Finally Back...

Some of you might have noticed the blog has been very quiet in the last couple of weeks. It was for a very good reason! You might remember months ago when I mentioned my brother had cancer and needed a stem cell transplant? And I was a match? After all the waiting and setbacks the transplant finally took place last week!


Look! Snow! Big deal since I haven't seen snow in nearly 20 years. I actually stood outside and got snowed on! LOL

I spent 9 days in Denver getting poked and prodded and poked some more while my brother got ready with 5 days of chemo and 2 full body radiation treatments leading up to the transplant. So far everything is going as the doctors expected which means big brother is feeling like crap while his immune system bottoms out so my stem cells can take over. That's a very basic explanation so if you want to know more you can read about the process here.

I got home late Friday night and spent the weekend with hubs and kids taking it easy. Lots of sleeping while my body works to get back to normal after the process. It's been an emotional past few weeks and now we waiting to see if the transplant worked. I'm so proud and amazed by my brother for his strength and his positive outlook through all of this. I just hope this horrible thing called cancer never touches any of you or your loved ones!

So now it's time to get back into blogging. It might take me a little while to get back into the groove. :) I did get some reading done while I was gone and hope to post some reviews this week. It was freeing in a way to get away from the computer and the internet. But I will say I missed you guys so much! It still amazes me what strong friendships we create without ever meeting yet still feeling such a close bond.

It All Started With a Cake...

This past week has been a busy one getting ready for my baby's (sob) birthday. He turned ten today, double digits. It's still hard for me to believe my once little bald baby (he was the only one without hair), has turned into such a great kid.

*No baby pictures since those are all print, not digital. I'm tempted to hire someone to put our boxes and boxes of print pictures on CDs. Hmmm...might just be a job for the teen. :)

About the cake... a few weeks ago I told youngest he needed to get his birthday wish list to me soon so I could start shopping. The topic of cakes came up and I asked him what kind of cake he wanted. Last year I made a castle cake and I was hoping this year I'd get to do something a little easier. Turns out he didn't want me to make his cake he wanted "that Cake Boss guy" to make his cake. LOL I had to break the bad news to him that the possibility was pretty slim and he should stick with me. Now, I should give a little background on youngest, he loves the video game Minecraft. He talks about it all the time and I mean all the time. So he tells me he would like a Creeper cake. What's a Creeper you ask? It's this green thing from Minecraft that blows up. So I Googled and found tons of Creeper info and what started with a request for a cake snowballed into everything Creeper...


             Here's youngest with his Creeper themed presents.

I'm not a crafty kind of person but most of this was pretty easy to do. I just printed the Creeper eyes and mouth and glued them on. The t-shirt was the most difficult because I had to make the template, iron it on, paint and hope that the lines stayed straight and the paint didn't bleed under the stencil. I can't tell you how stressful this was. LOL After making the t-shirt, the cake was easy. :)


                               Youngest with his cake.

I decided to only make the Creeper face on the cake since we were going to my mom's and I had to take the cake there. I did find instructions for making a full size Creeper but it takes 2 cakes, 1 for the body and 1 for the legs and head. Thankfully he liked this one just fine. :)

I now have one month until middle's birthday. He said he would like a Wizard 101 themed birthday. o_0 At least the teen is easy - she just wants books and cash. LOL

Are you all having a great summer or getting stuck in the heat waves? I can't believe some parts of the US have actually been hotter than here in Arizona!