Christmas Cake

I've grown king of tired of watching all of these cake shows that are on tv nowadays while sitting on the couch feeding Lauren and not being able to make a cake. So I decided the day before Christmas Eve that I was going to make a cake. Crying baby or not. I worked on it here and there and really it wasn't that hard to accomplish.

Since I randomly decided to make this cake, I didn't have very much powdered sugar. Usually I try to keep extra on hand but I just made some puppy chow and I only had 1 lb. in the cupboard. Which was enough to cover the cake but nothing more. Usually I make my fondant as homemade marshmallow fondant frosting. Luckily I had a box of Wilton frosing just waiting for the occasion. This stuff is pretty darn gross ladies and gents. It smells bad. I can't believe Wilton would put their name on such a product. Why can't they make it taste better? I've always heard it was gross but now I know why. Oh well, on this cake it was pretty easy to pick off the decorations. I will say that this fondant is easier to work with than what I usually make. Much easier to knead in the coloring and shape. I'll have to work on perfecting my fondant in the future so it's a marriage of both worlds.

The candy cane decorations on the tree are Watkins sprinkles. The bows on the presents are also Watkins sprinkles. They came in a package together. Perfect!

Christmas Presents!

Lookie what I got for Christmas! :)



I finally got my china hutch finished. Adjustable shelves and all! The base has been sitting in my kitchen for a while now just waiting for a top.

I also got some books, the New Arrivals Cricut cartridge and Super Mario Brothers Wii.

Such a great hubby. Thanks honey!

Santa

Little Miss Lauren visited the big man in red for the first time this week when he came to visit all the little boys and girls of Mead.



Lauren sure did enjoy him! She told him all about the things she was wishing for and smiled happily when he said he would bring them for her!



We'll be at Grandma and Grandpa's house when we wake up on Christmas morning but I'm sure Santa will find her there!

Christmas Cards

I made most of our Christmas cards this year. It's really not too hard if you have the tools - and I'm guessing if you are going to take on the task to make your own cards you have the tools.

I bought some premade cards at Hobby Lobby because I used my coupon and got them for 8 cents a card. They came in a package of 50. Much easier and cheaper than cutting them myself.

The trick to making your own cards is a system. Cut or make all your pieces or elements and then assemble your cards.

I did a lot of trial and error to figure out my design but in the end I decided that I liked the brown paper and wanted to keep the card simple to show off the paper (and save time.)

First thing I did was lay out all the cards and splatter them with white acrylic paint to create the look of snow.

I used my cricut and the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge to cut the tags. Then I stamped them with a Christmas tree stamp in black ink.


Then I stamped the insides of the cards with a message.


I used some ribbon that I had left over from our wedding for the bow and used this easy Cheater bow method to create the bows.

After that I folded them and signed them.

Then I used my Glue Runner to glue on the tags. Then I used a mini glue dot to attach the bow.

After that I added our pictures/birth announcement since I didn't feel like addressing and paying for postage for birth announcements 3 months ago :)


There you go - easy homemade Christmas cards!




P.S. If you read my blog and don't get one of these...it's because I wasn't thinking when I went to buy the cards and only got 50. Of course Adams family is huge so I ran out and don't really feel like lugging Lauren to Hobby Lobby again. Please forgive me :) You'll be getting my quickie postcard version of the pictures/birth announcement.

Laurens poor stomach

Well I think that we are getting her figured out a little bit. Not totally sure though.
-We added soy back into my diet and she seems to tolerate that just fine.
-We took tomatoes out because she was getting bad diaper rashes and that seemed to help.
-We tried to add milk back in and that was a big fat fail.

So we think that milk and tomatoes are bad but soy is ok. However her diapers are still not quite under control so I think there is still something that I'm eating that is bothering her. I guess I will continue to experiment with my diet. Good news is that she doesn't seem to be in as much pain.

The chiropractor mentioned taking probiotics which I'm going to look into. They help with digestion. I think the chiropractor is helping with the reflux as it doesn't seem like I have to worry about giving her as much medicine as I did for a while.

That's all for now...

Chiropractor

I've started to take Lauren to the chiropractor. I heard that they could help with reflux and digestion and all that good stuff. She has been in twice already.

The chiropractor said that her sacrum was off center and her something or other which I think she was just talking about her upper back was "locked up". She got her back to pop which she said she usually can't get that to happen but that is a good thing.

She said that we should know if what we are doing is going to make a difference in a week. I think that it might be but it's so hard to tell - especially since this past weekend was odd for her in that she was dragged all over for Thanksgiving.

I'll keep you updated!

New Pictures

These were taken a little while ago but I figured you might like to see them anyway :) They are from her 2 month old photo shoot!

She is getting so big already. At her 2 month dr. appt. she was 11 lbs 8 oz already! Rolly polly little girl :)