I love this quote

Quote of my life.

I am just a regular girl.

A wife who loves her husband, but doesn't always show it.

A mom who adores her babies, but runs out of patience.

A friend who cherishes her girls, but forgets to return calls.

A person so energized by being creative, but not without dry spells.

I am a homemaker who would rather rearrange furniture than dust it, repaint a bathroom than clean it, eat out than sit down and plan meals.

{Written by Emily}

All of that applies except the creative stuff. I have long dry spells with the occasional creative moment. The projects I start though never seemed to get finished. Why is that?

Inspiring

For anyone who doesn't read Little Miss Momma's blog her address is littlemissmomma.blogspot.com. She has a secrets series going on right now and it is incredibly inspiring. I love how honest this mother and her followers are. Just thought I'd spread the word about her blog. I just think she's great and she's got some cool crafty stuff on there too. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I'll post stuff about it soon.

I've gone pillow crazy!

You know I must be sleep deprived and stressed if I think I can sew up some pillows, but that's just what I'm attempting to do. First I'm trying to figure out what to do with the blue pillow.

Should I?

1: Do a silouette out of black felt of the kids on the pillow

2: Make a fabric flower

3: Or use ribbons to adorn it

What do you all think I should do? Oh and I'm slipcovering the couch in white fabric. Yup! I've lost my mind!

Oh and if you can't tell the fabric is just laying on top of the three pillows on the right.

Fire Truck Groom's cake

I was asked by an old co worker of mine to make a groom's cake for their wedding. This cake was fun to make but disaster happened. You only get to see one side of the cake because the other side has a nice little dent on it. Just as I was putting the finishing touches on it, it fell over. Luckily it was covered in fondant and it wasn't that bad and I could put it up against the wall. The bride said no one could tell but let me tell you, I had a mini heart attack that morning.

Ethan's Birthday/Halloween Party

So Ethan's party was a little late this year. Sue me. We were so busy that it got delayed, but I don't think Ethan minded. He thought it was awesome that his birthday party was also a Halloween party. We had all the kids come in their costumes, which was super cute ofcourse. Blake wouldn't wear his so this is the only pic of him in it.

Mom and I made Ethan's bald eagle costume out of felt and a sweat outfit. Thank goodness for Lacey. She gave us the inspiration for it all. Ethan asked me a while ago if he could be a bald eagle for Halloween.

I was like, "Ummm honey, mommy can't buy that and I don't know how to sew."

Ethan's response, "You'll do great mommy. I know you can do it."

Great. Now I have to do it.

He then said, "Just ask Miss Lacey to help you. She can do it."

True.

Miss Lacey is way more talented than I am but I don't think she's going to want to make your costume on top of the other three she's doing for her own kids.

So my mom and I went to work using Miss Lacey's parrot costume as our template. For anyone that doesn't know Lacey, she is my amazing friend and Ethan's best friend's mom.

I was surprised by how well it turned out. I cut out all of the feathers and my mom sewed it all together. Thank goodness for Nana. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

And if you're wondering why Ethan wanted to be a bald eagle, it's because of the eagle sanctuary that we saw at Dollywood in Tennessee on our vacation. He's kind of obsessed with eagles.

This is what it looks like during gift opening. A mass amount of kids all running around and trying to see what he's opening. Definitely not organized chaos. I haven't figured out how to slow down the process or make it more organized yet but who really cares right? Ethan's last present was from his brilliant Aunt Sarah and cousins. His very first pets. Dwarf frogs. They are acutally really cool and come in their own, almost maintenance free, tank. All the kids crowded around to see this one. Their names are Hopper and Good Swimmer. I know, real creative, but that's how Ethan names his stuffed animals. By what they do and look like. He absolutely LOVES them.

Ofcourse it wouldn't be a party without a cake. Blake thought this cake was spoooooky!



We had fun decorating for this party too. Super simple and stuff we already had. Can't get better than that. Thanks to everyone who came. It wouldn't be as special without all of you.

As for my Ethan, here are 5 of the reasons we love you so much

You're so silly and make us laugh every day

You're so loving and cuddly. I love your constant hugs and kisses. Blake will learn to love them too, eventually.

You love to learn and because of that you are soooo smart.

You love adventures as much as we do and are always ready for a new one.

You're always so positive and you lift us up. Thank you!

We love you so, so, so much!

Happy Belated Birthday Baby, I mean Big Boy.

P.S. For all of those non regular bloggers, you can click on the pics to enlarge them and then hit the back arrow to get back to the blog.
Love you

Tests, tests, and more tests

So the latest on my sweet little Blakey is that he has finally reached 20 pounds. Haleluiah!!! I know that is so small, but it took us forever to reach that goal and I was super excited to finally get there. We went and saw a genetecist that we really liked and he filled our heads with all kinds of info. He told us about things I had never heard of before so I was really glad that we decided to go see him. He did the most thorough exam I have ever seen. He measured almost every part of Blake's body, including his pupils. He has ordered some tests to be done and we have to go see a pediatric ophthalmologist in the next two weeks. Yay!!! Heavy sarcasm! Just like the other doctors he didn't see any red flags right away which is good and bad.

Good because we are hoping that there is absolutely nothing wrong with him and that he can get growth hormone therapy and lead a normal life.

Bad because that means more tests.

He did mention a disorder that is extremely rare and said that we wouldn't test for that until we absolutely had to. But from what he said about it, it kinda sounds like Blake. I'm really hoping that it isn't that though. It's something to do with his growth hormone levels being normal but his growth hormone receptors being defective. I'm praying that's not it because it isn't very well studied yet and I don't know how that would effect his hormone therapy. So I'm going to try and not worry about it until I have to. Til next time God bless and I love ya all.

Pics I forgot from the Kennedy Space Ctr

They have a moon rock there that they let you touch. Face it. That's pretty rad.

Florida trip, Journal 1

Some of you might have thought we were crazy for driving to Florida with two little ones and especially overnight. Maybe we were crazy but it worked out great! The boys slept really well. Only one wake up and a little fussiness, mostly from the adults, but we drove thru the night and the rain with basically no problems. Thank you for answered prayers!!! We arrived in southern Georgia the next morning and stopped at a restaraunt where the waitress must have said "ya'll" over a hundred times. Seriously! We made it to Orlando by late morning after seeing why it's called the dirty south. We saw a truck in southern Georgia that was so covered in mud that we honestly didn't know what color it was.

We had arrived. Yay! We stayed at a Sheraton resort, I think, and it was Gorgeous!!! I have video of it but I've been waiting for Doug to turn it into stills. So maybe another day I'll show ya how amazing it was. You'll just have to trust me for now. It had four pools and some really cool kids areas. Our condo was pretty but who wants to stay inside when you're in Florida so instead of staying put and getting some much needed sleep, we decided to go out. Just then it started to rain. Just a light rain though, so we decided to go to the Kennedy Space Station. So glad we did. We had such a great time and most of it is indoors or on a bus so the rain was no big deal. Ethan was flabberghasted by the sheer size of things and the fact that they had actually been to space. If you've never been, it's definitely a must see. So amazing! The kids were so good and we got to see bald eagles and their nests which started Ethan's fascination with eagles. Did you know that the Nasa property is home to hundreds of bald eagles?

Ethan was speechless and soooooo excited to meet a real astronaut! Not really an astronaut but we didn't tell him that.

Blake's update

So I know it's been forever since I posted last but I've had so much fun this summer and been so busy with Blake that I haven't had the time. I still have to post about my vacations but I'm still waiting on some pics to be finished. Oh well.

So here's the update. Blake's leg is doing really well. It healed faster than anyone expected. The doctor originally said 4 to 6 weeks with the spica cast on and it ended up only being 3 weeks. At first I was elated but then the doc told me that he still wasn't allowed to walk on it.

"How the Heck do you stop a 2 year old from walking?!"
He told me not to worry and that he wouldn't want to walk. "Trust me" he says.
OK harder to do than say.

So I trusted him and he was right. Blake didn't start walking along furniture until about 6 weeks after the accident and then by himself a week later. It was difficult to watch my two year old be in pain from the weakness and soreness that still lingered.
Now he is doing great though. Still limping a very little bit but he doesn't let anything stop him. Ofcourse I am now the hoovering mother but wouldn't you be?

In regards to his other issues well he still cannot gain weight. Do you know that he has gained less than 4lbs. in this last year? I went to have him weighed and measured yesterday so that the Mayo docs had the very latest info. He is 18lbs. 14.5oz. and 33inches long.
So since May he has lost weight from 19lbs even. Which we did expect some weight loss from his accident but I just didn't think he'd gain nothing from May to the end of June and then none or very little in the last month. He has grown a half an inch and broken in 4 new teeth so that's all good news. We still have no clue why he can't gain weight and he is still falling farther and farther down the chart. Really, he's not on the chart. I like to still think of him as being on there because you can still put the dot somewhere on the chart. It's just in that large space at the bottom with no lines.

As soon as we here from the Mayo clinic I will let you all know. Thank you so much Ryan and Holly for your friend at Mayo. He has been so nice and so helpful. We love you guys so much. Please keep Blake in your prayers. We really need to find answers.

Love you all

Worst Day and Night Ever!!!!!

I wish that I was posting about my vacations like I wanted to but unfortunately I'm not. Last Sunday, Father's Day, Blake broke his femur and we spent the night at the hospital to put the cast on and control his pain. Which was a lot of pain! So how did it happen? I'm not really sure but I can guess. We were all outside playing with some soccer balls. And when I say all I mean myself, Doug, Ethan, Blake, my nephew Braeden, Papa, Kyle, and Garret. So 5 adults and three kids. How could someone get hurt with that much supervision? Oh ya Blake has my genes. So we think that Blake's foot found a divet in the grass and his leg twisted or he fell sideways while he twisted with his foot stuck. None the less his femur broke. Biggest bone in the body and the littlest two year old. I still am dumbfounded by this and just don't understand why or how! When he fell onto the soft grass he was on all fours and not crying yet so we thought he was fine. Now looking back he must have been in shock. Doug picked him up and set him back on his feet obviously not knowing. Our first reaction was that he was just fine. It's grass. Who gets hurt in the grass. Once his feet hit the ground again that's when the screaming started and the crying didn't end until 13 hours later. Literally. After he wasn't calming down and he started screaming harder every time I moved while I was holding him we decided to go to the ER. I thought maybe he pulled something or tore a ligament. No way did I think it was possible that he broke a bone, let alone the largest and strongest one at that. So once at the ER we very quickly found out that his femur was broken. The staff at NIMC was absolutely amazing and made things go so quickly. When I found out that his femur was broken I sobbed so hard. Even more than I was already crying. Let me tell you it is so hard to not move when you are crying that hard. I was holding Blake as still as I could but the poor thing still felt every breath I took. He had already had a dose of pain meds by this point but a femur fracture is very painful.

So next step was meeting the ortho surgeon who came so quickly. We were so lucky that Blake didn't need surgery. His break was huge but it was not compound and would be easily set back into place. So we waited for the OR to open up so that we could get his SPICA cast on. Basically his body cast. Unfortunately the OR was taking longer than the Doc expected so in the interest in decreasing Blake's pain he did it right there in the ER. They put us in their largest triage room and got to work. Doug and I even helped. I am so thankful to this doctor. He didn't even wait for an OR nurse knowing that it would be so much easier if he did. Instead he got to work with ER nurses that didn't know what he was doing since they never do that in the ER, just to get Blake into a more comfortable position. Blake was more than amazing. I'm even crying thinking about how brave and amazing he was. They were going to sedate him but he was doing so great that they decided not to. You might think that's cruel but that would have ment much higher risks and he could have woken up sick and vomitting reardless of the anti nausea meds. So they gave him some morphine and went to town. One of the only funny parts of this whole thing was that the doctor had to make a whole for where the diaper would go and he was sawing away cast around the pee pee area and I think Doug was extremely close to passing out at that point. Blake was funny though too. He had a huge IV in his arm and we are putting on a gigantic cast and he was crying about the pulse ox thing on his finger. It's this little thing they put on your finger to make sure you get enough oxygen. Anyway the nurse took it off and moved it to his toe and mid crying Blake says "Thank you". It was soooooo cute.

So once the gigantic cast was on, Blake was free to fall asleep if he could through all the pain. The morphine helped but since he's so little they can't give him that much. Once he fell asleep he kept on waking up from massive muscle spasms that caused him a lot of pain. We finally got up to the pediatric unit and into his bed. I pushed the two beds together so I could sleep next to Blake. Anyone that knows him knows that my hair is his security blanket so I slept as close as I could so he could have it. That night was the longest night of my life. Not only did I need to check his diaper every hour but Blake was in so much pain and it was excruciating to watch him go thru that. I don't think I ever cried that much in my life. The doctor even begged me to not cry.

By about 8:30 the next morning he finally fell asleep for about two hours and woke up in a much better mood. He saw my mom and a micky mouse balloon from his aunt and cousins and smiled. Best moment ever! To see him smile again was heaven. So after talking to specialists, social workers, and a police officer we worked out how we would get safely home and we are receiving a special car seat from Children's Hospital today. I was soooooo glad to take Blake home. The nurses were all amazing but there's nothing like home to make you feel better.

So now we are home and have our own hospital bed set up in the living room next to the couch where Blake and I will be spending the night for the next week. He's doing much better now and is not in as much pain but still is in some pain. We are medicating him around the clock and won't stop until Saturday. Thank you to everyone who has helped and called and came to visit. We love you. If I haven't called to tell you what happened yet then you're not family. I have just been so busy taking care of Blake that I contacted a few family members and let them call down the chain. So if anyone wants to come visit you are more than welcome. Looks like we won't be going anywhere for a while.

Here's a pic before the pain meds were finally easing the pain.

After pain meds had finally started easing the pain. Leave it to Blake to be a goof ball.

Blake's 2nd Bday party

I had all these plans for a grand party and then quickly let those go, because I was way too busy and he's two. Really? Does he need a big party? He's never going to remember it anyway. I was actually really glad that we kept it really simple. We ordered pizza, got juice boxes for the kids, water bottles for the P's, played outside, and ate cake. No games, no elaborate menu and most importantly, no crazy mom that hasn't slept in a week getting ready for this party. I was kind of sad that the kids couldn't play the rock star video game that I wanted to set up but honestly most of them were too young to play it anyway. So here are some pics of my super relaxed bday party for Blake. I wish I had a pic of me in here so you could see the pure joy on my face that I didn't have a big party.

Blake's cupcakes and cake. The cake was confetti cake with strawberry buttercream. Yumm!!!!!

It was humid and warm so the color mist I used was sweating off the cake. Oh well. At least I tested it on my own cake and not a clients.

Blake blowing out the candles. I had to help him to save everyone from eating his spit. It was so cute though.

Blake having a great time on the trampoline. It is probably his favorite thing to do outside.

These are our friends Cassie and Myles. Myles is only 6 weeks older than Blake and ridiculously cute.

Nana and Poppop Patterson. We love them so much! I can't believe I don't have pics of my own parents. Oh well.

Some of the friends. We are so blessed to have really great friends. Even some of our friends with no kids absolutely love our kids and always come to their parties.

Thanks to everyone who was able to come. We had a great time!

Long time, no post

I know I've been MIA lately but I really didn't want to post about all the crap that's been going on in our lives because when I look back at this I don't want to remember how miserable things were. I will be posting about our Florida trip soon though. As soon as I get my pictures off the video camera I'll share it all with you. We had the best time and we can't wait to do it again. So until then I hope you all are doing well. See you soon.

Blake's stats

At Blake's 2 year well check we finally weighed him after not doing it for three months. He now weighs 19 lbs. 4.5 oz. and he is 32 inches long. So he has gained 2 pounds in three months. For him that's not bad. He also now has eight teeth and we'll be seeing the dentist soon to make sure that there are more. He's still not on the chart for his weight but he's in the 3rd percentile for his height. For the last three months we ditched the pedia sure type drinks and the heavy whipping cream and did things like chocolate syrup in his milk and olive oil in his mashed potatoes. We were spending an extra $150 to $200 on the pedia sure and whipping cream a month. And that was using coupons. So for budget reasons we decided to give it a break. Plus it didn't really seem to be working that well. He still wasn't gaining weight when he was on that diet. He still gets a higher calorie diet just not an astounding 1400 calories a day. So now for the next three months we are going back on the 1400 calorie diet with the drinks and see what happens. Wish Blake luck and us luck that I don't have to declare bankruptcy! Oy! At least Blake's happy, I think.

Cute Tea Party Cake

Here's the latest I did this week. It's for a little girl that's having a tea party theme for her birthday. Her mom sent me a pic of this tablecloth that she's using and this is what I made.

My baby's 2!

Blake was 2 on Thursday. Crazy, I know. It's very hard for me to believe. I feel like I just had him. Doug came home early so we could take him to a park but unfortunately our trip had to be rescheduled. We were on our way to the park and Ethan threw up all over the car. He's had the flu since Tuesday but he hadn't been sick on Wednesday at all, so we thought he was all better. Obviously not. So we spent the afternoon cleaning out the car and took a nice walk. So here are a few things that I want to remember about my Blake on his 2nd birthday.

1. His favorite foods are yogurt, french fries and shakes.
2. He loves to play with my hair. Which I have to admit that I love too.
3. He's a great cuddler in the morning.
4. He's talking so much! You all might need a translator but we understand.
5. He's an adrenaline junky. He loves to be thrown around.
6. He loves rides at amusement parks. He can't wait to ride the big coasters. He always says "Whoa" when he sees them. He rode a ride at Sea World that goes up then drops you down and bounces up and down again. It's kind of like the Giant Drop but for kids. He LOVED it! Older kids were screaming and he was giggling the whole time.
7. He loves Spiderman and Batman. He got to meet Spiderman at Universal studios last week. He talked his ear off.
8. He's breaking 4 teeth in all at the same time right now. Ouch! As of today he has 7 teeth. Three molars and four front teeth.
9. He has the most beautiful blond curly hair.
10. He LOVES the beach. He totally looks like a surfer baby.
11. He loves the water too. Pools, lakes, the ocean. Doesn't matter how cold it is, he just loves it.
12. His best friend is Ethan, ofcourse. Ethan makes him laugh all the time.
13. He's very independent as long as I'm around. He'll play by himself for as long as I let him, but if I leave he gets really upset.
14. He loves his nanas and papas.
15. His favorite cousin is Abbie. He loves to say her name. One night he was yelling it at the dinner table for at least 30 min.
16. He's a great traveler and adapts well to change.
17. Most importantly he's a lover and really likes when the whole family is together. He cries when Doug or I have to leave. :( But it's so nice to know how much he loves us.

Happy Birthday Blake! We love you so much and we know that our lives would not be complete without you.

He blew out his candles all by himself. It's a good thing it was a cupcake because, you know how 2 year olds blow out candles. It was covered in spit.




The week before his birthday he got to meet some of his favorite characters. Mickey and Minnie. He even gave Minnie a kiss. My little Cassanova.

Latest Wedding Cake

Here's the latest cake I've done. It was President Nuttle's son. Some of you may know of them. Anyway the mother of the bride is one of my mom's best friends and I was honored that they asked me to make this cake. It was chocolate cake with mint buttercream and chopped andes mints. Seriously yummy! The caterer said they couldn't keep the chocolate cake coming fast enough for the guests. I also made three almond cakes with almond buttercream and raspberry filling. That too was sooooooo good. The flowers and all of the decor for the wedding was done by my Aunt Aleatha and my mom. They just started a business called True to You Designs. You can find them on facebook. I'm pretty sure Doug will be starting a website for them soon. I will post pictures of their stuff soon. They always blow me away. They even had me making some of the floral pieces. Not easy.

Sugar Mamas Cakery

Hi all. My new cake blog is just about done. Come and visit it and tell me what ya think.
www.thesugarmamascakery.blogspot.com

Have a great week everyone. I have 9 days left til we leave for Florida and I'm quarantining us until we leave. So don't take it personally but we aren't going anywhere unless we have to. After being sick for three weeks I think our immune systems need a break. We're still batteling strep and a bad ear infection. On the good side I think Ethan is feeling better today. He was singing Follow the Prophet as loud as he could while he was on the pot. That kid cracks me up!

New Moon Cake

This week I made a New Moon cake for my sister in law's sister in law. She loves New Moon and so Sarah wanted to suprise her with a New Moon cake. Her mom wanted to get her a little spring cake with flowers. I'm so glad that Sarah convinced her that Danielle would like the New Moon cake better. I was sick this last week so this cake came down to the wire plus I have a wedding cake to do for Saturday and I'm still working on getting the business started. Ugh!!! So much to do, but it's great! The flower on top and red petal is from the new moon cover, the red ribbon is from the cover of Eclipse, and the bottom tier is inspired by the movie. The crescent moon and spears are straight off the movie cover. I hand painted the background colors and the trees on the bottom tier. Oh and did you notice that the cake sparkles? Yay Team Edward! I'm not really sure why my dad put ivy leaves in the picture but bless his heart he thought it added something. Maybe it did. Once I photo shop it, it might look a little better. Just love dad for doing the pics cuz I suck at it. Thanks dad. Love ya.

Triple Agent Zero

Introducing Triple Agent Zero. He has blond hair, blue eyes, is 4 years old and will dazzle you with his charm. He's got deadly kung fu tickle moves and likes to drop stink bombs. Ha ha OK seriously. Ethan had career day at school and he told me that he wanted to be an astronaut and a secret agent when he grew up. Astronaut I can't do but secret agent, easy peasy. He already had all the stuff we needed since this is a regular game in our house. I just love how he poses. Oh and thanks to Uncle Ryan and Aunt Holly that made him his badge!

Red Velvet and Delicious!

I needed to test out some red velvet cake recipes and this is what I created. I don't know why I can't just leave it iced. What's wrong with me! My excuse was that I needed to test out some new pearl dusts that you can't see since it's on the side. But really I'm just a little obsessed and can't leave it alone. Oh and by the way, the cake is delicious. Best red velvet cake I've ever had! I iced it with cheesecake buttercream. I don't even like cheesecake and I still think it was good.

My new cake blog

Hi all. My new cake blog is about halfway done. Please feel free to have a look and tell me what ya think. I'm still learning a lot about this blogging stuff so I still have a lot of tweaking to do and I still have a lot of info to post but it should be done soon. This blog is only temporary though. In a few months I hope to have a website. The blog address is http://www.thesugarmamascakery.blogspot.com/

Wooo Hooo

I get to make a Twilight cake! Woo Hoo!!! I know I'm a dork!

Packing on the pounds.... kind of

Today Blake got weighed and he has gained 14.5 oz. since Jan. 14th. Yay!!!!! You all know what a big deal that is to us. He is now 18 lbs. 7.5oz.. We haven't weighed him in a while so when we went to the doc for his concussion followup and pink eye, gross, we went ahead and got him weighed too. Here I am working out almost every night to lose my baby belly and I'm secretly adding hundreds of calories into Blake's food for a 7 oz. weight gain a month. Don't we all wish we had this struggle. I tried to post a funny video for you guys but it never finished downloading. Maybe I did something wrong. Oh well have a good weekend everyone.

March grocery Madness!!!

So after finding out that I suck at saving money at the grocery store I decided to figure out how other people spend half of what I do on groceries. I already bought store brands and bought everything I could that was on sale but I was still spending so much more. For the month of Febuary we stretched out everything as far as we could and tried to waste nothing. We saved $112.84. I didn't buy as much nutritional milk as I usually do for Blake so I definitely would have saved less if I had kept up with that.

My goal for March is to save another $100 this month. I am going to meal plan, which you guys know I don't cook so that will be hard. I'm going to use coupons and try different places. Thanks to my awesome Friend Lacey whom I'm just not worthy, I bow down to you Lacey, I am on my way to major coupon savings. She has this binder full of baseball card holders and she puts all her coupons in there to keep them organized and it makes them easy to see. Ingenius! So the last few days I've been organizing all my coupons and checking the sales flyers that come with the paper. I also have been checking out a blog that shows what stores have good deals that match up with coupons. Again thanks Lacey.

Okay so March starts and I think I'm somewhat prepared to start my grocery challenge. What a joke! My first adventure was at Walgreen's where even strapped in Blake was trying to dive out of the cart. He seriously was impossible to shop with. I never shop at Walgreen's so I didn't know where anything was and was all over the place. I learned that I was definitely not as organized as I thought I was. I spent 40 minutes there and yes I saved money but not as much as I thought I would. So I left there feeling totally defeated. I marched on though and went to Meijer's later that night to get more groceries. This time I was much better prepared but it took me forever to get all my groceries. One, I don't know that store and two, I had my coupon book, my calculator and other sales flyers that I checked for almost every purchase. I didn't have a lot of time so there were a few things that I wanted to buy somewhere else but I needed them the next morning so I had to buy there. But even if I had bought them somewhere else it wouldn't have been that much in savings. So in total I have already spent $215. Not off to a good start. I did have to buy some things that I don't normally get but that only ads up to about $50 of what I spent. I'm hoping that I won't have to do another shopping trip for a couple of weeks so maybe it will be better than I'm expecting.

So what I learned from yesterday is that I have a lot to learn and that this is going to take a lot of practice. So wish me luck in my March Grocery Madness Challenge. Where do you guys shop? Any tips?

Ethan's Star Wars Adventure

Anyone that knows Ethan well, knows that he is a super hero and Star Wars freak. He's never seen all of star wars but he's seen most of it. We edit out the bad stuff. So when we heard about a Jedi training event at our local library we just had to take Ethan. Now Ethan thinks that these people are real people so you can imagine the courage it took to meet Darth Vader and his other bad guys. I don't know what they are called. Ethan is going to have to help me with this blog.

Can you see the wheels turning in Ethan's head? Right now he's got to be thinking, please don't use the force, please, please, please.

Ethan tells me that this guys is the master clone trooper and that he's a good guy. He really liked his uniform.
This guy is a bad guy that rides those speed bikes and Ethan said that the guy was really nice to him because Luke Skywalker was secretly there.

Ethan says this is Luke Skywalker dressed up as a storm trooper. He says that at first he was scared to be there but since Luke was there, he was making sure all the bad guys were on their best behavior.

Obviously Vader and his people. Every time you tried to take a pic of him they would quickly pose. They were really good at it.

My three teeth baby.

As you all know, we have been waiting for Blake's teeth for a long time and now we have two teeth breaking within days of each other. It's funny what parents get excited about. So Saturday night Blake was up most of the night and most parents would wonder why their 22 month old was up all night. But with Blake's history it means nothing to us that Blake is up all night. Low and behold the next morning though Blake's third tooth had cut. Don't really know if that's why he was up since he was just playing in his crib all night, but you never know. The picture is difficult to see but that's the best I'm going to get from him. He's so cute it doesn't really matter though.

Daddy's birthday Feb 14th

Doug's birthday is on Valentine's Day and so we haven't celebrated Valentine's Day in about 10 years. It's my fault. Doug's so good to me all year long that I'd rather have a day all about him than get flowers that will die. So this year we went to his parent's house for a small dinner. We had already celebrated with his sister and friends on another date. We ended up having dinner all by ourselves though because his mom went to the ER for some issues with her heart again. She's fine. She just needed another medication. So Doug and I ended up making a dinner we knew nothing about, and if you know us you know that we are NOT good cooks. All the while we were really worried about Doug's mom. We persevered though. Dinner came out great despite our handicap. I spent most of the afternoon decorating Doug's golf bag birthday cake. I think it came out pretty cool. I didn't have all of my stuff with me but I think I made the most of what I had.

Yes Doug really is 34. Ha ha old man.

Some of these posted the wrong direction. Don't really know what happened.

Ethan made the golf ball all by himself. He had a lot of fun doing it.

The cake was covered in buttercream and chocolate fondant. Mmmm, mmmm, good.

Can you also see the silver edible dust I put on the irons?

My man and little men. Happy Birthday baby!