I used to dream of what it would be like to have a daughter big enough to do fun girl things with. For a time I cried myself to sleep wondering if it would ever happen and worrying that it wouldn’t. When we began the adoption process I worried about all the unknowns, what our future child might look like. Would she be cute? Petite? Fun? Would she look like me?

Eleven and a half years later, I smile every time I look at and think about my daughter. She’s been a wonderful daddy’s little girl, and as she grows I see more and more fun times ahead for the two of us. She’s helping learn to love shopping with her, reminding me of how much fun it is to be silly and carefree and teaching me how to look at the world through eyes with no guile.

I find myself as excited now as I was when she was placed in my arms. There’s so much out there to experience together. Who knew that such a tiny bundle could bring so much joy and fulfillment? The only sad thing is knowing that this time will pass just as quickly as those baby and toddler years. Before I know it I’ll be looking back wondering how she can already be so big. But just for today I’m going to bask in the glow of a loving daughter who wants to be with me.

This is more closely aligned to the nature versus nurture argument than I’ve realized previously. I’ve made comparisons in the past to life and gardening. There is a great deal of wisdom to be found in these types of comparisons. Today I’m reflecting on the values and impact of past and present actions.

Specifically, I’m thinking on the role of parenting. I’m seeing first hand how so many things I’ve done with my kids are traced back to planting the right seeds. Constant attention and cultivation down the road bear priceless impact, but what was planted in the beginning is absolutely critical. You simply can’t make a tomato plant bear a different kind of fruit.

I’ve always heard how important and formidable the early years of life are. I’ve always known it was true, but I’m only now starting to realize the depth of this truth. As a parent, the number of days you shake your head and wonder if ANYTHING you are trying to teach is making it anywhere are far more frequent than the rays of light when you can see successful penetration. Your kids are like precious little geodes. They are developing the most beautiful and intricate crystals of their character on the inside, but you will most likely be exposed most often to a tough and ugly outer shell as the parent.

Today I’m thinking on how much influence you really do have on those forming crystals inside. It is just like gardening. The best crop comes from early preparation of the soil and care in planting. Cultivation of the growing plants can overcome a lot of problems, but it can’t make up for what was or wasn’t planted. The upside is that it’s never too late to plant. The growth and ability for full potential of what is planted may diminish with time, but the ability to plant new seeds isn’t lost with age.

Some of the most important seeds I’ve been observing in the past several months include:

• Importance of a strong and good work ethic
• Kindness and compassion
• Personal responsibility
• Honesty
• Desire and determination to excel
• Cleanliness
• Respect

There are plenty more seeds that are worthy of mentioning. I think there are core seeds that branch out into other areas, perhaps even become the foundation of several smaller seeds. Equally true is the reality that just planting isn’t enough. Great seeds can be planted and never grow if they receive no care or cultivation. I’ve also been pleasantly surprised in my life to witness seeds that were planted yet remained dormant, suddenly spring to life with great success when the right care was given. Yes, I believe there is a great deal of comparisons to be made between gardening and life. I’m grateful for the seeds I’m witnessing growing with strength in my own children. I hope I’m planting enough of the right ones and cultivating them adequately for full potential to be reached. The harvest is truly the proving point of your greatest satisfaction of disappointment. I pray I fall on the side of satisfaction.

How do you buy some quiet time? You simply set up an art project!

For a while I thought it was lost, but lately I’ve determined that I’m not losing time I simply can’t catch it. I think I’m on an eternal treadmill. I’ve been trying to find a few minutes to sit down and share some meaningful posts for at least a month now. All’s not lost, at least I can keep up skipping style thanks to Facebook and Gmail, and my iPhone. I love technology.

How do you get off the treadmill? What works for you?

Making cakes was just some of the fun I had while in Idaho.

The Macbook cake was my first fondant cake. The second was my first formal cake made for a wedding.

Our first day in Idaho was Grandma Sherie’s birthday. Yellowstone Bear World was the first stop. Cidnie wasn’t going to get that close to her cousin’s house without stopping to pick her up. I think the two were in cahoots because Amy just happened to be playing hooky from school that day and was more than delighted when we showed up.

Taylor proved to be our entertainment on this trip. He was delighted watching the baby bears and his giggles became a bit infectious.

Then we moved over to feeding the fish and ducks where we missed a golden video moment. Taylor got right down between the railings to hand the swan a piece of bread and freaked when it reached up and grabbed it right out of his fingers. He jumped back screaming “Holy Crap!” several times followed by several “Did you see that?” questions and a final, “That was A W E S O M E!!” For future reference, swans have really long necks.

We paused for a bear picture on the way to the petting zoo…

Cidnie and Amy enjoyed petting the deer and feeding the animals. Taylor kept a careful distance between himself and most of the animals. Although he did get brave enough to get down to near eye level with one of the ducks and when it came to him for a handout he jumped up exclaiming, “It thinks I’m food!”

Our final stop was to let the kids play on some of the rides. Just when we thought Taylor couldn’t give us more giggles he put on his funniest show. He wasn’t too sure about any of the rides. He made the worker let him off the first round of the little roller coaster before deciding to go back later to stay on it. But the little lift ride left everyone within ear shot in stitches of laughter. You can see from the pictures how he has a death grip on the railing and when he started going up he yelled down to the worker “DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!”

It was a fun start to our first trip to Idaho this summer. We got home to find Grandma had one BIG bouquet of balloons waiting for her. Taylor’s next highlight was sucking helium with Grandpa and singing Happy Birthday with chipmunk voices. It was so fun to be there with Grandma on her birthday. Wish we could do it every year!!

I have a niece getting married next week. I offered to help her with her invitations and cake. I have more confidence in the graphic design of her invitation than her cake but I’m willing to take a stab at it.

Here’s the invitation:

And here’s the first ‘test’ cake.

I’m excited now that I’ve done a test cake at what the real one will be like. Especially knowing I’ll have access to real cake materials and not homemade cardboard frames.

However, it just goes to prove that where there’s a will there’s a way. *snort* I wish you could see the disaster under the top layer of this test cake. It was a cake baked with the cardboard frame on a cookie sheet, and made without eggs because I didn’t realize I only had one when the recipe called for 3 until I was knee deep into the process. It was already crumbling before I attempting to put it on top of a patchwork of rice krispy treats to get it to a 4″ height. I’m still amazed I could make it look anything like a hexagon at all. Blake said it tasted great though and he enjoyed digging into it moments after the test rounds were complete. Their purpose of learning were served and now I think I know what we want to do for real thing.

For my own purposes, I’ll share some of the details that I know today I think I’ll remember but when the time comes it will all be muddled in my memory:

wedding cakes are HUGE. You can’t really downsize if you want a tiered cake because you need at least 3″ between each layer to look right and allow decorating. You have to start deleting layers and spacing them with some sort of separation.

typical wedding pan measurements are 2″ high, they need to be doubled to make 4″ layers both to look right and to allow decorating space on the sides.

rice krispy treats work great as the base, but it takes a ton of them to make the right sized tiers. It took 6 1/2 batches to do the two layers I have a picture of which are only one 2″ base 15″ across and one 2″ base 12″ across. That means it would take 13 batches to do complete two layer bottoms.

ganache tends to remain a little chunky even if you melt the chocolate before adding the cream. However, you can remelt the mixture after it’s cooled and it will become perfectly smooth. That can then be re-chilled and whipped into a smooth frosting. Letting it cool for a few minutes after remelting makes a better drizzle as it’s slightly thicker.

fruit garnish like lemon or orange rine ribbons can sit for a day in the fridge before decorating. They will harden slightly in whatever shape formed in and hold color without drying for several hours in the open air.

doing test runs are wonderful for so many reasons!

A few more test cake photos can be found at: Lindsay’s Wedding

Happy Birthday sweetie!

I’m doing some learning this week and I’m so excited with today’s results I have to blog it! Today’s sweet success was learning all about chocolate ganache. I’ll share more details later about the reason for the lessons, for now I’ll share how fun and easy the stuff is!

A friend suggested that I try the ganache for all my needs on a single cake. She was right! It’s not only easy, it’s extremely versatile and tasty! It’s nothing more than equal parts of heavy cream and chocolate mixed together. You boil the cream and pour it over the chocolate, then mix it well. The possibilities are endless as you can use any kind of chocolate. For my test run I used what I had which was a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. I was a little impatient (me to a “T”) in letting it set so my first stab using it as a drizzle and fruit dip was really runny. Then I let it sit in the fridge for a couple days. She told me if I let it chill, I could whip it and use it as a frosting too. Today I gave that a stab and was so tickled with the results!

Here’s my first test of the ganache minutes after mixing as a fruit dip and drizzle:

It was tasty but much to thin to make drizzle tips.

Today I wanted to see if I could make it work for frosting as well. I pulled the bowl from the fridge and stirred a small section. I dropped it over the side of some rice crispy treats to see if it would make a pretty drizzle formation and it worked! Better yet is that now a few hours later it looks exactly the same, it hasn’t melted nor gotten a hard shell on it. Next, I put some in my mixer and whipped it for a few minutes watching the change. There’s a point where it goes from creamy frosting to a thick, sponge like frosting texture. So I put the thick on first to see if I could make some defined corners. That worked great but I wasn’t happy with the lack of smooth finish. So I took a little more and didn’t let it whip quite as long, put that over the thick edge one and it was perfect! Three solutions with one simple mixture!

Now that I know how easy it is to have the ganache do the frosting, details and dip/drizzle I’m ready to tackle the full sized test run. Wish me luck!