Mike's Birthday Cake

Since I've been on this cake making kick for a while now, I offered Mike to make whatever cake he wanted for his birthday. He chose basketball theme. So with a little help from Google, here's a cake that I made for our family dinner:

For dinner Mike requested Coq Au Vin with spaetzle and French string beans. Coq au vin is a french chicken dish, slow cooked in red wine, with bacon, pearl onions, mushrooms and herbs. Spaetzle is a dish of German moodles enhanced with fresh herbs. Both of these recipes came from William Sonoma cooking demonstration classes that I did last fall. We really liked the flavors, however I had to tweak the recipes to make them more healthy.

My Cake Decorating Class

In the month of February, I took Wilton's Flowers and Cake Design class. We learned to make a variety of flowers from different edible materials including daisies, pansies, roses, apple blossoms, primroses, daffodils, lilies.

Coincidentally the last class ended the night before Mike's birthday. So my final project was Mike's birthday cake :) Do to the nature of the class, the cake came out very girly, turns out it's hard to make a manly cake with flowers..

I don't have pictures of all of the flowers that I learned to make, but here's some:
Daises and Pansies from fondant:


Some apple blossoms and primroses that I made to put on the cake for the final project:


Here's the final product:
Marble cake with chocolate ganache filling and vanilla buttercream icing.


Basketweave on the sides and crunchy, sugary flowers on top:

The Family Portrait

Ashley's been into drawing our family. Here's one of her family portraits of us:

It's Mommy, Ashley (the biggest one), Daddy (the smallest) and Katelyn.

Diaper Cake

This past weekend I got a chance to make a diaper cake for Nelya's baby shower. I used 100 diapers and since she's having a girl, I decorated it with all things pink - ribbons, ballerina kitty, diaper pins, hair bows, chew toy, pink sockies and little carseat toys and a soft blanket.


Since I didn't post this earlier, here's a picture of the diaper cake that I made for Jen's baby shower last fall:

Katelyn went on the potty for the first time plus more "Sissy" Love

Both Ashley and Katelyn were sick with a virus last week, so to rule out any infection, Dr. Yia asked that we give her Katelyn's urine sample. The problem is Katelyn is still in diapers and the topic of potty training has been deferred until warmer months. Dr. Yia gave us a baggie with tape round the opening that she suggested we try to use on Katelyn inside her diaper, however knowing how stubborn Katelyn can be there was no way she was going to agree to wear a plastic bag in her pants, besides we wouldn't know if she went, so it may all spill into the diaper. So I decided that we would try to potty route. So armed with a book and mini M&Ms I convinced Katelyn to sit on the potty after her nap. She didn't like the idea, but being that she really likes sweets, she couldn't resist the M&M. And I'm happy to report that in less than 10 min we had success! I'm not sure Katelyn even realized what she did, but she certainly got a lot of praise for it!

Her test came back negative and both of them are feeling much better this week. We again managed to avoid antibiotics. It's been more than a year since the last time that they had to take them! I think it's quite an accomplishment, being that both Ashley and Katelyn go to activities outside the house and interact with other kids all the time.

Here are some more recent pictures of the "sissy" love at our house :)

Valentine's Day Cards

This year, Ashley made some home-made Valentines Greeting Cards for all of her favorite people. Here's one that she made for Daddy :)

Valentine's Day 2011

This is the first year that Ashley was really old enough to care about the Valentine's Day. We spent the weekend handwriting cards for her classmates and making heart shaped valentines. Ashley did great, she wrote out her name on most of the cards all by herself!

And I couldn't resist the occasion to make some special cookies. I made heart shaped cookies and decorated them with pink frosting and sprinkles.

We made a tray of cookies for Ashley's school teachers,

and wrapped a few to give with cards to all her classmates.

It was a last minute idea and I'm glad we did, because Ashley came home from school with a whole shoe box decorated for the occasion filled with cards and treats from people at her school! Who knew.. glad we brought to school treats too, or Ashley would have felt left out. Now I'm scared.. I'm not sure what we are supposed to do for St. Patrick's Day. Who knows, may be we are supposed to do the same for this holiday as well.. I need a handbook on what you are supposed to do when your kid is in school. I'm trying to learn as we go along, hopefully next year will be better, since we'll know what to expect.

Also, Ashley dressed up so nice on Valentine's Day. She wore a jean skirt with snowflakes on it, with a red top. Indira made her a beautiful ponytail and brand new hair bands that she got her. Unfortunately Ashley wasn't in the picture taking mood, so this is the only picture that I got of her..

It was such a busy day that I didn't even get Katelyn's picture, oh well.

Mike didn't get home until late on Monday, so we stayed in. I made jumbo lump crab cakes with mushroom risotto, chocolate covered strawberries and a bottle of Riesling. It was a nice relaxing night :)

Mike got me a giant Valentine's Day balloon. It was so huge it was just obscene! I can just see it being in our house until July 4Th. These Mylar balloons last forever!!

Sergei and Sasha's Visit

Disney on Ice was fun, but as soon as that was over, we had to start getting ready for Sergei's and Sasha's visit to our house the next day. I haven't seen my uncle Sasha in 18 years, and Sergei was here a year and a half ago right before Katelyn was born. We planned some activities along with lunch and dinner to try to squeeze as must as possible into a day without it becoming overwhelming.

First impression, when Uncle Sasha and Sergei walked in, was Wow they are tall! Mike at 6'2", looked short next to them. Uncle Sasha looked exactly the same as I remembered him. We started with a welcome drink of all-American beer, a quick tour of our house and then drove to MJ's to have another drink and check out the Tinton Falls waterfall.


At some point everyone pulled out their iPhones, so I just had to take another picture :)

After the drink, we returned home because it was kids lunch/nap time. While I heated up the Chili, everyone hung out outside. Ashley wanted to go sledding down our slide, but the sled was buried somewhere under the snow in our backyard. We tried looking for it but couldn't locate it. So Sasha took off his shoes, rolled up his pants and set out to look for the sled barefoot, since according to him you'd be able to feel it with the bare feet much easier. Another perfect picture moment, he he :)

He didn't find the sled, but we were all impressed by his "zakalennost'". We ate chili along with some Margaritas. Katelyn flirted with everyone at the table, especially our guests of honor. She really showed off her personally, no surprise there :) We put the kids went to bed and Indira watched them while we continued our tour.

Next we headed to Long Branch, Sasha has never seen the ocean before, so of course he had to at least get his feet wet. Sergei went for a swim when he was here a year an a half ago in June, so Sasha was the only brave one to go in. (The water was in mid 30s.)



We took a nice long stroll down the beach, it looked so different covered in snow and with all of the palm trees gone. Nevertheless very beautiful :)

Next we headed to Party Fair store, because Sergei was looking for a Batman costume for his friend. We didn't find the costume but Sergei did pick up a few unique souvenirs, after which we headed to Red Bank. Original plan was to watch an ice boat race on the Navesink, but the weather did not cooperate. The ice was too thin, so the races were canceled. We walked down to the river to watch the sunset, we walked to Mike's office, and then downtown. We stopped at the Paw Palace Pet Boutique, where Sasha picked up a couple souvenirs for his fur babies. We grabbed a cappuccino at Starbucks, and headed home to get ready for dinner.


I had a big dinner planned, trying to offer food that we like, that's American, but would appeal to everyone. For appetizers I made mini hot dogs wrapped in dough, bruschetta with garlic toasts, crackers with blueberry goat cheese, veggies with dip, plain potato chips as well as my honey roasted almonds. For dinner I had grilled cedar plank salmon, grilled fillet Mignon, and BBQ ribs to choose from. For sides I made garlic potatoes with parsley and string beans almondine and Salat Olivie. We also got our favorite ciabatta bread to dip in seasoned olive oil and fresh roasted garlic. For desert I made chocolate chip cookie pie with vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberries, chocolate pecan pie, brownies and a fruit salad. Joan brought over an almond cake. It may sound like a lot of food, but a lot of it was gone at the end of the night. I have to give huge thanks to Indira who helped me to get everything done. Thanks to the preparations we made before, we had a really laid back kind of night.

Katelyn was particularly smitten with Chuck, she perched on his lap, wrapped in a blanket and didn't want to move, it was very sweet.

It was a great time, great company and the kids were on their best behavior :)

Disney on Ice: Princess Wishes Show

Last weekend, I took Ashley to see Disney on Ice at the Izod Center. It was her first live show. She was really excited, since she just tried ice skating herself for the first time the weekend before and now we were going to watch the Princesses skate on ice! It was an awesome trip. We met there with my friend Irina and her kids Rita and David. Ashley and I both really enjoyed it, she was mesmerized by the princesses, and I was pretty impressed with the skating and the tricks that they did. It was really cool to watch. We'll definitely have to go back to see Disney on Ice again, and may be next time Katelyn will be old enough to come too. Here are some pictures from the day:

Katelyn - 19 Months Today

Katelyn - 19 months update..
My monkey KK provides us with endless amounts of entertainment daily. She’s really a joy to watch. She’s such a happy little thing, even though she can be pretty stubborn if she doesn’t get her way. She’s finally able to hang with Ashley and other “big kids” and do some of the big kid stuff. She likes to play pretend, have tea parties and play with her baby dolls, but what I’m most impressed with is her ability to color. She holds the crayons the proper way and sits with Ashley at the table like a big girl to color. On occasion she still likes to take a bite out of her crayons, and draw on walls (which Ashley never did), but overall it’s a perfect activity to keep her out of trouble. Another thing that she’s gotten amazingly good at is feeding herself. She never liked being spoon fed, but now she can actually hold a spoon or a fork the right way and feed herself her whole meal! I have to confess, lately I spend more time helping Ashley with her meals that I do Katelyn. Katelyn just sits quietly at the table and shovels food in her month. And when she’s finished, she asks to get down, goes over to Ashley, climbs on her chair and starts eating Ashley’s food! It’s a riot to watch! We keep warning Ashley that if she doesn’t eat faster, Katelyn will just empty both of their plates and she’ll be hungry.

Another favorite thing for Katelyn to do is to dance and sing. She’s always humming something, and as soon as she hears music, she wiggles her tushie to the beat! She also likes to play piano. The only thing is that she likes to do it in private, no audience. She’ll go by the piano, open it up, sit down and play. It doesn’t even sound half bad, she’s not just banging on the keys, she chooses the keys carefully and even does some cords with both hands  I’ll have to record her doing this.