Unintentional photo shoot

I haven't used my DSLR all that much lately. Like I said in my first (and only) iPhone picture recap, I usually use my iPhone for my photography needs. Mostly I'm just uninspired these days. Dragging out my big heavy camera and lugging it around just seems like a lot of work sometimes. But then I'll get it out and I'll remember why I love it. Especially when we're at a park at a time when there is perfect light.

He uses the big kid swings now. What a boss.

Pushing wood chips through holes in the stairs. Good for at least ten minutes of entertainment.

Wood chips on the slide!! Yay!!!!

Checking out the playground at the elementary school next door.

Hank LOVES his monkey, Oliver.

This is his cheese face

The lights behind him were beautiful but I couldn't convince him to stop making this funny face. Oh well. At least he's cute.

Hello March.

Well, blogging in February was pretty much a bust. Whoops. Add 16-hour days to a trip to Vegas (for my friend's birthday) and the busiest cake-baking month EVER and it pretty much sets me up for blogging failure. Oh well. It's a good thing that there are only ten or so people who read this blog and would be disappointed by my lack of consistency. And all ten of them completely understand my situation. Or least pretend they do... at least to my face. :)

Anyway. I have lots of pictures of the boys, but I have yet to organize them. In the meantime, these are the masterpieces I was busy with last month:

Birthday cake for my mother-in-law's surprise party.

 If anyone is into cake decorating, I did the rose cake above in regular buttercream topped with marshmallow fondant I made myself (recipe I used is here). I made all of the roses out of royal icing, let them dry overnight (though I should have left them longer) and glued them to the fondant with leftover royal icing. It worked perfectly! Royal icing will melt if it comes into contact with grease, but I guess the fondant and royal icing had dried enough not to be affected. Yay!

This was for a friend's daughter's Sofia the First birthday party

The quilting took FOREVER, but totally worth it, yes?

 I had never made the swags (purple curtain-looking things) before, but I thought I did pretty well overall. I had never done the quilting effect either, but think I did okay on that too.

We'll get back to regular programming (*ahem* pics of the boys) later. For now I just wanted to brag. :)