Cake Wars: Me vs. Me... In my kitchen!

I love Food Network Challenge where they have to make crazy cakes.  Every time I watch it I'm convinced I should probably be on it.  Mostly because I have close to zero cake decorating experience and have made all of two (now three) decorative cakes in my baking career.  Yet I still feel, that despite never having even seen a piece of fondant, that I could be a strong competitor.

While in Dresden, I made two fancy-schmancy cakes.  One was an alligator for our friend Casey's birthday, and another was "commissioned" after the cake was displayed at a party, for another friend's daughter's birthday.

Click here to see the first cake, an awesome alligator.  Here to see the second cake- a frog prince.

After the first cake a year ago, I was asked to create a dragon cake for a friend's birthday.  He's Welsh, and the Welsh flag looks like this:

Unfortunately, when I agreed upon making the cake, I didn't even know I'd have a baby yet!  Needless to say, making fancy-schmancy cakes is a time-consuming process.  With a small baby, I would have needed approximately 1 year, 4 weeks and 3 days to complete a dragon cake.  So, I had to call in the reinforcements.  Thanks Mom!!

Due to my incredible cake-decorating expertise, I only had to redo the entire carved part of the cake once, and the wings twice, but other than that, things went smoothly (though as always, took about 14 times longer than originally anticipated).

Here is the fancy-schmancy dragon cake.

I also made cutsy-wootsy dragon cake pops.

See, told you I should be on Food Network!  Also judging by the quality of photo #1, I should not enter photo contests... Though I am starting to work on the quality of photos (see photo #2)  but can only manage to bang out one good photo a session...

In Other News...

Stretchy is the cutest ever and is getting cuter by the minute.

Mission Organization: Started

To keep up with my New Year's Resolution I have so far completed the following.  Check.:

-organized my pantry with matching storage containers

-organized my kitchen cupboards with additional shelf risers

-organized kitchen paper clutter with the following two awesome ideas found on Pinterest*

Mail Station/ Message Board

Paper Filing System

*Pinterest is a fantastically awesome way to collect things you see online on your own personal "pin boards" to be shared with family and friends.  It also allows you to see what family and friends are collecting.  It is also extremely addictive and should be used with care.  Many hours of what could have been productive computer time editing photos, updating my blog, or doing other important things have been wasted searching the internet for fun things for my boards.  Just saying... 

Darth Vader

The past two nights I've been in the company of Darth Vader Baby. We're sharing a room since we're at my parents visiting, and let me say that sleeping with a baby who snores louder than my dad (think chainsaw) makes sleeping very difficult. Not to mention the possibly lethal levels of Vick's Vapo-rub particulates circulating throughout the room or the fact that humidity levels in there rivaled the rainforest. Let's just say I'm tired... Strethcy hasn't been sick yet (though I've supposed some days of not feeling so great to give her an excuse for being fussy 24/7), so the past couple days I've been the most paranoid mother on the face of the earth. Its probably a good thing that I'm here with my own mother to keep me grounded or we'd probably have been to every hospital in the state multiple times. ("What do you mean she's fine and just keep her elevated? Clearly she has brochitis or some other respitory disorder." "It's NOT pneumonia? Well then it must be whooping cough- those vaccines suck!!") Fortunately, Stretchy is still alive. She's clearly not a happy baby, but her condition looks like its not life threatening. Probably a good thing I didn't go to all those hospitals because now I'd feel like an idiot. Dear baby, Please get better soon. Mommy doesn't sleep well with a snoring baby next to her. Also, she's very tired from getting up every 10 minutes to check if you are breathing. Love, Mommy.

Happy 1/4 Birthday!!

Today is Stretchy's 1/4 birthday!  I can't believe that she's already 3 months old.  I also can't believe that 3 months ago we didn't have a baby.

I had to make sure that we had some pictures of her on her 3 month birthday, so I put her in my favorite outfit, the one with whales, and set her up with her new favorite toy, the fishtank.  (PS. Lamaze toys are THE best)

So Happy Quarter Birthday!

Hang On!

Stretchy learned how to do something new and awesome the other day.   She can now hang on to things put in front of her when sitting up.  She's been perfecting the "grab and hang on" with the toys dangling from her play mat, but until Thursday, she couldn't hold on to things that would fall away from her.

Anyway.  So cute.  I have to restrain myself from squeezing her too hard.

A New Year's Resolution

...which obviously, at this point, is not posting every day.  I'm sure I'll get there, especially once we start doing fun things that I really want to post about.  But right now, Stretchy is top priority.  She's sleeping a lot less during the day and really wants to interact with things, but since she's still perfecting the grab and can't sit up yet, in order for her to play, I have to play with her.  So, for now, posts will continue to be few and far between.

However, I thought today I'd share my New Year's Resolution, which is to become more organized.  It's a huge project, but I think once I get everything up and running, it will make our lives a whole lot easier!

I got an iPad for Christmas (awesome!!) and my first task is to create a Home Management Binder (idea from The Nest Effect) using Noteshelf- probably the coolest app around.  Have an iPad?  Have any use for notepads, sketchbooks, binders etc. but don't have the shelf space... This is the app for you!!

I'll keep you posted on my organizational projects!

Until next time, keep organized my friends!

I Was So Brave!

Topic 1 for today's post:  Bad Bloggers.

I hate it when I enjoy reading someone's blog and they don't post for a while.  I kind of forget about them, bu tin the back of my mind I know they're around and just aren't posting.  Then when they do post, I'm always a little upset that it took them so long...

So I'm sorry.

In a favorable light, I keep reading... so I'm hoping that anyone out there that reads this doesn't need an everyday post and will keep reading anyway...


Topic 2:  Snow.

Today I woke up and there was snow on the ground!!  Yay!  I love snow and was very excited.  However, it reminded me of the following things about this winter:

Days I have woken up to snow (and Halloween DOESN'T count!): 2.

Snowforts I could have made with this winter's snow: 0.  I might have been able to finagle a welcome mat.

Snowmen I could have made: 1.  very small snowman.  Like coffee table size.

So winter, let's go.  Bring on the snow.


Topic 3:  I Was So Brave.

Today an event occured that was very similar to the first night I put Stretchy alone in her room- just for part of the night- while I slept attempted sleep.  Stretchy was fine.  I was worried, anxious and all around a complete spazz until morning when I saw all was okay.

I went to the YMCA.  I am now a member so that I can get in shape attempt to work my body back to the way it was before I had Stretchy.  I have been on one tour and taken two "Mommy Madness" classes (more on that later).  Today I worked out ALONE.  While Stretchy was in the babysitting room.

I would like to say I just hopped on my machine and worked out for half an hour trusting that she was fine, but stupidly, they put the babysitting room within viewing distance of the machines... so I now have sore legs and a stiff neck from turning it to the right while bouncing around.

Yet again, while I was the total spazz mom, Stretchy was fine and smiled and cooed for the babysitters who were eager to let me know she was welcome back any time.

Every mom has to leave their kid sometime.  Still, I think I was pretty brave.  After all... I did work out move my legs up and down on the machine for 20 minutes and look away from the room at least twice.