Pic(s) of the Week - Visiting Grandma

Last weekend, our little family flew down to Houston, TX to see my parents. Being Mia's first flight, we did not know what to expect. But she did amazing. No meltdowns, no ear problems.

We had a great weekend with family. Houston is hot and sticky. But to keep our new walker happy, we went on lots of walks...

On Saturday, we visited the Aquarium downtown...

Mia loved looking at all the fish. Small...

...and large...

Time for lunch. She is getting to be pretty good at feeding herself...

But then she had a meltdown, and we had to high-tail it out of there, lickity split...

(Turned out she was teething. She has two more teeth now-total of 8)

After Mia was in bed, we were able to relax and have some adult fun...

Grandma time was short, but sweet...

It's great to be with family...

But, quick as a wink, it was time to say goodbye...

Until we meet again.

Cakes

A few months ago, I decided to take a cake decorating class. Wilton cakes offers classes through craft stores like Hobby Lobby and Michael's. Since I was taking the semester off of school, I thought I would use the time to finally do this. I have been talking about it for a long time. I love to bake and really wanted to gain the skill to properly decorate.
So, I embarked on a new hobby. And I love it!

There are four courses in the series. Each course has four classes - one per week. The first course is an Intro course where you learn basic decorating. How to make the proper consistency of frosting...etc. Now, I love frosting, so this class was murder on my diet. Luckily, after 8 weeks, I am getting a little sick of frosting.

The first cake we made was this rainbow cake:

We had to bake and frost the cake at home and decorate it in class. I have to say, the "at home" piece was like an I Love Lucy episode. Thank goodness for my dear friend Cindy, or I would have never made it. I won't go into details, but lets just say we had to scrape off all the frosting and do it over again. Even then, it was far from smooth. Turns out there is a trick to getting your frosting smooth.

This cake was great, because we learned how to do the star technique that you see on a lot of character cakes like Elmo and Dora. It was embarrassingly easy. However, you have to have the proper consistency of icing for it to turn out well. I would have never pulled it off on my own without that piece of information.

The grand finale cake for this course was this one that I made for Easter:

I got the frosting a little smoother this time. I surprised myself that my roses came out so well. Practice makes perfect for those suckers. And my writing is seriously lacking....but again, perhaps with practice I might get better.

After the first course, I was totally hooked. So I took the second course: Flowers and Borders.

For this one, we spent three classes learning to make all kinds of flowers. These take a different frosting than basic buttercream. For these, you use "royal frosting" which is just powdered sugar and water. This stuff hardens like a rock and will never go bad. So you can make the flowers in advance.

Over the weeks, we stocked up on flowers to make the grand finale cake:

I had a blast on this one. I could pipe flowers all day long. On the last day, we learned how to do the basket weave technique. I was really proud of this cake. By this time, I was getting much better at baking and frosting.

I am no artist, but I fell in love with cake decorating. I am really excited to apply my new found skills.
I start back to school this summer, so I won't take the next course for a while, but I can't wait to go back. The next one is Fondant and Gum paste.
Some day I hope to be as good as my cake decorating idol.
I would love to make Mia a birthday cake like this:

Or this:
And frost cookies like this:

photos by The Good Apple

If any of you think you might be interested in taking these classes, I highly recommend them. The classes are very inexpensive, but all the equipment added up to well over 100 dollars. Also, as I mentioned above, if you don't want to gain 5 lbs, I would give your finished cakes away. My husband wasn't happy that I gave my flower cake to our neighbors, but he will thank me later. :)

Pic(s) of the Week: Mia and her rocks

Our daily routine these days not only includes pointing at every dandylion and then stomping on them, but also playing with the rocks in our driveway.

Angel is always keeping an eye on her.

Thank God for rocks...

Animal Love

It seems this blog has been taken over by little princess Mia. And how could you blame her? She is definitely the star of our little circus show.
But the doesn't mean that our love for our four legged kids has diminished in the least.
After all, this blog's name is A Brief Paws, right?

Therefore, I thought it only right to give each of our little furry ones their due attention on the blog as time allows me. I hope to profile a different one each week, but with a toddler running around, please forgive me if it's longer.


First up, Brody.
Also known as: The Brodster, Brods, Brody-kins.

I never thought of myself as much of a cat person. I always preferred dogs. That is, until we adopted our kitties. I don't know how we got through life without them.

The day we went to the shelter, we were overwhelmed with all the kitties. So many, how do we choose? But, throughout my life, my animals have chosen me in some form or another. Brody was no different.

As we looked at all the sweet feline faces, I suddenly felt a tap on my back. As if someone was saying "Hey there! Look at me!" I turn around to see this face...

It was love at first sight. The end.

Brody is certainly the coolest cat I have ever met. He is mischievous and full of personality.

He certainly provides the comedy relief around here... Brody is a people cat. He always wants to be where ever we are.

He loves to jump high in the air...


He is fearless...



And you will find him anywhere...




But most of all, he is a good friend...

It's Magic

Okay. It is not often that I come across a by-golly, miracle product. But this is it.
When our cats were kittens, they would try with all their might to jump up on the staircase. Being so small, they always missed their target and then proceeded to hang on for dear life as they slid back to the floor. Over the years as they grew, they never quite stopped playing on the staircase. Chasing, hanging, climbing, and sliding.
The result was this:

Repeated all the way up the stair case.

Every few months, Gabe would grumble something about skinning cats when he would walk past. It wasn't pretty.

My dear friend Cindy told me about an old remedy her mother has used for over 50 years. It is called a Tibetan Almond Stick. Just a stick that was made out of an oily substance that magically made scratches disappear from wood. I was skeptical that it could help such a severe case, but I checked it out anyway. I mean, it was going to be a BIG job to sand all of this down, re-stain, seal, etc. Made me tired just thinking about it.

So, I went to Amazon. The reviews were raving. I was hopeful. And, since it was only five bucks, I bought it.

It came today.

I tried it out, still a tad skeptical. No way could this little stick help scratches this bad.

Well......

Here is the result:

Wow! Even Gabe was impressed (and that is hard to do).

I am no longer skeptical.

Go ahead, try it! Click here.