Baked goods for the auction

In addition to their handmade items, each girl decided to bring a baked good to be sold at the fundraiser auction. Marissa and Xiomara made theirs yesterday (2/15) and Emil made her today. A busy house full of baking! We all love it, but didn't get to eat any of it. Oh well.

Marissa decided on a two layer chocolate cake,

decorated with hand made flowers.

It was her first time and I think she figured it out.

The flowers and cake were put in the freezer so they  were easier to work with.

Xiomara made my favorite brownies with cream cheese mixture on top,

topped with cherry pie filling.

(Some how, I never got a finished picture of hers.)

She added leaves and that made it really nice.

Finished product.

We are all excited with how it turned out!

Today it is Emily's turn!

Making Aunt Monique's chocolate cupcakes with

cookie dough filling!

They are so good!

Half the frosting is plain butter cream

(which she colored pink for Valentin's Day)

and the other half is the cookie dough frosting!

What delicious projects and I'm sure they will be a hit at the auction! If not, I'll be happy to bring them home! Good work, girls!


Note: the dinner wasn't as well attended as we hoped for. Those of us there had a wonderful time. They fed us lasagna, salad, bread and dessert. The live auction was run by Brother Jeff Larsen and he did a great job! All the baked goods were live auction items, while all the handmade crafts were just silent bidding. Marissa sold a silhouette painting (which her father bought to hang at the office) and the black crocheted mitts. Emily's shawl was bought by me, and so was Marissa's t-shirt that she wrote sayings on. The crocheted pillows were sold to someone else - we aren't sure who. All their baked good went to good homes! All in all, the auction raised enough money to pay for all the girls to go to camp so I guess it was a success, even if there weren't very many people there. We enjoyed some dancing and chatting. It was a nice night.

Little helpers doing what they really want to do

While the big guys were at work again today, I decided to bake some cookies with the little girls. (I needed some for Stake Conference tomorrow.) They want to help so much and I try to let them do as much as possible. We made two different recipes of chocolate cookies - one with mint chips and one with salted caramel chips. I guess I needed to put the recipes in the fridge because they just went totally flat. Good thing they were soft.

They really like licking the beater most.

I liked that part as a kid, too.

Wait, I still like it now.

But I let them do it.

Duck, Buck, Pluck is what they called themselves.

Then we had a snack of peanut butter...

on spoons.

Creative with cupcakes!

For the Women's General Broadcast, our ward RS decided to have a cupcake contest. I wanted to make cupcakes like my oldest sister, but decided we could just be creative instead of delicious and beautiful. Anyway, each of the girls wanted to make their own so we made some big ones and some mini ones - chocolate and red velvet. Then the girls had fun decorating.

Xiomara decided on a whale.

Kemiah chose a monster.

 Marissa chose an autumn theme.

Autumn colors and a leaf stencil, and powdered sugar.

Little girls entertained themselves while the rest of us worked.

I chose a water theme.

 Emily chose a back to school theme.

We all won prizes for our efforts!

Way to go girls! We had lots of fun and I'm sure we'll be eating cupcakes for a week!

Nearly perfect

I really like it when dinner comes together so nicely! We all enjoy broccoli cheese soup and we eat it in bread bowls! This time they came out really nicely! Nearly perfect, in fact. Just thought I'd share because it was really yummy!