I find it rather hard to catch up on a month's worth of activity but luckily we are boring people so it can't be that hard, right?
I went to a stamp camp and as my snack I baked a rainbow cake. I found the directions on a lovely blog that I recently discovered called Bird on a Cake. Linky here. It was surprisingly easy and impressed everyone. I think next time I'm going to make the cake from scratch though. I'm not a fan of box mixes. It basically involves separating the mix into six parts and dyeing each a different color. You start pouring progressively less of each color into the center of the first pan and then flip the color order in the other.
Note the nice new cake pans! I found some really nice ones that are made in the USA out of recycled steel. They are fabulous!
We enjoyed the piece that had to be taken out to level the top. It's sitting in our other new acquisition.
I bought a frying pan when Josh and I moved in together that we have had for a long time at this point. It is used almost daily and was showing some serious signs of wear. When I went looking for cake pans I came across this lovely ceramic skillet that has a finish that is non-toxic and it is crazy light. I loved that it was a green solution to our pan dilemma. The bonus is it basically requires no oil to cook things. The white interior also makes it easier to see when food is done.
Anyway-back to the cake. Finished it looked like this:
I've been trying to improve my cake and cupcake baking skills so that I can make good stuff when Maegwin is ready to have parties. I also made some fishy cupcakes for Maegwin's St. Patty's day party at school which were a big hit.
Just FYI though, it is crazy hard to find circus peanuts now. Who knew! I had to search like three stores and I only was able to procure one bag so the fish didn't have as many fins as I wanted. I'm hoping to make some chickie cupcakes for Easter.
Luckily being sick doesn't slow me down on the knitting front! I have been zooming along on quite a few different projects. I've got one Swedish Fish sock done. This is a Spilly Jane pattern and if you are a knitter and haven't checked her stuff out, do it. She makes really fun whimsical colorwork patterns and even I, a novice at best with Fair Isle knitting, am able to do them.
I used two colors of Spud & Chloe Fine sock yarn and I really like working with it. It seems springy and feels like it will hold up well to wear.
I also have completed one sock for Maegwin and was working my way down the foot of the second one before the fancy struck me to blog.
The pattern is King Me from the Petite Purls website. Their stuff is cute and free and I love it. The yarn is Knit Picks Simple Stripes which is discontinued now but I like it. I'll probably still have a half ball when I finish these so I might make a few spares for the inevitable missing baby sock to not slow us down.
The last thing I've finished recently is this cardigan worn by Maegwin in today's egg hunt.
It's Tiny Tea Leaves and I originally made it short sleeved because we had a weird heat wave of 80 degree weather last week and I feared that spring like winter would skip us altogether and she wouldn't even be able to wear the sweater. Of course, today was 41 degrees so we only took her coat off for a few quick shots then put it back on her. sigh.
The egg hunt went well though again no one from Maegwin's class showed up so we still didn't meet any parents of kids her age. I don't understand what the deal is. Oh well. She was definitely more into it this year than last and ran from egg to egg quickly scooping them up.
It was hard to get a clear shot since she was half running around and squealing happily.
She stopped a few times to dump her bag out into another one because it doesn't really have a ton of room. I did this on purpose so we can give her some candy but even full it won't be a ridiculous amount.
She crawled behind and under bushes and let nothing stop her.
Even the cold only made her come and snuggle for a minute. She loosed a mighty battle cry of "EGGIES!!" and continued.
This little girl kept standing in front of an egg but seemed totally disinterested in picking it up. Maegwin hovered in front of her for a while before the girl's dad finally told Maegwin to take the egg. It was funny to watch.
She was thorough and even checked inside the caterpillar.
Then we headed in to empty them out and check the loot.
Just tootsie rolls and Hershey Kisses but it was a good time.
She fell asleep on me after we ran a ton of errands. I wrapped her up in her new quilt and it reminded me of Dune. Worm sign, we have worm sign!
Other than that, the other two big pieces of news are that I changed jobs and that we bought a riding mower. The job thing is just a lateral move within my company so really not that big of a piece of news. The hours are better though-well they will be once they back fill me...We are psyched about the mower though! So nice to not have to push mow our crazy big yard and now we can help our neighbors out who helped us mow. It should be delivered tomorrow so we're going to fire that up as soon as we get it.
