Tuesday, 13 March 2012

Easter Cookies - practice

First batch of Easter Cookies.
I got the big bin of Wilton Easter cookies at Winners the other day.  Great find.  Going to work on more designs later this month.




Monday, 12 March 2012

Plants vs Zombies Cookies

I live in a house full of Zombie slayers.  Our weapon of choice the cattail.



I made these cookies for my Zombie slaying offsprings.



But I forgot about Cattail.  I will have to dedicate an entire batch to her.  

These make strange gift to pass on to friends, neighbours and teachers.  You really need to be a Plants Vs.  Zombie lover to appreciate them.

Thursday, 8 March 2012

Traveling with 4 kids

This is the loot we needed to pack for a 2 night stay in Quebec.


One of the activities scheduled was tubing.  This requires hats, mittens, scarves, boots, snow pants and jackets.  Plus all the skating gear, which is not shown in the above photo.

Plus all the backpacks the kids needed to travel with in the car.

It adds up to one full van, for just two nights here, Quebec City.
Flat Stanley is enjoying himself.


We stayed at the Palace Royal.  Nice location, ok room and so-so service.  There were 6 of us in the room.





But everyone still had a good time.



Saturday, 3 March 2012

Kitchen Renovation Update

Here are a few more after photos from the kitchen renovation.

Double dishwashers.  Enough said.



These babies have been the the most reliable appliance purchases from the group of over $xx,xxx worth of appliances we selected.  They don't complain (whisper quiet) and they are always willing to lend a hand (washing dishes).

Our Viking range died on us about 1 month into installation.  No kidding.  I called Viking and they directed me to a local repair shop.  That shop showed up the following morning and repaired the stove on site.  The repair-man had the part in his car, so there was no delay.  Even if the overpriced  ranged crapped out on us after 1 month of use, the service was impeccable.  So I guess we can still rely on it.  It's still pretty in a industrial kinda way.


Our Kitchen Aid steam injected stove got really rowdy on us this month.  The fan was REALLY loud.  Let me start by saying, that oven is general is very needy.  After using the microwave, it always requires feedback..."need more time?, keep warm?, make me a coffee!"  Kidding about the coffee.  Anyways, it's needy and wants you to push buttons after it has completed it's job.  It really needs recognition for it's work.

Anyways, it got really loud.  Like "Can you folks hear me upstairs?  I'm down here baking your cake and no-one is here to watch!"

I ignored it at first.  Like I do my children when they are whining.

Then it got louder.  My husband complained it was too noisy.

So I called Kitchen Aid and they sent someone the very next morning.  Both the fans were defective.  But the repair-man did not have a magic truck that had all the parts needed to fix it.  We are waiting for that part to come it.   It's been a week, and the oven is still whining... A bit louder now.  I'm just sayin' Kitchen Aid.

Here are a few more photos of him. (Since he's needy and needs the attention).




He said this was his good side.






Thursday, 1 March 2012

Super Mario Cookies

My son has been asking me to make Super Mario Cookies since December.  I had just started decorating sugar cookies for fun and for Christmas.  Mario seemed too complex for me. I like squiggles, dots, blobs, things that don't require recognition.  I called them artsy cookies, abstract.  Super Mario needed to resemble Super Mario.  Or I'd end up with a bunch of mexican man cookies, or moustache man cookies.

I made a batch of miscellaneous cookies, that came with miscellaneous colour of royal icing and after all my cookies were done, I still had plenty of royal icing left.  All the right colours to make Mario.  So I tried my hand at the video game legend.

I found an picture of Mario on the web and I printed it out.  I placed it under wax paper and went slowly on my way.  Out of the six I tried to make only 4 survived (RIP blobs with red hats).  But the beauty of baking for children is the they will eat anything.  As soon as I mess up, someone gladly volunteers to eat it on scene.

So here he is in all his glory, with a few photos of the in-betweens.





Tuesday, 13 March 2012

Easter Cookies - practice

First batch of Easter Cookies.
I got the big bin of Wilton Easter cookies at Winners the other day.  Great find.  Going to work on more designs later this month.




Monday, 12 March 2012

Plants vs Zombies Cookies

I live in a house full of Zombie slayers.  Our weapon of choice the cattail.



I made these cookies for my Zombie slaying offsprings.



But I forgot about Cattail.  I will have to dedicate an entire batch to her.  

These make strange gift to pass on to friends, neighbours and teachers.  You really need to be a Plants Vs.  Zombie lover to appreciate them.

Thursday, 8 March 2012

Traveling with 4 kids

This is the loot we needed to pack for a 2 night stay in Quebec.


One of the activities scheduled was tubing.  This requires hats, mittens, scarves, boots, snow pants and jackets.  Plus all the skating gear, which is not shown in the above photo.

Plus all the backpacks the kids needed to travel with in the car.

It adds up to one full van, for just two nights here, Quebec City.
Flat Stanley is enjoying himself.


We stayed at the Palace Royal.  Nice location, ok room and so-so service.  There were 6 of us in the room.





But everyone still had a good time.



Saturday, 3 March 2012

Kitchen Renovation Update

Here are a few more after photos from the kitchen renovation.

Double dishwashers.  Enough said.



These babies have been the the most reliable appliance purchases from the group of over $xx,xxx worth of appliances we selected.  They don't complain (whisper quiet) and they are always willing to lend a hand (washing dishes).

Our Viking range died on us about 1 month into installation.  No kidding.  I called Viking and they directed me to a local repair shop.  That shop showed up the following morning and repaired the stove on site.  The repair-man had the part in his car, so there was no delay.  Even if the overpriced  ranged crapped out on us after 1 month of use, the service was impeccable.  So I guess we can still rely on it.  It's still pretty in a industrial kinda way.


Our Kitchen Aid steam injected stove got really rowdy on us this month.  The fan was REALLY loud.  Let me start by saying, that oven is general is very needy.  After using the microwave, it always requires feedback..."need more time?, keep warm?, make me a coffee!"  Kidding about the coffee.  Anyways, it's needy and wants you to push buttons after it has completed it's job.  It really needs recognition for it's work.

Anyways, it got really loud.  Like "Can you folks hear me upstairs?  I'm down here baking your cake and no-one is here to watch!"

I ignored it at first.  Like I do my children when they are whining.

Then it got louder.  My husband complained it was too noisy.

So I called Kitchen Aid and they sent someone the very next morning.  Both the fans were defective.  But the repair-man did not have a magic truck that had all the parts needed to fix it.  We are waiting for that part to come it.   It's been a week, and the oven is still whining... A bit louder now.  I'm just sayin' Kitchen Aid.

Here are a few more photos of him. (Since he's needy and needs the attention).




He said this was his good side.






Thursday, 1 March 2012

Super Mario Cookies

My son has been asking me to make Super Mario Cookies since December.  I had just started decorating sugar cookies for fun and for Christmas.  Mario seemed too complex for me. I like squiggles, dots, blobs, things that don't require recognition.  I called them artsy cookies, abstract.  Super Mario needed to resemble Super Mario.  Or I'd end up with a bunch of mexican man cookies, or moustache man cookies.

I made a batch of miscellaneous cookies, that came with miscellaneous colour of royal icing and after all my cookies were done, I still had plenty of royal icing left.  All the right colours to make Mario.  So I tried my hand at the video game legend.

I found an picture of Mario on the web and I printed it out.  I placed it under wax paper and went slowly on my way.  Out of the six I tried to make only 4 survived (RIP blobs with red hats).  But the beauty of baking for children is the they will eat anything.  As soon as I mess up, someone gladly volunteers to eat it on scene.

So here he is in all his glory, with a few photos of the in-betweens.