Lost Keys

So, this is a little more of a personal post, but it also includes a sweet treat at the end. Today, I was reminded of how praying for "little things" can be answered with a big message. First of all, let me admit, I often struggle with thinking I should only pray for "important" things or "big" things. For example, I felt silly praying for Landon to sleep through the night when he was a newborn because I should be thankful for a baby, etc. This isn't how God wants us to treat him with prayer - picking and choosing what is important enough to pray for. He says in Philippians 4:6-7:

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

He doesn't say "only pray for big things like war, etc", but He says "but in everything ...let your requests be known to God."

Sooooo on to the story that led me to meditate on this verse. Yesterday, I went for a run with Daisy and Landon using my $5 jogging stroller I got off of Craigslist. I didn't realize it had a small hole in the attached bag...looking at it now it is so small I don't see how much keys could have fallen through it, but they apparently did.

I spent about an hour searching high and low for my keys, but still no sign of them. I figured I must have locked them in my car, so when Dave got home he had a good friend come over to help him break in....that didn't work.

The following day I called our insurance to use the $100 credit for roadside assistance. Landon and I watched the guy open my lock (which was quite fun and interesting) and he must have though I was the craziest lady when I searched my empty, no keys present, car.

Well, it was time to search "da hood" for my keys. Wouldn't you know that I had gone down almost all the side roads to make my run long so the search wasn't an easy one. My week has been a stressful one, with personal junk going on and I also have a lot of cake orders (which I am sooo thankful for). All of that to say, I didn't have time for this. I started giving it over to the Lord and asked him to change my heart, and it it was His will, for me to find my keys. If it wasn't His will, I asked for patience and joy as we changed the locks in our house and got a new car key made. As I was surrendering it all, I looked up to see this sign:

Yay!!

So, the short story is, I got over my pride about praying for something I would consider "little" and God showed me how I need to bring EVERYTHING, by prayer and petition, to Him.

I wanted to thank our neighbors, so here are some yummy red velvet with cream cheese icing cupcakes I made for them

Hope they enjoyed them! I am so thankful for their kindess and all the trouble they went to to try to find me.

Polymer Clay Cake Toppers....PIMP YOUR CAKE!

Sooo, it is sleeting and snowing and has totally messed up my errand plans. I know it has been all in the news, but seriously I didn't think it would be bad. Anywho, I attempted to go out and had to turn back home because I had precious cargo in the car and just couldn't take the risk.....so this has given me a little extra time to blog.
I want to talk a little about my cake toppers. Some of them are edible (made out of fondant or gumpaste) but some are not edible and will last a lifetime (made out of polymer clay). I think there is a little confusion about the two because they look similar. Here is an example of one that is made out of gumpaste...

This one was made out of fondant....

 

 

And this was made out of polymer clay.....

 

 

 

 

The main difference is that you can keep the polymer ones as a little memory from the event. I made the one above for my little guy's 1st birthday. I can make these to look like people, animals, etc. I am hoping to open an etsy shop with them soon! Here is what it looked like on his smash cake: 

 

 

Well it is "ta ta" from me. If you are experiencing the snow and ice, I hope you have a wonderful  wintry, snugly day!

 

PS

Here are a few other polymer cake toppers I have made in the past.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rainbow Birthday Cake

 

I love love love this cake! This was a birthday cake for our neighbor. I like how cheerful it turned out.....the best party is that the inside was just as colorful! I dyed the batter all different colors so it would also go along with the rainbow theme.

Tea Party Cupcakes

 

 

 

These cupcakes brought back memories and I had a ton of fun making them. I still remember my best friend's tea party birthday that happened over 20 years ago....crazy!!

Snowflake Cake

 

 

This cake was also pretty special! I made it for one of the little girls who used to be in my Awana group at church. I miss seeing her every week at Awana, but love running into her and her family at church. Victoria is so sweet and I hope she had an awesome birthday party!!

I made the snowflakes with melted chocolate and piped them onto wax paper. There were very fragile, but so pretty and yummy too.

Farm Smash Cake and Cookies

It's been a while, but I am finally trying to catch up on some blogging! I made these cookies and smash cake for a very special one year old, Ezra. Ezra and Landon are only a week apart in age and Ezra's mommy watched Landon when I went back to work in the Spring. We became close friends and I am looking forward to watching our boys grow up together!

Landon's Winter ONEderland

Get ready for a super long blog post...this time I get to post about my baby's party!! I have wanted to plan a first birthday party for such a long time and boy oh boy I sure had fun finally getting to do it! We were blessed with so many special friends, and family, that came to help us celebrate. Dave's parents drove all the way from New York just for the weekend. L is a pretty loved little boy.

Welcome to Landon's Winter ONEderland......

I am NOT a graphic designer by far, but I did design the invitations and other party printables on my laptop. Since I don't have photoshop I was determined to figure out how to use microsoft word and excel using a few tutorials from pinterest and some good ole clip art.

So, I can't take credit for the awesome pinwheels. My friend Emily and her hubby made them for her little boy's first bday this past summer and used the same color scheme. She was so sweet and let me borrow them!

Here's the table. So, I must admit that I get obsessed with all those pretty party tables I see on blogs and I really didn't know how to make mine look like those. I tried putting a couple of different wrapping paper pieces up and it just looked cheapo so I got a big ole piece of beadboard from the garage. We have a bunch left over from Landon's nursery and I love how it turned out! I got the snowflakes from the Dollar Tree and spray painted them red, designed and printed the banner on cardstock at home, made the table runner with some wrapping paper and covered it with transparent contact paper (so the food wouldn't mess it up), and spray painted the cake stands I made for a previous cake customer. As you can see, it was a party on a budget!

Here is the seat for the guest of honor. My friend Raeanne let me borrow her antique highchair...love it! I don't want to give it back ;) The hat, oh how I love the hat, was made from some fabric scaps and a cereal box. I found the tutorial here but gave it my own spin by doing an appliqued number one on it before putting the hat together. I also made the little pom pom on top.

I designed the little cupcake toppers and made the cupcake sleeves out of scrapbook paper. They were triple chocolate cupcakes...yum yum.

 

 

I loved making these little penguin cake pops! I always get aggravated when I make cake pops because I have a difficult time with the chocolate hardening before I have used it.  I found this awesome tip on pinterest that suggested using a mini crock pot (the little one you use to keep dips warm) and it made the process sooo much easier. I used a little ice cream salt to keep the cake pops standing up in my ice cream dishes. I love how it looks like ice (something else I found on pinterest).

 

 

AND here is the guest of honor's little smash cake! I made the cake topper out of polymer clay so he will be able to keep it forever. His little face always lights up when I let him play with it. A few years I taught all of my 5th graders how to make little clay penguins and this sure brought back memories.

 

 

And here is one of my fave cakes yet! Polar Bears are my favorite animals and I have been wanting to make a bear cake for a long time. My friend Taylor got me this AWESOME Build-A-Bear cake pan a few years ago and I had yet to use it. I was so happy I got to finally put it to use and I hope I'll be able to use it for many more cakes! I'll try to do another blog post where I explain how I put this little guy together.

 

 

Haha....I think this pic is so funny. Landon grabbed the cake before we were even able to put a candle in it! Everyone ran over to sing Happy Birthday before he devoured the whole thing.

 

 

 

 

 

Don't stick it up your nose silly little guy!!

 

 

Here's the hot chocolate bar, but I don't think anyone had any because it was 72 degrees outside! Not the best weather for a Winter ONEderland ;)

 

 

A closer look at Landon's Polar Water...

 

 

 

One of my favorite activity at the party was making snow!! We bought some snow from the Teach Me store and it was awesome. The kids loved it and Landon is still playing in it. I found this swimming pool, literally, in the middle of the road...it was a perfect color and size :)

 

It's a little difficult to see, but the mantle has all of L's weekly pics that we took of him this past year. It was so neat to see them all together and printed out. I used some picture frames that I got for yardsales, spray painted them and attached some jute twine and hung the pics with little mini clothes pins. I LOVED how they turned out and it was sad taking them down.

 

I made the Igloo out of a big piece of cardbaord we had saved from when we bought our kitchen table. I spray painted it white and drew the ice blocks on with a sharpie. It was supposed to be a picture prop, but I am not sure how many pics got taken in it. We still have it up for a Christmas decoration.

 

 

 

 

 

And last, but not least, here is the Penguin Adoption Center! I bought all these little penguin beach balls from Oriental Trading and the kids were able to play with them at the party as well (another pinterest idea :) )

 

 

And there it is!! I hope that everyone had fun cause I know we sure did. I know Landon won't remember this day, but I hope we have a lot of good pics for him and maybe one day he'll be able to look back and see how many people love him and came to celebrate! We love you Landon David Eshleman!!

Dear Landon

Dear Landon,

Happy First Birthday to my precious little gift from God! My heart overflows with love and thankfulness for you. One year ago today, you came into the world and forever changed our lives. Landon, you have been such a blessing to us and everyone you meet. It warms my heart to see how you light up the faces of people around you, including complete strangers. Your name means something cheesy like "landowner", but to God you mean so much more! If I was to give your name a meaning it would be "joyful gift from God". You are truly a gift, a baby we never imagined would be ours. You are kind, funny, adorable, laid back, cuddly, curious, very observant, happy...the list could go on and on.
 I love it when we are out and about and see someone who looks like they are having a bad day and you chatter away and smile at them until they acknowledge you and eventually smile back. God is already using you in this world - through your simple, contagious smiles and sweet chatter. Because of you, He has continued to cultivate patience in me and trust that He has good things in store for my life.
You see, we did not know if we would be able to have a baby. Every child is a miracle and God creates each one in his own special timing. After being sick and having two surgeries within a year, I was so discouraged and wandered why so many other people could easily have a baby. I began to ask God, once again, why life is so hard. God answered that question by giving us you! God hand-picked you to be in our family. He chose us to be your parents and knew EXACTLY when to give you to us. He knew I would find out early in our marriage that I was sick. He knew that not knowing how we would start a family (either through adoption or biologically) would lead me to have a deeper trust in Him. He knew that you were the gift, the miracle, He would give us at just the right time!
Landon, your Dad and I pray for you daily to come to know Jesus. He is the greatest gift to us and has entrusted us with your life. Landon David Eshleman, our hearts overflow with love for you - Happy Birthday!!

Love,
Your Mommy



So, I know this isn't a cake post, but today is a special day for my little guy! Here are a few pics from his day so far....

 

 

We started the day off by celebrating with a free b-day rooty tooty jr. breakfast at IHOP! It was fun PJ and Pancakes date with jusy mommy and baby :) We have more treats coming later today. Can't wait!

 

Giraffe Smash Cake

I made this little giraffe "smash" cake for a little boy two weeks in a row! One for his real birthday and the following week for his party. I always get asked what a smash cake is and it is a miniatute cake that a baby gets to smash into for his or her fist birthday. I can't wait to make Landon's in a few weeks.

Washington Nationals Cake

Challenging but rewarding! This describes this cake that I made for my friend Johanna and her mom. Johanna and I went to Meredith together and her brother got married this past weekend. This was a cake they ordered for the rehearsal dinner. I know absolutely nothing about the Washington Nationals and now feel like I have a wealth of knowledge. They have these presidential races at the games and supposedly Teddy never wins. He did on this cake! I hope he enjoyed his moment of fame. The little figurine was made out of fondant.