Hailey's BIG Ouch!

I didn't take any pictures of this event, I guess I was a little busy taking care of business. We had a big injury happen this weekend to Hailey. I hope I never have to see my kids go through something worse, this just broke my heart! Have you ever physically gotten sick over seeing someone else's injury? I have. Here's the basics to break it down:

Hailey

pencil

mouth

running

back of chair

Can you guess what happened?

Yep.

Screaming, crying, blood, mouth injury, urgent care, a whole night of crying, no eating, no drinking.

HORRIBLE!

This is why we don't run with things in our mouth!

She is doing a lot better now, her mouth is healing quickly and she's eating almost regularly now.

Unfortunately, some lessons have to be learned the hard way.

We love you Hailey...and don't you EVER scare us like that again!!!

Parker 9 months

Parker is now 9 months old! He is full of energy, and is ALL boy! He has been army crawling for a couple of weeks, but started crawling on his knees a few days ago! He is much faster on his belly...but with more practice he will soon get around just as fast on his knees! His front teeth are starting to come in, and he has had 2 bottom teeth for over a month now. He loves to eat, clap, wave, and smile. He is so much fun!

weight- 21.5 pounds (75%)

height-30 inches (90-95%)

and his head hasn't changed!

He is getting bigger everyday, and is already wearing at least a size bigger for length!! He's gonna be a big boy!!!

Happy St. Patricks Day!

St. Patricks Day. I actually had success in finding some green for all of us to wear. All in all it wasn't much of a celebration, but I did want to do something different to make the holiday stand out. I'm not the craftiest person on the planet, but I do try to be crafty! I thought I had a shamrock cookie cutter, but to my surprise I found out I didn't when I pulled the WHOLE cookie cutter out of the box. Did you know that 1/2 of a flower looks like a shamrock? Well it does. So check your cutters before you go to use them! I made some Martha Stewart Buttermilk pancakes for dinner. I dyed the batter green for the whole St. Patty's day look and then continued my "plan" for making green shamrock pancakes. Again, the cookie cutter wasn't what I thought it was-and I wasn't going to cut one out by hand. We had green "Flower" pancakes instead. Can I please have an A for effort? Please?! It seems like the harder you try-the harder it is to succeed without a whole bunch of things going wrong. That's how it always works out. I tried. Despite the way they looked, they sure tasted yummy-that Martha knows what she's doing!

February & March Cakes

I managed to squeeze out a few cakes in the last couple of months. Learning every time I do a cake....what NOT to do next time around. It's fun, and I enjoy doing it. I'm always looking forward to the next project. The first cake pictured was for a 1-year old boy's birthday. My friend Rachelle asked me to make him a little cake he could smash into-so Monster Truck theme was the perfect route to go! It's a chocolate cake with a whipped strawberry filling, vanilla buttercream and vanilla fondant. The pics are kind of dark....oh well. There's a fondant fence holding up the "dirt" (oreo crumbs) on top...and then a toy truck to finish off the look. The tire tracks were challenging-and FAR from perfect-I had to hand draw them on the fondant with and edible marker. There's something I haven't done before! It turned out cute, but had some structural problems once I inserted the fence on top-the fence was a little to thick, so next time it has to be a lot thinner to not damage the structure of the cake. It was fun to see some old friends when I dropped off the cake. They seemed to like it.

The next picture is just cupcakes. I had some leftover frosting that I didn't want to waste, and also some gumpaste I thought I'd use up. Dan wanted to take a few people some cupcakes, and then we used the rest for dessert for our Sunday dinner. They were fun to make, chocolate and white cake, vanilla buttercream tinted yellow-gumpaste flower. Very Springy!

Lastly, the motherload! This cake was a whole new experience for me. I have never done a 3-tiered cake before. The things you have to do to support the weight of a cake!! There was a wood rod down the center to keep them all from toppling over, and then also some plastic supports throughout the cakes to support the weight of the cake above it. The cakes were all baked, layered, frosted, and covered in fondant before you could stack them. Then I decorated it to match the party decor. I will hopefully have some more pics of the cake soon-the cake was chocolate with peanut butter buttercream in the layers and also frosted underneath the fondant. I can definitely pick out all of my "oops's" on the cake, but everyone thought it looked good-and it DID taste good...so that's all that matters! It took forever to do, especially since I had to do it in secret. There's no way you can bake/make a cake without smelling it in the house. Thanks to my parents for letting me use their house to make the cake and help out with the kids!

I've got a nieces birthday coming up soon, we'll see what she wants to do for her cake.....

March madness 2010

March is only 1/2 way over...but I thought I'd catch up with my blog posts while I had a chance! We have been busy-as usual. We had my gradparents come and visit for a week at the beginning of the month, they were surprised at how much the kids had grown-especially Parker. We have also been to the park a few times with Grandma and Grandpa and cousins Quinn and Noelle. We love to play outside! Hailey and Whitney got a "playhouse" for the backyard to play in-they sure love pretending to play house. I don't have a picture of it yet-but it's super cute.....white with a pink roof and purple door and windows. It has a little sink inside and a little dining table connected to the back of the house. There are 2 chairs that fold out of the house for the girls to sit at the table. They love it! The weather has been beautiful, mainly staying in the upper 70's, but we did hit 84 yesterday-I forgot how hot 84 can feel!! We had to turn on our air conditioner for a few hours to cool the house down. I threw a "surprise" 30th birthday party for my hubby-and he WAS surprised-but that's a whole post in itself-soon! Other than all of that....we are doing our normal things and having a good time and enjoying the nice weather. We have to enjoy it while we can before it gets too hot!

Picnic at the park in Wickenburg

Whit on slide


Parker loves to swing

Having fun at the park together

Doing an edible craft

Yummy craft

Mr. Blue Eyes!

Baby whit

Papa and Parker

They are 75 years and one day apart

Hailey thinks.....

The other day we went to Costco to get a few things, and as most of you know.....you always have a lot more in your cart than you want to when checking out. One of these "extra" purchases was a new dress-up dress. It's a formal dress 1 size bigger than Hailey wears.....but $12 for a little wedding dress....come on-you can't even buy material for that price!! I had to get it. She wore the dress over her clothes throughout the store. They didn't have one close to Whitney's size, but if Hailey had a dress on....then Whit had to have one on too! We found a lime green dress that's really cute for the same price-something she could wear as dress-up or to church. My girls LOVED all the attention they received while walking through the store in their beautiful dresses. Many people stopped us to "Oooooh" and "Awwwww" over them. We bought the dresses and then went over to my parents house to play and show off the dresses. Whitney chose to substitute the green "Tianna" dress for her normal BATGIRL outfit-no surprise there. The girls wanted to go outside in their dress-up clothes to swing and pick flowers-but I said "no". The dress Hailey had on was new, white, floor-length, and it had rained earlier that day. I didn't want it getting ruined the first time she wore it. Hailey threw a little fit and asked me "Why" a billion times-but in the end I stood firm on my decision. Hailey was mad at me. She started pouting and went and sat down on her grandma's lap. I was just a few feet away when I heard her conversation with grandma. Hailey thinks that I'm her "Evil Stepmother" who doesn't love her. She continued to say that I don't love her and I don't do ANYTHING for her. This was all said in a dramatic tone....followed by the poor me whine..... of coarse. I couldn't believe what I was hearing! I was an evil stepmother who didn't love her and did nothing for her! I spoke my mind and reminded Hailey that I had just bought her a new dress, and then got ice cream afterwards, I made her lunch a few hours ago, I bathed her the night before, I did her hair, and drove her to grandma and grandpa's house to play, but it's true: I don't do ANYTHING for her! She got over it in about and hour and wasn't mad at me anymore. I was "Mommy" after that...not the "Stepmom" anymore. I couldn't help but laugh at this whole experience. It was even funnier when I had the chance to tell Dan about it-we both laughed and laughed! I wanted to make sure I wrote this down so I could blackmail her with it someday. What a funny kid!