats loved.  If the cats puke on it, it washes very easily, unlike our tree skirt.  I wanted to stick to the Mexican theme as much possible, so anything overly American I left in the christmas boxes.  That means no red suited Santas, no snowflakes (does it snow in Mexico?), and no snowmen.

So Randy, Keller and Rocky took a break while I sorted through our ornaments and pulled out all the colorful ones, all the folk artsy ones, and the ones that could look sorta Mexican if you squinted at them sideways.

Who do you think he's talking to?  I can't remember, but if I had to bet money, I'd say his mom.

So then our tree looked like this:

Feliz Navidad, right?  Wrong.

Even with Camille posing for the camera, the tree just wasn't complete.  But she is cute, isn't she?  I ordered some mini maracas and piñatas from Oriental Trading Company, and DIYed some cute felt bird ornaments.  More to follow on those.

In the meantime, I got the nativity set up, or as I like to call it, La Navidad.

Aaaaaaand just because, here is a picture of Keller when he cuddles with Randy.

 He's such a sweet little monkey.

Anyone else celebrating a non-traditional Christmas this year?  Have any cute kitties that like to snuggle by the tree?  Awwww c'mon, who can't resist these little toes!

Tessa and Tom's Wedding Cake and Cupcakes

Last weekend, Sugar Whim was hired to make a cutting cake and 150 cupcakes for the country wedding of Tessa and Tom.  Tessa is the youngest in our buddy Carl's family (The Carl combination was named for his birthday cake a few years ago).  Tessa is the last one of the 4 siblings to get married, and the 3rd sibling to have a Sugar Whim wedding cake!

You might remember Kat's cake from last October, or Billy's cutting cake from a few years ago.  When Tessa asked me to make her cake, I was extremely excited!  It takes a lot to get this:

from this:  

But it was worth every second.  With such a large order, I usually enlist the help of some friends.  Linda and Becky recently had their kitchen redone, and it is GORGEOUS.  Like seriously the most beautiful and functional kitchen I have ever seen.  We will need to go and crash their house some day so you can see how fabulous it really is...  these crappy iphone pictures really don't do it justice.  So when they offered to let me use their new kitchen AND help out, I jumped for it.  I mean seriously, I have some of the best friends ever.

Here is Linda pouring out the batter for the cutting cake:

And her daughter, Becky, taking a break from mixing cupcake batter to snap some pictures with her phone:

The chocolate cupcake batter had all three of us hopping at some points - we had to melt chocolate and butter on the stove, mix our dry ingredients and measure our buttermilk all at the same time to keep production moving!  

The batter came out thick, like chocolate pudding.  It took a lot of self control to not stick our fingers in to taste the batter!

Tantalizing, isn't it?

After we baked them and mixed up the icing, I packed up all of my cupcakes (we also made italian cream cupcakes), cake layers, icings and fillings, and Randy and I drove up to State College to Hannah and Derrick's house.  I woke up really early Saturday morning to fluff up the icings in the mixer and frost my cupcakes and cakes.

Hydrangeas have been blooming around here, and I am amazed at the colors - pinks, blues, purples, whites...  but they're not solid, their beauty is the the layers of color.  I didn't want to have flat colored cupcakes, so I mixed up a few different colors.

My color scheme was blues and purples, so I mixed up a light blue, and blue purple, a purple and a pinkier purple, along with using plain white icing, and I layered them in my icing bag to get all the different layers of color.

I used my fat cupcake swirl tip to ice all of the chocolate cupcakes to look like hydrangeas, and I used the same colored vanilla italian buttercream to make forget-me-nots, roses, and sweet peas on the chocolate iced cupcakes.

It was warm and humid, so my cake started to develop some condensation, but overall held up great in the heat.

The chocolate iced cupcakes were italian cream cake with chocolate chip cookie dough centers.  I used condensed milk to give it the doughy consistency without using raw eggs!

I think these white and blues and white and purples are my favorite.

 Tessa and Tom liked it too!

I got some absolutely beautiful cake cutting pictures, so I can't help but share them here.

 Aren't they an adorable couple?

The cupcakes were completely decadent and wonderful, and the flavor combinations were excellent choices by the bride and groom.

Congratulations, Tom and Tessa!  Thanks again for hiring Sugar Whim, and for making that one-of-a-kind cupcake stand!!!  It was a beautiful display.

A little visitor

A funny thing happened when Randy and I were working on Mom and Dad's powder room:  One day I was waiting for Randy to help me measure the walls (it's a 2-person job).  I was sitting in the living room looking out the window, and I see this snaking through the flower beds onto the front porch, and nearly had a heart attack.

For those of you who have known me a long time, you understand.  For those who don't, this back is the spitting image of my first cat, Van Gogh, who passed away a few days before Randy and I were engaged, and is buried in the back yard.  Before you get to thinking this is a zombie tale (tail, ha ha), I saw her face.  Definitely not Van Gogh.  Phew!

She walked up to the front door and started pawing at it.  Who is this cat?  Do Mom and Dad know her?  So I did what any other pet owner would do, I went out on the front porch to see what was going on.

The cat's name is Ursula, and she had a number, but no address on her collar.  I figured she was scared and lost, so I got her some food, and Randy called the number.

Randy talked to the man, whom we call "Ursula's Dad".

Randy told him where we were, and Ursula's dad came and got her.  I was holding her in the kitchen, thinking she might get scared and run away before her dad came to get her.  He came, I handed her over, he says, "Ursula wanders, but she's never walked into anyone's house before..."  Ooops.  She didn't come in, I carried her in because I thought she was an indoor cat that got out!  Ursula is an outdoor cat!  He put her down on the porch, and walked home.  Ursula followed him like she was on a leash.

So a couple days later, I get a call from my brother, Bryan.  The first thing he says is not "hello", or "hey, it's Bryan", it's "So I hear you met Ursula."  Bryan did the SAME THING I did, was over at Mom and Dad's checking in on the house, and he met Ursula.  He called Ursula's dad, and said he had his cat.  So Ursula's dad says, "I think I talked to your brother or dad or someone last week."  Ha!  Randy was so offended that the guy thought he might be Bryan's dad!  So Ursula's dad says she'll come home on her own.

A couple days later over the next weekend, I see Ursula sunbathing on the front porch.

I open the door to say hello, and Ursula walks into the house!  Like she lived there!  She goes into the kitchen, looks all around, walks into the dining room and into the living room, and jumps up into the window through which I first saw her.  Of course I understand this is completely my fault.  I should have recognized that she was an indoor/outdoor cat, but I didn't because my cats are indoor cats, and none of Mom and Dad's immediate neighbors have outdoor cats.

I knew Mom and Dad's cats, Tango and Foxtrot, would be upset if they came home to a new cat smell in the house, so I wrangled Ursula and gently took her outside.  I slid shut the rolling screen door, and with one flick of her paw, Ursula snapped it right open again and walked right through.  I didn't like doing it, but she's not our cat, and she has a good home, so I had to put her back out and shut the front door.

I walked by again, she was still there.  I walked by again a little while later, and she was gone.  Whew!

Until we went out back to use the miter saw on the back porch, and she was drinking out of the pool!  She got through the fence!  So we e-mailed Mom and Dad, and told them all about Ursula, how friendly she is, that she's a wanderer, but she has a good home, etc.  Mom was excited to meet Ursula, but since they got home, we haven't seen her since!  Has this ever happened to anyone else - you think you're helping out a lost pet, and you find out they're outdoor pets?  Better to be willing to help someone who doesn't need your help, than to not be willing to help someone who needs it, right?

Mom and Dad's Powder Room - Final Reveal!

While Randy was picking Mom and Dad up at the airport, I was attending to some last minute details.  By the way, Randy stayed at work until 11pm so he could pick them up at the airport at 11:30.  Major son-in-law points.  

Anyway, while he was lazing away, I was putting the finishing touches on the bathroom.  See anything missing?

After I put the doors back on that darn vanity, hung the mirror and the other pictures on the wall, and brought in the stand over the toilet, the room was starting to come together.

Ooooo...  All you family coming for the 4th of July, can't wait to use these facilities, huh??

Is it me, or is it like Mardi Gras in here?

I got all of the accessories at Home Goods, except the towel rack and the stand behind the toilet.  We got those at Tar-jay.

Then I started getting goofy, and accessorized some more.  I think I bought those parrots in Disney World when I was little.  I remember saving and saving my money to buy something big on the trip.  I actually expected Mom and Dad to take them down, but they haven't yet!  The huge blue vase was a birthday gift from my buddy, Eric.  Mom had it in her living room, and it looked nice, so I let her keep it.  I'm sure it'll get moved around to another room soon.

Anything I could find in my color scheme went into the bathroom, including the flowers Ashley put in a vase for Mom and Dad.

I can't get enough of that mirror Randy made.

Now the toilet paper holder/magazine rack blends into the wall.  The trash can is an ice bucket!  It's the perfect trash can for this bathroom.  Small, and has a little plastic liner so you can put a plastic bag in it without it hanging out the top of the bucket.

Let's go back and see what it looked like before:

Yay for new powder rooms!