Sea World at Kurt's work again!

Three weeks ago, Sea World came to Kurt's work again. It had been a long time since the last time they came.

Sea World brings animals that they have saved and shows them to everyone at Kurt's work and their families.

Here is Ayla waiting for the show to start.

Back in 1998 Sea World saved a grey whale who they named J.J. They brought a inflatable replica of the size J.J. was when they released her back into the wild. Cool thing is I saw this whale back in 1998. It was my first time at Sea World. I just remember how big she was and thought she looked like a giant fish in a small tank. I guess that is why they only had her for a short time. She grew at a rapid rate.

They brought the armadillo again. Recognize this guy from the last time?

Sorry the pictures are so dark. We were a lot further back this time.

They brought out a toucan.

Did you know this bird's beak practically weighs nothing? They said if you closed your eyes and held your hand out and they put just the beak in your hand, you wouldn't even be able to tell you were holding it. Amazing huh? Their beaks are so big. They said scientists have been trying to figure how it is possible to be so light but it can crush things. It just goes to show, it is just another amazing creation that Heavenly Father created.

Here is a spider monkey. I think they said she was 18 years old.

I liked how they walked around with each animal for us to get a closer look!

I love baby crocodiles and alligators!

I think they are so cute!

I think this is the same one we saw last time.

The last animal they brought out was an African penguin.

I didn't know there were African penguins, did you? I thought they all lived in cold climates. I always felt bad for the penguin at the zoo here because I felt they should be in a colder climate but come to find out those penguins were the same kind as this penguin. I don't feel bad any more.

They let people come up and get their pictures with the penguin.

They told us not to touch the penguin but sure enough when I sat Ayla down next to it, she petted it's wing. I was a little mortified but I think it is cool that Ayla touched a penguin!

It is a lot of fun when Sea World comes to visit!

Cake catch up!

I have been wanting to put some cakes on my blog that I have done within the past year. One dates clear back to July 2010. These are cakes that haven't been on my blog yet. I did other cakes in between these but they are already on my blog.

The first one is this horse cake!

This is the one I did in July. I tried to have the horse standing up but I realized (after I had been working with the cake for 2 hours) that I needed curtain supports for it to stand. I don't know what I was thinking. Anyway, I ended up with the horse lying down. It took me 6 hours just to decorated! I was so done with this cake!

I was quite embarrassed when I found out that while it was on it's way home, it split! I was worried that it would do that! I was having issues with it on that side. It was one of my bad cake days! I ended up doing a cake for them for free, to make up for it.

Here is the cake I made for them for free.
It was for their daughter. Sad thing was, the toys that were supposed to go on the cake didn't arrive in time because I only had a week to order them, so I had to do a cut out. I still really liked how it turned out! The Emerald City was made out of rice crispy treats. I loved the Emerald City! I made this cake in November.

I made this cake at the beginning of September. It was a "Hello Dolly" cake. I loved doing this cake because I love "Hello Dolly!" I grew up to that movie. The cake even said "Happy Birthday Dolly!" The cake was made in honor of my brother-in-law's, mother, Pat. She had been in the play "Hello Dolly." This was her 80th birthday and they themed the party around "Hello Dolly." I was very happy with the way it turned out! I even made the headdress and fan!

Here is a picture of Pat dressed as "Hello Dolly." I based the cake off of this picture.

Here is a second picture of her in a different dress. I took the color from this dress, so I kind of combined the two dresses.

I did an Oreo cake for my brother, Robert in September!

I did this princess cake for my friend, Katie's daughter. I think it was in January.

And I think I did this MJ "Beat It" cake the first week of February! I liked doing this cake because I am a MJ fan! I also thought about my friend, Ann and how she would love this cake because she loves MJ too!

Well there you have it! I am finally caught up with all my cakes on my blog!

Now I just need to label my blog.

Our St. Patrick's Day!

I love holidays! I love traditions! And now that I have my own little family to enjoy making traditions with! I have never really had very many traditions for St. Patrick's day other than to wear green and spend some time with family. This year I decided to look into what St. Patrick's day is really about and make some traditions with my little family.

First, I want to share a little summery of what I found out about the meaning of St. Patrick's day. I never knew that St. Patrick was a person, until last year when I read about him on some one's blog. All I knew growing up about St. Patrick's day was, you wear green so you don't get pinched, the clover was a symbol, that leprechauns had something to do with it and it had something to do with Ireland.

Anyways this is what I found out with the help of google.

St. Patrick was a person who's name wasn't Patrick when he was born. He was born in Britain, was kidnapped and taken to Ireland at he age of 16. He was made a slave and his job was a sheep herder. He was there for 6 years and returned to Britain. He then started to have visions that he needed to go back to Ireland and be a missionary to the people, to bring Christianity to the Irish. He took on his priesthood vowels and became a priest. He took on the name Saint Patrick and brought Christianity to the Irish. He died on March 17th, that is why we celebrate it on March 17th. My reason now to celebrate St. Patrick's day is that he brought Christianity to the Irish!

Why the color green and the clover. It is a myth but could be true that St. Patrick taught the holy trinity with a clover. Green comes from the land in Ireland. It is covered in hills of green.

Leprechauns and how St. Patrick's day made it to the U.S. There was a potato famine in Ireland and the people left Ireland to take care of their families. A lot of them came to New York. They celebrated St. Patrick's day and it caught on in America. As for the leprechauns, people came up with this by the way the people were dressed when they came from Ireland.

There you have a short version of what St. Patrick's day is about.

Anyway, this what we did on St. Patrick's day.

I noticed last year from people's blogs that one of their traditions was to dye food green. I decided to take on this tradition. I made green waffles for our breakfast!

Ayla enjoying her green waffle!

I enjoyed mine with the usual strawberries and whip cream! Yummy!

Then we got dressed in our St. Patrick's day shirts!

We headed out the door to go shopping with my mom that day!

My Mom and I took Ayla to McDonald's so she could play!

I think I will make this a tradition, to take my kids to eat somewhere, where there is an inside play ground! Ayla had so much fun!

I also made some green chocolate chip cookies! We had them after dinner of course!

Ayla enjoying her cookie!

For an activity, I came up with a tradition, to have a pot of gold hunt!

I had these fake coins that I hid in certain parts of the house. Each coin had a new location of the house written on the back that Ayla knew. She had to find the coin in that location and have her daddy read the next one, until she found the pot of gold.

Here was the pot of gold.

I just bought some simple things from the dollar store and wrapped them in yellow tissue paper. I couldn't find any yellow wrapping paper, so the tissue paper had to do.

I recorded the whole pot of gold hunt on video and so the pictures down below of the hunt were taken from the video.

Ayla at the computer desk!

Handing it to Daddy!

I hid one on Kermit!

She found the one by the sink!

One in the apples!

One in her room on her doll house!

One in Mrs. Potts, that she loves to bathe with!

She had to find one in "Toy Story 2!"

She found the pot of gold in her closet!

And opened her gold!

This was a little fishing rod with fish.

At the end she was asking, where the gold was!

I guess she was wanting a whole pot of those gold coins! I guess she had more fun with those than opening the gifts! LOL!! It is the simple things in life that make us happy!

Then we played with the bubbles that she got from her pot of gold!

I love this picture!

We had a fabulous St. Patrick's day! It has a whole new meaning to me now!