All I Want for Christmas (is his 2 front teeth, lol)

Hayden has now lost both of his front upper teeth. He talks kinda funny and has a harder time biting into food but isn't he cute?!

My Final Cake-Wilton Fondant & Gumpaste Class

This was a super simple but fun cake to do. I should have added a twisted rope border on the bottom but I ran out of time in class. Each of the yellow centers have yellow sugar sprinkes to make them extra pretty. I meant for the centers to be a little bit smaller but I think that it still looks cute. The cake is strawberry with a new buttercream icing recipe that I found (made with real butter instead of all Crisco like Wilton's recipe).

On A Sad Note....

I took a bunch of awesome pics of the butterfly after he dried his wings. The kids both held him and then I got some great pics of him up-close. At least I *thought* I did. The problem is that stupid me didn't have the card in my camera. Ughhhhhhhh! By the time I realized that it was sadly too late. The butterfly took off high into the sky just as I was running back outside from retrieving the card. I was devastated. He was so gorgeous! His wings were remarkably perfect and I was in awe of his beauty. The pics I took this morning did him no justice. Oh well, at least we got to witness the miracle of a butterfly's life cycle. It was very cool and I look forward to doing it again in the future. Maybe next time I will manage to get pics of the release. :P

Transformation

I woke up to the shriek of my children this morning. They were excited to find a butterfly in the caterpillar jar. I ran downstairs because I was afraid that he would fly out and get lost up in the vaulted ceilings where I would not be able to retrieve him. Thankfully his wings were still wet so he didn't leave his home (it probably helped that he got stuck on the electrical tape that I used to tie the sticks together, lol). We plan to release him early this afternoon. How cool is he?!

BTW-He is known as a black swallowtail. :)

In this photo, you can see the leftover shell from his chrysalis. I don't think that he had been out of it for very long at this point.