Well It's Still March

I really don't like March much. It's that almost-spring-still-winter-oh-my-gosh-get-me-out-of-the-house-before-I-go-crazy month. You know. But hey, at least it's not January right? I really don't like January at all. Speaking of which, here is our New Years card. A little late. Heh. While it hasn't been terribly cold out, the weather has still been crappy. It's been snowing more than it needs to, and the roads haven't been great. We managed to get out one sunny afternoon for a lovely two hour long walk. Carter slept almost the whole time and Cailin walked the last half of the walk. She threw snow balls and informed me she was 'popping the snow bubbles'. She got to splash in puddles, play in mud and throw snowballs all in one walk.

Carter seems almost as big as Cailin now. He popped another tooth through, and has three more coming in. Despite all that teething, he is in fairly good spirits. He's doing a lot more floor exercises, but is still pretty content to roll to his back and play with whatever he's got in his hands. He especially loves my Blackberry, and is quite sneaky about grabbing it. Seems every time I turn around he's got it in his hands or he's chewing on it. He is also quite smitten with the iPad - something Cailin is not enjoying sharing much. Carter hasn't been enjoying going to bed very much lately, but once he is in his crib (after a few cries of displeasure) he drifts right off and sleeps through the night.

Cailin is getting the potty training stuff down. Without going into gory oversharing detail, she can do all the steps herself, including getting up to the sink and washing her hands. I was bribing her with mini Reese cups (chocolate), but she is much more smitten with puffy stickers. I'm okay with that!

The potty humor is ever expanding with Cailin. Some of the things she comes up with are so off the wall. The other night she was snuggling with me while we played a math game before bed. She suddenly sniffed the air disdainfully and announced, "EWWWWW mom, B smells like poop!" It was hilarious - and I couldn't argue with her since she was right.

Gymnastics is still Cailin's favorite activity. She has so much fun there, and takes home everything she learns and performs it in our house to her fullest ability. No walking beam? She'll walk down the edge of the tub, thank you. No uneven bars? The towel rack works just fine (sans towels of course). Climbing apparatus? The couch cushions arranged into a maze/obstacle course is just the ticket. Nothing to jump off of? The back of the couch to the ottoman works great. I could pull my hair out when she climbs the curtains, and Bailey isn't fond of being ridden like some rolly polly miniature horse. Carter is very content to sit back and watch Cailin go through her routines and laughs the whole time at her.

I've also been busy lately myself. I went back for yet more bloodwork on Friday and I'm going back to the doctor next Monday. Hopefully some of the the previous issues will be cleared up and we'll be able to attack the thyroid issue soon. In the meantime, I'm still feeling antsy in my pantsy 98% of the time. It's annoying. Even after sleeping through the night I feel tired, yet hyper.

I made two cakes this week. The first, Cat in the Hat. Which strangely didn't include the Cat:

The second was a string monster much like the Oscar cake I made a few weeks ago (a month ago?). I didn't get to take a picture with the big camera before it went out the door, and so only have a crappy cell phone picture of it. I'll have to post it later.

The kids have been sleeping a little better and a little earlier in the the night, and I've been able to work a bit on hats. Every time I catch up on an order, I get four more. I might have to stop taking any new orders while I catch up with the current ones. I also found some time to update my website and deleted the hats I will no longer be making. Here is my favorite "Chloe" hat of my 2012 Spring Collection:
I've also been working on a new collection of Modern Animal hats. Here's the Teddy Bear:
This one is for a friend's baby. I also really enjoy just getting creative and crafting hats without any particular person in mind. A local store in town here asked if I would be interested in selling my designs - aka my patterns. I told her I don't write them down as I wouldn't know how to. She said that's not a problem as she would help me. I find the idea very interesting, but as of just now, I just can't commit to the time it would take to sit down with her and write up these designs. Maybe in the future. But it's still exciting!

Tonight Ryan and I sat down for some quality time together - and did our taxes. We submitted them online and I felt quite accomplished for getting them done. It wasn't as hard as I expected. Definitely beats waiting at the tax office and paying 5X the price than that of the software. Carter even helped out by swatting the keyboard for me until we set him up with Angry Birds on the iPad.

Now we wait to see if they weren't difficult for a reason (like I did them wrong). Heh.

Grouchy Cake and Bunk Thyroid

The last week has been incredibly busy. I couldn't get through to the doctor's office, so I paid a visit to them in person and stood in their long lineup. Most of my tests from last week were back, and the results demanded another visit, so I booked for Thursday (yesterday).

In the meantime, I did really important stuff, like baked an Oscar the Grouch cake for a friend's birthday:
I went to the craft store and stocked up on yarn, finished a few large orders (and shipped them, I detest the post office ughhhh), took the kids shopping for Valentine's day stuff and cleaned, cleaned, cleaned the house. Cailin was not impressed about going home from shopping, so we stopped by the office and saw Papa on the way home (and daddy too!)

Valentine's Day was pretty lame for a few of us. Cailin got a snazzy set of Hello Kitty pajamas that she basically has lived in since (yay!), Carter got his six month shot (boo!) and Nana got a root canal (huge boo to the hiss! aka LAMESAUCE).

Wednesday, Cailin's friend Olivia came over to play. The girls were so cute and they play together so nicely. They watched Tangled downstairs by themselves on the big screen. (OMGosh, did I mention we got a huge 3D TV for downstairs? Guess I just did).

Wednesday night was not a good night. Cailin woke up several times in the night and got up at 4am. She also got Carter up, who was on his maiden voyage sleeping all night in his crib for the first time. He did wonderfully by the way. He's been napping in his crib for a while now, and he slept stretched right out as much as he could stretch.

Cailin in the meantime, just simply hasn't been sleeping. She didn't feel good for a week, did a week of antibiotics, cut two molars and now is working on two more. She has slept through the night a whole three times in the last month. Poor girl! We're all getting a bit tired around here.

That didn't stop her from stealing a hat off the counter and running around the house laughing like she had the holy grail or something. What a goof! We've been having such good days playing and laughing. Yesterday the lack of sleep must have caught up to her. She was such a pooper in gymnastics that she had to sit on the side until she would participate properly. On the other hand, she allowed the teacher to lift her up onto the bar! Making progress in leaps and bounds.

Last night she cried for two hours before falling asleep, despite having had an Advil. Those rotten no good teeth! She's pretty sick of teething (frankly so are we). Two more teeth and she's done til she's six.

Cailin loves to sing. I'm not sure where she got 'Twinkle, Twinkle' from as I don't sing it, but she's been singing it as she runs around the house. Of course, once she runs out of words she knows, she makes them up. She uses "tractor, Jeep, Ranger and Papa Ray" mostly as substitutes for the real words, but still sings in tune to the song. Cute!

Carter finished night #2 in his crib with no issues at all. He loves having all that room. His wee basinet was getting a little snug. He did really well with his six month shot (only one needle this time!). He scrunched up his face and let out a mad squeal, then immediately sat straight up in my arms, mesmerized by the little bell the nurse was ringing. No tears! It was a wonderful change of pace. They are so caring and understanding in that clinic in Beaver City. Cailin tried very hard to take a bike home from the waiting room.

Yesterday I went into the doctor's office convinced that my diagnosis was Hemochromatosis. I was prepared for it. It meant a lifetime of maintenance to keep the iron levels in check, but I was prepared to deal with it. Imagine my surprise when the actual iron levels came back normal. Normal levels, normal binding. Normal white blood cell count (no infection). My ferratin level is still sky high (which is why Hemochromatosis was suspected) and my liver enzymes are slightly elevated. The ferratin is an indication that something is wrong and we have to find out what. But the kicker was the thyroid levels. My pesky little thyroid seems to be overactive. The doc went through a checklist concerning thyroid symptoms and I was surprised to have most of them. Some of them overlap with Hemochromatosis as well. Shaking hands, feeling tired, dizzy, being anxious, agitated and irritable, a sore throat (I've had that for such a long time I ignore it completely) and being unable to withstand heat (HELLO! Right here!); I have all of those. What I really want to know is, why aren't I skinny with this overactive thyroid thing? Feeling this awful should come with a few perks I say!

Seriously though, this should be an easy fix once we figure out what's going on. I got up at 6:45 this morning and wandered off to the lab for yet more bloodwork. My gosh, the size of the needle they stuck in me today.... I almost got squeamish. Almost. These tests are for checking liver function, diabetes, cholesterol, and thyroid stuff. I was also super surprised to get a call from the ultrasound lab telling me they could fit in a thyroid ultrasound scan today. So I'm taking control of my health and getting this all done way faster than I imagined. By next week we should have a better picture of what is going on with me.

Cailin also insisted the doctor have a look in her ears and throat while we were there. She sat very still while he checked and followed his instructions to a tee. She's good to go!

Cailin's 2nd Birthday

Cailin's birthday party went really well. We were rained out of course, but spent a nice afternoon in the house playing with new toys. Two of Cailin's little friends showed up, Olivia and Devanie. I was disappointed we weren't able to spend time on the new deck, play in the water table, kiddie pool or bouncy house, but that's okay.

Cailin got some really cool stuff - a lawnmower that makes all sorts of noise; a baby she can take in the tub/water table; a vet kit complete with shaggy puppy; a baby penguin you feed and much more. She's been playing with everything non-stop. Oh, and don't forget the keyboard complete with microphone... She's been playing with it like crazy (truth be told, so has her dad).

I didn't go crazy making a big, intricate cake for her party, instead choosing to go with cupcakes. I made orange blossom tie-dye cupcakes with swirly pink and purple icing (purple and yellow on the inside), and ones with chocolate icing. I like how the cupcake "tree" turned out:

Nana and Papa brought the birthday girl balloons (which needed to be immediately freed from their weight and released into the house) and the much loved lawnmower.
A good time was had by all, even Ryan - who ended up grilling hamburgers in the pouring rain. Thank you all for coming and sharing Cailin's special day with her!

Cakes!

For my parents' anniversary, I made them a mini wedding cake. I used real buttercream, and it was so hot that afternoon that it started to melt. If you look closely you can see a rose in the steadily melting swirls. The cake was chocolate, made from a recipe from my GramE. I call it Norwegian Chocolate cake because the recipe calls for strong coffee and sour milk as ingredients. I used vanilla biscotti coffee and it turned out delicious. Paired with that buttercream, this cake was pretty awesome. Except for the melty parts of course.
My friend had a baby girl this month. For her baby shower, I made this fondant teddy bear cake with royal icing drop flowers. Her shower ran late tonight and Cailin was fussy so we had to leave before sampling it. Hope it was yummy!

Kelli's 8th Birthday Party

Way back in May, Kelli asked me to make her birthday cake. She wanted Hello Kitty with a halter top dress, a picnic table and watermelons. Since we were camping, I made everything before hand and decorated her cake on a real picnic table at the campground. After a run-in with the table cloth, a huge gust of wind and some smashed cake followed by bad words and frantic repair work, this is what her cake looked like:
I think it still turned out cute despite its issues. Kelli loved it, so that is all that matters, really. Her birthday party was lovely. After losing her iron will power, she begged to open her presents. I think her favorite present was a tie between a certificate to get a mani/pedi with our cousin Dani and a Webkinz from her sister and brother:

As following tradition, Cailin, Grace and Odin all got little presents as well for Kelli's birthday. It was a really nice party and a good time was had by all. Kelli had a great day too.

After the party, everyone came out to the campground and we played at the playground and had a great time at the campsite. It's hard to believe that summer is winding down!

More Cakes!

I've been busy lately in the kitchen. Building more cakes! This one was a request for a three year old's birthday party, he loves dinosaurs:This one was for a family friend that is really into hunting.
And a 1st birthday party where the theme was ice cream sundaes. This cake is made out of cupcakes and icing.
Here are the cupcakes to match - they are made to look like scoops of different flavored ice creams. Mint Chocolate Chip, Tiger Tail, Vanilla, Chocolate, Rocketship (blueberry and raspberry) and Strawberry:
I now have a page for my cakes on Facebook: Wicked Pine Cake Design. Have a look!

My Latest Hobby (CAAAKE)

I've been taking cake decorating courses in my spare time. My initial hope was to make cakes at home for weddings, birthdays and special occasions. Our town is in sore need of another specialty cake outlet. Since we're gone for 3 weeks this summer, that takes a huge bite out of wedding season. Someday though, I hope to make a business of cakes.

This was my finale cake for my final course. We were gently prompted to make cookie cutter white fondant cakes with fondant roses.... My creative side won out and this was my creation:

The instructor loved it. I call that a win-win. The top layer is marbled blue and white fondant with flower cut outs.

My first client cake was for a friend's daughter's 1st birthday. She wanted ladybugs. So for Olivia, I made a pink ladybug smash cake for her highchair.
For the rest of the guests, I made a purple ladybug cake on a woven basket. I had a lot of fun dreaming these ladybug cakes up. My friend teared up a little when she saw them. Her daughter's 1st birthday party was lovely.
This one is my favorite! I love Hello Kitty with a passion that's embarrassing for someone my age. But anyway, I made this cake for my own 29th birthday. I figured that it was cute AND a nice photo opportunity for my pending cake business:
I do really hope I can make a living off of cakes in the future. However, if that doesn't work out, I will always be able to make a mean birthday cake for my own kid.