The Festivities Continue

Christmas is only 5 sleeps away and I feel like I still have tons to do, but all fun things; gift buying, gift wrapping, baking! I have two days of work left, as in my day job, and then I'm off for 11 days. I will not see my office cubicle again until 2012! Over the holidays, aside from 3 family dinners and many lunch and dinner dates with friends, I have 2 weddings to bake for, so I look forward to sharing some photos with you late next week.

This past weekend I did a bit of Christmas baking, I made Hershey Macaroon Bars and Hershey skor cheesecake bites. The cheesecake bites are to die for!! If you would like to give them a try you can find the recipe here.

Sunday we went to the Festival of Lights at VanDusen Botanical Gardens. It was beautiful!!! Definitely put me in the Christmas mood seeing all the lights, and sipping on apple cider. If you decide to check it out, I highly recommend pre-purchasing your tickets on-line, the line up for those who did not pre-purchase was out of hand. I've included a few of my favourite photos of the evening.

Last night I decided to do some gift wrapping, which proved to be a challenging task with a Kitten in the room. I think he'll be more happy playing with wrapping paper than he will his new scratching post.

Before I go I wanted to share a photo from Help Portrait. You may have read my previous blog post about the amazing event, and now that the photographers have all uploaded their photos I was able to find a photo of the man who really touched my heart. I really hope his family enjoys his portrait, and hopefully he comes back next year, along with many more people from the Maple Ridge Community. 

Help Portrait Experience

This is a non cake post today, I did have a few orders this past week, some mini cupcakes and cake pops, but I forgot to snap photos, and well you’ve all seen my cupcakes before.

Instead of cakes this week I wanted to share my experience at Help Portrait this weekend. When I heard about the event I immediately wanted to be a part of it. I know that I take thousands of photos, whether it’s of myself, me and Brad, Hank, family, friends, you name it I’ll photograph it. When I was younger, going out on the weekends, people would call me Paparazzi because I was always taking photos.  I never think twice about taking out my DSLR or my iPhone, I was even lucky enough to have a photo shoot done by eau naturelle photography a few weeks back so that I could have some professional head shots done for my website and promo material. But not everyone has the luxury to have professional photos done. On Saturday the event started at 1pm and by 12:40 we had people showing up to have their photo taken. I was a greeter, so I had the pleasure of meeting everyone and signing them in, seeing all the kids show up in their best outfits, big smiles, I couldn’t help but feel emotional. I was only able to stay until 3pm, as I had prior commitments for the rest of the day, but 20 groups came through during the 2 hours that I was signing people in, and between the Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows locations on Saturday we took the photos of over 100 groups of people. Groups ranged in size from one to three or four; even a family of 10!!!

So many amazing people showed up, but one person stuck with me the most, a man came in right around 1pm, he wanted to have his photo taken so that he could send it to his children and grandchildren in Pemberton. He hasn’t seen his children in 20 years and his grandchildren only know him from photos he’s sent. He took off his jacket to show me the moose hide vest he had picked out to wear just for this occasion, it had beautiful beadwork all over the front and back; he was so proud of it. He told me he contemplated wearing a cowboy hat, but decided against it. After he had his photo taken he was waiting for them to be printed and I ask him how it went. He told me the photographer had him do at least 20 different poses and he felt like a movie star; it melted my heart! The smile on his face as he left with 2 professional portraits to send to his family almost had me in tears.  

Sometimes this time of the year can be all about finding the right gift for someone, and so much money being spent, but Saturday reminded me that it’s not about how many gifts you get, or how much money you spend, it’s about spending the holidays with the family and friends that you love.  Big thanks to Brenda Garcia and Matt Brennan for organizing the Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows Help Portrait events; I can’t wait until next year to be a part of this amazing event again J

I’ve included a photo of myself from Saturday, all of the volunteers wore reindeer ears or santa hats, I opted for the ears ;)

Festive Mode

Sunday was our Customer Appreciation Open House and I can’t even tell you how happy I was with the turn out. I have such an amazing group of family, friends and clients; you know who you are! I really can’t thank you all enough for your support. Hopefully we can make this an annual event.

Here is a photo of the cupcakes from Sunday. Unfortunately I don’t have any other photos because I was too busy mingling around, in hindsight I probably should have hired a photographer; oh well there is always next year!

I was so excited about the turn out from our open house I had to start off with that, but on Saturday Brad and I visited the AlouetteTree Farm to pick out and cut down our very first REAL tree. We lived in an apartment building for our last 2 Christmas’s, so we had a fake tree, but since our move in July I have been looking forward to the chance to have a real tree this year. So Saturday afternoon off we went! We showed up, found the apple cider (I was looking forward to this and the hot dogs almost as much as the tree hehe) and a saw and headed out into the field. We wandered around and I marked a few as “maybe’s” by putting a stick horizontally on some of the top branches of the chosen trees. At first I wanted a really big and full type of tree, and brad wanted a little Charlie Brown tree, but we came to a compromise, we found a super nice tree, about shoulder height with sturdy branches. As we walked down the path to pay for it, people we’re commenting on our “little” tree, but I think it’s cute! We grabbed a hot dog and then headed home, but not before spilling a huge GLOB of mustard on my sweater. To those who know me, this is not a surprise, I’m known for spilling on myself, so much so that Brad started calling me “napkin” a few years back and now I’ve graduated to “tea towel” :S

Here are a few photos from our adventure.

 My first choice

Brad's first choice

 Our TREE

 I couldn't be trusted with the saw LOL

We put the tree up Sunday night, but decided to wait and see how Hank handled the tree before adding the ornaments. So far so good, we woke up yesterday morning and the tree was still standing. Let’s hope I didn't just jinx myself!

Just checkin it out!

Someone has a sweet tooth

Next saturday is our first Christmas party of the season, and during the day i'll be volunteering at the Maple Ridge Help Portrait Event. Have you heard of it? It's an event geared towards professionally photographing those in need in our community. The Pitt Meadows event is from 9am-4pm at the Pitt Meadows Heritage Hall and the Maple Ridge event is from 1pm-8pm at St. Andrew's United Church. 

http://helpportraitridgemeadows.com/about

Pretty in Pink, Geocaching and LOVE!

Can you believe November is almost over?? Where has this year gone?!?! With December 1^st fast approaching and having purchased a good chunk of Christmas gifts yesterday I can say that I’m ready for the festivities to begin J But before I get ahead of myself going on about December I should re-cap last week!

First off last week was the monthly Heartlink Networking Event that I attend and to stay within the category of Fall, being careful not to jump into Christmas too early, I wanted to make a cupcake recipe with apples. I made Martha Stewarts (of course, she’s always my go to) Apple Cupcakes and they were fabulous, so insanely moist. One of my fellow networkers actually commented that it is her favourite cupcake that I’ve made to date. You can find the recipe here, try it out and let me know what you think.

Next I had an order from a co-worker, it was his girlfriend’s birthday and she loved the cupcakes he brought home from the Movember Cupcake Sale so he ordered some for her.  Her favourite colour is pink, so I made pink frosting, which meant that all the cupcakes I made that week, had pink frosting.

Lastly I made a cake for my friend’s sister’s birthday. They love to go Geocaching together, so my friend had a design in her head that she wanted me to re-create.  She sketched the cake for me, which included the Geocaching logo on top with co-ordinates on each side of the cake, and these co-ordinates would lead her sister to her birthday gift. From what I heard it was very well received, which I always love to hear!

It was a small order weekend, which is to be expected in November, but it worked out well because after work on Friday Brad and I made our way to Whistler to celebrate our 5^th anniversary. We had a visit with my cousin on Friday night and then a beautiful stay at the Delta Whistler Hotel on Saturday where Brad treated me to an amazing dinner at HY’s Steakhouse; I have never had such an amazing meal or weekend for that matter. I can’t believe it’s been 5 years, time flies when you’re having fun xoxo

This week instead of a photo of Hank, I have a photo of his half sister! Let me introduce to you my cousins cat “Johnny Cat”!

Stay tuned next week for some photos from our search for the best Christmas Tree at the Alouette Tree Farm. Also don't forget to come by and say hi this Sunday at our Cakelicious Customer Appreciation Open House. You can RSVP here. 

Hit the ground running!

What’s the saying? No rest for the wicked? I think that should be my slogan, but wicked as in Slang Strikingly good,effective, or skilful ;) Anyhoo, long story short, I’ve been on the go since returning from vacation and didn’t get my post done for last week, so here it is combined with my post for this week.

On Remembrance Day Courtney from Eau Naturelle Photography came by to take some promo photos for me, she has uploaded some of the photos and I LOVE them! Check them out here 

This one is my favourite

On the long weekend it was my grandma’s 80^th birthday, so once she was home from Vegas (yes my 80 year old grandmother went to Vegas with her sister to celebrate) we had a Party! I was in charge of décor and desserts and took this as an opportunity to make a Dessert bar, complete with a cake, mini cupcakes and cake pops. My cousins and I decided red and ocean/teal blue represented our grandma best, so that’s the colour scheme I went with.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I would be making cupcakes to raise money for Movember, and last Wednesday was the day. I wasn’t able to find a moustache chocolate mold, so the cupcakes aren’t necessarily Movember themed, but I did make a variety of flavours and blue frosting. My co-workers at WPCG stepped up to the plate in a HUGE way; we raised $305.00 for the WPCG Mo Bandits team! There is still a week left to raise money for Men’s Health issues, if you’d like to donate you can do so here.

This past weekend I had an order for baby shower cupcakes and an order for a monkey themed first birthday party.

On sunday me, Brad and my parents headed to Harrison for a jet boating tour. We saw hundreds and hundreds of bald eagles, it was incredible!

I usually end my post with a silly photo of Hank, but this week I have a video – “cat in the box” Enjoy!

Lots to catch up on.....again!

Feels like I’ve abandoned you all again, but I have an excuse, I was on vacation J But before I left I had a couple of deliveries to make and I wanted to share those with you.

First I stopped by my friends baby shower for a quick visit and brought a little cupcake cake with me. A cupcake flower cake was chosen, because her name means little flower in Japanese, my only other instructions were NO pink!!

Then it was off to Swan-e-set.  Swan-e-set never fails to amaze me, it’s just beautiful! And the fact that Bobi Radke of Radke Designs was in charge of the décor sure didn’t hurt ;) The quantity of cupcakes does not accurately describe the size of this wedding, there had to have been enough tables and chairs for 170+ people, it was amazing!

A few hours later I was off to Mexico with my boyfriend to catch up on some R&R and enjoy some warm weather, I’ve included a few shots from our trip.

Last but not least, it’s November, which means Movember is in full swing,  around the office at WPCG and at home. WPCG has registered a team, the WPCG Mo Bandits, which Brad has also joined, growing a moustache in support of raising awareness for men’s health issues. It’s a great cause and if you’d like to donate you can do so here every dollar counts!

I’ll be bringing cupcakes to the office for a Moustache Bake Sale this week to raise money and do my part for the cause, stay tuned for moustache themed cupcakes!

My favourite Cupcakes to date!

It’s Wednesday and I realized I haven’t blogged yet! I feel like I have so much to share!

First off, this weekend I had the pleasure of making a cake/cupcake combo for a couple getting married at Pitt Meadows Golf Course. The bride and I went to high school together and after she sampled a cupcake at the wedding of another high school friend she gave me a call. The colours of the wedding were silver and navy and the décor consisted of paper cranes. The mother of the bride hand wrote everyone’s name on a paper crane as the name place holders for the tables, talk about dedication! Here is a photo of my creation; I just love the paper cranes on top of the cake.

Last night I made treats for tonight’s Heartlink Networking event – if you’ve read my blog before you know that I really enjoy attending this networking event, for any women in business who may be reading this you should look for a Heartlink event in your area.

After making bread pudding for the last event, which was yummy, but I had a feeling everyone was hoping for cupcakes or cake, since that is my forte, so I’ve gone back to what I’m known for and made some pretty amazing Pumpkin Brown Butter Cupcakes via Sprinkle Bakes with Brown Sugar CreamCheese Frosting via – Cupcakes Take the Cake.  I follow Heather from Sprinkle Bakes on twitter and she has some fabulous recipes on her blog, I hope she comes out with a book soon because I will be buying it!

I took a few shots of the cupcakes both before and after baking them and then once they were frosted. 

The recipe yielded 24 cupcakes for me, they were quite full, but made nice big cupcakes once they were baked. For those of you who follow me on twitter you may know I’m currently doing a Cleanse, so Pumpkin Brown Butter Cupcakes aren’t really on the menu for me. Brad gladly acted as my guinea pig for these (ok I’ll admit I stole a tiny piece the size of my pinky nail) and thoroughly enjoyed them. I had a few left after loading my cupcake caddy for Heartlink so I left a couple in the fridge for my aunt and uncle (we live in their basement suite) because I couldn’t bare to have too many of them kicking around to tempt me J

I highly suggest you make these cupcakes, it’s too late to celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada with them, but it is fall, which means pumpkin cupcakes are in season!

I’d love to hear from you if you decide to make the cupcakes, so pop by and comment on the blog when you do. 

And it wouldn't be a Cakelicious Blog post without a photo of HANK! 

Gobble gobble - Happy Thanksgiving

Hello All!

First off, I wanted to apologize for my blog absence, I had a couple really busy weekends in a row and I admit I slacked off when it came to writing the blog. I figured it was time to get back into it and write another post, especially since I was called out by no other than my dad about not blogging. We met for coffee last week and he says, “No blogs lately!!” BUSTED!!

This weekend is Thanksgiving, which I have to say snuck up on me. This month is still quite busy with weddings for me, so I totally wasn’t in the head space of Thanksgiving until tons of pumpkin related recipes started popping up in my twitter feed. I decided on Pumpkin Swirl Cheese cake from Foodess, so once my wedding cake order was complete and delivered to Swan-e-set I moved onto the cheesecake.

Here is the wedding cake from Saturday, 3 tiers of real cake and one fake tier on the bottom.

I can't forget about the Scooby doo cake and some cupcakes I made this weekend.

Sunday I made the Pumpkin Cheesecake, I found the recipe on twitter via Foodess, I made a little mistake and forgot the brown sugar in the crust, for some reason I put white sugar, it still tasted delicious, but the crust was a little more crumbly then I would have liked. I’ll have to make it again just to have it with the brown sugar. I also made mine with light Philadelphia Cream Cheese and 1% sour cream as opposed to 14%. That was me doing my part to make Turkey Dinner a bit healthier.

And lastly I leave you with a cute photo of Hank, he’s practicing his impersonation skills; he’s a Meerkat :P

Now i’m off to Thanksgiving dinner #2, but I went to spin class this morning so i’m not feeling so bad about stuffing myself for a second time this weekend. Hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving and had the chance to reflect on what you’re thankful for.