I didn't have any pictures with my last entry, but there are lots today. First, let me assure you that I have been doing what my kids call "yarning." First, I want to start off by showing you the toddler sweater that I adapted from an adult pattern. It wasn't such a smart thing to do since it was one of my first knitting projects, however, I'm very adventurous. What went wrong? The head hole is too small, I think. HP's head is in the 75th percentile, so I am going to make sure to try the sweater on a narrow headed kid before throwing it in the reject pile. I've also kept up with the On-The-Side Cardigan from the Hip To Crochet book. I think it will be cool for kicking around the house or running errands. It looks so cozy to me. I've slipped stich the side seams together and am pinning in the sleeves now. I even saw the shell buttons at Wal-mart, and the acrylic yarn I've used worked well. The stiches are a little more plump, but I think it's working out. Outside of yarn world, like I told you last post, I baked HP a teddy bear cake. She loved it, and that makes me happy. The indentations came out a little better than they did for the car cake because the pan instructions required a one hour baking time. Unfortunately, this doesn't make decorating the darn thing any easier. You need pure skill for that. Also, the extra 15-20 minutes baking time made for a dry cake. Once again, I was supposed to blot stars on, but that didn't work out so I just spread the icing on there. At least you could tell what kind of bear it was supposed to be. Poor thing. It doesn't know what's coming to him. When I asked her what piece she wanted, she request that I cut off his head and later bit off his toes, elbow, and left paw. I also made some cheesecake cupcakes for the daycare. For her gift I got her a trunk full of dress up clothes, which she also loved, and they came with these "bling-bling" plastic pumps which she can't get enough of. I got the trunk from Costco for $29.99. The clothes seem like good quality, but unfortunately her favorite outfit has enough glitter in it to make our house look like a disco. Her birthday was a week and a half ago and we still have glitter in our hair. Ta-ta! Decorations complete! Cheesecake cupcakes.
Your wish is granted!

Well, my youngest child is 3 today. Happy Birthday, HP! I made her some cheesecake cupcakes and a teddy bear cake. I used marble fudge icing since against the cake pan manufacturer's suggestion. It called for a mixture of regular consistency cake with pound cake. I guess I could have done that, but decorating this cake was too much effort and I didn't want to have to worry about making a toping to go with that pound cake too. And with the icing, that would have been too much. So, I just used white and chocolate for this panda bear (my 9-yr old tells me pandas are not really bears). Baking the cake is the easy part. Decorating them is a whole other thing. I gotta start hooking up with my cuz in Oakland again, whos made wedding cakes.