Monday, January 31, 2011

Random thoughts on 2nd Pregnancy

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!!

Friday, January 28, 2011

Lollipop Cake

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!


Wednesday, January 26, 2011

My Little Baker

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!!



Thursday, January 20, 2011

Blog Future

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!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Craftiness of a Different Style

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!