So, these are pictures from September, and they’ve just been sitting on my computer. I don’t have an excuse for not having posted them. But, I’m posting them now! Enjoy!
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- We visited a park in my parents’ neighborhood. New parks are always exciting!
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- Double slide – perfect! No fighting over who’s going down first!
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- Clearly these are old pictures – look how pregnant Tori is! In case you’re not keeping track, Charlie is almost 6 weeks old.
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- Kennison and Aunt Tata at Tori’s baby shower.
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- Gather all of your ingredients. Get a step stool if you’re too short to reach the counter.
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- Add the powdered sugar to the cream cheese and butter. Careful! It’ll make a big mess if you spill it!
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- Have a grown up help you get all of the sugar out of the box. Nanas are best for this.
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- Let Nana do the initial mixing. Otherwise, you might spray powdered sugar all over the kitchen! Now’s a good time to share your stool with your brother so he can watch, too.
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- You have to share the space! We need everyone to help!
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- Keep on mixing!
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- Once the mixing is done, taste your frosting. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s a really important job!
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- Don’t miss one crevice of the beaters!
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- Show off your face that is still free of frosting. Make sure you still have some of your dinner on your face to really mix it up.
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- Demonstrate the beauty of the cream cheese frosting.
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- Now, make sure to share your frosting smile.
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- Run to the bathroom mirror and check out your frosting-covered face for yourself. Now you know how to make cream cheese frosting!
Oh my goodness. This cracks me up. I just can’t help but laugh when I hear my girl whistle. I hope you enjoy it, too!
And, I don’t have a video of Colton, but I don’t want to leave him out, so linger over this photo of him. I love it!
I have not forgotten about this blog. In fact, I’m writing all sorts of creative posts in my head that will hopefully someday make it on to this page, including Colton’s new big boy bed, some recent photos of my new nephew, and more pictures of our precious children in general.
For now, I would just like to say that at the pediatrician’s office today, both of our children were weighed. Any guesses on the weight of either of the kids, or even the spread between the two?
Anyone? I’ll wait.
Ok, do you have your guess?
Well, one weighs 31 pounds, and the other – 30.5. Oh, my. Kennison actually outweighs her brother at this point, but I have to say that she actually feels lighter. It must be how she carries her weight. My son? He’s a brick, man.
A cute brick, mind you. But a brick nonetheless.
Kennison, on the other hand, is a little twig.
Obviously, she doesn’t have my genetic make-up.
I love my kids, no matter their size!
Doing that post that included a picture of one of my cakes from cake decorating classes made me want to do another post that displayed more of my mad skillz. (That’s how you spell it when you know you’re awesome.)
Exhibit A:
Oooh, baby. Squatty legs, poorly frosted, creepy plastic clown head. A winner for sure. Exhibit B:
Not too bad, but let’s take a closer look:
Wow. That’s some sloppy basket weave. I think the green from the cake shining through is a nice touch, though. Right? Oh, and please ignore that shell border that’s trying to fall off the top of the cake. I don’t know what that’s about. Moving on! Exhibit C:
Sadly, this isn’t all that bad – for me. The sides aren’t smooth, and the stars are pathetic, but at least my husband’s name is spelled right.
Oh, does it surprise you that I believe I should get credit for that? Well, not everyone in our class can spell their husband’s name on cake.
I mean, unless YOU know someone named Meki.
This is Tori’s cake, in case you hadn’t figured it out. My best guess? Tori started with the letters on the outside to make sure she could space Mike’s name evenly, but wrote the letters in the order they are in his name. My favorite part of this story is that she didn’t see it until I pointed it out to her. Then she did this…
…and this…
…until she had this:
Much better!
And now, for another one of my favorite cake decorating stories. Let’s look at this picture. Can you tell what’s wrong with it?
(Besides the fact that every one else happened to have a twin in the class and we arranged ourselves in an order suitable to demonstrate this.) Hmmm. 5 people, 4 cakes. That math’s not right. Maybe another picture will help clear up this mystery.
Well, that does narrow it down.
This is what happened. For some reason, both Tori’s cake and mine were at my house, and I was supposed to bring them both to Joann’s for class. Kenny was helping out by putting them in the car, but something happened in the driveway. Kenny doesn’t remember what it was (I just asked him) but somehow, he dropped one of the cakes – and it was Tori’s. It was a big ol’ mess, and there was no saving it. Obviously, there was no time to make another one, so I made the decision to tell Tori that Kenny had dropped my cake. I mean, they were both plain, stacked, white-iced cake. She would never know the difference.
When I got to class, I told Tori what had happened, and she generously offered to let me help her decorate her cake since mine had died a painful death in my driveway. But, when we went to get the cake out, Tori became wise to the switch. Why?
Tori: “I don’t think this is my cake. My icing was a lot smoother than this!”
Well then. I try to do something nice, and my icing abilities get insulted. Everyone in the class had a great laugh, and Tori was a good sport about it. Then I generously let TORI help ME decorate MY cake. This is a close-up of the end result:
Ahhh, good times.
Just a few more cake exhibits:
Last but not least, my final cake. I decided to make it in honor of my friend Nikki’s birthday. Her birthday is a few days after mine, and she loves fall, so that was my theme. I ran with it! I really wanted to make a two-tier cake, and I was actually thrilled with the results.
This used a bunch of techniques, none of which I can really recall the names of. Here’s my favorite part:
I loved my leaf cascade! I totally made this up. I love how the leaves are colored, and how some edges are tinted. I love the way they fall down the side of the cake. Yes, I’m weird. But I love it! And Nikki loved it too – at least she said she did. That’s enough for me!
But who am I kidding? Let’s be honest. I should just stick to making these.
Dang it! Now I’m craving chocolate turtle cheesecake…
Preschool has resumed.
(Please pause while I do my happy dance.)
I love my daughter and I love spending time with her, but preschool is great for her. It gives her a chance to interact with her peers, learn some basic skills, and practice following directions.
It’s not so bad for me either.
Anyway, Kennison is again attending Christ Preschool. It’s such a great fit for our family! She goes from 9:30 until 12 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’s a chance for me to spend time with Colton, and also to run errands and do things around the house without having to monitor two little people. And of course, I know Kennison is in a safe, nurturing environment!
Here is Kennison, ready to get in the car to head to preschool.
This is last year’s first-day-of-school picture.
How much older does she look??? On top of that, when we were already on the way to school, Kennison said, “I left blankie at home and I can get it when I’m done with preschool!” I didn’t even ask her to leave it at home. In fact, we had talked about how blankie was going to stay in the car while she went to school but that it’d be waiting for her when she got out, but she left it at home totally on her own. I was so proud of her! AND, when we got to preschool, she didn’t cry or fuss or anything – she found her name so she could hang up her backpack, gave me a hug and a kiss, and ran off to play. I didn’t cry either. What an amazing day!
Oh, and on the way to preschool, she also said, “Mommy, I’m going to sing for you.” She then proceeded to sing a very off key rendition of happy birthday, which was really sweet! It was nice she knew it was my birthday… even though she also thinks it’s Colton’s birthday. Whatever.
This is the other cute picture I took today. I love my children!
This, my friends, is a quilt.
Not just any quilt, mind you. This is a three year old quilt.
I truly mean it’s 3 years old. This idea for this quilt was born in my mind over 3 years ago. I had just finished taking all the cake decorating classes offered at my local Joann’s. Tori and I were so good. Here’s a picture to prove it.
Ok, please keep all comments to yourselves.
Anyway, I was trying to keep busy while waiting to get “the call”: the one that meant it was finally time to travel to Vietnam to meet and adopt Kennison. So, since cake decorating was over, I decided to take up quilting. I had made a quilt once. The first quilt I ever made was for Kenny as a Christmas present the year we started dating. Yeah, we starting dating in November and I made him a quilt for Christmas the following month. It’s amazing he stuck around, huh? I distinctly remember a conversation I had with my sister in regards to finding him a gift:
Me: Angela, what should I get Kenny for Christmas? We haven’t been dating that long, but I want it to be special.
Angela: I don’t know, what do you think he’d like?
Me: I don’t know, that’s the problem. I was thinking of making him a quilt.
Angela: A quilt? Al, I don’t think that’s the way you want to go.
Me: Then what would you suggest?
Angela: How about a gift card to Structure? Then he could get a nice sweater or something.
Me: You have clearly never met Kenny.
Anyway, I went with the quilt. Now, Kenny is right here next to me as I type this. I just asked him what he thought when I gave him a quilt after dating for less than 2 months. He said, “I liked it.” No, really dear, what did you think? “Well, I guess it was a little strange, but that’s OK!”
You know where that quilt is now? Wadded up in the garage. It wasn’t pieced together well, and it’s a big ol’ mess. But we still have it. You know what Kenny gave me that same Christmas? He gave me this:
Really, whose gift was worse? I don’t even know. I can say with absolute certainty we didn’t stay with each other because of the presents. Sheesh. Pathetic! (Honey, you know I love that dolphin water globe music box!)
I digress. I decided to enroll in quilting at Joann’s. Tori refused. I had a great time picking out the fabric for my quilt. I planned to make it for Kennison so that she could have it when we finally met. I had a grand plan in my mind, as is so often the case. I even went ahead and paid for all three quilting levels so that I could go right through them all and complete my quilt.
The first class went OK. It mostly covered the tools one should use to make quilt-making easier. The 2nd class didn’t get off to a good start – as I was getting out of my car, I stepped in a pothole in the parking lot, twisted my ankle, and could not get off the ground. Luckily my cake decorating teacher happened to be walking by at the time, so she got my cell phone for me (still in the car) and stayed with me until Kenny could come and get me. I missed my 2nd class entirely.
So, I had sprained my ankle. I was on crutches. Just a few days later, we got “the call”: it was time to go to Vietnam! (About 2 months earlier than anyone predicted, I might add – God is good!) So, I obviously wasn’t going to have time to finish all of those quilting classes, because I was about to have a baby!
So, we traveled to Vietnam, we fell in love with Kennison, we came home, and settled into a routine. I didn’t even think about that quilt. It totally escaped me. I forgot that I had paid for these classes that I had yet to take. I was just busy with Kennison.
And then we found out we were pregnant with Colton. Quilt-making was over!
Fast forward to December 2008. I finally call Joann’s, and tell them I would like to take my classes now. With some annoyance, it was made possible for me to finish my classes. Of course, the quilt “pattern” had changed, so we had to make some adjustments, because I didn’t want to buy more fabric (I was totally in love with the orange/pink/yellow combo I already had). This was the end result:
I totally love it! It has many errors, but it’s complete! I made my own binding (I was DETERMINED to do this!) and I love the way the whole quilt flows. I am very proud of it, but I’m not taking any up close pictures because you’ll see how crooked everything is and how wonky my shapes are. But I do love it from this distance. And you know what?
Kennison loves it, too.
At dinner, I told Colton I’d make him one.
No one is holding their breath. By my calculations, I have at least 3 years to make it happen.
Yes, this quilt is truly a labor of love.
Although, this guy was a labor of love, too.
And, getting this little lady in the family was no small feat.
But this quilt is a close third!
