New Arrival

Between a big move and having a baby, time flies. Right now we have croup in our house and a new baby. Surprisingly enough though, our newest angel hasn't caught it.

Now that I've peaked your interest I figure you'd like to see pictures of Sydney Elaina Jex. Here are some of the photos from the session. And the wonderful patchwork quilt that is found in some of the later photos was made for her by my talented mother. It looks great, doesn't it? I personally love those photos. But there's a crocheted blanket that she is laying on in her blessing gown. I made that blanket for her (like the one I knitted for Hazel) and Jamie loves those pics.

Anyways, here's a taste of the photo shoot.  :)

How-to "surprise cake"!

So this is my very first pictorial! Before I get started I want to disclose that these are unedited pics from my phone, so don't be hating.

Now I'm putting this together for my mom mostly. I told her about the cake I was going to make to reveal the gender of our baby number 2 and she said, "that's so cute! You have to email me directions." So instead I decided to blog it :)

This is a picture of what I started with:

• Cake (as many layers as you want)
• Your stand or whatever it will be displayed on
• What you are using for your icing (I did whipped cream)
• Anything you want to put in between the layers
• The candy to go inside to fall out

For my cake we found sixlets in the Wal-mart baking isle that worked perfectly for us. And I only did a two layer cake; it worked out just fine but I think I'd like a 3-4 layer better.
As mentioned before I just did a homemade whipped cream that I used for all the frosting in this cake.










Step 1: place your bottom layer
 of cake on the stand and use whatever you have on hand as a template for the area to store the candy. If you are doing multiple layers then do all of your tiers together first and then cut out the hole.



Step 2: fill the hole with your assorted candy. I went ahead and mixed the colors together to get the right ratio of pink/white. Something that I didn't think about until afterwards is that you'll want to leave a bit of space so that you can "cap off" the candy so that it doesn't get gooey with the frosting and it'll actually spill out.

Step 3: take the cake you previously removed from the hole and trim off a bit so that you can protect the candy from the frosting. Place it on top of the candy and try to snug it in there--thus the need for a bit of space at the top of the candy pile.

Step 4: do the between layer frosting and anything else that you want to put into it. As you can see we did strawberries. It was super yummy!





Step 5: last but not least, place the last layer on top and frost the entire cake. If you want something written on the top then feel free to do so now. :)





This super cute cake could be done for more than just a gender reveal. I think my mom is going to use it for a baby shower were the gender is already known. But she just thought it was such a fun idea, and I agree. Hopefully this helps on your quest to create the perfect party! Happy creating--and eating ;)

P.S.- these are some of the pics of the whole get up and how it turned out. Thought you'd enjoy seeing it in action! :))

St. Patty's Day

Yay! I finished the cute little dress for hazel to wast on St Patty's Day :) It looks good!  And the amazingness of uncooperative babies. Lol, she's still stinkin' cute without the bow ;)

The Funny Little Moments

Hazel is so cute and she does funny little things all day long. Today was a slow day. Just us at home while Daddy had the car and was off at drill. Per request I had made some cookies last night and they were sitting on the counter. I let Hazel have one sweet thing a day, generally, so when she saw them she wanted one. I picked one out for her and when she got it she just kept turning it over and over in her hands, inspecting it. I said, "Go on, eat it."  To which she responded by licking the top of the cookie to test it. Her face was so cute I couldn't help but laugh a little. Oh boy, what a stinkin' cutie! :)

Hoot!

Over the past few days I've realized that I need some ear warmers to protect my beloved ears from the cold. So I found this really cute owl hat pattern on ralvery. I modified it a bit to turn it into an ear warmer. I think it looks great, but I think its a touch loose. I might try a smaller needle size.... Anyways, here's a picture, hope you enjoy!

Ps- if you're interested in making one its called Who on ralvery. Sorry you must be a member, but its free :)

Dress for Hazel

Hazel has grown into the next size up, which is good and awesome for her. But the problem comes at the fact that she has no Sunday dresses in that size. So I was fortunate enouh to get my hands on some patterns for dresses. And yesterday I finished the first one! :) I can't wait for her to wear it on Sunday; she looks absolutely adorable in it.

Winter Wonderland

Some people might think that I'm slightly crazy for saying this, but I truly think that the weather we are having is kind of amazing. :) I love this snowy, very cold weather. It just makes you want to curl up with a good book and snuggle in front of a fireplace. Too bad I don't have a fireplace....one day we will, *sigh*. It's especially good right now though because I haven't been feeling well, so it gives me a great excuse to curl up and knit or play games with my hubby. And I love to get all those extra snuggles from Hazel! So I hope that everyone is staying warm and cozy in this rather cold winter front! :)
This is the view from our bedroom window. You can't tell but the chimney has the picturesque smoke coming out. ;)