Cake Decorating

I grew up with my mom always making our birthday cakes. We would start talking about what kind of cake we wanted months before our birthdays. She did some really cool ones, especially the Barbie doll cakes. I think she ended up making one for all my girl cousins at one point in time. I love cakes and the art of cake decorating. The Food Network cake decorating Challange episodes are my very favorite! I have their most recent competitions recorded on DVR, just waiting for me to watch. Chris likes watching them too, which is even more fun!

While I KNOW there is not any way I will ever be good enough for one of those shows, I decided a while ago I wanted to learn the basics. Thinking back, it was right before Zander's first birthday. We were deciding on a cake, and I was wishing I knew what I was doing as I decorated his monkey cake. So my dear husband bought me cake decorating classes at Michaels for my birthday, last October. I am JUST now getting around to taking them and am having a great time practicing! Tomorrow will be the last class in the first course, and while I am grateful I will have one less thing to do, I will really miss the practice and learning. Here are a few of the things I have done:

It may not look that great, because I took a picture after I cut into it. It started out with a really nice looking hot pink and purple rainbow on yellow iced cake. (still working out colors!!) I had extra frosting and wanted/needed to practice so I worked on piping letters (shout out to my Babe) and doing circles and stars. I love it!!

For our next class we learned clowns. The store didn't have any clown heads, so I didn't bother with taking pictures of globs of icing. They are cute and really easy, though. I made cupcakes for Chris to take into work the next day and practiced all the techniques I leaned. My teacher showed my how to use the flower tip to make a really cool looking ruffle. I took it further and made what I think is a rad looking flower cupcake. Anyone need a dozen flower cupcakes for something?? I will do it!! They are so fun and so cool looking. At least, I think!! Here is a shot from the top.

And here is one from the side:


Thanks for looking!!

Contractions

So sorry for the lack of blogging, not that any of you sit and wait for me to post something interesting, or anything. I have been very tired and overwhelmed by any and everything lately, and just have not made time to blog!

This pregnancy is kicking my butt!! For those of you who don't know, we are having another BOY!! We are thrilled that Zander will have a little brother, a little buddy to pal around with. And, logistically, it works perfectly! My only fear is that we will never get a girl, but even that could be OK! Think of how much money we would save on clothes/shoes!!

Back to the pregnancy. I never got braxton hicks contractions with Zander. Never even a real contraction until the pitocin kicked it after my water broke in the dr office. So it came as a real shocker last week when my belly would get really hard, and I would get super tired all of a sudden. On Saturday we were in Home Depot (it might have been Lowe's, actually. Both that day) when I really felt it. I told Chris to feel my belly and he was surprised at how hard it was, the whole thing, not just where the baby was!! Holy cow. I didn't have pain, really, just tightness. Of course I called my BFF, the pregnancy guru in my book, and told her and she confirmed it was braxton hicks. Such a weird thing. I have gotten them here and there, and find that if I am doing too much or not drinking enough water they are worse. So water I am drinking. Whew. They wear me out. Sure I have to pee ALL the time, but I guess its better than not having any energy. Or going into labor at 26 weeks. Yikes.

I guess I should start taking pictures of my baby belly. I took a few with Zander in the last few months, because I didn't really start showing (baby, you could always see jiggle!) until the last few months. Haven't taken any this time. My Mom thinks this baby is going to feel left out if there are no pregnancy pictures of it. Well, it will just have to get used to it, because sadly, the first child always has more baby pictures to look at. Its just a fact of life. Right, all you first children?? And even you second and thirds, you got over it, right? Just accepted the fact that your oldest sibling was more loved as a baby than you?!?! JUST KIDDING. My sister would be throwing a fit right now if she could read this. Shout out to the Weezer.

My resolve- to post more pictures and blog a little more. I have tons to write about!! Thanks for reading!

Easter Ideas

Hi. So we are having both sides of the family over for Easter on Sunday. It will be about 14 adults and 4 kids. We are skipping the traditional Ham dinner because we have 1 pm Church and don't really have time to put it all together. Plus, Chris isn't crazy about a ham dinner. I am not really, either, actually. We decided to have ribs. Yum. (kind of) Here is my delima- what to have with it?? Everyone is going to bring stuff, I just have to make suggestions.

And, what are some fun activities to do with everyone? Just about everything and everyone in this group revolves around the kids; our own source of entertainment! Any easy, cheap, decor activity ideas would be great! Thanks guys!