Father's Day Tribute

Because of my super lightening skills at keeping up with my blog, here is a blog dedicated to my sweet husband for this special day......

My husband is a man of patience.......

He is a man of hard work......

A man of tenderness......

He is also a man who looks good in a pair of bike shorts! (woot, woot)

(Ok, shake it off.)

He is also a handyman.....

(now, does that piece go there?)

He is a man of kindness to every living creature.....

(he doesn't share his computer with just anyone)

He is a man of love....

(our 1st anniversary in Manti)

He is a man of culture........

(hey, not too close there hula skirt girl)

He is a man of the multi-task........

He is a man of adventure....

He is the man of homework....

He is a man of silliness........

He is a man of few words.....

He is a man of great teaching abilities.......

But most of all he is a Super FATHER........with two lucky kids! We are so blessed to have you in our lives! You are such a great, loving, and devoted father and husband!

Happy Father's Day to all those great men in your life!

Can anyone say 2!!!!

Since my son is lucky enough to have a dad who is a farmer, he has discovered his passion: Tractors! Whenever he sees a tractor, he says "Whoa", "Whoa" and his eyes get big and he does this flappy thing with his hands.

The other night during story time my husband brought out a tractor catalog he somehow gained posession of during a pitstop on our last trip to the farm. Bumbles went crazy! He would say, "MOM!, MOM!", point to a picture of a tractor and say, "WHOA!" He did that throughout the whole catalog, and when we were done we closed the catalog and bumbles opened it back up and started again. He cried when we told him it was sleepy time. We knew he liked tractors, but this clinched it, and he has now gained the status of LOVING tractors!

Soooo, to make a long story short the theme for this year's birthday IS (insert drum roll please) :

JOHN DEERE tractors !!!!!

The Birthday Boy is trying to tell us something......

Time to eat!!!!

Time for presents.....

Both grandmas got the same present......a sand and water wheel. Now we have one for the sand box and one for the bathtub!

A sit'n spin! (mommy always wanted one of these)

Bumbles wants to know if it is time to go outside yet.........

Now can we go outside? I'll help dad mow the lawn!?........

No, not yet, it's time for cake! (Since Bumbles was very grumpy when we told him he could go outside after we had his cake, sis convinced him it would be fun) Then when he saw the cake he said Mmmmm!

Happy 2nd birthday Bumbles!

Now it's time to go outside!

Hey, this sounds just like a real lawn mower!

Dad's showing me the ropes!

We had a super fun day! We are glad both sets of grandparents could join us. Wish we could have had more family and friends come, but we are working up to the big birthday parties.

The Making of the Tractor Cake

The blue print

Finding a bunch of ideas to create a masterpiece is my first step in creating the perfect cake! I love Google! After finding a bunch of different tractor cake examples, I crafted one that fit what I wanted to do. I traced the outside of the pans on paper so I knew the space and sizes of the cakes I would be working with and then drew my tractor within those boundaries.

It took three different cakes 1- 13x9, 1- 6in. round, and 1- 8in. round.

Then cut and placed the drawing on the 13x9 cake...................



....and just cut around the drawing........


and placed all the pieces together and fashioned a cart & wheels and smoke pipe from the rest of the pieces.......couldn't fool Bumbles.....he knew just what it was.




The hardest part was finding the right color green. I used a whole tube of green gel dye and it still wasn't dark enough. So my mom and I ended up getting a puddle of green dye in a container from the local Smith's Market Place bakery. Then used chocolate butter cream frosting in a can and added black food color for the wheels, windows and smoke pipe.

Carter seems to have found the left over green frosting.





And voila, zee pherrfect mazter pieze! Well, maybe I would make the trailer a little shorter, but I was crunched for time and didn't have the time to think it through! So maybe next time, if our next child is a boy and likes tractors too!

Baking the cakes a day before assemblage I think saved the project, because the whole day of the party I circled the task. I would clean here and there, then go back to to cake. Then as I was piecing the cake together, I would think of something I needed to do. It took me most of the day and was finally getting done with it when my mother and father-in-law arrived.

Looking back on it. The cake was a fun challenge. Now I have more confidence to maybe make another cake next year! :)