Weekly Favorites #5

Hi Foxy Friends! Happy Friday! I don't know why it seemed like such a long week, but it did, phew so happy it's the weekend! So let's get started with some weekly favorites.

In case you missed it on the blog this week:

Monday: TBB Asks February
Tuesday: Sentence a Day - January
Wednesday: Glittery Heart Outfit
Thursday: Easy Minecraft Cake

No posting to YouTube this week. But I have a few videos coming at you in the next couple of weeks, that's if I can get my butt in gear and edit!

A few weekends ago, we took the kids bowling with some friends, I got 2 strikes in the last round, go me! Made it so I didn't come in DEAD last....

We celebrated a friends birthday with a onesie party, yep we all dressed up in PJ's and went bar hopping, it was awesome!

Birthday girl on the left there.

 
Last weekend I made homemade mac and cheese for dinner, it was fantastic!

Saturday morning was full of rain, lots of rain, good thing this birthday party was indoors.

Baby Fox with the birthday boy.

Afterwards we met up with my parents at the movies, I thought this sign was funny, how is there negative 37 spots?

We hardly ever all go to the movies, gotta snap a picture.

 Afterward we headed to my parents to celebrate Mom's birthday with cake and pizza. Pretty much a perfect Saturday.

Superbowl Sunday we headed over to a friends house, low key and totally perfect.

Mr. is showing her how to roll out the dough on the pizza crust, not sure why he is making that face, don't tell him I put it in here anyway.

Half time means play some dad/son football right?

Pizza perfect.

Mr. got some baby snuggles, she's so cute.

Besties wearing matching shirts.

Pretty much a perfect weekend.

Random pictures from my camera roll:

When you take down your 12 foot Christmas tree and find this many nerf guns in it, you know you're family has a problem, lol!

After the kids to to bed sometimes Mr. makes us a cheese plate...yum! FYI: Unexpected Cheddar from Trader Joes, mind blowingly good. You have to get some STAT.

She likes to workout with me, it's the cutest ever. She calls it the Tuna Workout, because she can't hold the weights so she uses tuna cans (other cans are too big for her to hold).

Easy Minecraft Cake

Hi Foxy Friends! It's Thursday, my "Friday" and I'm so happy about it. I swear Tuesday was Thursday...this week has been DRAGGING! I thought today I would share with you how I made Baby Fox's Birthday cake. I was originally going to make him a rainbow birthday cake, but then realized I could just as easily turn it into a Minecraft cake so that's exactly what I did!

*Some of the links are affiliate links and I will  either receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you click on it or if you make a purchase from one of these links, I may also receive a commission on the sale of the product. Click here for my disclosure page.

It's fairly simple, you get a big bang for you buck and most people think you spent WAY more time on it than you really did! Win for you. Okay let's get started:

What You'll Need:

5-6 cake pans (I use these, will make a small tall cake, if using the ones I use, then you'll have to cook 5 and then cook the last one after the others cook, as it only comes with 5 pans)

Homemade Cake Recipe (the boxed is too soft, don't use it, you won't be able to make the layers)

Food Coloring (I use these)

Circle Cookie Cutters in various sizes (I use these)

Frosting (I use a homemade one from Wilton)

Directions:

Step 1 - Make batter according to recipe (I use the something similar to this cake recipe, ignore the filling and frosting part of the recipe)

Step 2 - Divide batter into bowls, use one bowl for each color you are going to use, I did 5 colors. I would have done 6 but we started making this cake at 10pm, no one's got time to wait for cake to cook twice, else I would have done 6)

Step 3 - Add food coloring. For the Minecraft part, I knew I wanted variations of green and brown. The brown was a little harder, so for the darker one, I added a LOT of the brown color, and for the other one I added a little bit of the brown color, and realized that it was too similar to the dark brown, so I added a little yellow to change the tone, worked perfectly.

For the greens, I did the dark one, then added less green for the middle green, and for the other green I used a neon green.

Step 4 - Prep your pan how you normally would and pour batter into pans.

Step 5 - Cook, you will need less cooking time than what the recipe calls for because they are so thing and small, I start with 15 minutes, and then go from there.

Colors turned out perfect, exactly what I wanted them to look like!

Completely cool cakes before going onto the next step.

Step 6 - While cakes are cooling, make your frosting (don't really matter what kind, just not the store bought, as I think that will be too soft)
 
Step 7 - I do this part on my counter, as I don't have a cutting board, don't worry the counter was clean before starting. Lay all of the cakes out, this is somewhat tricky but not really. You're going to take 2 of your round cookie cutters, and make three concentric circles.

Helpful Tip: If your cakes didn't bake evenly, before you cut the circles, make sure to level them out at this step, also cut the edges so all cake layers are the same size. I forgot to do this, and had to use a lot of frosting to make up for the unevenness of each layer, oops!

Step 8 - I usually line each of the same size circles up and then start mixing and matching before I do the frosting and putting them back together. This way you can be sure that each of the layers will have different colors in them.

Start with the largest circle, and apply frosting on the inside ring, place next size ring cake layer in it.

 Then frost the middle circle inner ring and put the smallest cake layer in. When you're done it should look like something like this:

When they're all done, you'll have this.

You can see the white circles above from where I was applying the frosting to the inner circle.

Step 9 - Now frost your cake like normal, putting frosting between each layer, and then frosting the whole thing. With these cakes, I like to buy the small ice cream cones from Trader Joes and use that as decorations. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, oops! But here it is when it's been cut into, the perfect Minecraft cake of the little human in your life that is obsessed.

See easier than you think right? Making fun cakes doesn't have to be hard, time consuming yes, but not hard. You got this, if you do make it, tag me in the photo or leave a picture in the comments! Good luck, you can do this!

Linking up here

Glittery Heart Outfit

Hi Foxy Friends! Today over on The Blended Blog Andrea is hosting the theme of the week, Queen of Hearts. I can't wait to see what she comes up with, I love her style, she always puts together such great outfits.

*Some of the links are affiliate links and I will  either receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you click on it or if you make a purchase from one of these links, I may also receive a commission on the sale of the product. Click here for my disclosure page.

When Deena and Abbie came to visit last week, they brought this shirt with them, and it gives me all the googly eyes. Sequins and hearts, yes please. And the best part? You can purchase one too, from their new shop called Salt and Light.

 Jeans /  Shirt / Earrings

I just loved taking pictures at the beach, it was so fun and the perfect weather. Somewhat warm but it was cloudy so we weren't getting the direct sunlight.

Some other fun Valentine's looks that I've put together.

Dress (Similar here and here)  / Heels (similar)

Here is another one I put together. I really liked this one.

Skirt (similar) / Shirt (similar) / Heels (similiar)

Now head on over to The Blended Blog or Andrea's blog to link up your Valentine's day looks.

Kellyann. Sarah. Andrea. Deena. Carrie

Lana. Vanessa. Whitney. Abbie. Shelly

Linking up here

Sentence A Day: January Edition

1 -Happy New Year, I should be getting stuff done, but instead I'm enjoying my last day before going back to work.

2 -First day back to work after the long break, WAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

3 - Tried the Barre class at the gym, and it was hard but so good, I'll be back.

4 - Visited my cousin at work with some other cousins and had a blast getting some cousin time in.

5 -Well I wanted to take down Christmas decorations, but buying the totes that store said decorations and watching a movie with the kids and cuddling was more important.

6 - Well the big tree decorations came down, still a ways to go...eventually it will all get done right, don't judge.

7 - Mini Fox's 2nd horseback riding lesson, she is the the cutest and loves it so much.

8 - Was going to take down some more Christmas decorations but needed to get work done instead, boo!

9 - Back at my favorite workout class and another Blogilates ab workout, wow that was hard.

10 - Took the kids to In and Out for dinner because Mr. was at poker night, yum!

11 - Friday night friends over to our house for dinner, stew is on the menu, perfect for this cold rainy weather.

12 - Bowling with friends is always fun, then dinner at their place.

13 - Crap, almost burned down the house, okay not really, but forgot I was making popcorn on the stove, and left it there for a long time, smoke detector went off, and now our whole house smells like burnt popcorn, ugh!

14 - Horseback riding lessons still on with the rain, still was a great lesson though.

15 - Man I thought I would get off jury duty this week, but an emergency jury thing happened in another city, so I have report there, plus I have to go back tomorrow, darn.

16 -All day sitting at jury duty, they still don't have a jury, so we'll be going in for day 3 tomorrow.

17 - MNO craft night at my house, so much fun, needs to happen again.

18 - Made homemade tempura and it was GOOD, definitely doing that again!

19 - Onsie bar crawl is a) more fun than I thought it would be b)need to hire an actual babysitter besides parents, so we can stay out later than 10:30 c) meet lots of interesting people when 10 people walk in a bar with PJ's on.

20 - Dinner with Aunt and Uncle and helping them take down their Christmas lights, always fun to see them.

Did get a picture of us, but did get a picture of this gorgeous sunset over the ocean

21 -Told the kids we're taking them to Disneyland, they're super excited!

22 -EEEEEKKKK, they're here, they're here and Goofy's Kitchen didn't disappoint.

23 -Wish I didn't have to work today, but at least I got to spend a little time with Abbie and Deena and family after work.

24 - Disneyland with Mr., I can't believe he's actually here, and MaxPass is probably the best thing since sliced bread!

25 - Disneyland with Lana and Mr. Lana, so much freaking fun, oh and then there was sitting in the same train as Ariana Grande...and we had no idea, oops!

26 - Today was the PERFECT beach day to show our friends what living in So Cal is all about.

27 - Hike with friends followed by In and Out and swimming makes for a really great day.

28 - Abbie and the girls are leaving, waaahhh, but first lets hit up the beach for lunch and some pictures.

29 - Allergy shot day.

30 - Workout class cancelled but still got a good workout in on my own, miracle

31 - Innovation night at Baby Fox's school, finally got to see his marble project, these kids amaze me.

Now go see what the other ladies have been up to this past month!

Inlinkz Link Party

TBB Asks: February Edition

Hi Foxy Friends! Hope you are all recovering from the game last night. It's the first Monday of the month which means TBB Asks, where they ask the questions and we answer. Super easy for a Monday morning post right?

1. Who is your oldest friend?

Oldest friend would be Lindsey, I've known her since 1st grade. (on the far right) the other two I have known since 7th grade. Picture taken in November for our 20 year high school reunion. This was the only picture we took that night, oops!

2. Tell us about circle of support, who are your people?

Of course my parents and my siblings, but just recently (in the past year) we've really reach out to the people in our community and have made some really great friends. Our kids either go to school together, on the same sports team or are part of the church, some of them are in all three. Recently we all did a Onsie Bar Crawl, it was a lot of fun.

Going to a baseball fundraiser. Now some of us our youngest are all starting their first year of t-ball, they are going to be so stinkin' cute!

3. How did you meet your partner?

In short, a bar in Hollywood (how cliche?) Here's the full story. I know you're dying to know.

4. How is Valentine's Day celebrated in your home?

We spend time together. Usually we cook dinner together, or do something together. We're not a huge celebrators of Valentine's Day, but we do acknowledge it.

5. What is your love language?

Definitely Acts of Service. Nothing says you love me than doing the dishes or laundry.

6. Do you prefer receiving flowers or chocolates?

Chocolate dipped strawberries, do those count? Mr. has made those several times for me, and I love them so much.

7. What is the most meaningful gift you have ever received or have given?

Oh wow, this is a hard one...I think one of the most meaningful ones is the one I gave my dad for our wedding, as a thank you.  I made him a quilt with all of his old Notre Dame t-shirts.

So what would be your answers, if you don't have a blog, sound off down below, or go to The Blended Blog and link up your answers!