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! :))

Almost 3 months!

It's hard to believe that my sweet little Hazel is already almost 3 months old!!! She is unbelievably cute and getting cuter every day! I must say that I love being a mom. Its the most amazing accomplishment that a woman can do and it has the most far-reaching affects. I find myself continually reviewing the parenting styles of my parents and my in-laws. While I can't adequately access the pros and cons of both, they do give me wonderful examples to base mine on. I am so grateful to both sets of parents (now grandparents) for the amazing parenting that they accomplished with Jamie and me. I am truly amazed by our story and how we both managed to turn out so grounded and fun in completely different circumstances. And I am so grateful to my loving Heavenly Father for preparing us for each other and helping us to meet and be sealed in the temple. There is no other greater blessing I could have asked for my family. It has been a wonderful experience to watch Jamie with Hazel. They are so cute together and I love how enthralled she gets with him. :) I know, I know, on to the good stuff. Here are your pictures :)

 

I do remember that I promised to post pictures of the finished blanket. I finished it a few days before she was born and I never got around to it so here are those. :)

Hope you enjoyed staying up with our growing little family ;) Have a wonderful day!

30 Weeks & Counting

Whew! What a rush from the Holidays! I hope that everyone enjoyed their Christmas and is as excited about the New Year as I am. : ) I am truly excited about all that this year has to offer. Especially the prospect of a sweet little addition to our home!

This is a picture at 29 weeks, look how cute I am! And yes, I already get people who say things about me popping or it being any day and I get to tell them, "No, not due till mid-March." And I just smile and move on, lol, cause what else can you do?

And I am super excited to be able to use this lovely gift that Jamie's Grandma gave us! It is the sweetest little blessing gown! Just adorable! And before you say anything I am already prepared to bring her to church in a different outfit and put this one on her right before she gets blessed and then take it off right after until pictures so that she doesn't get it messy ; ) But I don't know what exactly I'll bring her in, I think I might make a cute little skirt that will go with some white onesies. As of right now we don't have any real church clothes for her in the range of 0-6 months. So I think it'll be a lot of tights with onesies and skirts I make. Which is fine by me! Simple and sweet : )

In other news (because I'm sure you didn't come to listen to me droll on about my not-yet-born baby) I have been a busy little momma-to-be. We had our Young Women's in Excellence Night at church. For those of you unfamiliar with what exactly that is, it is a night at the end of the year where we showcase all the hard work of the young women in our program. They each get to talk about a Personal Progress project that they accomplished over this past year. I was in charge of the decorations and the theme of the night. I cannot take all of the credit for the theme because I found the idea on pintrest of all places. The Youth theme last year was "Let your light shine" so as a take on that we had the girls display their projects and when they were finished talking about the value they were explaining and their projects they turned a lamp on. So in the beginning the room was just slightly lit with some spot lights and Christmas lights hung around the room, but at the end the room was really bright because of all the lamps that the girls had turned on. It symbolized how as they slowly let their lights shine more will join until all the world is filled with light. I failed and didn't take any pictures that night while we were there, but the decorations got left up for the Ward Christmas party the following Friday and I got pics just before they took it down.

We, and I say we but it was really Jamie and some guys from church, made a false ceiling across the gym with the paper lanterns and tissue pom-poms. I did make the pom-poms but we had the lanterns. And then the Christmas lights swagged along each side of the gym like that. Due to the placement of the plugs the lights had to go back down like that to reach, lol. But I tell you, that it looked really good all done up with the low lighting and all. Just dreamy ; )

And if you think that's all that I have been up to you are sorely mistaken. : ) I have been a busy bee! I even made reversible pacifier holders and a cute little printout that we will put up for Hazel. Check them out!

 I can't take credit for this idea either. It was indeed a pintrest find, again. You can't tell it but there is a white boarder around the purple block. I think it's just adorable and simple; that seems to be a trend around here ; ) I had gone back and forth between doing just her first name and all of her initials but her name won't be alphabetical, Hazel Adelle Jex. So you'd come to the A first and you be like why didn't you say that one. And they'd all be highlighted on the firs two lines so I went with this one. But we like it :)








And these paci holders were super easy to whip up. I did them in one afternoon, or at least I would have had I actually owned the clips before I began. My Wal-mart didn't have any! Can you believe that?! So I had to get them off of ebay and they are stinking cute! I got 10 of them for $7 including shipping. These little babies are usually made from ribbon but I had scrap fabric that I liked and it didn't cost me a thing! So they cost me $0.70 each! Pretty nice if you ask me : ) and to put the paci on the end I just cut an elastic hair band in half and sewed it in the end. It's stretchy and it works perfectly. Couldn't be more pleased with them.

Whew! That is all I have for you today but when I get finished with my knitted baby blanket I will certainly post pictures. That thing has a 12 row pattern that gets repeated 24 times! I'm only on repeat 7, lol. So definitely more to come : ) Hope everyone enjoyed this little update!

Baby!

Well, guess whats cooking at the Jex family house! That's right, we are having a baby! After 2 years of trying we are finally going to have our wish. I almost can't believe it. Now we need a bigger apartment or house. We're looking for a 2 bedroom if you know anything around here ; ) But there is plenty of time because we aren't due until March. A nice spring baby!

Heres a pic to look at!

This is our rice baby at around 5 1/2-6 weeks!