Car Bentofor K

We were meant to go on a picnic with a friend last Wednesday, but when we woke up it was raining. Booo!!! I talked to the mom and we decided to have the picnic at our place. On their way over it was pouring rain, but roughly 20 minutes later it turned into a beautiful, sun shiny day. I kept telling myself that even if we had gone to the park, the picnic would have been a disaster, what with muddy grounds and puddles for jumping in. Who am I kidding, mud and puddles? That sounds like K's heaven.

I made K's lunch as if we were going on a real picnic, so in his Thomas bento box. I thought he might like a car-themed lunch, so there we have it!!

There is rice on the bottom and the car is made of egg. The tires are little mashed potato/mince meat croquettes and the person is cheese with sesame seed eyes and a ketchup mouth.

K surprised me and ate a good amount of the car, both tires (he generally likes anything fried), the rice and the strawberries. I thought the car would be a total fail. Luckily he proved me wrong!!

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Baby Girl Gifts

Did you think I just up and quit making things?!? I know I haven't posted in a while, but for some reason I can't post from my phone. I kept thinking it will work one day, so I just kept procrastinating. I dread turning on my computer, but alas, it is Saturday, my phone posts still won't take, and it must be done. I have this post for you today and a big one (another cake) for tomorrow, and hopefully a bento post in between. Anyway, getting along with things...

One of my friends from childhood just gave birth to a baby girl. If you have ever really looked at sewing/crocheting blogs, they are FULL of things for girls. There is not too much for little boys. When my friend gave birth to a little girl I immediately got thinking about what fun things I could make for her.

I came across this "butterfly hat" and thought it was about the cutest little thing. When K was little, I made him a hat and I thought he looked so stinkin' cute. Hats on babies are adorable, in my opinion. My friend lives in Portland and the little girl was born in April. I decided to make the hat in the 6 month size, because October in Portland seems like it could be chilly.

I think the hat turned out so sweet. I tried to put it on K to see if it really was roughly the right size and it was WAY too small. I know he is 2, so this makes no sense, but I have bad luck when it comes to baby hats. It seems they are either way too huge or teeny tiny. This one looks like a reasonable size for a little one and had no chance of fitting K - it think it worked!!

Since the hat won't be used for a few months, I thought I should make something that works right now. So, I also whipped up this little flower headband.

Again, I was worried about head size and how quickly babies' heads grow. I saw somewhere, ages ago about crocheting a hair elastic into the headband and that way there is a bit more stretch, i.e. more room for the head to grow. I thought it was a genius idea and had stored it in the back of my brain for when I finally have a baby girl and can make TONS of headbands for her. Luckily I didn't have to wait that long and used that method this time around.



Both turned out well. I hope my friend likes them and that the baby girl doesn't hate having things on her head. That would be bad.

I Spy Bag

Some of our favorite people in Japan are headed back to the UK.

We met Becca and Ed years ago when Becca and I were on the same children's resource team at an English school. Eventually the company went bankrupt (through no fault of our own), but Becca and Ed stayed put.

They founded their own English school (now being run by a different friend, in case you are looking for lessons) and settled into their new life. Eventually they had a baby boy, Henry, and 8 months later K was born. The boys are kindred spirits, both having an undying love for Thomas and other vehicles. They are one of the sweetest, most fun families I've had the pleasure of meeting and their friendship will be missed.

I came across this tutorial for making I Spy Bags and thought it'd be a lovely gift for Henry for the airplane ride home. (I think I'll make one for K for our next trip back to the US.)

The bag was super easy to make. The most difficult part was finding the little bits to put in.




I followed the tutorial instructions, but came up with my own measurements...who are we kidding, I didn't measure this. I just cut rectangles that I thought would be of a decent size.




Then I cut a hole in the middle of one of them and ironed back the edges of the hole as well as the pocket piece.





First I sewed a double seam to keep the pocket edge nice. The next step was to sew a clear vinyl sheet to the window. I sewed around it twice - rogue rice on a plane sounds awful. Then I then zigzagged around all edges. Finally I sewed the three pieces together (pocket and back properly set with the window right side facing), leaving a space for turning and also zigzagged those edges together. That rice will never have the pleasure of breathing airplane air.




Then I flipped the bag, put the little bits in and filled it up with rice. The last thing I did for the bag was topstitch around. I don't know that I'll do that the next time - I just wanted to be sure those seams were safe.




I also took a photo of all the little bits, printed it out, put it in a plastic bag, sewed around that twice as well, and cut it out.




Stick it in the back pocket, and Bob's your uncle!




I like to imagine the plane ride going something like this:
B: Henry, find the car.
(Five minutes of peace for Becca.)
H: Found it!
B: Great! Now find the strawberry...

I'm sure that's not how it will go over at all, but a mom can dream.

We will miss the three of them heaps and cannot wait for their travels back to Japan. Sooner rather than later, I hope!!

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Thomas and Tres Leches

Yesterday I posted about K's birthday party with full intentions of showing the making of his cake today. I had no intentions of baking today. Alas, it's Cinco de Mayo and if I'm not celebrating with a Mexican dinner, I should celebrate with cake!

As a result, this post is about two cakes!!

First let's do today's cake - the Tres Leches. It's so sweet and melts in your mouth. Such a welcome difference compared to your standard cake. I used an Alton Brown recipe and it turned out pretty amazing.

I don't have a 9 X 13 pan, so I used my 8 inch square pan. I didn't change the cake recipe at all, just baked it a few minutes longer.

Once the cake cools, you go to town poking holes in the beautiful cake you just made and then pour your tres leches (three milks - sweetened condensed, evaporated milk and cream) over the top. I halved the amount of evaporated milk because it was going to overflow. As it was, I was pretty convinced I'd just ruined my cake. There was so much liquid I thought we were destined to eat it like a chunky soup.

(Imagine a photo of a square cake pan filled to the brim with a milky liquid mixture - no cake in sight. K had my phone and there was no getting it away from him, otherwise you could actually see this disaster.)

It is meant to sit over night at this point, but I let it just sit for a few hours. Magically, it turned into this:




Now top that baby with some whipped cream and you have the delicious Tres Leches cake.




It was delicious, but we only got a few slices in.




Any takers?!?


Now on to the Thomas cake...

I started the Monday before the party and made a huge amount of Marshmallow Fondant (MMF).




It looks like clay when you're finally done with it.




Then I dyed it. I planned on only doing Thomas' face in MMF, so I dyed it those colors only.




The next night I started making his face. This was terrifying as I had no idea what size to make it. You have to do it ahead of time so that it dries. I just guessed and crossed my fingers.




If you've ever really looked at two Thomas toys next to one another, you will see that much like snowflakes, no two are the same. I was cursing this at first, but then realized that we see all these different faces, yet recognize them as Thomas. It couldn't be that difficult, right??

Then i realized that i still had a TON of MMF leftover and came to grips with my reality - I was going to cover the cake in it.

A few days later I baked the cakes (two 8 inch squares), cut them in half lengthwise, wrapped them super well and threw them in the freezer.

The next day I made the buttercream frosting and started getting to work on Thomas.

First I stacked the four layers, separated by buttercream.




Then, with a big Thomas next to me, I started carving away.












Little by little, I could see Thomas coming to life. (As a note, I did the smokestack and little knob behind it in fondant - the cake was proving to be a bit challenging.)

Then I covered it in buttercream and put it back in the freezer.




While it was chilling, I dyed my leftover MMF red, blue and yellow.

Then I took it out and started rolling the MMF and chopping it into pieces so that I could make a Frankenstein version of Thomas. I never did get all of the seams buffed perfectly, but it looked pretty good.




It looked even better after sitting out for two nights.




On the day of the party, that little Thomas fed 18 guests. He did his job, just like the good little engine that he is.



Notice the tequila bottles in the background?? Yes!!!




The cake recipe I used allowed me to make a couple of cupcakes in addition to each cake. I figured it'd be best to make them for the party in case the cake wasn't enough.




Luckily it was, so instead we had the cupcakes on K's actual birthday.




He was one happy 2 year old!




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K's Party

I know this post is nearly a week late, but it's been a busy week over here. It's Golden Week which means a week of holidays for Y, but a busy time as it feels we need to take advantage of the holidays and do lots of things. Also Y's parents have been staying with us (which is an amazing help), but again it seems like I should be spending time with them, not on my blog. But, enough excuses, on to the party!!

It was a really lovely time. Six families (including us) celebrated the day. There were seven kids - one aged three, but all the others were two or very close to it. It got pretty wild, but they seemed to have fun.



They played trains (of course).



They watered flowers.



They jumped on the play mattress and then on a dad.



And they just sat around, talking and playing with the adults.

Y and I made a balloon banner in Thomas colors to string across the living room entrance.




It was quite popular with the kids and parents. I used the tutorial linked above, but instead of twine and a regular needle, I used yarn and a crochet/knitting needle.

There were of course lots of snacks - sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies, and marshmallow pops.







We did the piñata at the park. I had nothing to be afraid of; when Thomas got busted open, K cracked up!!







It was a tad on the strong side, so all the moms and dads got a turn at whacking it as well.

And of course there was cake.




It was my first real go with marshmallow fondant and I don't think it was awful - in fact I was a tad proud of it. I'll post more about the cake tomorrow, hopefully.




There were also a few cupcakes that were left untouched.




And that is K's 2nd birthday party in a nutshell!!

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K's Birthday Present - The Unveiling

On Monday, K turned 2! I finally gave him the house I spent weeks making (walls #1 and #2, wall #3, wall #4. He seemed to like it, which is good news, but at the beginning he wasn't as in love with it as much as I was hoping. He jumped in and started playing with it, but soon wanted to go back to the iPad. Booo...

He went back and forth for a while - he'd play in the house, then go do something else. I guess it is somewhat to be expected. I put a few trains inside and he seemed to like that.

He harvested a few veggies and then proceeded to eat them. He kept calling the potato a cookie - he definitely is my son.

He even picked a few flowers. Then he cried when we had to put it away for dinner. All in all, a successful project in my book!