Holy Cake!

I asked for it. I knew what was coming. I saw it happening, and yet, I still agreed to it.

I was on the committee planning the stake women's conference. That's all. It was going so well. Then they found out I did cakes. I had to miss a couple of meetings to teach my cake decorating classes. They wanted wedding cakes for decoration. It all fit together so perfectly. They asked me to make 4 wedding cake centerpieces (styrofoam decorated like a cake) a few weeks before the event. If I was an organized person, it would have been (pardon the pun) cake. Since they're styrofoam, I could have started the next day. I could have spread out the work.

Could have, didn't. I had a REAL wedding cake order for the day before too. So in short, I decorated 5 wedding cakes within one week. I worked 20 hours, ran to the store about a hundred times for supplies I ran out of or forgot, I taught a cake decorating class, took my daughter to the dentist, cleaned the kitchen 5 times a day (didn't do any good) and babysat my niece. It was insane.

They turned out nicely though. Look! I'm happy they asked me to do it, really. I had so much fun. If only I had 5 paying wedding cakes a week. I could quit my job and actually have time to do them. I needed some more cakes for my wedding portfolio. Most of the cakes I do are birthday or other special occasions. Not usually wedding cakes. People just don't get married as much as they get birthdays. Shame. So anyway, here they are. They're pretty boring colorwise. They wanted them to all be white, and I agreed. They're nice though.

The first one is the "real" wedding cake and the rest are the displays.

This is a Godzilla birthday cake I made last month for a baby's first birthday. I guess his nickname was Godzilla.The nastiness that is my son. Every time we eat. Every time. No joke. He takes whatever he has and wipes it all over his head. In this case, oatmeal. Terrible photo though. But you can still see the nastiness through the blurriness.This is him all cleaned up. A heartbreaker, I tell you.My darling daughter, getting her share of camera time.And this last bunch is from sledding on President's day. Every year, we have a little family reunion in Logan. We go to the cheese factory and fill up on the cheese and ice cream. Then we illogically go picnicking in 20 degree weather. We chatter and freeze and then go sledding. Clara, Nolan and I slept all the way home. Poor Josh had to suffer awake to keep us all alive. I think it was worth it.

We didn't even start sledding until an hour after Nolan's naptime. He was sooooo tired! We would send him down the hill and he would just sit there. Exactly like that. Not moving a muscle. It was so funny.

Clara had the best time of all. She even carried the sled up by herself a couple of times.

Strawberry Kiwi Lobster

That's right. Strawberry kiwi lobster. Problem? Yeah, its gross. Let me tell you how it happened.

We didn't have anything planned for Valentine's Day. I had to work, Josh had to work (liar), it was just going to be another day. We already talked about gifts and such. We weren't going to get each other anything, we were going to go to Hale Centre Theatre in March when the Phantom of the Opera is playing. That would be our Valentine Date.

Apparently I was the only one who got the message. I went out to my car to go to work and the whole thing was turned into a giant Valentine. There were window stickers all over, balloons, chocolates, flowers, a big gaudy card. It was really sweet. I told him I almost cried and that the one thing that would have put me over the edge would have been if he had actually written in the card. Guys.

So I go to work, planning to stop somewhere on my way home and grab him something. I'd already got him a card, but it was looking pretty cheap comparatively. I was scheduled to get off at 9, but they made me stay later. So late that Josh was calling me, telling me to come home. I didn't get out of work until 11, and I THOUGHT Josh had to go to work at 2:30, so I decided he'd rather spend a little time with me on Valentine's Day than have me go searching for something befitting such a wonderful husband.

I drive home, hoping to get a few precious moments with my family. When I get there, he surprises me by announcing that he has the day off. I was happy, but feeling bad that I didn't get him anything, so I go in the kitchen and grab a piece of jerky, left over from Clara's snack the other day, and a reese's. That was my gift to him. Economically savvy, I like to call it.

We still didn't do much of anything the whole day, just kind of cleaned and hung out. Oh yeah. The nap. We took a family nap. It was the greatest gift anyone has ever given me. Nolan went to bed, CLARA went to bed (never happens), Josh slept on the couch and I had a peaceful siesta in my own bed. 2 hours. Nice. Then we went to my Grandma's house for her birthday. She gave us her delicious caramel apple cake. I don't know why she feels the need to make her own birthday cake, but I'm glad she did. It was delicious.

Then more sugar at my mom's house where she had a bunch of gluten free sugar cookies for us to eat and the kids to decorate. They were good and reminded me of the old days when I used to decorate Valentine cookies for my friends.

We toyed around with the idea of going out to eat as a family, but decided it was too risky with sick kids and the potentially massive lines. Home cooked meal it was. We went to Harmons to get some ingredients, but I forgot my recipes at home. I'd wanted shrimp scampi, but Josh wanted lobster and we've never made lobster before so I said we could just use that in place of the shrimp. $28! That stuff is expensive and it was on SALE! It would have normally been $40.

It was fun figuring out how to cook it. We ended up steaming it and then shredding it up for the spaghetti. The only bad part was the (I assume) lobster poop. That stuff was nasty. I got it all out though, I think. Then I made the sauce. It was a moment of complete moronism. The recipe called for white wine. When something calls for white wine, I usually just put in apple juice (for a sweeter recipe) or chicken broth ( for something more savory). Don't ask me why I didn't have chicken broth pop into my head. Lobster spaghetti isn't exactly a sweet dish. But for some reason, I was stuck on subbing in apple juice. Only I didn't have any. All I had was orange juice and kiwi strawberry juice. The first ingredient in kiwi strawberry juice is apple juice. So I figured it would be okay. So I dumped it in. 3 minutes later, the lobster was bright pink and all fruity smelling. Not so good with butter, garlic and lemon. No. Not so good.

Josh was sweet and choked it down, I gobbled mine right up and am eating the leftovers as I type. Its still gross. Clara would only eat the noodles and Nolan wasn't having any of it. Ah well. Now I know that strawberry kiwi lobster spaghetti is not something I want to make again. The salad was good though. New ingredients there too. It had fennel, which smells fabulously like black licorice, and pancetta (Italian bacon). It all worked together really well, so I'm glad something turned out.

After the whole dinner mess, we decided to dip strawberries in chocolate as a family. Clara had a ton of fun and they were to die for. I ate almost a whole pan myself. So good! And then we watched our DVR'd episodes of Monk and Psych. Funny stuff. We put Clara to bed, Josh flipped to the travel channel, and I spent the rest of the night decorating a Wall-E cake. It was a good day.

And now for some random pictures. These are pictures of Clara by Tina. She decided to redo Clara's pics after we had our family pictures taken. They turned out cute!

Cakes I made this weekend. The first one is R2D2, made out of fondant and the second is a Wall-E cake, also molded out of fondant. They were fun!

And finally, my first scrapbook page in literally at least a year and a half. This is the debut of Nolan into my scrapbook. First page with him ever. Not my favorite page, it has my ugly handwriting on it and its too florally, but I'm glad I finally did one. Hopefully I can keep it up.

Bitter Sweet Symphony

1. Put your music library on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG TITLE DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
4. Tag 10 friends who might enjoy doing this. Post a comment on their blog that says "You've been tagged! See my blog for details."
1) IF SOMEONE SAYS, "IS THIS OKAY," YOU SAY?
When Sould Meets Body
2) WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Bite My Tongue
3) WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Moondance
4)HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Sugar We're Goin Down
5) WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Another One Bites The Dust
6) WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
American Woman
7) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
Tight Wad Hill
8) WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Have You Ever
9) WHAT IS 2+2?
High Voltage
10) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Thriller
11) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Independent Woman
12) WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?
13) WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Earth to Bella
14) WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Livin' On a Prayer
15) WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Under Pressure
16) WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Wish You Were Here.
17) WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Frosty The Snowman
18) WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Exploder
19) WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
The Last Song
20) WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
If
21) WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Bitter Sweet Symphony

I tag Ashlee.

Cute Lil Fig!

I've been having some minor complications with my pregnancy so I've been really anxious to see if everything was going smoothly. I had my first doctor's appointment today. Normally I would go earlier but nobody's schedules matched up so 11 weeks it is.

So we woke the kids up, got them all ready and took them to my mom's (thank heaven for her) and then took off to the doc's. I'm so glad Josh comes with me to my appointments. I've had so many of them in my pregnancy history and personally, I'm sick of them, so I can't imagine what he's going through. But he's my health advocate. If he didn't come, I wouldn't know or remember what questions to ask. I probably wouldn't even know my due date. So thankfully, he's willing to suffer through them. Actually, he generally sleeps through them until the important parts. But that's good enough for me.

We got there a little late, because everytime I have any sort of appointment at the U, it snows. Literally every time. Its gotta stop soon. Traffic was horrible, the roads were slick, but we made it within ten minutes of the appointment and went right in to the ultrasound room. That's when I saw the cute little wiggly fig. It was moving all around, bouncing, floating, rolling. Aww. The tech made sure to point out the little healthy heartbeat and measurements. They were right on at 11 weeks, 3 days. They did diagnose me with a bicornuate uterus. Finally.

I've been told that they think I might have one by every single person that's ever had the high honor of looking upon my uterus. Finally they saw enough evidence in this ultrasound to diagnose it. The doctor's have told me that they can't figure out why I have miscarriages. No reason, just fate. Well, bicornuate fate. Here's a little anatomy lesson. My uterus looks like a sweet little heart. There are two sides. One is a little bigger than the other. If the baby is implanted into the smaller half, miscarriage will likely ensue, because it doesn't expand as well as a "normal" uterus. Luckily, this time, and apparently with my other two children, I managed to squeeze them into the larger half. And there you have it. Mystery solved.

I'm just relieved to know that the baby's doing well and everything's right on track for my horrible summer pregnancy. I will never stop complaining about that. Yes, I know, its my fault, but still. I'm going to die.

So on the way home, Josh and I witnessed a car accident. We stopped and Josh went over and made a statement to the police. We were in the far left lane, there was a dump truck in the center lane, just ahead of us and a silver SUV pulled out of the 7-11, onto the street and went to far. She clipped the dump truck and her light went flying off. It was kind of funny because she called the police and reported a hit and run. The dump truck had pulled off just a little further down and had his hazards on and everything. I don't know how she didn't see him. She was probably just trying to get her insurance to think it wasn't her fault. But as soon as she realized he had stayed, she decided not to file a report. The dump truck guy did though. Haha.

Family Pictures

Dang. Its been another month. Well at least it hasn't been a year. Yet. So we've had a crazy month.

It was my birthday and then Clara's birthday (I'll post pics later), then we got family pictures taken and Nolan had surgery. We're poor. S'all good though, cuz we have luv. Right?

I'm going to be a little random, my kids won't play with eachother. Its really annoying. Okay, that's probably not true, CLARA won't play with Nolan and he's terrible to entertain without her. She's been going to her room like a hermit and shutting the door. Insisting on playing ALONE. She will not let her pesty little brother in. She won't come out and play with him. I just yelled "Clara, open your door! I didn't have two kids so that they could play alone."

So I'm kind of forcing her to play with him. She'll end up resenting me for it. Until she has kids of her own. Or maybe I'm just mean and she'll let her kids play by themselves.

But I gotta post, and how am I supposed to do that when I have a bored little 13 month old grabbing at the keyboard? Exactly.

So, back to the family pictures. Tina took them. She's amazing. I'm really happy with how they turned out and I can't wait till I get my taxes back so I can fix up my family room and hang them all "cute-like".

We made her take them in her studio because we just HAD to get them done in January when its frigid out. Um, because I'm PREGGO and I wanted to get family pictures with Nolan, AND before I got all fat. er.

I'm about 9ish weeks along, I think. I have my first appointment on the 9th, so we'll find out for sure then. So this shall be an August/September baby. Generally I would be appalled at that, seeing as I'll be most pregnant in the wretched summer days. Blah summer. BUT as long as its not a December/January baby, I AM HAPPY! I already can't do up my pants. I'm walking around with my pants unbuttoned because I refuse to wear maternity clothes this early. I haven't gained any weight either, so I know its not just because I'm eating too much. Which I am, but I'm pregnant and breastfeeding, give me a break! I'm like a bottomless pit. Anywho, enjoy our pictures. I did! Oh, and HERE's a slideshow of our pics too.

Random Act of Kindness

There is still good in this world! It ain't comin' from me, but there's good out there.

Clara got a kitty from Build A Bear and a $10 gift card, to buy accessories, from Santa this year. She was so excited to use her own "credit card" to buy something she picked out, so we headed off to Fashion Place.

First of all, the mall was crazy! I think it was the day after Christmas and I had NO idea that it would be such a madhouse. Clara put her card in her back pocket and we trudged through the crouds to the Build A Bear store. The line there was HUGE but she had fun picking out some pajamas and slippers for her kitty. (we would supplement Santa's meager givings)

We got in line and Josh, being the chatty cathy he is, started talking to the lady behind us about how Clara was so excited about her gift card and yada yada. We get up to the counter and I tell her to take out her card. She looked like she was about to die when she reached into her back pocket and nothing was there. I scolded her for losing it. I feel bad. Especially now. We had talked about making sure she didn't lose it. I made her put the slippers back. I said I'd SUPPLEMENT, not pay for it all.

The lady behind us must have overheard the fiasco and she reached into her wallet and pulled out a $20 bill. She leaned down to Clara and said "Here Honey. Now you can get whatever you want. And I bet you'll have a little leftover to go buy some cookies after."

Clara gave her a big hug and I stood there feeling mean and thankful at the same time. I thanked her many times. I felt like I should have given it back but I know how it feels when I try to give someone something and they reject it, so I let it happen.

I'm going to pay it forward, as soon as I get the 20 bucks to do it. What a sweet lady.

On a completely different note, I made another cake. This one was for a friend of a friend of a friend. An artist cake. It was loads of fun to do.

I Feel So Cheated!

Okay, its been a while. I know, I know. I promised I would post once a week. Clearly I have a problem with commitment. But I'm trying! Give me SOME credit here.

On to explain my blog title. I feel so cheated! Nolan is one already! His birthday is today and I'm trying to figure out where the past year went. I swear it didn't go by this fast with Clara. I mean, people say that the older you get, the faster time seems to pass. So I'm 25. What's it going to be like when I'm 103? Cause I AM going to reach 103. Seriously though. I understand now. Its cliche, but time flies.

He's so big and smart. He's developing quite the personality too. I'm really dreading the terrible twos, because he's thrown more temper tantrums than Nolan Ryan's thrown baseballs. (eh, eh, you like my analogy...and how I linked the names?) Josh says the kids are mirrors of us. Clara is sweet and passive, like him, and Nolan is tempermental and vocal like me. Whatever. I don't throw temper tantrums. I do try to get my way as often as possible, but I don't usually resort to throwing myself to the floor and contorting my body. It HAS worked a couple of times though.

In any case, whether he's a !@#&^*()_+ like me, or just a free spirit (which side I tend to lean to) he's one. He's all grown up. His poop didn't used to be that bad. I'd think "Hmm, I haven't changed his diaper in an hour or two, I should check it real quick." Now I don't need to check. I'd be able to smell that stuff with a can of air freshner shoved up my nose. And the puke. It used to just smell like baby. Not bad! Now it smells like big people puke. I gagged the last time I had to clean it up.

I know it sounds like I'm bashing my one year old, but I'm not. I'm just missing my one month old. I did get a pretty good trade in though. He's the funniest little kiddo ever. He's a baby genius too. Just ask his dad. He can say "apple beer". Or something like it. He's created his own version of sign language. We call it NSL (Nolan sign language.) He knows exactly what he wants, and how to get it. He has an awesome glass shattering soprano voice. Everyone at church can attest to that. Yet he's the most boyish boy I've ever met. For instance, at church last sunday he belched right in the middle of the meeting (it was a pretty good one too, the belch that is) and afterwards he just looked so proud. And he loves anything that bounces or has wheels.

What a fun little boy he is! The last year has been a joy. I just wish it lasted longer!

I just thought this was a cute picture. Apparently he's inherited the love-of-shoes trait from his mama and big sissy.

If you look closely, you will see an "ouchie" above his left eye. My child has a death wish, or he's an adrenaline junkie. He hurts himself all the time. This one was from crawling a little too fast and running into a door hinge. His eye was purple for a while.

Nolan's birthday cake! I copied it from pinkcakebox.com. Such a cute design. I'm glad I was able to pull it off!

Clara really wanted to eat his little smash cupcake. It was so much better than a whole little cake, I think. Minimal mess, although he did a good job of smashing and smooshing it to the fullest extent.

I haven't figured out how to take pictures when its dark outside and the horrible inside lights are on, so the picture's junky, but this is the most awesome present ever. Carly, my cousin-in-law, if there is such a thing, made Nolan this sweet little superhero cape and cuffs (not shown) for Christmas. She sells them online I think. Her website is palmegranateandco.etsy.com He loves it and since he already thinks he's a superhero, it fits perfectly.