A Snowglobe Cake

Tomorrow is the "Retiro de Damas" for the Pomasqui church and my MIL and I are in charge of refreshments. I offered to do cupcakes and a cake. The rose frosting is always fun to do and turns out pretty too.

 But this cake was WAY fun to make! Dan spotted the little tree at the store the other day and it's just perfect. The snowman is a pepper shaker -- his friend, the salt-shaker, is still in the package!

And this is what the rest of my family worked on today:

I don't know how many buckets they helped fill, but I'm sure there will be some thankful ladies later this month!

Days 17-20

I'm not very good at blogging every day. Could it be that my to-do-list is already kinda full?!

Day 17 The bathroom didn't need 15 minutes of cleaning. The "new" little blue tote system from Day 9 is working great and keeping our things in place. I only needed to swipe the sink and wipe the dust off the shelves.
I cleaned out the "fire place pantry" instead of a kitchen cupboard for two reasons: one, it needed it, and two, the Christmas dishes need a temporary home! It's nice to have the Christmas dishes nearby and easy to get at since we have fun using them this time of year.

Day 18 I didn't vacuum since that job is taken care of for me on most Mondays. I cleaned out my shoe area of our closet and passed along four pairs that I haven't worn in ages. I didn't work in the kids' closets since that's a weekend-type project!

Day 19 We don't have trim around our windows nor do we have baseboards, so I skipped today. There are ledges under our windows, but they weren't dusty. (That's a miracle!)
Today was a holiday here -- Quito Day! Some of us wore red and blue in celebration, though the two nationals I greeted with a "Feliz Dia de Quito" looked a bit confused. Maybe it's a custom thing.
Today was December 6, which means there were goodies in the stockings this morning! We cut out some cool paper snowflakes after school.

Today was Day 20 -- the last day! -- of the Organized Home challenge. I skipped cleaning out the medicines since I did that back on Day 9 when I majorly cleaned my bathroom. This morning Dan and the kids helped put together buckets for the Quito Prison Ministry. They were gone until after lunch, which worked great since I had cupcakes and a cake to make. Pictures coming soon!
I also cleaned the other 3 bathroom vents so that's done now too. I guess the challenge now is to keep things neat through the holidays!

Day 16

I'm not quite done with today's assignment of cleaning the vents, but the first one really needed it! Who knew?

Before:

 After:

I wasn't too excited about this job and it wasn't easy using a toothbrush above my head, but it's nice to know that all that dust is gone. I have three more to go before I can say it's done.

 

By the way, we don't have heater/air conditioner floor vents in our house because we don't have either heat or air conditioning. So I'm cleaning the bathroom vents -- most of which are on the wall above the door!

 

Better go see how my sister is doing at catching up!

Organized Home Days 12-15

Yikes! I'm a little behind schedule, but some areas are looking better than they did a week ago!

 Day 12 I don't remember what I wore, but I'm pretty sure it was khakis and a t-shirt! I didn't vacuum, but I did clean the microwave, the top of the stove, and the oven window.

Day 13 Swiped the bathroom, cleaned the dust off the top of the fridge, and wiped down some of the kitchen cupboard doors. It wasn't on the list, but I cleaned everything off the fridge door to make room for our countdown calendar tins.

Day 14 Carolyn helped me clean mirrors and the glass doors in the kitchen. I think I'm glad I don't have any other interior doors with windows! She took pictures of the utensil drawer and included "during" shots.

Before:

 (I like the blurred look -- it makes the "after" look even better!)

During:

After:

 

Day 15 The computer got feather-dusted today and I took care of a number of e-mails in my inbox. There's still a lot of work to do on that, but Windows 8 is killing me! My 15 minutes of doing something you enjoy was spent with Carolyn making a garland with the Cricut. (This is the 2nd of our 3 countdown activities!) We decided we liked the ornament pattern best, so most of the garland is made of that. Inside each of the tins in the picture above is a bit of candy and these Bible verses. After we read the verse, we glue it on the garland.

 

We had a nice vacation at the coast and enjoyed fish for our Thanksgiving lunch! It was a special treat to spend time with Dan's parents.