Sweet Seventeen

I know it's been a while. The kids are crazy busy as always. I wanted to take a minute to update on my Rockstar. She's heavily involved in Epic now, devotedly studying away in credit-able online high school courses; we had a bit of a slow start, but she is off and running and doing extremely well in it. When she isn't studying, most of the time, she's practicing her instruments or working away in the kitchen. I LOVE that she loves baking! She makes everything from scratch and consistently chooses challenging recipes, and they just keep getting better and better.  She's come a long way from that young girl who documented her often hilarious learning experiences in the kitchen.

In September, she and my sister Shane' organized a bake sale at LilBird's dance school to benefit our JDRF walk team. It was a huge success! She makes these chocolate chip cookie bars that are A-MA-ZING. (Seriously, run, don't walk, next time you know these are available for sale!)

 They spent 2 days straight creating this! (Grandma also made a bunch of these goodies, too.)

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And they even made these cool t-shirts amidst the baking!

Now, she has begun a (currently one-on-one) cake decorating class. In the first class, she used a shaped pan. This was a first for her, and it turned out great! She learned how to use icing to create a basket weave pattern, and she also got to play with fondant. All those duct-tape flowers she's made gave her a leg-up on her teacher!

In her second class, she learned how to create a shaped cake out of cupcakes. This monkey was delish!

We shelled pecans to help her create this Thanksgiving masterpiece (from scratch). Pumpkin Pecan Cream Cheese Roll ... I've already been begging for this one again.

Back to class, her latest creation was a character cake. She chose her first love, Scooby. :)

Rockstar has also put in a lot of hours this year volunteering. Just this fall, she has worked at the Tulsa State Fair, the Jenks West Book Fair, a gymnastics meet, and was a hair model for a coloring class at my sister Sarah's salon. She took charge of our family Xmas Countdown, and she and Ace created an activity chain so our house becomes more and more decorative as we get closer to Santa and they catch all the holiday movies when they're on.

♥ I am such a lucky mom! She rocks!! ♥