My son just turned 4 this past week! Oh how little he was once, but now he's like a little man. His sweet disposition and calm character has turned into a boy who loves to wrestle, destroy and conquer! So it was only fitting that he asked for a pirate party. Here are the pics from his party - mostly of the Jake and the Neverland Pirates cake I made for him, as per his request!

 I found some small figurines at Target that I was able to put on the cake. They are simply toys in the toy section. I opened the box and used them instead of wrapping them, including tick-tock croc.

 This is my little pirate-man. Dressed with a treasure map shirt and headband, he's ready to "parrrrty!"

Get it?!

 The sails were simply made using Microsoft Paint. I just made blue stripes and printed it on paper, then stuck them on a small dowel rod. This cake was quite easy to make, despite my initial thoughts. How it was assembled below:

 I baked two 9x13 cakes. Once they were cooled, I stacked them on top of each other and cut out the shape of a boat. Then in the middle I cut out a piece to make the deck where Jake and Hook are standing. I then used that piece of cake to make the upper deck where the candle is sitting. I "glued" them all together with filling (icing) and then froze the cake so I could ice it. I put on one layer of chocolate icing, then froze it again for about 30 minutes so I could easily spread the top layer of icing. Being July, it gets warm and the cake and frosting try to stick to eac other. This makes for a cake that falls apart while I'm icing it, thus the freezing! Once I was done, I made yellow frosting using coloring and piped it onto the edges, I added the Life Savers, Rolos and chocolate Twizzlers. I then made blue frosting to pipe the water at the base of the boat...excuse me, ship! Once that was done I added the figurines and sails, and we were ready to parrrrrty!

 I used an old sign from last year's shark party to make the pirate sign. I also made my husband write the words so it looks like a pirate wrote it! ;) We blew up black balloon and used golf tees to stick them into the ground - a cannon ball path! The picture shows the path and Papa Pirate using his scurvy-ladened cell phone. 

In the end, all the kids got booty bags filled with plunder to take home. It was fun and I know my son loved it. I, too, had fun, but mostly in making the cake, which is something I love to do. My husband cannot even fathom a day where I go to a store and order a cake! (Shhhh, it will happen one day!).

Anna Grace

June 1, 2013
I awoke that morning at about 6:30am to some simple, yet real, contractions. One here, one there. Nothing much. After a few I decided I should time them just to be sure. At this point they were coming about every 10 minutes and were lasting about 45 seconds. Still, they weren't too regular, so I didn't think much of it. Tom decided it would be a good idea to take our dog Payton over to his brother's house, just in case, and then he called his mom to have her come over to watch the kids - again, just in case. I showered, ate some light food (just in case, of course), and then called the doctor's office at 9am when they opened. I was told to come in when I could to be checked. By 10am Tom and I had our bags packed and ready to go and headed to the docs office, leaving Grammy with the kids. By this time the contractions were taking my breath away, they hurt, and were about 7 minutes apart. When my doctor checked me she said I was dilated to 6 or 7cm and about 80% effaced. I was officially in labor! She told us to go straight to the hospital and she would be about 10 minutes behind.

On the way to the hospital Tom was timing the drive and I timed my contractions, asking him to avoid bumps! He dropped me off at the ER drop off (it was the only door open on the weekend) at 10:40am and I walked in and told the girl at the desk, "I'm in labor." She called for a nurse. By the time Tom met up with me I was being whisked away to labor and delivery. By the time I was able to get "dressed" and ready for labor my contractions weren't stopping and I was in laborious agony. Still trying to breath smoothly, the nurse said I was 9.5cm and it was too late for medicinal intervention. Oh, at that point I would've given anything for an epidural or narcotic (gasp!). It was in my birth plan that I wanted NO narcotics. At this point I knew she was coming and I wanted relief, so I didn't care. As I laid there I was telling Tom "I can't" all the while knowing that I have to anyway! I wanted to cry but I didn't have time to worry about that. I was doing my best to breath and go with the flow, but, uh, well, it was rather intense. So here I am, secretly pushing because I didn't know what else to do, even though the doctor wasn't there yet. My water then broke, no, popped like a balloon, and all I remember through my closed eye lids were the sounds of shock as the nurses didn't expect such a rush of water! At this point the OB on call came in since my doctor still wasn't at the hospital. Then we were in business! Time to start pushing, it was all I could do, even though I really didn't want to do it because I was in pain. I wanted a break. I didn't get one. She was coming! A few pushes and she was out. My doctor finally came in to deliver the shoulders and the rest of Anna. She was born at 11:15am.

Ahhh, I was done. Praise God, it was over. I could hardly open my eyes to look at her - they wanted to stay shut. My legs started shaking uncontrollably - my body was in a little bit of shock. It all happened so fast. Anna Grace was 19.5 inches and 7.5 lbs. And just like that my pregnancy was over and I was able to meet my little girl.

 Here are some pictures of her first days in this world.

She is my bright-eyed girl. Great Granny Freda was there to meet her! 

One week old

These professional photos were taken by my friend Jasmine
http://www.bloombyjasmine.com/index2.php#!/HOME

Her brother and sister LOVE her. They can't stop giving her kisses, and they always want to hug her and have her join them in their activities. It's really sweet. 

And then there were three. Tom and I have decided that our family is complete, Lord willing. We are so happy to have Anna here and start our lives as a full family.

God has been so good to us and we know that we are truly blessed.

Brooklyn Turns Two!

My sweet little baby who was once as small as a doll has just turned two. Oh my! This summer my first born will turn 4, and he wants a pirate party. So for Brooke's birthday I decided to go with a ducky theme. She has enjoyed exclaiming "DUCKY!" every time she saw one in a book. It was a low-key with just family, but it was fun making her smile none-the-less!

My first thought was to make ducky cookies and a ducky cake. As you might know, I love doing party and "event" planning at my own home, even if it's just a low-key gathering. But a chance to make creative foods for my kids' milestones - YES! So despite a painful bout of carpel tunnel syndrome (brought on by pregnancy, and I am desperately awaiting labor any day), I set out to make some cookies and cake. With a simple ducky cookie cutter I went to Pinterest (of course!) and found a sugar cookie recipe and a glaze recipe. I knew I was going to make a chocolate cake using my improvised box recipe (see Sprinkle Cake last post below) and yellow icing.


I've never really spent much time perfecting any cookie recipes, but these sugar cookies turned out GREAT! The flavor and texture was perfect and I believe I will not stray from this recipe. Ever.

My brother-in-law is getting married in 2 months and has officially asked me to make these cookies as his wedding favors! I am honored and happy to make them. But now the pressure is on!
  
You can find the original recipe here, but I have posted a copy below:
*Note - I did not add the baking powder to keep the cookie edges crisp

Cookies

Ingredients
1-1/8 cup unsalted butter
1-1/4 cup sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

Directions
1. Cream together the butter and sugar. I set the butter out on the counter for about 30 minutes, chopped into small squares, to bring it to room temperature before beginning. (I have had bad luck with using the microwave to bring butter to room temperature.)
2. Beat in the eggs (I set these out on the counter with the butter to bring them to room temperature too), vanilla, and almond flavorings.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
4. One cup at a time, mix the dry ingredients into the wet. Scraping down your bowl as needed.
5. Divide dough up into three sections, Saran wrap, and refrigerate overnight. (For some reason cookies just taste better when the dough is refrigerated overnight.)
6. When you are ready to bake, take the dough out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter for a few minutes so it’s not too hard to work with.
7. After rolling and cutting your dough, set your dough shapes in the freezer for about 10 minutes before baking to reduce spreading.
8. Bake on parchment paper lined baking sheets at 350 for 6 to 8 minutes.
9. After removing the cookies from the oven, let them sit for a couple of minutes before moving them to a cooling rack. 

As for the glaze, click here for the original recipe, and again below I have put a copy below:

Glaze

1 cup confectioners' sugar

2 Tbs milk (the website says tsp but I think that was a mistake)

2 tsp light corn syrup (I used honey because I didn't have corn syrup)

1/4 tsp almond extract (You can use vanilla but I wanted a clear flavoring)

assorted food coloring 

*Mix all the ingredients together in the order listed. If mixture gets too thin add more sugar a little at a time. I put the mixture in a Ziplock bag and cut a tiny hole in the corner and piped it onto the cookies. This glaze spreads a little so be careful around the edges, but if it's thick enough it'll set nicely. Give the cookies a couple of hours to set before stacking lightly or packing away.

The Cake! 

This cake was a Devil's Food box cake mix. I doubled the oil, replaced the water for milk and added and extra egg. I have found this makes the cake much better. I baked the cake in a 9x13 pan. I froze the cake until I was ready to cut the duck. I simply took a piece of wax paper and traced a duck to my liking, cut out the shape and then proceeded to cut out the duck. I used an extra piece of cake to make a little wing.

After the cake was cut into the duck shape I put on a crumb coat of yellow icing. Again, this icing was store bought (whipped cream cheese) and I just added the yellow coloring. It took one whole container of frosting to do the crumb coat, which showed me I may not have enough to do all the piping. With that in mind I left the top undone and only did the edges and sides, leaving a small amount of white icing left over to make the orange bill. As it turns out, the second container was just enough to do just that. So now the top is still undone. It's 9pm and my carpel tunnel is acting up. No, I'm not heading out to the store just to get another container, and I really didn't feel like looking up a good recipe. So..... I made more glaze! I knew I had the ingredients and the ability to make it fast. I made one batch from the recipe posted above and piped it onto the top and right up to the edges. It worked out great! It did make the cake a little extra sweet, which I told my guests, but it was still a cute cake and tasty!

As for the eye, I knew I didn't want to buy a whole box of candy just for one eye (not that there's anything wrong with that! I would've used Junior Mints, but I was budget constrained). So now I'm scouring my cabinets to see what I can use. Ah ha! A Dum Dum lollypop. But what about the "iris"? I had some white chocolate chips left over from another day, and melted about 5 of them together (30 seconds on half power in the microwave) and a little blue coloring. White chocolate does NOT microwave very well, so it it wasn't runny, just sticky. The blue dye gave it just enough moisture to stick together. I'm just glad it worked out. I really wasn't about to make any more frosting or glaze just to dab the eye with color.

Once the cake was complete I stuck it in the fridge until the party the next day. I put a "2" candle on the tail with some little decorative balloons I had. I think it all made for a cute cake that was appropriate for a 2-year-old. And Brooklyn loved it! As did everyone else.

 

Gender Reveal Party

So this past weekend was Easter and our gender reveal party. Busy but fun! I know a few people have been waiting not only for pictures, but also for the details of the party: the cake, the decor and how we made the reveal. So here's the pics with the corresponding descriptions!

First: The Cake! I originally was going to use the filling of the cake to be the actual reveal, but after more thought I decided to have a package wrapped up and then reveal that way. So below is a 5-layer angel food cake with a strawberry filling, masked in green icing and decorated with flowers (Hobby Lobby) and sprinkles.  I used 2 boxes of angel food cake (makes about five to six 9-inch-rounds, depending on how full you make them). Filling the cake pans about 2/3 full is the best. Only half full and you'll get some sunken cakes which leads to the "compressed" look. I saved the best cake for the top.

The filling went in between each layer. Since I had some sunken cakes I put more filling in the middle, and as you'll see, that makes for an interesting cut when the time comes.



The Filling: 
(I made too much)
2 8-oz pkg of cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 pkg strawberry gelatin 
1/2 cup fresh strawberries (food processed into fine pieces)
1 8-oz container Cool Whip

Cream together the cream cheese and butter. Add powdered sugar one cup at a time, mixing on medium speed until blended. Add the gelatin and fresh strawberries. Once mixed, add in the Cool Whip (I used store brand) and fold until well blended. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Once I assembled the cake, putting a good amount of filling in between each layer, I used one container of Key Lime icing as the crumb coat, (bought at Wal-Mart during Easter time. I am not sure if this is seasonal, so next time I may need to use food color). Angel food cake is very crumbly! After the first coat I put the cake in the freezer to let the icing get hard. This REALLY helped when I put the second coat on to cover up those crumbs. It wasn't perfect, but in the end the cake turned out fine (for my standards).

 These flowers were bought at Hobby Lobby in the cake decorating aisle. They are gum paste, but I was able to put them back into their container and save them for another cake. The sprinkles (pearls and silver pieces) I've had from another cake-making day, but they were also bought at Hobby Lobby.

You don't have to do this, but I was feeling curiously ambitious and started putting the little balls on the bottom. Once you start, it's a good idea to finish! About half way through I got the hang of it and it went a bit quicker.








And as you can see, all that filling in the middle made for a slight mess, albeit a delicious one!






Okay, so that was the cake. Now onto the guests, who cast their votes for boy or girl by making gender specific onesies. I got the idea at some point in time (probably something I saw on Pinterest, but I don't remember). At first I was scouring stores for deals on onesies when it dawned on me (preggo minds run behind) that I've had TWO kids already and they have old clothes in storage. So then I went through all the bins of clothing (forcing me to filter through the clothes anyway) and I came across 35 useable onesies (not counting ones that were stained!).

 Once again, a few trips to Hobby Lobby (shocker!) I started purchasing iron-on patches. This takes time if you want to use the 40% off coupon each time you go. I am sure Michael's has similar items, but HL is just down the road from me, thus all things HL. As the guests arrived I had them choose a onesie, a patch or two, and then instructed them to decorate as they wish. I also had fabric paint available so they could add their own embellishments. In the end, I had some awesome new clothes! As for those who made boy onesies, they will either be gifted to my other preggo friends or donated. Some I could possibly add more girly things. We'll see! I had a line strung up so we could hang dry the clothes and take pics!

 

 

 

As for food, I just did finger foods mostly. My awesome mother-in-law made an orzo salad and my own parents provided the grapes. I bought some pink and regular lemonade, mixing some blue food coloring to the  regular lemonade to make it blue. That was it! People ate and drank as they pleased, the kids played out back (praise the Lord for great weather!) and we had fun. Once all the votes were "made" and people had their fill, we prepared for the big reveal.  

 

I bought some items and gifts for our newest little one that were gender specific. When Ryan and I had a date of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, we bought a "woolly mammoth"  (elephant) for the baby. I used a table cloth to wrap this thing and tied it at the top with a ribbon. When it came time to reveal, Tom and I simply untied it and let the cloth fall...  

Yay, it's a girl!

Pink or Blue?

During our 20 week ultrasound, the tech let it slip as to what the baby's gender was, upon which Tom and I just looked at each other. You see, we wanted to wait until the birth to find out what we are having, since we have one of each right now. It's kind of a bummer, but at the same time now I get to plan a gender reveal party! And if you know me, hosting fun things that require food and creativity is my specialty! So in the end, I'm still having fun with knowing the gender.

These are the invites I mailed out, which I created using Microsoft Paint (I know, I wish I had Photoshop, but it's all I have to work with right now). I found some pictures online of owls (apparently cute little owls and birds are the "thing" right now). And then I simply touched them up in Paint and pasted them into a Word doc. I went to Hobby Lobby and got some card stock: grey, blue and pink. I printed the invites on the grey linen-side up, and then had Tom cut each of the blue & pink paper 1/4 inch larger than the preceding paper. I think they turned out really cute! These fit into a 5x7 envelope and they didn't cost any extra postage.

As soon as I can get to it, there will be many photos to come of the party! I should get to planning! Stuff like this gets me all excited. As you can imagine, making these invitations was quite the fun project for me!

Cancun

 Our latest family adventure led us to Cancun, Mexico for a week with Grammy and Pops at their time-share exchange. The weather was wonderful, the ocean was beautiful and it was a great break from the everyday actions here at the house. As I type this I stare at the 6 inches of snow and ice that cover the ground outside, with a high temperature of 35 degrees today. Oh, I love the beach, and I love the warm weather. I am ready for Spring and Summer.

Our time was spent at the pool and beach, as Ryan and Brooklyn LOVED just hanging out in the water. The resort had beautiful landscaping, and our beach was nice and secluded (unlike the resort next door - we could hardly walk through the area it was so crowded, and I think the dress code required less than 3 inches of clothing).

The travel was a sight to see: a family of walking through the airport with a stroller, 2 kids, 4 suitcases (carry-on), 2 diaper bags, 2 car seats and a backpack. Since we travel standby all luggage is carry-on. The first day traveling was spent going through LAX. Both flights had extra seats near us, so we were able to have two rows for us, which was nice. The flight home was a tighter fit, but it was non-stop back to Colorado. Here are some pics for you to enjoy.