Easter part 2

Yesterday we had a wonderful Easter. We went to church, then we had most of Adam's family over for Easter dinner and an egg hunt with the kids. It was a fun time!

The kids before church.

Ruby showing off her beautiful baby blues.

Rocklin modeling his cute Easter outfit.

Mommy and Ruby before church.

Ruby enjoying the grass while the other kids hunted for eggs.

All (well, most) of Rocklin's cousins on Adam's side.

I love this picture - the "plumber" checking out his loot.

Happy Easter!

I know tomorrow is Easter, but I wanted to get a few pictures up tonight since tomorrow we have church and then Adam's family is coming over to celebrate Easter at our house with dinner and an Easter egg hunt.

I fell in love with these cute polka dot buckets from Target. Aren't they cute? I'm a sucker for anything with polka dots. I added the kids names on them with some vinyl lettering I cut using my Cricut. I really like how they turned out!

Here's my Easter centerpiece I made. I saw a similar one online and I wanted to recreate it. I think Peeps make anything cute. :) Speaking of cute, I found those adorable chick salt & pepper shakers in the dollar bins at Target! What a fun little find!

Last night we met up with some of Adam's sisters at the Mesa Temple for the annual Easter Pageant. This was my first time seeing it and I really enjoyed it! It was a nice reminder of the reason we celebrate Easter. Rocklin really enjoyed it too, and he kept asking of all the characters - is that Jesus, is that Jesus? It was precious.

Ruby laughing with Daddy while we were waiting for it to start.

They asked for no flash photography, so I didn't get any pictures of the actual pageant, but I thought this picture was cool - taken a little bit before it started.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter and is able to celebrate the life of Christ with family and friends.

Happy Easter from The Birkmeyer's!

Ruby is 10 Months

Our little Miss Ruby turned 10 months on the 18th! Hard to believe how fast its gone by. This girl is full of personality and spunk! Taking her monthly photos is getting harder and harder now that she thinks she is so independent! We just LOVE her to pieces!

An out-take that was too cute not to share...

For my LDS friends with little ones

I don't know about you, but church (mainly sacrament meeting) is a constant struggle to get the little ones to sit still, listen and not have to be taken out in the hallway a dozen times! I've been on the hunt for something to keep Rocklin occupied and to help him sit still. I came across these really cute printables on a cute blog called Brown Paper Packages that you can turn into a book for really cheap! There are a few different ones you can print, or do all 4 like I did. Once I had them printed out, I laminated the individual pages, punched a hole in the upper corner and attached them all with a floss ring. Here are some sample pictures from the website SimplyFreshDesigns.com where these cute books were found initially. (And if you click on the link directly above the picture samples, it will take you directly to where you can download the pictures for free).

Children's Quiet Book

Articles of Faith (8x10 posters or 4x6 or 3x5 cards)

Book of Mormon Stories

Prophets and Apostles

Last Sunday was our first time trying these out during Sacrament meeting, and while it did not occupy his time for the entire meeting, he did enjoy looking at them and having Daddy read him the verses that went along with each picture. Enjoy!

Cake

I love to bake! Not so good for the waistline, but so fun nonetheless. Lately I've really been wanting to try my hand at making fun cakes, like THIS one I found online. I thought it was just so beautiful that I had to try and recreate it for myself. The step-by-step instructions on her blog were pretty easy to follow. I also followed her tutorial to make the inside of the cake just as pretty with vertical layers of red velvet and white cake. Here's a picture run-down of my first attempt - and forgive me as I am NOT a good food photographer!

The finished product:

First, I made two separate 9 inch round cakes and leveled the tops. The I put the two leveled tops facing each other and wrapped them in saran wrap and then foil and froze them for 6 hours.

After coming out of the freezer, I cut circles in the cake and sliced the ends so that I could make the "bullseye" effect, alternating layers of red velvet and white cake.

For the next step, I made a simple syrup (1 C. Sugar + 1 C. water, boil until sugar dissolves in water) and used a pastry brush to apply it to the cake to give it moisture and keep the cake together prior to putting it back in the freezer with the wax paper and towel ring belt around it (to keep it together). Have you ever used a towel belt for your cakes? Me either. But the tutorial said to do it, so I did. :)

Once out of the freezer, I removed the wax paper and towel belt and began frosting. As you can see in the picture below, I sort of got the vertical layered effect I was aiming for. (Remember, this is my first time attempting this...so don't look too closely! ha!

And wa-la...the final product.

I do love how the icing turned out, but the inside was not as pretty as I would have hoped. Or should I say not as perfect and symmetrical on each side as I had hoped. But over all, I had a lot of fun playing around with this and I would definitely do it again! Next time, I think I may try colored frosting...can you imagine that with pink or red icing roses? So pretty!