My girls

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

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!!!

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

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

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

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

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!

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!!!

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!!!!

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

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

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

                                                     

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

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!

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

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

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!!!