TumiTicklers

Reveal Cake

2012-02-24T18:50:00.000-06:00

I did another reveal cake today. I did it the same style as the previous one, but in an 8" circle. It was french vanilla (can't tell you what color it was dyed, yet!!) and covered entirely in fondant. It had bow and button accents.

Valentine's Rose Cake

2012-02-14T13:03:00.000-06:00

I seriously love this cake. I love the all white roses. The inside is strawberry. It is covered in buttercream and sprayed with lustre dust to make it shimmer. Yum!

Wedding Shower Cake

2012-02-11T21:27:00.000-06:00

I also did a wedding shower cake for this weekend for the daughter of a sweet, sweet friend of my mother-in-law. I did a 2 tiered SQUARE cake for her!! I don't know why I rarely do squares, but for some reason I gravitate towards my round pans when I am baking. I really like squares, though. And squares were perfect for this cake!!

The bottom tier was french vanilla, covered in fondant with fondant damask-like accents around it. The top tier was dark chocolate fudge, covered in fondant with a quilted pattern accented with pearls. On top was a fondant bow. I love the navy and white combination of this cake. I decided to spray the cake with a lustre dust when I was finished with it to give it a shimmer. It altered the color of the cake a bit, which I was disappointed about. Before I sprayed it, the navy was the most beautiful, rich blue color. I LOVED it. After I sprayed it, it added a tint of a silver sheen, making it more of a gun metal color. Still pretty, just not what I had originally mixed.

I also did some navy and white cookies for the shower. Still not too proud of my cookies, but they are getting better, I think. I didn't completely hate the royal icing this time... just slight hatred. Ugh. I hope to eventually perfect these, because I think they could be so cute. Anyone with pointers... I'll take them!!

Baby Reveal Cake

2012-02-11T21:18:00.000-06:00

I did a baby reveal cake for my friend Lauren for this weekend. We found a design that we loved on pinterest and used that one, with a few differences. I checked first to make sure that it was okay that we used this girl's design... she didn't mind.

The cake was french vanilla, dyed... BLUE, because my sweet friend is having a boy! The cake was then covered in marshmallow fondant with a quilted center, and different colored stripes, bows and buttons to accent.

Congratulations, Lauren!!

Say, Maaaaap!

2012-01-31T09:43:00.000-06:00

This Dora cake was for sweet Elizabeth's second birthday! It was dark chocolate fudge with buttercream frosting and fondant accents. The explorer stars were my favorite!

Baby Shower for Twins!!

2012-01-23T19:09:00.000-06:00

I did a cake for my sweet friend Emily who will be having TWINS in a month! I did a "2 peas in a pod" themed cake. The cake was dark chocolate fudge, covered in buttercream and accented with fondant.

Winter ONEderland

2012-01-07T22:38:00.001-06:00

The bottom tier was dark chocolate fudge. The top tier was french vanilla. All covered in fondant and with fondant accents. Sprayed with lustre spray. I posted the top picture because you can actually see the lustre on it. This was a fun one!! The cupcakes were the same flavors, but topped with buttercream with a blue and white swirl. Happy Birthday, sweet Harris!

Girl's Soccer Cake

2011-11-05T22:26:00.000-05:00

This soccer cake was for a girls' soccer team and they wanted it pink. Strawberry on the inside and pink and black on the outside. I added some pink coloring to the cake batter and the inside was ELECTRIC pink. I wish I had a picture of it! The grassy area was french vanilla. All covered in buttercream.

Halloween Cake

2011-10-25T10:23:00.000-05:00

This cake was for a bunko party. Dark chocolate fudge - the recent favorite flavor!! It was made to match the plates that she had for the party.

I added some little guys to the side :)

Lingerie Shower

2011-10-25T10:18:00.000-05:00

This cake was for Diane's lingerie shower. I practiced with some cookies, too. Still not happy with them. Cake is dark chocolate fudge, covered in marshmallow fondant.

Logo Cakes

2011-10-25T10:08:00.001-05:00

These were logo cakes done for a retirement party. I did them a few weeks ago and I have a baby so I'm a little forgetful, but I think that they were dark chocolate fudge, strawberry and red velvet. Then I did a large one to go along with these that said "Congrats on your retirement... ." It was french vanilla.

Family Blog

2011-10-18T07:59:00.004-05:00

For those of you that follow this blog and like reading about my family, I started a family blog: The Tuminello Family. Hop on over!

I have some cakes to post later today if I get around to it!

My girls

2011-09-19T13:51:00.000-05:00

Most days I don't think that Taelyn and Lillian look alike, but I've come to realize that is because I don't really remember Taelyn's chubby baby look! She looks so different now than she did when she was a baby and it is hard to remember her that way. However, some days I come across her baby pictures and it really makes me realize how much my girls do look alike! Here are some pictures I was comparing today:

This is Taelyn at 4 months!

This is Lillian at 3.5 months. Lillian has filled out more now and looks more like the picture of Taelyn above. But they both have that same grin on their face!!

Love these girls!!

Hostess-like Cupcakes for baby shower

2011-09-19T13:38:00.000-05:00

Kelsey asked me to do some Hostess style cupcakes for a baby boy baby shower and they turned out so darn cute!! The cupcake was dark chocolate fudge and then they were filled with a marshmallow icing. I topped them with chocolate ganache and wrote little cute baby words on the top in the hostess style. They said "love," "baby" and "Alex" (which is the baby's name, of course!). These turned out so cute I made so extras for my bible study this morning and wrote the fruits of the spirit on them (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control). I can definitely see these being a great treat for Taelyn's class this year and writing all of the kids name's on the top!

Spunky Circles!!!

2011-09-15T10:03:00.000-05:00

This cake was made for a mother's birthday.... I believe it was the 75th. The bottom tier of this cake is dark chocolate fudge and the top tier is french vanilla. It is covered in buttercream and then the circles are marshmallow fondant. The bow on top is also marshmallow fondant. I sprayed it with pearl lustre spray to give it a shimmer. I love the colors on this cake!!!

Batman Cupcakes

2011-09-15T09:53:00.000-05:00

My nephew, Grayson, turned 6 last week. For his birthday he wanted batman cupcakes! They are a mix of french vanilla and milk chocolate cupcakes. Topped with buttercream. Finished off with a royal icing batman logo. Happy Birthday, big man!!

Baby Shower Cupcakes

2011-09-15T09:50:00.000-05:00

I had the great privilege of making cupcakes for a baby shower for my friend, Katie. Katie and I lived together at MC and during a few summers and she was my maid of honor in my wedding! I love this girl and I am so excited that she is having a baby girl in a few short weeks! And even more excited that she is moving back to Jackson so that we can spend a lot more time together and our girls can grow up together! The cupcakes were a mix of strawberry and milk chocolate. They were topped with buttercream and I finished them off with royal icing decorations with a cute pink footprint on them. Then I sprinkled them with nonpareils. Happy baby, Katie! Can't wait to meet the sweet girl!!

Gumball Machine Cake

2011-09-13T17:14:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I did a gumball machine cake for a 5th birthday party. The colors were all primary colors. The sheet cake was dark chocolate fudge and the gumball machine was milk chocolate fudge. The cake was covered in buttercream. I thought these colors looked so pretty together. We did a mini gumball machine for the birthday girl. It was strawberry and covered in buttercream.

Cupcake Cake

2011-08-31T09:42:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to post some pictures from the cupcake party so that you could see how cute the cake was all set up!!

Cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes!

2011-08-24T13:44:00.000-05:00

Cupcakes are so popular now. And they are so much fun to decorate! I had 65 cupcakes to decorate for this past weekend. And one giant cupcake cake! I have wanted to make one of these for the longest time and I finally had an opportunity to! Twenty-five of the cupcakes went with the cupcake cake. We decided to ice them to go along with the colors of the sprinkles on top of the cake.

The remaining cupcakes were for my niece's birthday. They were iced in pink (of course!). I made cute white chocolate 4's and S's to go on top of these cupcakes; however, since it was 100 degrees by 10am here in Mississippi, the white chocolate didn't hold up long enough to make it. Sad. I don't currently have a picture of the pink cupcakes, but will post a pic if I can get my hands on one! Here are some pics of the toppers.

Let the sports wars begin!!!

2011-08-24T13:31:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I was asked to do a cake for two boys' birthdays. One was an LSU fan and one was an Ole Miss fan! Now, I've been to an LSU/Ole Miss game and it was ugly! These two teams seriously hate one another. When I was putting the two sides of the cake together I felt like they were going to repel one another... the way magnets do when you try to put the like sides together. Overall, I think the cake turned out cute though. One side is chocolate fudge and the other is french vanilla. The cake is covered in buttercream.

Cookies!!!!

2011-08-22T18:44:00.000-05:00

I've been wanting to try these iced cookies for awhile and finally felt up to it this week. I wasn't that pleased with the taste of the cookie because I used half white and half wheat flour, but I'll know better than to try to make a cookie healthy for next time!! I also am not a big fan of royal icing, but it is necessary in order to make these cookies look the way that they do. From what I've read, the cookie has to be the real standout when making these, not the icing. They turned out cute and I can see them being teacher/school happies for us this year! I'll keep working on them until I am please with how they taste! Here are some pictures.

Sports Ball Cake

2011-08-03T16:42:00.000-05:00

I did a cake last week for sweet Reece's 1st birthday, which was sports themed. His mommy wanted to incorporate several different sports and had this design in mind. We did a 3 tiered cake with the bottom layer french vanilla torted with buttercream and covered in marshmallow fondant to look like a basketball. The middle layer was milk chocolate fudge torted with buttercream and covered in marshmallow fondant to look like a football and the top layer was french vanilla torted with buttercream and covered in marshmallow fondant to look like a golf ball. Reece's smash cake was a large french vanilla ball covered in buttercream to look like a baseball. Cute, cute!

LucyPalooza

2011-07-19T14:59:00.000-05:00

I made a cake! And I enjoyed it so much! I can't even remember the last cake I did before this one, but when Haylie asked me to make a cake for Lucy's first birthday I thought about it for about 1.5 minutes before I decided that YES, I was definitely ready for it. I had told myself that I would resume cake decorating when Lillian started sleeping through the night. Well, unfortunately that hasn't happened yet, but I think I just needed to do something that I really enjoy!

Lucy had a princess party, so I did some researching on the internet and found several cakes that I really liked and just pieced them all together into one beautiful cake fit for a princess! The bottom tier was strawberry (to go along with the mounds of pink that was strewn all through Haylie's house!) and covered in white buttercream. I did a quilted pattern on the bottom tier and put edible pink pearls on the cross pattern. The top tier was french vanilla covered in pink buttercream. I piped a sash around the top tier and added some pearls to it. I topped it all off with a white chocolate tiara that I hand piped. I added some of the edible pink pearls to dress it up! The whole thing was sprayed down with a good coat of lustre dust to make it shimmery... princessy!

Lucy's smash cake was a miniature carriage in coordinating colors. The wheels are white chocolate. Cake is french vanilla covered in buttercream. Here are some pictures, but once again, I took them with my cell phone so the lighting is bad!

Taelyn and I made some cute princess cupcakes, too! Yep, Haylie even had the three year olds working on the party!!!

The entire party was truly amazing! Complete with a huge castle that Nick built out of big boxes, a craft table with crowns, tiaras, swords and wands, and a horse drawn carriage giving rides around the neighborhood! Happy first birthday, Lucy! I am so honored to have been a part of it!

To co-sleep or not to co-sleep

2011-06-20T11:13:00.000-05:00

Co-sleeping... it's such a debated topic among parents these days. In my opinion, if you enjoy sleeping with your children and it works for your family then do it. No judgement here. One of my best friends co-sleeps with her children and she is happy doing this. I think it is great. However, those of us who do not want to co-sleep shouldn't feel like we are being judged or considered any less of a mom because of that decision.

There are several reasons why I choose not to co-sleep. The main reason is that from the time I wake up in the morning until the time that my children fall asleep at night (and even during the night with my 10 week old) I am needed by them. I am holding, cuddling, feeding, playing games, changing diapers, wiping tears, entertaining, reading books, etc. My priority all through the day is my children. It is exhausting, but so worth it. However, I need time for myself. I feel like this helps me to be a better mom. On a good night, after my children go to sleep, I will typically have 2 hours all to myself before I go to bed. Usually I use this time to get in bed and read. I like having this time each night where I am not being needed. I can just relax and enjoy the quiet. If my children were sleeping with me, this would not be possible.

I feel like the majority of the pressure to co-sleep comes from the breastfeeding community. I feel strongly about nursing my children. I nursed my oldest daughter for a year and plan to nurse my little one for a year as well. Breastfeeding proponents make me feel like I should have my daughter in bed with me at night so that she can nurse all through the night anytime she wants. That does not sound like a good night sleep for me. I am a light sleeper, so I wake easily to noises and movements. We all know that babies make a lot of noises and move constantly in their sleep. I've read in books that to co-sleep safely you should put your mattress on the floor and sleep without blankets. And you need to wear clothing that allows your nursing child to latch on whenever they want through the night. Well, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if my mattress were on the floor and I didn't have any blankets on me I wouldn't get a wink of sleep. And as far as nursing through the night... they say that most of the time you won't even wake up when the baby latches on and nurses - HA! I promise if my baby latches on and starts nursing I won't be able to sleep through that. And if I did sleep deeply enough that I were to be able to sleep through a nursing session I would definitely worry that I would be in danger of being one of those parents that accidentally suffocates their child while sleeping in the bed with them.

The reason that I have been thinking about this so much is because I read this article last week: http://www.slate.com/id/2143241/. The article is called "Go ahead - sleep with your kids." It is subtitled "the urge is natural. Surrender to it." It is written by a father who feels like the natural thing to do in life is to sleep with your children and nurse them around the clock. This article really infuriated me because to me he is insinuating that you are selfish if you aren't okay with what he is suggesting. Well... I think it is really easy for this FATHER to point fingers at MOTHERS and say this is what you should be doing. He isn't the one that has a child latched to him all day long. And he isn't the one that is being needed constantly by children and doesn't have time to himself. I don't know anything about this man's personal life, but I'd be willing to guess that he goes to work away from home each day and has plenty of time to feel like a grown man and have adult conversations with others. I'd be willing to bet that he doesn't spend his days in the floor pretending to be cinderella's wicked stepmother, reading books and playing Cootie over and over again. And I know that he isn't feeding his child with his own body countless times all day long. Yet, he thinks that mothers are selfish if they are asking for a couple of hours sleep in their own bed away from their children each night.

Well, Mr. Wright (ha, ironic name, huh?!), I think that you are wrong about this. I don't think that mothers are wrong if they choose to co-sleep and this works for them. If they are happy with their children in their bed then it is great. However, I don't think that I am wrong for choosing not to co-sleep. And if he would like to come nurse my child all day long, then I may be willing to give co-sleeping a try!

Such a Slacker

2011-06-17T11:59:00.000-05:00

I know that it has been a month since I've blogged. It's not that I haven't had the time to blog, it's just that I really haven't had anything to blog about. My days are consumed with feeding baby, changing baby, getting baby to sleep, and then it starts all over again. And thrown in the middle of that is Taelyn playing Cinderella and I am the wicked step-mother. I'm always the wicked step-mother. Boo. I wish we could play outside, but it's really too hot for Lillian to be out there more than a few minutes. And she can't wear sunblock yet, so that really complicates things.

Taelyn did take swimming lessons for two weeks that that was great. The first two days were really difficult and there were tears, from Taelyn and from me! The teacher was really hardcore. But at the end of that second week, Taelyn was jumping in the water from the side and swimming half-way across the short side of the pool with her face in the water. She can also come up and get a breath and put her face back down and keep swimming. She's only three, people, so I'm really proud of her! I can't wait to get her around her cousins because I think watching them will really help her as well.

On the baking side of things (I know... its been awhile since I've even mentioned baking!), once Lillian is sleeping through the night and we are on some sort of schedule (I live for schedules), I plan to start baking cakes again. I'm going to start slowly with one or two a month and then try to work my way into it. And ... I want to try my hand at these painted cookies that are all the rave in the baking world these days! I've got some cute design ideas in my head and I'm really excited about them! Hopefully they will go over well!

My bible study with Good Morning Girls is really good! I suggest you check it out if you are looking for a good study. We are going through the amazing book "The Ministry of Motherhood" by Sally Clarkson. It has been a really good book for me to read. I suggest it for all mommies! Click the link in my sidebar if you would like to look at the blog.

Alright... that's all of me wasting your time with the nothingness that I am blogging about. I'll try to come up with something interesting to say next time!

More Things I Love!

2011-05-16T09:58:00.000-05:00

I'm adding to the list of things I love for babies! The items on this list are mostly things that I didn't use with Taelyn but that have been very helpful with Lillian!

...continued from the previous list...

#4: Peanut Shell sling: I had a sling with Taelyn that my sister-in-law passed on to me, but I never felt comfortable using it. I only tried it a few times and then I gave up. I wanted to get a sling that I felt more comfortable with this time around because with a 3 year old I knew it would be important for me to have both hands free. I LOVE this sling! I've used it a pretty good amount at this point and I have gotten really comfortable with it. And Lillian loves it! She gets so snuggled in and comfy in there and it is just like I am holding her. She usually falls asleep in it. I was worried at first about all of the negative publicity surrounding slings and babies suffocating in them, but if you get the baby positioned in it correctly I don't think it is a concern at all. I plan on using this thing with all of the different holds as Lillian gets older. I even carried Taelyn on my hip with it one day and was perfectly comfortable!

#5: Summer Baby Touch monitor: I am in love with this monitor! We didn't have a video monitor with Taelyn and both agreed that we wanted one with Lillian. I did some extensive research on video monitors (as I am prone to do) and the Summer Baby touch had the best ratings and reviews across the board. The video screen is about the size of my iphone and it is a touch screen. You can pan and zoom the camera from the monitor. We found one for a great price on ebay about 3 or 4 months before Lillian was born and put it in Taelyn's room. I don't know how I lived without a video monitor when Taelyn was a baby. I would have gotten so much more sleep with her! About a month before Lillian was born we had really gotten used to having a video on Taelyn during the night (even though she doesn't do anything but sleep!), so we thought it would be nice to get a 2nd camera for the monitor. That is another great thing about this monitor - you can have up to 4 cameras. Haylie got us our 2nd camera as a baby gift and it is wonderful! The monitor switches between both cameras throughout the night so I can keep an eye on both girls! I absolutely love it. And the picture is so clear - see for yourself! And this is the picture on the monitor taken with my cell phone!

#6: Miracle Blanket: This is another item that Haylie let me borrow. It is a swaddle blanket, but it has the little cloth tabs to wrap around baby's arms so that they can't break loose! It was featured on the Today show at some point. It has really been great. At first Lillian would squirm when I would start wrapping her up in it, but now she seems to really like it. She is perfectly calm as I wrap her up in it. And she doesn't try to break out (I guess she figured out that she can't!). This isn't Lillian... it is just a good picture from the internet that shows how the blanket works!!

#7: Bebe Au Lait nursing cover: I never used a nursing cover with Taelyn because I was never comfortable to nurse in a place where I would need it! But I knew with Lillian that I would have to get comfortable because with Taelyn I can't just stay in the house all the time the way I did when she was a baby. She needs to get out and get rid of some of her never ending energy. So I got a nursing cover. It's ironic to me that nursing covers are so brightly patterned and colored. Isn't the point of the nursing cover discretion? Well, after some searching I found this white eyelet cover by Bebe Au Lait and I love it. It is double lined but not hot at all for Lillian. I have already used it a ton. It is nice to not feel like I have to leave the room now when people are visiting and Lillian needs to eat. I'm sure it will get a ton of use over the next 11 months (geez... 11 more months until she's one!?).

That's all for now! I'll continue to add to the list!

Good Morning Girls Bible Study

2011-05-12T12:28:00.000-05:00

My friend, Krista, posted about a bible study on Facebook the other day. I had just been thinking about what kind of study I was wanting to do for the summer and so I visited the link that she posted. The study looks so good and I am so excited about it so I wanted to share. Visit www.goodmorninggirls.org if you would like to look at the study as well.

The ladies behind this blog are going through the book The Ministry of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson as part of the book club. They have 2 chapters of the book assigned per week The then have a scripture passage assigned for each day with a very neat way to study scripture. They use the "SOAP" method which stands for:

1. S- Write out the scripture passage for the day.

2. O- Write down 1 or 2 observations from the passage.

3. A- Write down 1-2 applications from the passage.

4. P- Pray over what you learned from today’s passage.

They encourage you to get with a group of women to do the study; however, it can all be done via the web. On Monday's they will post a video by the author of the book. On Wednesday's they encourage you to share comments on their blog and then on Friday's you discuss answers from the discussion questions with your group. This can be done through email, facebook, twitter or you can meet in person to discuss.

This study begins on Monday and I am really looking forward to it. I will probably be posting about it in the upcoming weeks. If you would like to check out the study, click on the Good Morning Girls circle on my sidebar. If you want to join our email group, just email me and let me know and I'll put you on the list!

New Moms Lie

2011-05-09T12:25:00.001-05:00

This is a phrase that gets repeated a lot in our house. It started when Taelyn was a baby and has gotten used several times since we've been home with Lillian.

Let me digress a bit. I've found it interesting how many comments I've gotten on my past few blog posts and my honesty about our life when Taelyn was a baby. Other mom's need to hear that everything isn't all sunshine and baby laughs every single day when you bring a new baby home. However, we, as mothers, have a tendency to want to give this impression to others. I think the reason is because it makes us look like we have it all together as a mother. That we know exactly what we are doing and do not ever have a down day, or a day when we are just frustrated, or melt into tears every time our darling angel melts into tears.

When we came home with Taelyn and I was a complete mess (as I've described in previous posts), I needed to know that there were other mothers who were going through what I was going through. I would call the other moms that I knew who had delivered around the same time that I did. I would ask how nursing is going and I would get a, "Great! We haven't had any problems at all," while I had mastitis 3 times. I would ask how the baby was sleeping and I would get, "Doing so well. He/She started sleeping through the night at 3 weeks," while I was a complete zombie waking up sometimes 5 times a night with Taelyn. It seemed like all of the other mothers had it all together while I was the only one seriously struggling with life with a baby. It made it so much worse not having someone else to be able to sympathize with me or tell me how to handle what I was going through.

I would vent to Scott about this and complain that God had given everyone else these perfect babies while we had one that didn't sleep and wanted to eat every hour and a half. And Scott's answer to me was always, "Casey, they are lying." My nature is to trust people until they give me a reason not to, while Scott tends to be... skeptical... of others. So, I automatically just believed all of the other moms that were saying that baby was sleeping through the night with no problems, never cried, and never had dirty diapers (okay, that one was never said). But it just made things worse for me. I finally got to where I knew Scott must be right... New Moms Lie. I couldn't figure out why, but after a lot of thought I came up with what I mentioned earlier - just to make themselves look like good moms. But I wish that we, as mothers, could see how hurtful this is to other mothers. If things are going great, then it is fine to say that, but I do think we should be HONEST about what we are experiencing. I remember talking to one mother who had her little boy 2 weeks after Taelyn was born and asking her about nursing. This was in the midst of my extreme pain with mastitis. She said that everything was great! I remember having a conversation with her almost a year later... after we had both finished nursing, and she told me that she had also had mastitis. Now, I would have greatly benefited from hearing that when I had it. But she chose to keep that information hidden when I needed to hear it.

There was one wonderful family in our sunday school class that was honest about their trials with their first child. I completely attached myself to this family and loved hearing them tell their hilarious stories about what they had done in the middle of the night when up with baby. From this I learned how to laugh at the situation the way they did. Nothing was ever funny in the middle of the night, but the next day I realized that I could laugh at how ridiculous I had acted. Bless this precious family for being honest and letting me see that there were other people out there that weren't blessed with perfect babies! I will never, ever stop appreciating them for their honesty at a time in my life when I truly needed it. They continue to be great friends of ours and I continue to love their honesty about life!

All that to say that this is why I choose to be brutally honest about our difficulties with new baby. If you need someone to sympathize with you, please call or email me and I will listen or tell our new baby stories or whatever you need from me!

For now I have to get lunch served so that I can go get a nap to catch up from a lack of sleep last night while Lillian grunted for hours!!!

We did it, we did it, we did it - HOORAY!

2011-04-29T11:09:00.000-05:00

Anyone with young girls will appreciate the Dora reference in the title. That is how I feel today. I made it through my first week home alone with both girls and here's the kicker... I managed to get a shower every single day! In the morning, too... not waiting until Scott got home like I had to do to get a shower when I had Taelyn. I feel very accomplished in my career as a mom! The past two nights have been BAD with Lillian, but I've managed not to zombie around the house. When you have a precious 3-year old for motivation, it's easier to conjure up that strength for her sake. I've implemented "Taelyn-time" this week, which is just set time that Taelyn has to play by herself in her room. This gives me a little quiet time during my day. We have also taken walks around the neighborhood with our new handy-dandy sit and stand stroller (more to follow). This morning we made homemade pancakes (or pancircles as Taelyn calls them), we gave the baby a bath, we caught up on the ever-famous royal wedding, and we gave Doughnut a bath. Giving the dog a bath is the last thing on Earth I wanted to do after not getting much sleep last night, but Taelyn REALLY wanted to so I gave in. Now we will have naptime in 2 hours and a little play time this afternoon and then daddy will be home for the weekend!!

I am excited because I am going to see Water for Elephants tomorrow. I think that I will probably be going by myself, but I don't care. It will be 2 hours of pure bliss where I can get lost in a movie! I talked my BFF, Haylie (previously mentioned), into reading the book this week so that we could go see the movie together in a few weeks when she and her family come to visit. So she read the book in about 1.5 hours (which is typically how she reads books) and then called and said that she couldn't wait that long to see the movie and she was going without me this weekend. What a friend, huh?! So I figure I'll go see it by myself this weekend too and will enjoy every minute of the alone time!

Okay, now I want to do a follow-up to yesterday's "I'm not a fan" post. This is the "I'm a HUGE fan of:" post! So, here it is. I'm sure this will be an ongoing list as well.

I'm a HUGE fan of:

#1: The Joovy Caboose sit and stand stroller - We found this at Hudson's a few weeks before Lillian was born for a great price. I had decided not to get one and that Taelyn was just old enough to walk when we go somewhere, but this was such a good price so we went ahead and purchased it. And I am so glad that we did. I used it yesterday for the first time to walk around the block and it was wonderful! Taelyn could sit on the bench seat in the back, or stand on the platform. She was able to jump on and off as she wanted to and it really was wonderful. It is also very easy to steer. I haven't folded it up yet to go in the car, so I'll have to keep you posted on that aspect. Everything else I really liked about it though.

#2: The Boppy lounger. I had the regular Boppy pillow (the intertube looking thing) with Taelyn and I never used it. I pulled it back out to use with Lillian and I still haven't used it. Scott has used it more than me! But the Boppy lounger I love!! Haylie let me borrow this (as well as a whole myriad of other items) and I have used it so much. It is great to prop Lillian up in. She likes being able to sit in it and look around and what is going on around her!

#3: The Snuggle Nest: which Haylie also let me borrow (okay, I guess all of this stuff that I am using of hers makes up for the whole movie bit). This is like a little bed that you can take with you. I think the real purpose of it is if you want your baby to sleep in the bed with you (which we don't), but I have this inside her bassinet and she sleeps really well in it. It also has this wonderful nightlight on it. The first few nights we slept with Scott's closet light on, but it was way too much light. I realized that I could just turn on this little nightlight when I needed to change and feed Lillian during the night and it was the perfect amount of light. Love it!

I'll keep this list going! I have to find some laundry to do or something else to keep me busy now or I am going to fall asleep sitting straight up.

Things I am not a fan of...

2011-04-28T10:28:00.000-05:00

This is a list of things that I am not a fan of:

#1: Baby Grunting - Lillian is a grunter. I'm not talking about the occasional grunt when she is pooping. I'm saying this girl is a hardcore grunter. Last night she grunted constantly from 1am until about 4:30 am when she finally fell into a deep sleep. Then began grunting again at 5:15am. Not a good night for us. I've been googling baby grunting and there is a myriad of reasons why she may be grunting, including: gas, immature abdominal muscles, not knowing how to work muscles together at the same time to pass gas correctly, constipation, and on and on and on. She has regular dirty diapers so I know that it isn't constipation, but I guess it could be one of the other ideas that I mentioned. That is what I've narrowed it down to at least. I tried everything I knew to try last night: nursing - she finally got to the point where she just wouldn't open up anymore! She didn't want to eat, I tried mylecon and that didn't seem to help, I swaddled and reswaddled (see below), I rubbed her back and her belly, I tried to get her to take her pacifier and she wouldn't, and finally I just stared at her. The solution for grunting (according to the all-knowing internet) is that there is no solution. They just have to grow out of it. GREAT! So no sleep for me until Lillian learns to use her muscles in sync to be able to pass gas. Fabulous! If any of you readers have a grunter and have any advice, I'm all ears.

#2: Babies busting out of the swaddle - I consider myself to be a good swaddler. When I swaddle Lillian she is wrapped up tightly like a little baby burrito and I think to myself, "Huh... see if you can get out of that one." And 20 minutes of grunting later I look over to see that little hand waving all over the place in a very uncoordinated manner. So frustrating. I used the velcro "swaddle me" blanket with Taelyn and that worked well, but Lillian isn't big enough for it yet. Her legs barely make it into the pouch. And my BFF, Haylie, let me borrow her miracle blanket, which I decided to try last night, but she isn't big enough for that one yet either. She sleeps fine during the day when she isn't swaddled. Those arms just lay peacefully up near her face or by her side. But boy, when it gets dark outside, its like the arms grow minds of their own. They won't just lay peacefully and let my baby sleep. They are all over her face, in her eyes and mouth... it truly is amazing!

That is all I can think of right now. As of now, everything else "baby" I am a fan of. This child is so incredibly sweet. I'll keep you posted if any other things pop up on my "not a fan of" list!

Taelyn and Lillian

2011-04-20T20:07:00.000-05:00

Okay... everyone keeps asking if Taelyn and Lillian look alike. One of the first comments I made after Lillian was born was, "she looks nothing like Taelyn." Then when we got home Scott pulled up these pictures! See for yourself:

Taelyn

Lillian

I definitely see differences between the two, especially with the hair and their size. Taelyn was almost a full pound larger than Lillian, which makes her look more filled out. However, I see a lot more similarities than I initially gave them credit for.

I can already tell that they are different in personality. However, I feel that a lot of this has to do with me. I was so tense with Taelyn that I'm sure she fed off of that. I am MUCH more laid back with Lillian. Taelyn cried a lot as a newborn... and infant. Lillian barely ever cries. When she does she just cries out once or twice to get someone's attention and then it's over. Once Taelyn got started crying there was nothing you could do to pacify her. You just had to wait it out. Taelyn also didn't want anything touching her hands. She wouldn't hold your finger the way most infants will. She would draw her hands up in a fist and hold them close to her if you tried to touch her hands at all. Lillian is really cuddly so far. I am hoping that she will be my cuddly baby!

One very neat thing about both of my babies... Taelyn was born exactly a week and a half before Easter in 2008 and Lillian was born exactly a week and a half before Easter this year. This is why they are both wearing the bunny outfit above during our first week home with them! Sweet Easter babies! I'll continue to post pictures as we get a little bigger!

Changes in our household!

2011-04-18T12:04:00.001-05:00

So... the big news here is that we added a new little mouth to feed to our household! Lillian Noel was born on Tuessday, April 12. I went in on Monday for my regular check and had some good progression and was a tad low on amniotic fluid. So my doctor asked me if I wanted to meet her the next morning at the hospital to have a baby! Did I want to??? I could have hugged her I was so happy. So the next morning we went in early and had a very good day that ended with a sweet angel being born! Things went very quickly, thank goodness, and Lillian was born at 12:26pm. She was 19.5 inches long and weighed 6.5 lbs. April 12 was the perfect day for her to be born. First, she shares a birthday with my mother-in-law, who is just thrilled about it! Also, Taelyn's birthday is March 12 and my birthday is August 12, so it will be easy for my husband to remember!! As long as he can get the months right!! Here is a picture of her right after she was born.

Sweet eyes! We are still shocked that she has dark hair!

Meeting Lillian for the first time! Love this moment.

Taelyn seeing her new little sister for the first time!

BEAUTIFUL girl!

My sweet girls! I am so excited that Taelyn has a sister!

Since we got home, things have been GREAT! And I do not use that word lightly. Any of you that were around when I had Taelyn know how completely crazy I was. Crying all the time, feeling mentally unstable, and not having a clue how to take care of baby were just a few of the things that I dealt with. I had never been around babies at all and I was really overwhelmed by all of it. Taelyn was not a good sleeper, so I was also having to deal with all of that on top of no sleep. I was worried that those same feelings would present themselves this time around.

However, I have felt like a completely different person. I know that it is just feeling more comfortable being a mom and knowing what to do with a baby. But it is nice not having the fog to deal with. Lillian's nights and days are a little messed up, but I feel like I have dealt with it really well. I know going into each night that I am not going to be getting much sleep and that helps. It makes me thankful for any amount that I get. I've been praying at night, not for sleep, but just for the patience and strength to deal with no sleep. Meaning: Not being mean to my husband in the middle of the night. Or thinking ill thoughts toward him as he is able to sleep soundly through all of the baby noises!! I have seen that the newborn days do pass. I've been through that before. So now I know that it will get better! And I can try to enjoy these days instead of just wishing them away!

Taelyn is being a really sweet sister. She has adjusted so well. I know that we will have up days and down days with her as we learn to deal with shared mommy/daddy time, jealousy and all that... but so far it has been fine! She loves being a big helper! Taelyn helps with diapers and putting clothes on. She is still trying to figure out nursing though ... it has been a little comical! Taelyn put one of her teddy bears up to her belly button the other day and said that she was feeding the bear her milk. Pretty funny. I can imagine that would be a little difficult for a 3 year old to wrap their mind around. She is starting to just accept that is how Lillian eats though, so hopefully the questions will drop off about it soon!

I'll end this post with Lillian's life verse and our prayer for her:

"But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds."

Making Things...

2011-04-05T11:47:00.000-05:00

Guess what??? Taelyn actually wore the dress that I made for her to church on Sunday!! And I got compliments on it. I was so excited. I, of course, thought it was cute, but you know how partial you can be when you spend time on something like that. Here is a picture of her in the dress when I was trying it on her at home:

I have some of that blue flowered fabric left, so I am going to make a matching something for Lillian. I hope to get it done before she is born, because I'm pretty sure it won't get finished if I wait!

This is something else that we threw together recently. My sister-in-law gave us this frame about a year ago and it has been in our storage room. We painted it red with the same color that is in our kitchen and I backed it with this cute khaki paisley fabric and hung it up to serve as a dry erase board. My husband has a love/hate relationship with his "to do" list! It definitely helps him get things done when he has a list glaring at him everyday, but I'm not sure that he likes it so much! Anyhow, it turned out cute and it goes well in our kitchen.

I'll keep you posted on when we have a new baby in the house!

Ready!

2011-03-31T08:34:00.000-05:00

I finally finished Lilli's painting. I kept adding and covering and touching up until I finally just gave up and called it "finished!" Still not completely satisfied with it, but if I'm being honest I would have to say that I just don't care as much about the nursery as I did the first go around. When I was having Taelyn I felt like her nursery had to be perfect. I think because I didn't know what the joy of actually having the baby would be like and the room was something tangible that I could prepare for. However, this time around I know what to expect. And I have to say that I am much more excited about getting the actually baby out of her current living quarters and into our house!! The nursery has been in the back of my mind this entire pregnancy. She has bedding, a place to change/store diapers and clothing. And a glider rocker. We are set. And I am ready - physically and mentally! So... not as concerned with a Pottery Barn look-a-like for a nursery this time. This is a picture of the painting.

This weekend I am going on a women's retreat with my church. I am really excited about it. Hopefully getting away for a day and immersing myself in God's word and surrounding myself with His people will rejuvinate me! I am pretty worn out mentally and physically at this point.

Did I mention that tomorrow is my last day of teaching... not just for this school year... but for awhile. I will definitely return to teaching one day, but we are planning on me being a stay-at-home mom indefinitely at this point. So, after school tomorrow, not only do I get to turn my alarm off, I get to delete it! I am really excited about it. Unless we have a baby before then I have plans to attend the bible study at church that I used to go to when I was staying at home after Taelyn was born. I also plan to take Taelyn to preschool story time at the library. Oh, and hair cuts! I'm so excited to get my hair cut (not that I couldn't do this while teaching, but I've just been putting it off!).

Counting down the hours at this point until I return to my previous status of "stay-at-home mom!" So excited!!!

NOT A PAINTER

2011-03-23T08:50:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I'm not a painter. I had fun doing it, but I'm not good at it. And I am big enough to admit that about myself. I posted a picture of Lillian's canvas (to hang above her bed) earlier this week. It looked too... solid... to me. Does that even make sense? The colors were too bright and the lines were too straight. There was just something I didn't like about it. So a few nights ago I decided to go through and add some white to it. I did what I have always done when I have attended classes at Easely Amused - I made it "whimsical" as the teachers there like to call it. In short - I messed it up. BADLY! See for yourself:

So last night I attempted to fix it. I wanted that stark white gone... so I went over a lot of it with brown. And continued to just make the thing worse. Now I wish I had never touched it and left it "solid." I liked it much better that way than how it looks now. Here is the current view:

I can't decide if I should just leave it alone and put it on the wall how it is, or if I should continue to mess with it in an attempt to end up with a decent finished product. I was thinking of taking some brown tonight and trying to make it less "whimsical" and more "solid." It seems like the more I add to it the worse it looks. I have several options at this point - #1: Say that Taelyn painted it. Or at least that it was a painting project that we did together (since, you know, she can't write or draw actual shapes - well, except a "T" and a circle). Or #2: Trash the whole thing and be out about $14 and a couple of hours of time. I really want to use the canvas since she needs something on the wall and I can't really pay anyone to paint anything for her room. So I need some help!

If you are a painter and have any advice for how to salvage this thing, please send it to me!! Please!!! Help!

Spring Break Recap

2011-03-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

Ahhh... spring break. I already miss you! However, I have realized that I am not a good blogger when I am at home. That is what I've come to rely on my planning period at school for! I only have 2 weeks left of school before I start my maternity leave and my stay-at-home-mom-ness, so I guess I better learn to blog from home. I'm sure I'll quickly find a time that is good for blogging.

We didn't do much last week and it was wonderful! Taelyn stayed with my mom for 3 nights, giving me some time around the house to get things done. On Monday I did a lot of cleaning, laundry, painting and baby preparation! I got Lillian's canvas painted, but I think that I am not done with it. I am planning on adding some embellishments as soon as I get the time and energy. This is where we are so far, though.

On Tuesday, I didn't do much... and it was wonderful! I read a good bit, watched some tv, and stayed in comfy clothes all day long. It was a really nice day for me! Wednesday I met my mom to get Taelyn. We had a nice lunch together and then I headed home with my girl! I was glad to have her back home with us! Thursday and Friday, Taelyn and I basically just spent the days running errands, making good meals, playing with toys and trying to enjoy the beautiful weather outside as much as possible! On Friday morning I had a doctor's appointment and it's looking like we should be prepared for baby #2 at any time. I can truly say that I am ready! And I feel that her room and the house is prepared enough for her arrival! I go back to the doctor on Monday, so I'll keep you posted.

Saturday I went to a free sewing class at a local library. I was able to completely finish an apron during the length of the class. It was fun having someone look over my shoulder and give me pointers and suggestions while I was sewing. I think it increased my confidence level tremendously. So, last night we went to my in-laws and I started Taelyn a dress. It is only half-way finished at the moment, but in my mind the finished product looks adorable! I hope to finish it up in the next few nights and I'll post a picture of it! Hopefully the picture I post here will match the cute picture in my head. And I hope that it fits her correctly and that it doesn't fall apart in the first wash! My mother-in-law said that she has never seen someone just sit down and sew a dress without any sort of pattern. That's typically just how I do things though - I've never taken cake classes - I would just look at other people's cakes and think, "I can do that." Then I would go home and try it. So now I've gotten in the habit of paying attention to clothes that other children have on and seeing how they are sewn. And in my head I'm thinking, "I can do that." I guess we will see! Like I said - it may be all crooked when I actually get the dress on Taelyn!

Pregnancy: 8th Month Evaluation

2011-03-10T09:19:00.000-06:00

Sigh. What to say about the 8th month of pregnancy? I feel like the life has been sucked out of me and all I can focus on is April 20. Oh - and my adorable daughter! She makes the third trimester blues all go away... but not the third trimester tiredness! Lately she has picked up a common phrase from me, "My back hurts." She uses this on a very regular basis (like maybe more regularly than I do.). Can't put away my toys... my back hurts. I don't want to go to Bonsai for dinner... because my back hurts. How do you explain to a 3 year old that back aches are reserved for the 8th and up months of pregnancy?

I worked up the energy last night to make Taelyn a birthday cake for her friends that she stays with when I am at school everyday. I decided to do a bear cake because, as you can tell from my blog, I've made plenty of those and knew it would be easy. Ha - nothing is easy when you are 8 months pregnant! I baked the little guy last night and the entire bear fell apart when I took him out of the pan. Well, his head was still intact, but the body crumbled. I knew that I didn't have the energy to rebake this guy so I just headed to Kroger and bought her some pink cupcakes. What a disappointment.

And I haven't done any sewing in over a week. I want to add straps to that grey shirred top that I posted a week or two ago, but I haven't brought myself to be able to do it yet. Maybe next week I'll get motivated to sew some more ... since it is Spring Break and all. I am so looking forward to next week. We aren't taking any trips this year, and I'm kind of excited about that. I would love to see the beach right now, but was a little nervous about being that far away from home. So... we will be home all week and hopefully I can do all of the last minute things to prepare for Lilli's arrival (did you notice the spelling?? That is what we decided on!).

I have some crafty things planned, so hopefully I will be able to find the energy to do them! The following items are on my to do list for next week:

-Paint Lillian a canvas for above her crib

-Possibly paint 3 small canvases for her room and 4 small canvases for Taelyn's room to go above the head of her bed. These are just hopeful... probably won't get to them.

-Sand and paint this old antique desk that we have had in storage awhile. I am planning on it being the home to my sewing machine.

-Cover Taelyn's monogram on the crib bumper with either Lillian's monogram or some sort of applique.

-Get Lillian's crib raised (this is actually a to do for my husband. My involvement will be nagging until it gets done.)

-REST... as much as possible!

Wish me luck!

Birthday with Yogi Bear

2011-03-07T09:42:00.000-06:00

We are back from our weekend at Yogi Bear Campground and it was so much fun! It did end up raining pretty much all day on Saturday, but Taelyn still had the best time! We just put her in her rain jacket and boots and tried to enjoy the outside as much as possible! Her favorite part of the whole weekend was splashing in rain puddles! I am so glad that we decided to do a trip instead of spending money on a birthday party. I think she enjoyed this so much more.

Here is a recap from our weekend!

Friday night: Excited about her cake!!

When asked what she wanted for her birthday she would answer "candles and cake!" Well, being the stellar mom that I am forgot one of those two items... candles!! Scott improvised! We called this our "redneck birthday." Hope that doesn't offend!

What a HUGE bite! I think she liked it!

Opening Presents! Loves her Dora book.

A little scared of Yogi!!

Putt Putt

Playground

So cute in the rain jacket!!!

Taelyn loved splashing around in puddles!!

Making a craft in the activity center.

On the pier with Bebe

Playing in the arcade

Arcade... we realized quickly that she enjoyed playing without money in the machines as much as she did with!

Taelyn drinking coke! She gets coke on her birthday. She loved this!

2011-03-05T18:36:00.001-06:00

Scared of Yogi!!!

My baby is turning THREE!

2011-03-04T09:17:00.000-06:00

Taelyn at about 8 weeks! She was NOT happy about bathtime! She wasn't happy about most of her infancy!

Taelyn last weekend! Almost three and such a happy toddler! Definitely a "girly girl!"

My "baby" turns 3 next week. It's really difficult to wrap my mind around. Last year we did a birthday party at the church and had the bounce house and the Mickey Mouse theme and all of that. And I realized through all of this that Taelyn could have cared less. She just wanted to eat cake!! She didn't really play with any of the other kids. She wouldn't go near the bounce house because she was scared of it. So the 2nd birthday was definitely more for me than it was for her.

This year, being 8 months pregnant, I decided that I didn't really want to go to all of the trouble of a birthday party. I knew that the planning, and decorating, and baking and cooking would be exhausting for me. So Scott and I decided that we would take a trip for Taelyn's birthday this year. The amount of money that you put into a birthday party, even when trying to do it "low scale," is fairly substantial, so we decided to put that money towards something Taelyn would really enjoy and some fun memories that we could make as a family.

We started with New Orleans and planned to do the zoo and aquarium. However, my doctor scared me a little when she said that she was going to give me some numbers for very specific hospitals and doctors - just in case something crazy happened with my pregnancy while down there. She was pretty adamant that you can't just deliver a baby anywhere in New Orleans!! I haven't had any scares of pre-term labor or any complications whatsoever, but just for the sake of playing it safe, we decided to stay a little closer to home.

A month or so ago, Scott got a coupon on groupon (haha) for a 2 night stay at Yogi Bear Campground in Pelahatchie. We decided that we would just go there for Taelyn's birthday weekend (don't judge) since it is only 30 or 40 minutes away. He called to book it, but groupon sold over 800 of those coupons, so of course, they were booked straight through June when the coupon expires. Except she did find one single cabin available for the weekend before Taelyn's birthday, which is this weekend, so we booked that one. So this weekend we will be heading to Pelahatchie to celebrate the third birthday! And the forecast is calling for 100% chance of rain all day Saturday. Fun times. I'm going to take some games and puzzles and we will just make the most of it and hope Taelyn enjoys her birthday celebration!!

She said she wanted a chocolate cake with white icing and candy all over it for her birthday, so that is exactly what I did. It is a simple cake, but exactly what she wants. I was going to do a candyland theme on the top of it, but decided just to make it easy since no one would be seeing the cake except us (and all of you guys since I am going to post a picture!!!).

I'll let you know how the weekend goes. Maybe the rain will let up a bit on Saturday so we can enjoy some outside time. I'm not getting my hopes up though! One question I do have for those of you that have done birthday parties before the actual birthday - Next week, when her actual birthday is here, how much attention do we give to it? I don't want to confuse her. And - we are doing the cake and presents and everything this weekend, so I don't want her to expect another "celebration" on her actual birthday. But I'm not sure that we should ignore it either. I need your advice, moms!!!

The Simple Life

2011-03-02T09:25:00.000-06:00

It's such a trendy thing to talk about these days: Simplicity. It seems like I hear about this topic everytime I open a magazine or read blogs. And I will admit... I've bought into it. That was my New Year's resolution, to simplify my (our) life. Now is the quest to figure out exactly what this means to me and how to accomplish this. I guess I should have done all of that before making the resolution!

I've read some blogs about this topic and I know what I've decided simplicity does NOT look like for my family. One blog describes simplicity for them as being: living debt free, living close to nature, working from home, living green and without the use of harsh chemicals, cooking from scratch and on and on. Well, all of this kind of stresses me out a bit. It seems like work to me to try to live up to all of those standards - so this does not translate to simplicity for me. The definition of simplicity, according to Wikipedia (DO NOT tell my students that I have used Wikipedia - after all of my ranting to them about this not being an adequate source for research!!!) is, "the property of being simple. It usually relates to the burden which a thing puts on someone trying to explain or understand it. Something which is easy to understand or explain is simple, in contrast to something complicated."

The list that I've given above seems like just that to me - a burden. And to be honest... I like my house to smell like bleach when I clean. I know, I know... the environment. My children's health. I get it. But I want my towels to smell CLEAN. Really clean. Bleach clean. And during my first pregnancy I tried to use some green cleaner in my kitchen and bathrooms, but I have to be honest... It just didn't clean like I wanted it to. We eat in a kitchen and I want it clean. I want it to look clean and smell clean. And I want to know that those harsh chemicals are killing all of those little germies that like to hop onto our food!

Also, I do not like to cook to begin with. So the thought of cooking everything from scratch - doesn't feel simple. And isn't that what I'm going for?

So this is my question... how do you live simply? Especially in this culture with our excess of materialism and our excess of activities and busy-ness. But I think that is just it - what I'm trying to get away from. I don't want to feel like I NEED all of the latest trendy clothing or the latest gadgets. I don't want my kids to feel like they NEED every electronic known to man or every toy that the neighbor down the street has. I also don't want to have to attend some sort of practice or game 5 nights out of every week... which is the reason I started dwelling on this whole simplicity thing. I am watching all of these families around me live in their cars or at the field/court. Don't get me wrong, I think that children being involved in activities is a good thing. I think that it helps them establish that sense of competition and sportmanship and I think it teaches them good social skills. However, I truly feel like they should have limits. They are children. Let them choose one or two activities and then spend the rest of their time playing at home or in the yard. It bothers me to see kids having activities until 9 o'clock at night when they should be in bed.

So these are the questions that I'm having to ask myself as I look up ballet lessons and swimming lessons on the internet. Where do you draw the line? What do you allow children to be involved in when they want to do EVERY activity that the friend from school is doing? How do you keep things "SIMPLE?"

I don't have the answer to this question yet. But I'm determined to come up with what simplicity looks like for our family. Maybe that should have been my New Year's resolution this year - to come up with answers! I should have saved the actual "simplify" resolution for next year! Please comment if you have any insight on this topic! I would love to hear your thoughts.

Cakes, Crafts and Customs

2011-03-01T10:13:00.000-06:00

No, I haven't made any cakes in the past few weeks, but one of our local news stations, WAPT, is having a cupcake challenge in a few weeks. On their website, in the weeks leading up to this event, they have a section called "Show us your cakes," where people can upload photos of cakes/cupcakes that they have made. I uploaded a few of my favorite cakes last night so I need you to go in and rate them on the webpage. You do have to create a profile, but it doesn't take long at all. Here is the webpage address that will take you directly to my cakes: Ctuminello11's Cakes on WAPT.

Okay, on to the crafts that I have completed lately. I have loved getting to know my sewing machine, although we have had our fair share of yelling matches. The first project that I completed is a blanket with tons of old t-shirts. I have had stacks and stacks of t-shirts in my closet for years. T-shirts from high school, college and beyond. T-shirts that I couldn't bring myself to get rid of. T-shirts that bring back tons of old memories - such as the night that my college friends and I were having a mud fight on campus and I got a large amount of mud in my eye, had to go to the hospital to get it flushed out, and then had to wear an eye patch for a week. My roommate taped an eye from a magazine on top of my eye patch and it was so freaky. More to her than me, because when I would sleep my eye patch eye would stare at her!! Yes, I had to smile when I got to that mud stained t-shirt and included it in the blanket! This was a good project to start sewing on. It was simply sewing squares and t-shirt material was really easy to sew on. It doesn't unravel on the edges, so you don't have to hem it at all. And it turned out HUGE. I have 36 - 14" squares on each side, making it the size of a queen size quilt. I don't have any pictures of it, but I'll take some and post soon.

After making my blanket I have tons of leftover t-shirt scraps so I've been trying to practice my sewing on that. I made Taelyn a tiered skirt and then attached a shirred top to it. I don't like the two together though so I think I'm going to take the top off and do something else with it. I can't decide if I want to leave the skirt a skirt or make it a dress. The skirt has a lot of seams and doesn't look great if you are looking closely! But it taught me how to gather and make ruffles. And I loved shirring the top. Supposedly, Brother sewing machines can't shirr, but mine shirred like a charm. I didn't have any problems at all. I actually had less problems with the shirring than I did with sewing with regular thread. (How many times can I use the word shirr in 3 sentences. It's kind of an awkward word!). My lower thread tends to "birdsnest," according to google. I think it is a problem with my tension, but I can't figure out where it needs to be. It may be that the machine is just cheap. I am looking at new machines since I actually enjoy sewing!

So, I am definitely going to take the shirred top off of the skirt and add some sleeves to it. I may just leave it a little shirred top. Or I may attach it to something else that looks better. I'll let you know once I decide! It's nice working with scrap material because when it turns out looking badly you don't feel like you've wasted a lot of money!
Last night I wanted to do something quick with some tie-dyed t-shirt material from one of my high school t-shirts. I wanted to do a comfy little play skirt for Taelyn to bum around the house in. I was able to make it quickly before dinner. It isn't fantastic... it would probably help if I would attempt to use a pattern, but I haven't tried that yet. I tend to envision things in my head and then just go for it. Doesn't usually turn out like I hope, but at least I'm increasing my sewing skills, huh?

I have a picture of her wearing it (and she LOVED it!), but she doesn't have a shirt on in the picture. I don't want to exploit my child on the internet, so I decided not to post that one! I'll put her back in it with a shirt so that you can see it on!

On a different note, Scott is back in the country (hence the "customs" portion of the title)! I'll post more on their trip in the next few days once I've managed to drag all of the stories out of him! He doesn't volunteer information willingly, so it is a process!

Haiti Update

2011-02-25T09:32:00.000-06:00

I talked to Scott last night and their mission team made it to Haiti safely! They arrived with all of their luggage and were already at the compound where they will be staying when I talked to him. Scott had been outside playing soccer with some Haitians, teenagers and adults, and said he was already worn out!! He sounded as happy as he could be... but if you know Scott, you know that doing anything athletic as a ministry tool is right up his alley!

Please pray for the mission team as they begin their dental clinics today. Pray that they all stay in good health and that God will work through them and in them over the next few days. Also pray for Taelyn if you think about it. She is having a hard time understanding. She cried the entire time we were getting ready yesterday morning and everytime I asked her why she was crying she would answer, "My daddy is in Haiti." It was so sad!! She has been really into the story of Jonah lately, so I used that to explain to her that daddy was doing God's work and making God really proud of him. Last night every time she would get upset about something she would cry and say, "I want my daddy." I think that she is concerned that he is in Haiti and not coming back, although I've reassured her countless times that he will be home next week. I did wake her up to talk to him when he called last night and she was really happy about that. Getting ready was much easier this morning, so hopefully she is beginning to feel a little better about it. Your prayers would be appreciated though!

Scott said that he would text me today and let me know how things are going and he will call again tomorrow... so I will give you an update when I get one!

Thanks for your prayers!

TumiRufflers

2011-02-18T14:34:00.000-06:00

Soooo... for years and years now I've wanted to learn to sew. I inherited a sewing machine from my grandmother about a year ago, but honestly the thing has terrified me. Every time I would get motivated and take the cover off, I would sit staring at the machine in a trance, not really knowing what to touch, being scared silly of breaking something until eventually I would just put the cover back on it and swear to myself I would learn "one day." Last weekend Scott was cleaning out our storage room and he moved the sewing machine to the center of our garage. I was outside playing with Taelyn and it kept calling my name, "Casey... I need some attention!" Finally I lugged it inside and put it on our kitchen table. That night after Taelyn went to bed I, once again, removed the cover of the machine.

The sewing machine was already thread (threaded??) from when I received it, but I decided that maybe rethreading the entire machine would help me learn the parts easier. Equipped with the user manual (terrible) and you tube, I rethread (rethreaded??) the sewing machine. It was so hard! And it took me about an hour and a half just to thread. However, I do feel like this helped me to not be so scared of it. After that I sewed about 5 stitches (crooked) but it was a little loud and I didn't want to risk waking Taelyn up.

The next night I moved the sewing machine to my bedroom so that I could get some practice in! Following the user manual, I sewed a straight stitch until I figured out how to keep my straight stitch actually STRAIGHT. Then I sewed a zig zag stitch. I had some fabric scraps and some old t-shirts that I was practicing on.

I'm really excited about this venture. There are a couple of blogs that I read on a regular basis that are about sewing and refashioning children's clothing. Lindsay is the one that came up with the cute term "TumiRufflers." She said that if I end up blogging about my projects then that is what I have to call it! I'll keep you posted on my progress... or lack thereof!

If you are a seamstress (are men called "seamers?"), please feel free to leave pointers or ideas of practice projects!! Any advice would be appreciated!

Stroller Cake and Weekend Recap

2011-02-11T08:51:00.000-06:00

Here is the other cake that I did last weekend (2 weekends ago? I've lost track of time.) It was another stroller cake with the paisley pattern from the brown and blue one I did a while back. The colors of the baby shower were pale pink and white, so the paisley was done with those two colors. The cake was french vanilla and the icing was buttercream. Once again... I have a picture but it isn't very good. It's a little dark because it was taken with my cell phone. You get the idea ;)

Just realized that it was 2 weekends ago that I did this cake. Last weekend Scott and I went to Birmingham for a wedding... without Taelyn! It was a fun getaway for us to take before the baby comes. The wedding was awesome! The rehearsal dinner and reception were both so much fun. The only bad part was having to wear maternity pantyhose! Why do they make those terrible things? If it wouldn't have been snowing outside I would have just avoided it!

The highlight of the trip was getting to spend the day with one of my best friends in this world! Lindsay booked us massages (my first prenatal massage!), then we spent the day shopping and eating! Perfect day, in my opinion!! We ate lunch at this fantastic place called "Flip burger boutique." It was quite swanky! My favorite part was the crazy liquid Nitrogen milkshakes that they serve. I was nervous about these being pregnant, but it was explained to me that they spray this liquid nitrogen on top of the milkshake because it is very cold and makes the milkshake really cold. Then you let it all evaporate before you drink it. I don't know if the liquid nitrogen made a difference or not, but the flavors were fabulous! Lindsay and I shared a Nutella and burnt marshmallow milkshake and a Krispy Kreme milkshake. Those of you who know me well know that I named my dog "Doughnut" because Krispy Kreme's are my favorite food. Pair that with ice cream and I am in heaven!!!

Not sure how my cake post turned into a "what I did last weekend" post, but there it is! If you ever get a chance to eat at a "Flip Burger," do it!

First Birthday Owl Cake

2011-02-08T10:11:00.000-06:00

Last weekend I was able to do a cake for one of my best friends in this world! Kelsey's little girl turned 1 on January 31 (which I cannot believe!!!), and she had a fun birthday party for her! She sent me the invite, and we decided to make the cake match the invite. I absolutely LOVE matching cakes to invitations - it just makes it so unique and individual. This is the invite that Kelsey's incredibly talented, graphic designer husband made for the party.

We decided to do a two-tiered cake with a smash cake. The bottom tier was butter cake (Kelsey's favorite, I think), but I mixed in a little french vanilla (shhh... don't tell Kels!) and the top tier was strawberry. It was covered in buttercream with all buttercream accents. The smash cake was french vanilla covered in buttercream.

I tried to match the owl from the invite on the top of the cake. A "1" went on the side of the top tier and then "Elizabeth" was piped on the side of the bottom tier in an attempt at the same font used on the invite. After I had those major accents, I added some fancy, schmancy scrollies around the sides that matched the 4-corners of the invite. I thought it turned out precious. Here are some different angles of the cake.

For the smash cake we decided to have it shaped like a "1" and then just put some of those same scrollies on the sides of it. I wanted them to continue onto the edges of the top of the one just a little bit. This "1" turned out exactly how I envisioned it in my head, which almost never happens! I was really pleased with it.

Happy Birthday, Sweet Elizabeth! I love you and your mommy so much! Have a great 2nd year! Can't wait to watch you grow!

Haiti

2011-02-02T09:31:00.000-06:00

My husband is going to Haiti with a group from our church at the end of this month. There are several dentists going, and the main goal of the trip is to establish relationships and provide the Haitians dental care. God has really laid Haiti on my heart over the past 4 or 5 months and I truly wish I could go on this trip. However, I think my doctor may frown on me being almost 8 months pregnant in Haiti.

It is so discouraging to me how little Haiti has recovered from the terrible earthquake that happened almost 13 months ago. It seems that they will never recover because of the turmoil that their country is in. There are so many people living in tents with absolutely no way to ever work their way into a better situation. And now with the cholera outbreak due to no means of having clean water. Discouraging. However, what is encouraging is the way that God's people are stepping up to help. I have heard of so many organizations recently that are raising money and going to build wells to help alleviate this water crisis. It is also encouraging to see the number of God's people who have heeded the call to move their families to Haiti in order to make a difference in that country. Two of the blogs that I've started reading about Haiti are written by families that have accepted that call. Their faith is humbling to me. My excuse is always that I have small children. It is amazing to see these families with multiple children going anyway - despite the fear of disease, danger, etc. I will repeat it: Their faith is humbling to me. These are the blog links if you'd like to see how these people are making a difference: www.allthingshendrick.blogspot.com and www.livesayhaiti.blogspot.com . Both of these families are working to open the "Harbor House" in Haiti (I think Port au Prince), which is going to be a home for teen moms. They will live there, go to school, and learn how to care for their children. It is amazing what these families are doing and I have truly been blessed by them and have enjoyed following their progress.

I think it was last October or November when my pastor, Stan Buckley, first talked about the crisis in Haiti in church one Sunday morning. Sadly enough, before that Sunday I was pretty much oblivious to the terrible condition of that country. Stan had just gotten back from Port au Prince, Haiti with two other members of our church and he was passionate about what we could do to help this country. His message focused on how it seems impossible that anything could help... BUT GOD... and he talked about how God can make a difference in this country in this seemingly impossible situation. Not only did he detail the conditions that they had just returned from, but he had a plan in place for how we, as a church, could help. They had already met with a few key people: some who knew how to build a very sturdy, cheap house that would last in Haitian conditions. Another person who was an expert on growing food in poor agricultural conditions. And in this service, Stan was able to explain how we could begin building communities in Haiti. These communities are going to include somewhere between 30 and 40 houses, a church, a school, a medical/dental clinic, and agricultural plots so that the Haitians can get on the track of growing their own food. You can see a brochure for the community here: http://www.fbcj.org/Documents/HaitiFlyer.pdf. If you would like to watch Stan's sermon from that Sunday, it is here: http://www.fbcj.org/Video-2010-10-17.html.

Since that Sunday, our church has been raising money and preparing for this trip. We have even gotten our preschool involved. We built little house piggy banks out of cardstock to send home with all of our preschoolers. Taelyn gets so excited every time she finds some change lying around the house that she can put in her "Haiti house." Scott (my husband) will be going on the initial preparation trip at the end of February, so like I said, they won't be doing any building of the community. They will be establishing relationships and providing dental care for people. The first of the building trips will be March 6. Our church will continue to go and help establish these communities indefinitely at this point. If you would like to read more about this project or see a picture of what the completed houses will look like, you can check out this longer publication about the project: http://www.fbcj.org/Documents/FirstInAllTheWorld-Fall2010/flippingbook.swf. If you would like to get involved in this project to help Haiti, either by donating money or by going, you can check out this page about Project Haiti: http://www.fbcj.org/Missions-Haiti.html. It should have any information that you need, or a contact person who can give you information.

Mainly what I ask from you at this point is your prayers. Prayers for everyone that will be traveling to this country to make a difference and prayers that a difference will be made. Prayers that God will work in the lives of Haitians through those going as well as in the lives of those going. Prayers to keep the teams free from disease and harm. But especially that God's love will be made known and accepted by the people of Haiti.

Random thoughts on 2nd Pregnancy

2011-01-31T20:40:00.000-06:00

I did do cakes this weekend, but once again I only got pictures with my cell phone, so I am trying to get some better ones from the actual party/shower before I post them. If I don't have them in a few days I'll just post the cell phone pics. Both turned out cute!

In the meantime, I have some random thoughts on pregnancy... namely, the second pregnancy.

I really enjoyed my first pregnancy. Yes, I was tired (so I thought), but it was nice to be able to come home and hit the couch and rest after a full day of teaching. I went to bed when I wanted to, on the weekends I slept in. It was wonderful having 9 full months to mentally prepare for becoming a mother and I needed every second of those 9 months (probably needed a little longer! I was no where near as mentally prepared as I should have been).

Then comes the second pregnancy. NOT. FUN. The exhaustion is about the same, but then you have to add to that the boundless energy of a two year old. I come home from teaching all day long and I play with my little girl - who goes NON-STOP until she passes out at night! I just hit my third trimester and I've all but given up on having a clean house... the vacuum is just too heavy to push around! I try to cook two or three times a week, but that is all that I can promise my very forgiving family! I'm due April 20, and in "pregnancy years" every month seems like a year. I know that April isn't too long from now, but it seems forever away. Sweet friends keep trying to remind me how much easier being pregnant is than actually having the non-sleeping, constantly nursing newborn in your home - and I remember how difficult it was. However, I am still ready for April to be here. At this point I would rather be a sleep deprived zombie and be holding that precious little girl in my arms than to feel like I've run a marathon after giving my two year old a bath at night. You can come back to this blog in late April and there very well may be a post wishing for pregnancy because at least I was getting my sleep at night! But as of right now - I'm ready for pregnancy to be over!!

Not to mention that I failed my 1-hour glucose test and had to take the 3-hour glucose test a week and a half ago. I will say that it went much better than I thought it was going to. My problem is that I google everything. Retroverted uterus in the first trimester - I google it to learn that 3% of women who have retroverted uteruses (uteri?) can have miscarriages up to week 20 in the pregnancy - so of course, then I am freaking out that I could be in that tiny percentage of women. My doctor has encouraged me to stay away from google, but we have a long standing relationship and I keep running back no matter how many times he hurts or scares me. So - before my 3 hour glucose test I google it to find out what to expect. And boy did my good friend, google, have me expecting the worst! So for all you women out there who have to do this test you should know - it isn't really that bad. I read all about women throwing up, passing out, getting overheated, and on and on and on. None of this happened to me even though I was expecting it after everything I read. Yes, you can't eat or drink anything past 7pm the night before. But I'll admit this - I ate a large dinner in an effort to curve my hunger until 11am the next day when my test would be over - but I got VERY sick that night. So everything I ate was gone. I worried that I would be absolutely starving by the end of my test the next day, but I was fine. I went in, they took my blood, I drank the glucose solution and that seemed to get me through the 3 hours. I was definitely hungry when I left, but nothing that was making me nauseated or light headed. Also, I read that the glucose solution you have to drink for the 3-hour test is twice as much as the 1-hour and twice as sugary as the 1-hour. Not true! They gave me the exact same little bottle of orange glucola that I had to drink before the 1-hour test. And despite what I read, I didn't have to drink the solution every time I went back to have blood drawn. That was definitely a nice surprise! Now, having blood drawn 4 times in 3 hours isn't fun (I have the bruises still on my arms to prove it), but it really wasn't terrible. And I passed my test with completely normal numbers. So, I've continued to enjoy the ice cream and kit kats that I enjoyed before my glucose test! Thanks goodness - I need them to help me through this pregnancy that feels like it will never end.

Have I complained enough this post? Sorry, about that. I know that no one comes to this blog to read about me complaining about pregnancy. I am so incredibly thankful that God is blessing us with another child. I am happy as I can be to be pregnant with a healthy baby and I need to just be grateful. So now that I've gotten all of my complaining out to the blog world I am going to attempt to just enjoy my last few months of pregnancy and remember that my exhaustion is going to only get worse when I'm not getting 8+ hours of sleep at night! I just think I'm tired now, right?!

My verse to live by: "Do everything without complaining...so that you may...shine like stars in the universe..." Philippians 2:14-15.

On a different baby note - Baby's name is going to be Lillian Noel. Lillian is my grandmother's name. We are going to call her Lillian, but we are going to call her a shortened version as well. So how should we spell the shortened version? I need your opinion!! I want to keep the double L's, so our options are Lilly, Lilli or Lillie. Tell me your favorite!!

Lollipop Cake

2011-01-28T09:03:00.000-06:00

I have pictures of the lollipop cake from last weekend. It turned out very cute! I'm not sure if you have ever worked with fondant before, but interestingly enough, the weather affects how this substance can react. Last week was very wet in Mississippi. It rained almost every single day. As a result, the fondant was so sticky! I had to use a TON of powdered sugar to make it act right for the accents on this cake. And my lollipops took a very long time to dry. I was getting worried by the end of the week, but luckily they turned out fine! Here are the pics of the cake and the smash cake.

This weekend I have another first birthday cake and a baby shower cake! I'll keep you posted on how they turn out!

My Little Baker

2011-01-26T08:49:00.000-06:00

I did a very cute lollipop cake for a first birthday last weekend, but the cake had to travel an hour and a half away, so I didn't stick the lollipops in the cake before it left. They were going to get put in once it reached the birthday party. All of that to say - I don't have a completed picture of the cake with the lollipops in it. But they promised to take one for me at the party, so I'll post it as soon as I get it.

While making this cake I had some left over cake batter so I made an extra 8 inch round for Taelyn. I thought she would probably have fun decorating it and it would give her something to do while I was decorating the real cake. She is always wanting to "help," but I'm sure you other mothers of two-year olds can attest to the fact that a two-year old's help is usually a set back! However, I don't want to make her stay out of the kitchen when I am working on cakes because I don't want her to grow up dreading when mommy has to work on a cake. I think it is important to involve her when I can.

So she had a blast decorating "HER" cake while I was decorating mine! I gave her some of my extra white icing to cover the cake and then let her pipe it with hot pink icing and gave her sprinkles for the top. She had the best time and has talked all week about "HER" cake. Here are some pictures of the fun!

Hot Pink icing is her favorite!!!!

SPRINKLES!!!

Finishing touches. My poor table will never be the same after all of the icing that I had to clean off of it!!

Blog Future

2011-01-20T08:55:00.001-06:00

So... I'm trying to decide what to do with my blog since I'll have a newborn (and a 3 year old) soon and I know that it will probably be awhile before I feel "up" to doing cakes - or before I will have the time to do it! The truth is that I really enjoy blogging, and would like to blog about more personal things going on in my/our lives than just my cake making. However, I'm not sure if this is the place for it. Or to put it bluntly... if you guys care about my personal life outside of my cakes! And my header does revolve solely around cake making. Hmmm... decisions, decisions.

I need some help from you people. I know that I have some readers out there (not a lot, but some) because my handy, dandy site tracker tells me that I do, every couple of weeks. I don't have a lot of commenters, but I need you to comment to this post to tell me your thoughts on this. Or send me an email. Should I transition the blog to include more than just cakes? Should I change the title/header to reflect this or just leave it how it is? HELP!!!

I am working on a cake for this weekend and then I have two for next weekend... so stay tuned for those pictures! I'd also like to tell you a little about Haiti and my new baby monitor, but not in the same post.

Let me know your thoughts!

Craftiness of a Different Style

2011-01-06T14:39:00.000-06:00

Well, I have made something lately, but it wasn't edible. I didn't do any cakes in the month of December, but I do have a few coming up in January so stay tuned! I have been in the "market" for a bow holder for Taelyn (my 2 year old) for a couple of months now, but didn't want to spend $40 buying one. So, I decided to try my hand at making my own. I haven't painted too much in my life, but I saw a few cute ones that I thought I could attempt to duplicate. This is a picture of Taelyn's bedding, which I wanted the bow holder to match.

I figured I would make something with an owl, and this is the design that I ended up with.

I painted it all by hand and was pretty proud of myself! I thought that painting her name in a particular font was going to be really difficult, and it wasn't particularly easy, but it was a lot like piping icing, which I am used to! When I am writing on cakes, I usually find a font that I like and then look at that font while I hand pipe the icing. So this is the method that I used for painting Tae's name on the plaque part of the bow holder.

Once it was painted I simply added the cute ribbon and a bow on top! Looks great in her room! I'm trying to decide if I want to attempt to paint something else. Like - maybe a canvas or some letters for Lillian's (baby #2) room. Sounds a little overwhelming, but I'll let you know if I give it a try!

Baby Shower Cake

2010-12-15T08:21:00.001-06:00

This post is WAY overdue! I made this cake over a month ago and I'm just now getting around to posting the pictures. I guess since I haven't had any cakes lately it's good to spread my posts out a little!! That is how I am justifying my "blogging laziness" at least!

So I made this shower cake for one of my best friends, Kacey, who is having her 2nd baby boy in the next few days/weeks. We are waiting to hear how long it is going to be at this point! It was two-tiered with a fondant bow. The bottom tier was milk chocolate and the top tier was french vanilla. Both were covered in marshmallow fondant with fondant accents. I have attached her invitation because the cake was made to match it.

Owl Cake

2010-11-17T09:27:00.000-06:00

This is a late post, but two weekends ago I made cakes! No sickness at all from them! I am waiting to get a picture from one of them, so I'll post on that one later. In the meantime, this is a cute owl cake that I did for a baby shower. The mommy has this on the baby's wall above the crib, so I made the cake to match.

The cake was french vanilla covered in milk chocolate buttercream icing.

I think owls must be trendy right now. I've done two owl cakes in the past 6 months. Plus, they had the cutest owl bedding at Target that my daughter picked out for her "big girl bed." We haven't made the transition yet, but it is soon to come. I'm sure that will make a blog post! Stay tuned for cake #2 from last weekend!!!

Fantastic Tutorial Results!!!

2010-10-14T20:15:00.000-05:00

A great friend of mine took advantage of my lollipop tutorial and made a great first birthday cake for her sweet daughter, Ainsley Grey. She said that the tutorial was good and that making the lollipops was really easy! So you should try it out too. I was so excited to hear that someone actually used my tutorial and that the lollipops turned out so well! Here are pictures from the cute cake that Kim made!!! If anyone else makes fondant lollipops from my tutorial, please send me pictures and I will post yours as well!!!

Great job, Kim!!!

Lollipop Tutorial

2010-09-27T08:39:00.000-05:00

I had a request for a post on how to make the lollipops from my lollipop cake.They were very easy to make and do not take too long at all! You'll want to make them about a week in advance so that they have time to harden completely and will stand up on top of your cake. I wish I had taken pictures of the process so that you could see each step.

1. You are going to make batches of fondant in each color that you want the lollipops to be. I use marshmallow fondant, but you can use regular fondant or store-bought fondant as well.

2. Once you have your fondant colored, you will take a good sized pinch (how's that for a southern girl's instructions!!) of the first color you want to start with. Simply roll it out into a thin string either using your hands or rolling it on a non-stick surface. This is similar to how we used to make snakes with play-doh! Make thin strings of each color that you want to use in the lollipop. Some of mine had 2 colors, some had 3.

3. Put each colored string together, pinching the top of the strings so that they will all stay together. You will then twist the strings so that the colors look intertwined. Once you have done this, you will only have one large string in your hand.

4. Put the large string on wax paper and start from the middle of the lollipop wrapping the string in a circle until you get to the outside. Use your hand to smooth the lollipop so that it looks flat.

5. The last step is to take a small brush and brush a small amount of water over each side of the lollipop. This will make the lollipop very sticky, but it will make sure that it stays together. Insert your sticks into the lollipops and leave them on wax paper for a few days so that they can dry and harden. I would flip mine to the opposite side every day to make sure that they don't stick to the wax paper.

Here is the picture of the cake again, so that you can see the finished lollipops.

Cake Break

2010-09-25T19:04:00.000-05:00

Now for the BIG news! My husband and I are expecting our 2nd child in April, and ironically enough, the smell of cake and/or icing is making me really nauseated! I guess it is just that sweet, sweet smell that just isn't sitting well with this baby. I wish I had a picture of me working on my nephew's birthday cake. I put on one of those blue masks that cover your mouth and nose to do his cake. However, I could still smell the cake through the mask so I shoved a dryer sheet in there to block the smell! The dryer sheet was strong enough that I was able to finish the cake without getting sick. My mother-in-law called to "facetime" with me while I was working on the cake, and she didn't know what was going on when I first answered! Anyhow, after I finished the few weeks of cakes that I had already committed to, I decided that it was a good time to take a short "cake break." So for the next few weeks, until my nausea passes (let's hope it is only a few more weeks), I don't have any cakes. But hopefully I will be back in about a month, so check back to my blog then and see if I've updated!

Super Hero Cake

2010-09-25T18:57:00.000-05:00

This was a fun one! This cake was for Alex's birthday and he started out wanting a Hulk cake, but then changed his mind and wanted ALL of his favorite super heros! We tossed around a few different ideas for this cake, and decided on a sheet cake with the super hero logos on top. This cake was french vanilla covered in buttercream.

Stroller Cake

2010-09-25T18:51:00.000-05:00

This is another stroller cake for a baby boy shower. The colors were done to match the invitation: light blue, a darker shade of blue and brown. This cake was butter cake covered in buttercream.

Flip-Flops!

2010-09-25T18:46:00.000-05:00

This cake was so much fun! I'm pretty sure that this one was dark chocolate fudge, but again, my memory is a little hazy because I did this a few weeks ago. It is covered in buttercream, but the thong and flower on the flip flop is fondant to make it stand off of the cake. And I put crumbled graham crackers around the edge of the cake to look like sand. I have posted the invitation for this party so you can see that I made the cake to match.

Lingerie Shower

2010-09-25T18:39:00.000-05:00

I'm so sorry! I've been such a lazy blogger lately! I have done some cakes that I need to update you on! The first is a lingerie shower cake. This cake is a little risque! I ordered one like this from a professional baker a few years ago for a friend of mine, and I thought it was so cute that I wanted to copy it for this lingerie shower. The girl that the shower was being thrown for was described as "vintage-y," and the host wanted the cake done in a light shade of pink and mocha. I did this so long ago, that I can't even remember what flavor the cake was! Sorry! But it was covered in buttercream.

Baby Baptism

2010-09-01T21:20:00.000-05:00

This cake was done for a sweet baby boy's baptism. His mommy has a large family, so this was a biggie! The bottom sheet cake was french vanilla and the cross was chocolate fudge. These seem to be the two most popular flavors of cake that I get asked for. The cake was covered in white buttercream icing. Mommy wanted his monogram and the date of the baptism on the cake. This is not the best picture because once again, I took it at night after I finished the cake and I used my cell phone to take the picture.

Sophie's Birthday

2010-08-24T20:51:00.000-05:00

My favorite niece, Sophie, had her third birthday this weekend. My sister-in-law said that the only thing that mattered about the cake was that it was hot pink! So, hot pink it was! I did a round french vanilla cake covered in HOT PINK buttercream with white marshmallow fondant accents. Happy Birthday, Soapy (as my daughter calls her!!). I love you!

Canton Academy High School Reunion

2010-08-24T20:45:00.000-05:00

The Canton Academy classes of 1992 and 1993 had a high school reunion this weekend and I was able to do a fun cake for them. We (the host of the party and I) decided to do a cake that looked like a yearbook, but put items on it that represented the school. This included their mascot, paw prints, etc. The cake was french vanilla covered in buttercream.

We represent... the lollipop guild!

2010-08-24T20:34:00.000-05:00

That is the song that I was singing all night while I worked on this cake! A sweet one-year-old was having a lollipop themed party for her first birthday. The main cake was a two-tiered cake covered in lollipops and other fun accents. The bottom tier was chocolate fudge and the top tier was strawberry. The icing was buttercream. The lollipops, curly-cues and polka dots were all made of marshmallow fondant. These lollipops were so much fun to make. The colors of the fondant matched the colors that were on the invitation. Her smash cake was french vanilla covered in buttercream - made to look like a lollipop.

Fun Cakes!

2010-08-24T20:20:00.000-05:00

A friend that I teach with asked me to do two cakes for him this past weekend... one for his son and one for his daughter. I asked what they wanted, because typically I do more complicated cakes, and he said chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Do you want it shaped like anything in particular? No. Do you want anything on it? Not sure. One day last week when his son and daughter were at school I got a chance to find out what they wanted. His little girl drew this cute picture of what she wanted her cake to look like.

His son said he just wanted it to say, "Happy Birthday, Logan" with purple and gold colors. He's an LSU fan, but don't blame him... it's his father's fault.

This is how the cakes turned out!

I was certain that the kids were going to hate the cakes since they seemed so plain to me, but my friend's sweet daughter came to me at school and said that her smiley face cake was the BEST cake she had ever seen. She said that it was even better than the picture she had drawn :). I love kids... it is so easy to make them happy! Happy Birthday, Logan and Liza!

Firetruck Cake

2010-08-23T16:45:00.000-05:00

This cake was done last weekend for Parker's third birthday party. I've been a little slow in posting all of my cakes since school has started!! The party was decorated so cute! There were these great fireman hats to wear and the party took a field trip to the local Fire Station! It was really great. The firetruck on this cake was french vanilla covered in fondant. The sheet cake was french vanilla and covered in buttercream. Yes, another black cake. There were little black mouths running all around this party! The accents on the sheet cake were fondant.

Book Cake

2010-08-10T20:30:00.000-05:00

I did another retirement cake last weekend for one of the sweetest government teachers EVER!! I am really, really fond of Mrs. Renee and couldn't wait to do a cake for her in order to somewhat thank her for everything that she has done for our family!! The cake pales in comparison to her generosity, but it was a start to show my gratitude!!

This was another book cake since these seem to appeal to me when doing cakes for teachers. Probably because I like to read ... and this one was appropriate because Mrs. Renee and I share books! Since she was a government teacher, I decided that I should drape a flag over the book, in addition to the same classroom items that I put on the last retirement book cake. The cake was french vanilla (seems to be a favorite lately), the icing was buttercream, all of the accessories on the cake were marshmallow fondant.

I put all three pictures up because I wanted you to see all angles of this cake. Not like you care! But I would have been wondering what the other side looked like if it was me viewing these pictures for the first time!

Happy Retirement, Mrs. Renee! Enjoy yourself!

Four-Wheeler Cake

2010-08-10T20:10:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I did a four-wheeler cake. This cake was so much fun! I really enjoyed it. I made a fondant four-wheeler and then decided to make it look like mud tracks through the middle of the cake. The rest I covered in grass and rocks. It was a real "boy" cake!!! The cake was french vanilla, icing was buttercream, four-wheeler and rocks were made of marshmallow fondant. Oh, and I threw in a little mud... only, kidding!

Minnie Mouse

2010-08-01T20:49:00.000-05:00

I had a weekend full of birthdays! In addition to the 2 first birthdays that I posted about earlier, I also had a cake for sweet Sophie's second birthday! Just like all of the other 2 year olds in the world, she loves Minnie Mouse. So her mom and I worked together to come up with this cute design of Minnie.

Her ears were milk chocolate fudge and her face was french vanilla. Her bow and her nose was marshmallow fondant. You can't see this in the picture, but she had a marshmallow fondant edge all the way around her that matched the bow... pink with white polka dots. The rest of her face was covered in buttercream. Don't you just love Minnie Mouse? It was hard to keep myself from talking to her while I was making this cake :)

Slowing Down

2010-08-01T20:39:00.000-05:00

During the summer, I got to where I was doing 3 or 4 (5,6...) cakes a week. I loved having the ability to do this while I was off. However, I go back to work again tomorrow, so I am going to slow down my cake making during the school year. Each cake takes time to make and bake, time to make the icing/fondant, and then usually 4+ hours to decorate. This takes a considerable amount of time away from my family, as you can imagine, so I am going to try to limit myself to one cake a week while I am teaching. I have a hard time saying "no," but I am going to try really hard to keep myself in check on this - for my sweet husband and precious daughter. Next May when school lets out I will go back to doing multiple cakes a week for the summer.

I am going to talk to my webmaster, Theresa (hehehe... she is going to loooove that!) about seeing if there is some type of calendar that I can put on the sidebar of my blog that will show what weeks I already have a cake booked. If you know how to do this leave a comment and let me know!! Thanks to all of you for all of the cake business this summer! It was so much fun making so many different types of cakes, and I continue to learn so much with each one! If you would like for me to do a cake for you during the school year, please make sure you talk to me about it in advance so that I can get you booked!

Whooooo's Turning One?!

2010-07-30T21:23:00.000-05:00

Bad joke, I know. But I did a couple of very cute first birthday cakes for this weekend! And one of them had an owl theme. It is soooo cute! Sweet Blaise's mom is a graphic designer and made the cutest invitation for his first birthday party. I designed the main cake to match the owl on his invitation. The main cake was milk chocolate fudge covered in buttercream icing. I have attached the invite and the cake below. Let me know what you think!

This was the outfit that Blaise had to wear at his party. I designed his smash cake to match the bib. The smash cake was french vanilla covered in buttercream.

This was another first birthday cake and smash cake that I did this weekend. Both of these cakes were designed to match plates that were being used at the party. Both cakes were french vanilla covered in buttercream. Below are pictures of the plate and the cakes.

Stroller Cake

2010-07-22T09:39:00.000-05:00

This has been a popular choice this summer! This stroller cake was dark chocolate fudge with buttercream icing. I used the colors and a little of the design from the invitation (posted below).

I LOVE this cake!!!

2010-07-14T10:57:00.000-05:00

I made one of my most favorite cakes ever this week!!! Two of our very best friends, James and Mary Margaret, are missionaries in Zambia, Africa. They have been home for about 7 months, but are heading back to Africa in the next few weeks for another 3 years. These two show more faith than I can wrap my mind around! Mary Margaret has had both of her precious children in Africa and they are faithfully raising them in their home there. Me... I would be a wreck if I couldn't call my pediatrician every other day when I feel like something is not quite right with Taelyn! Anyway, Mary Margaret had a birthday recently, so while all of our best friends were together yesterday I wanted to celebrate her birthday. MM and I share a deep appreciation for the Twilight books, so I immediately knew what kind of cake I wanted to make for her. I have seen some Twilight cakes on the internet so I have been wanting to do one of these for awhile now and her birthday was the perfect excuse to make one!

I wanted to make it look like a book, but wanted a representation of all four covers. And, of course, the inside of the cake had to be red velvet! I love the way this cake turned out and I think MM loved it too! She was really excited!

I put both of these pictures up because I wanted you to be able to see the "pages." Let me know your thoughts of this cake!!

If you'd like to keep up with what is going on in the world of James and MM once they are back in Africa, I have their blog in my favorites list to the left.

Cake Catastrophe

2010-07-05T21:27:00.000-05:00

I've heard about it. I know it happens to others, but it had never happened to me. Until now! I was completely finished with a cake - had taken finished photos and everything - and I had a cake catastrophe. It all happened very quickly, so quickly that I can't really remember vivid details, but it involved a fondant rolling pin in my hands and a dog under my feet. And the fondant rolling pin piercing the bottom half of the cake. Sigh. Oh, and some tears. And a lot of freaking out.

This is the bachelorette/lingerie party cake that I mentioned in a previous post. Like I said, we had decided to do a Victoria's Secret bag. And like I mentioned previously, this was my fourth cake of the week and I had a lot of packing and cleaning to do before I left on an 8 day vacation the next day. So once I ruined the cake, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to start from scratch because I just didn't have the time. Plus, Kacey, who was attending the lingerie shower and requested the cake, told me at the beginning of the week not to stress out over this cake. I felt like I could do something to salvage the cake and make it semi-cute without having to start all over again. So I chopped off the ruined bottom half and added some fondant "pieces" to the bottom of it. I was hoping to pass it off as tissue paper, but in all honesty it looked very ridiculous. Kacey assured me that it was fine and still looked cute, but I know that she was just being nice. Here are before and after pictures.

Before

After

Then the cake had to travel 6 hours to Destin. It made it in one piece, luckily. Kacey said everyone at the party loved it. Sigh.

Busy Week!!!

2010-07-02T21:42:00.000-05:00

It has been an incredibly busy week for me! But as I am writing this we are in a wonderful condo in Destin, Florida relaxing so I am starting to come down from the whirlwind of it all! I'll tell you briefly about my week (because I know that you don't really care), and then I'll get to the cakes I made this week!

Okay, so in my busy week I made a record number of cakes for one week - four! I've never made this many cakes in such a short time before, but at the very beginning of the week I took some time getting organized and figuring out exactly what needed to be made when. That helped me keep my sanity through it all! So, not only did I make four cakes this week, but I also managed to fit in a pre-beach mani/pedi (thanks to my sweet husband for the mother's day gift certificate to Trio!), I went to see Eclipse (all by myself at 10:15am on Thursday - I already know I'm lame so you don't have to say it!), I packed for an 8 day trip for Taelyn and me (started with this on Thursday night after my last cake was finished and we left today, Friday, at noon. I only packed for Taelyn and me because I let Scott pack for himself - I'm nice like that), and I also managed to clean my house from top to bottom before we left today because let's face it, there isn't much worse than coming home from a long vacation to a messy house. As much as I hated to do it, now when we get home we will have clean sheets, clean floors, laundry is all done and put away (other than the massive loads that we brought with us), and everything is dusted - okay never mind on that one - there will be dust waiting for me on every surface despite the fact that I dusted every inch of the house today, but the others still apply. So... that was a synopsis of my week. Now on to the cakes!

I already posted the first cake that I did this week - the brown and blue paisley stroller cake. I did another stroller cake in addition to that one. It was brown and aqua harlequin pattern, which is how the baby's room is decorated. Nothing gives you a hand workout like piping harlequin pattern, but I think this cake turned out cute. It was dark chocolate fudge with buttercream icing. I realize that in the picture it looks aqua and black, but trust me - it is just a dark brown. The coloring is a result of me taking cake pictures with the camera on my cell phone. Which is a result of me finishing most cakes late at night and being too lazy to get out our good camera. I hope you like the cake!

The next cake that I did this week was a horse cake for sweet Reagan's birthday party! She wanted a cake that looked like a horse, so that is what she got! I really enjoyed this cake because it was a challenge for me. I love doing cakes that I haven't ever done before! The cake is french vanilla with white chocolate chips covered in buttercream with marshmallow fondant accents.

The fourth cake that I did this week deserves a post of its own, as I am still recovering from it! I will try to get it up in the next few days. I'll just tell you that it was for a lingerie/bachelorette party. Have you ever googled "bachelorette cakes?" The results aren't pretty! We finally came up with the idea to do a cake shaped like a Victoria's Secret box/bag. The one idea that didn't make me blush with just the thought of cutting a cake shaped like it! Pictures to follow!

Stroller Cake

2010-06-29T20:14:00.000-05:00

It is a busy cake week for me!!! I have 4 cakes in all this week and 2 of them are stroller cakes. This is the first of the stroller cakes. I will post pictures of the other cakes as I get them finished.

5th Wedding Anniversary

2010-06-20T16:09:00.000-05:00

This weekend I made an anniversary cake for Scott's sweet aunt, Mamie. She and her husband, Randy, have been married for 5 years this week, so we had a little celebration for them. I wanted to do an all white (or pearl) cake for her. I decided to do the inside red-velvet and cover it with marshmallow fondant, which I dusted with a shimmer dust. It was a nice combination - they tasted great together. I made a white chocolate "B" for the topper (their last name begins with a "B"). Happy Anniversary, Mamie and Randy!

On a different note, I used my beautiful, new stand mixer for this cake and it was amazing how simple it made everything! That thing made fondant like it was no big deal! Everything was so easy to do and it really cut down on the amount of time it took me to actually make the cake and icing. What a great purchase that was!!! Just in case you are interested... I have narrowed the name choices down to Scarlett (suggested by Kelsey) and Esmerelda (suggested by Mary Margaret). I think that I need to get to know her a little better before I decide on one, but I am leaning towards Esmerelda. Then I can call her Esme when I am particularly fond of her, and any of your Twilight fans out there will appreciate that reference!!

New Toy

2010-06-15T19:37:00.000-05:00

A new toy was delivered to my house today! I am so excited about this new toy because it is going to make my cakes so much easier! Up until this point, I have always used a hand mixer to make all of my cakes and icings. At the suggestion of my sweet, thoughtful husband I decided to use some of my cake money to buy a stand mixer. I got an empire red kitchen-aid artisan series stand mixer, and I cannot wait to see this thing in action. As soon as Taelyn goes to bed tonight I am going to make a batch of fondant to try her out. May as well start her out with something heavy-duty and see how she handles it!

Now for the important details. She needs a name. A highly suitable name that says just what a strong, yet beautiful woman (er, mixer), she really is. I take this seriously!! Please comment to leave your name suggestions!!

And... if anyone is interested - the beautiful silhouette lady carrying the massive cake in the header of my blog - her name is Charlotte. A lot of thought went into this. I think it fits her... do you?

Plain Ole' Chocolate Cake

2010-06-13T16:55:00.000-05:00

My Sunday school class had a baby shower this weekend for two very sweet girls and, as the title implies, I decided for this one to make a plain ole' chocolate cake. Part of the decision stems from a very busy week and not much time left for cake making - VBS every morning with some adorable 2 year olds, a night of eating and painting with Theresa Friday night and the fabulous opening ceremony of the USA International Ballet Competition on Saturday night. Yes, my husband was wonderful enough to watch Taelyn for these weekend events! He's a keeper!!!

That being said, chocolate cake it was. And I took the opportunity to try out some new recipes. I tried a new buttercream recipe, which I liked, but not as much as my regular. Because of this, I ended up embellishing the plain buttercream for the cake filling and turned it into white chocolate, chocolate chip buttercream.

The outside of the cake I covered with a chocolate ganache mix. Then I topped it all off with broken pieces of chocolate. It was very rich... great for the chocolate lover, which I'm not! Here are some terrible pictures. I forgot to take pictures before we cut it, so these were taken with my phone after the shower was over.

Welcome, Baby Lucy!

2010-06-09T16:21:00.000-05:00

My best friend in this world, Haylie Mulliniks, is having a baby girl next month, and I think I am almost as excited as when I had Taelyn! Sweet Lucy Caroline is truly a blessing from God and maybe one day I'll get around to posting Haylie's amazing story! This past weekend we all loaded up and headed to Olive Branch for a shower for Haylie, Nick and Lucy. I made the cake for the shower and this was an interesting task, for one, because I had to make it in Haylie's kitchen instead of my own kitchen with all of my "cake supplies" on hand!

Secondly, this was an "interesting" task because my friend, Haylie, is "particular" - not to be confused with "difficult," because I would never call her difficult (at least not on my blog that she reads!!!). You see, Haylie is in that small percentage of people that does not really like cake. Even at her wedding she nibbled at the cake and didn't touch any of the icing. She also won't hardly touch a hamburger, and she orders BLT's without the L's and the T's (She is going to disagree with this, but it's true!). So I called her before the shower and asked what it would take for her to actually eat some of the cake that was being made for her shower. She said that she likes cream cheese icing as long as it is not too sweet. So that was my task for this shower, not-too-sweet-cream-cheese icing that you can use to decorate a cake with.

The cake turned out delicious and everyone loved the not-too-sweet-cream cheese icing (especially Haylie), but it was a huge mess as far as decorating goes. The icing was sticky and wouldn't get smooth, and the fondant accents were soaking in moisture from the icing, leaving the cake looking wet (Haylie said it looked "glazed!"). I kept shooting Haylie looks every time someone would comment on how "great" the cake looked. I did like the chocolate plaque that I used as a topper though. I copied the exact stroller from the invitation and it turned out cute!

After the shower I told Haylie that was the last time that I tried to cater to her tastes! Of course I am completely kidding - I'll make her a plain bacon sandwich anytime she wants one!! And the next time we are throwing some sort of party for Haylie, she will get her very own miniature cake with not-too-sweet-cream cheese icing and everyone else will get a beautifully decorated buttercream covered cake!

Megaphone Cake

2010-05-24T12:16:00.000-05:00

This was my 3rd cake in one week. I usually try to keep it to 1 a week, just so that my "hobby" doesn't take time away from my sweet daughter. But for one reason or another, I ended up with 3 during one week. This was for a little girl's birthday party. Her mom said she wanted a megaphone in Mississippi State colors. She just wanted a flat sheet cake cut into the shape of a megaphone. I want to try this one again when I can build the megaphone up so that it is sitting like real megaphone would be! I free-handed the Mississippi State logo.

Retirement Cake (for a teacher)

2010-05-24T12:12:00.000-05:00

I got to dig in my huge boxes of pans again for this cake! I knew I had seen a book pan in my boxes at some point so I dug it out! A friend that I teach with wanted me to do a retirement cake for one of our teachers. I thought the book would be a cute idea for this. She gave me the teacher's favorite quote and then I just added some other teacher touches to it!

The book is covered in buttercream and everything else is fondant.

Basketball Cake

2010-05-24T12:07:00.000-05:00

I've used my sports ball pan for almost every type of ball there is at this point! I was excited to get to do a basketball cake since my husband is a basketball player.

The Northwest Middle School basketball team wanted a basketball cake for their coaches and pretty much left me with free reign to do whatever I wanted to with it. This is how it turned out!

I promise I am not obsessed with cakes covered in black icing, but for some reason they just keep turning out that way!!! Everything is buttercream on this cake except for the rim and the backboard.

Princess First Birthday

2010-05-24T12:04:00.000-05:00

My friend, Heather, wanted her daughter Bella's first birthday cake to look like Taelyn's crown cake. She sent me a picture of the plates and napkins that they bought for the party. I baked the cake in the same crown pan, but I carved it to look more like the crown on the napkins.

Baseball First Birthday

2010-05-24T11:58:00.000-05:00

I had a request for a first birthday cake that looked like a hat. So cute! They wanted the smash cake to be a baseball and the hat to be the cake for the rest of the guests. I was worried that the hat wouldn't be enough cake to feed everyone, so I put it on a small square and made it look like it was sitting in the grass next to some baseballs.

Wedding Shower

2010-05-24T11:55:00.000-05:00

I tend to shy away from doing cakes for weddings, or events associated with weddings, because the cakes are such a big deal!! But when my biggest fan, Kacey, asked me to do her sister-in-law's wedding shower cake, I couldn't resist! She wanted it to somewhat resemble my in-laws anniversary cake, but they had these cute invitations for Marianna's shower and wanted it to match the invitation. This is probably my favorite cake to date.

Golf Cake

2010-05-24T11:23:00.000-05:00

Ahhh... which brings us to one of my favorites! Remember I told you about my "biggest fans, " Kacey and Matt Ginn? Well, Kacey decided to do sweet Myers' first birthday party with a golf theme. She found a picture of a cake that she loved and wanted me to do one just like it for Myers' cake. She wanted a golf ball on top, which would be Myers' smash cake and then a 2-tiered round cake decorated in golf theme. The top tier she wanted to look like a golf course and the bottom tier she wanted in argyle! So cute!! This is the end result!

Easter Cake

2010-05-24T11:17:00.000-05:00

I have a good friend whose grandmother used to make cakes. That family gave me 5 boxes of her old cake pans! They were all different shapes. I still have to go through those boxes on occassion to remember what all of the pans are!

Taelyn was having an Easter party at daycare and I thought I remembered there being a 3D bunny pan in those boxes. I dug and dug until I finally found it. This was a cute, but quick cake to make! And it wasn't nearly as difficult to bake as that silly duck! Or maybe I've just gotten better at it! Taelyn's teacher hates all of these 3D shaped cakes because she can't cut them without having to chop of their heads!!! I think it makes her feel bad!

Rattle Cake

2010-05-24T11:12:00.000-05:00

On the constant search for new baby shower cake ideas, I decided to do this rattle for our sunday school baby shower. I had 3 cakes in one weeked, so I needed to do something quickly. Carrie told me the week before the shower that she was craving marshmallow fondant (pregnant, remember?!), so I wanted it to at least have a little fondant on it for her. The square base is buttercream and the rattle is covered in fondant. I don't remember what the cake flavors were, but I am wanting to say that the base was french vanilla and the rattle was strawberry.

This is not one of my favorites, but like I said, it was a quick one. They told me to just do something plain since it was such a busy week, but I couldn't do that. Just a plain ole' square?? That would have been much too boring!

Saints Cake

2010-05-24T11:07:00.000-05:00

My sister-in-law, Tara, wanted a Saints cake for Cade's birthday this year and it needed to be large. I couldn't really find any pictures of Saints cakes online that I particularly liked, so I resorted to their logo. I decided to do a huge square and make it look exactly like the logo. This was my first time using luster dust to make the shimmery gold. I was going to try to stencil the word "Saints" down the side so that the font would be right, but I gave up on that quickly and just did it free-handed. The black is buttercream and the gold is fondant.

Once again, there were a lot of black mouths running around Cade's party!

Mickey Mouse Cake

2010-05-24T10:47:00.000-05:00

Like most 2 year olds, Taelyn is OBSESSED with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. So it was really the only choice for the theme of her second birthday! I looked at Mickey Mouse cakes online for weeks... and let me tell you, there are some GREAT ones! It took me forever to decide what I wanted to do for her cake. Usually I shy away from fondant for younger kid's birthdays because it is a little gummy and can be hard to chew. But Taelyn loves my fondant, so I wanted to cover her cakes in it. This cake took HOURS! But I loved how it turned out.

Crown Cake

2010-05-24T10:40:00.000-05:00

For Taelyn's birthday I had to make her 2 cakes. One for daycare and another one for her real birthday party. I finally pulled out that old crown pan from 2 years earlier. This was the very first cake pan that I bought, but I had never used it. I decided it would do for her daycare birthday party! I Googled images of cakes made with this crown pan, but couldn't find very many good ones. I finally just decided to come up with my own design for it. This cake was also done very quickly, but I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. And Taelyn said that it was "nummy," so that is good!

Super Bowl Cake

2010-05-24T10:35:00.000-05:00

Taelyn's daycare was having a Super Bowl party, so once again, I signed up to do the cake. I didn't spend very much time on this at all, and it is a very generic football cake. I wish I would have had the time to do a cute Saints design on it. But for a quick football cake I guess it will do.

Pregnant Belly Cake

2010-05-24T10:32:00.000-05:00

Not sure if that is really what I want to title this cake, but I guess it is appropriate! My college girlfriends and I were having a shower for Kelsey, so once again I was searching for something different to do for a baby shower. I decided that I was going to finally try covering a cake with fondant (for people other than my immediate family!!!). I have seen this cake done several different ways, so I took my favorite parts of several different pictures and combined them to make this. The great news: everyone at the shower was talking about how good the fondant was!

That opened up an entire new list of opportunities with cake decorating because I knew that I could use fondant and people would actually LIKE it! I know that fondant is pretty. But I get so tired of going to weddings where the fondant is left on the plate after the cake has been finished. It may be pretty, but it is cake and it is meant to be eaten. If it doesn't taste good then what good is it? So that has been my dilemma all along. I wasn't going to make a pretty cake that was gross.

I was ecstatic after the shower! I couldn't wait to try more cakes with my marshmallow fondant!!

Poker Party

2010-05-24T10:26:00.000-05:00

My best friend, Kelsey, was throwing her husband a poker party for his birthday. She wanted a spade cake. We couldn't decide if we wanted to do a regular sheet cake with a spade piped on the top of it, or if we wanted the whole thing shaped like a spade. Well, my preference is to do exciting cakes. I get bored easily with plain ole' squares and rectangles. So that made the decision. It took A LOT of black icing to cover this cake. And I'm sure they had a lot of black mouths at their party!

Cowgirl Birthday

2010-05-24T10:23:00.000-05:00

My great friend, Amy Hunt (we coached cheerleading together - nothing bonds you like dealing with cheerleaders!!) wanted to throw her precious little girl a cowgirl birthday. We looked at different pictures for weeks and I finally just took little details from about 4 different pictures and put them all together to make this cake. Once again I used fondant, but I was still too scared to cover an entire cake with it. I just used it for the details. I really wish I had this cake to do over again because it would have turned out so cute if I would have used fondant to cover the entire cake.

The top layer was Addison's smash cake. I really liked how the bandana turned out.

Christmas Bear

2010-05-24T10:18:00.000-05:00

For this cake I used my bear pan but made him look like Santa. This was for a Christmas Party.

35th Wedding Anniversary Cake

2010-05-23T18:46:00.000-05:00

This cake was for my wonderful in-law's 35th wedding anniversary. This was the first time that I made my very own marshmallow fondant. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I finally got brave enough to try, especially since it was for family! It doesn't look great, but I was encouraged enough to keep trying with fondant! And I realized that marshmallow fondant actually tastes good!