Lost Self Identity

I just scrolled through the most recent pictures I've taken of Logan in the last few months. Let me share a few of them (ok, most of them; we don't take many pictures) with you.

Notice anything in common? Yep, that red cowboy hat.

One day I was at Wal-Mart, saw this hat for $5, and on a whim I bought it. My original thought was that both Logan and Lizzy would enjoy playing dress up with it. In fact Lizzy, wore it pretty much the whole day that day. Somehow, with out our noticing it, Logan started wearing this hat Every. Single. Day. There are very few moments that Logan does not have it on his head, and occasionally, in those moments, Lizzy will get her hands on it. This freaks Logan out to the extreme, and he'll rip it out of her hands, which of course is always followed by hysterical screaming from Lizzy.

One night, earlier this week, James was gone, it was bedtime, and my nerves were frayed. Logan had taken off his hat for the night, and of course, Lizzy got her hands on it. Reacting as he normally does, Logan quickly reclaimed what he thinks belongs to him. Lizzy's screaming was a little too much for my frayed nerves.  I confiscated the hat and told Logan that the hat does not belong to him, it belongs to me. As punishment for being mean to Lizzy, he was not allowed to wear the hat the next day. If I thought Lizzy was crying hysterically, I was wrong. Logan's crying trumped hers.  He tried to argue with me about wearing his hat, but I kept insisting that he would not be allowed to wear the hat the next day. As his last resort of an argument, he said, through snot and tears, "but Mom, if I don't wear my hat, I won't be me"!

Somehow Logan still managed to be himself the next day, but his hat wearing resumed without fail the day after.

Look! He's hatless!

Shnaziversary

8 years ago I married a very amazing man.

Really handsome too, isn't he?

We were officially engaged December 2002 and married April 30, 2003.

We finished up college together, and excitedly looked forward to the rest of our lives together. You can't tell, but in this picture I wanted to puke. (Pregnant with Logan.)

Being new parents didn't stop us from being our young and silly selves.

We moved a few times trying to find the right place to settle down.

We found a great home in West Jordan, and worked on expanding our family to include Lizzy.

Even with a moody little girl in our lives, we are still happy.

And we still act young and silly together whenever we can.

We took our first grown up vacation this last year and now look forward to baby number 3.

Some have asked us if the "seven year itch" got to us, but we can both give that a resounding no. Our seventh year was the best one yet.  I'm the luckiest girl in the world to be married to James. He's 100% invested in his family, so what's not to love?  Year 8 should be great!

The Joys of Pregnancy

I can think of a few. (Keep in mind, I don't enjoy all of these, so I'll put a star next to the ones that I do enjoy at one point or another during pregnancy.)

*Throwing up
*Stretch Marks
*Swollen Feet
*Swollen hands
*Swollen everything
*Eczema so bad you feel like your bones are itching
*Hemorrhoids
*Constipation
*Lack of sleep because you are SO uncomfortable
Broken ribs
*Husband comments on how you look like a beached whale (he meant this in love, and I was not offended)
*Back aches
*Out of control weight gain
"The Mask" of pregnancy
*Having to pee in a cup every 4 then 2, then 1 weeks, and missing the cup because your belly is SO big you can't see what you're doing
*Taking horse pills every day (aka prenatal supplements), and oh yeah, the iron one too because your baby is sucking all of that away from you
*Cavities because the baby wants your calcium too
*The indignity of maternity pants
*Pubis symphisis dysfunction (you don't know it, but it hurts)
*Walking like a penguin
*Averaging 3 trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night

I've missed some. I know it. Why the list you ask?  Because of the last one on the list. The trips to the bathroom. I was on my second trip (it was only 11:15 and I had turned off the light at 10:45) and I realized how BLESSED I am to have indoor plumbing. Seriously, I can't imagine having to hike out to the outhouse 5 times a night, in a foot of snow, just because this baby loves hanging out on my bladder. The thought was almost enough to get me out of bed a third time to give that porcelain thrown a kiss.

I resisted.

 8 months pregnant with Logan

 8 months pregnant with Lizzy

 6 months pregnant now

 Newborn Logan

Newborn Lizzy

And here's where I am longing to see a newborn picture of Siri. 3 more months.

This post may seem like just a long list of complaints, but I followed it up with the most precious pictures you can imagine. I wouldn't trade the gift of being pregnant with my own children for anything. My heart breaks for the way too many couples who are infertile. Despite the many "hardships" of pregnancy, it really is a wonderful, magical experience. My Heavenly Father has blessed me greatly. 

Conference Monkey bread

I don't know how often my Mom made monkey bread for conference, but obviously it was often enough that I associate monkey bread with conference. Six months ago, I decided that I wanted to make conference day monkey bread a tradition in my own home. I emailed my sister (who I know makes it every conference) to ask her for the recipe. She uses a different bread recipe than my Mom did, but that doesn't matter. All you need is dough. So even though I will include my sister's bread recipe, keep in mind, you can use any bread recipe, or even use frozen dough, like rhodes rolls.


60 Minute Rolls

Combine:
3 1/2 C. flour
1/4 C. sugar
2 Tbsp. yeast

2 Tbsp. dry milk powder
1 tsp. salt


In a glass measuring cup combine:
1 1/2 C. hottest tap water
1/4 C. oil
Gradually pour the liquid into the dry mixture, stirring. Beat (by hand or mixer) for 1 minute.
Gradually add:
1 C. flour
and knead for 4 minutes. Cover and let rise for 15 minutes.

While it is rising, get two bowls.
Bowl 1: 1 stick of melted butter or margarine
Bowl 2: combine 1 1/2 cups of sugar with 2 tablespoons cinnamon.

Spray a bundt pan, and sprinkle some of the cinnamon sugar mixture on the bottom.

After the rolls have risen for 15 minutes, punch the dough down, and pinch off golf ball sized pieces. Drench them in butter and then roll them in the cinnamon sugar. Layer the dough balls in your pan. I like to sprinkle extra cinnamon sugar between the layers of dough balls.  Let rise another 15 minutes.

Cook in the oven at 375 for 20-25 minutes.  Dump them out and enjoy!

Memory Lane

I don't think it's any mystery to people who know me that I like cake.  Most of the time, I enjoy the opportunity to make a new creation, some of the time I don't. It's been a strange process for me to slowly gain confidence in my (still lacking) skills. I'm far from the point of feeling like a professional, but I am closer and closer to the point of wanting to charge a fair price for my cakes. I actually feel a lot of frustration over that part and here is why.  

For the most part, it is just my friends asking me to make cakes for them. I can't charge them too much for two reasons.  Number 1: they are my friends.  Number 2: they would just make do without the fancy cake and then I would have lost the opportunity to let my skills grow. I have had a few strangers, or less then close friends ask for cakes, and when I tell them what I want to charge, they don't hire me. James and I talked this through last night and decided that it's because I haven't set myself up to look like a professional; you know, a blog or what not with official pricing etc. The thing is, I just don't want to do that. I don't want to make cakes on a regular basis. I like the "every now and then" cakes. Plus...THE PRESSURE to make the perfect cake for a real paying customer! I just don't think I could handle it. 

Big sigh. Oh well. For now I am stuck in cake pricing limbo. One day (when I'm done birthing and raising little children) I may set something up more official where I feel like I can charge more official prices. Until then, I'm still learning and acquiring good skills, and I'm grateful for great friends who let me experiment on them.

This was Logan's cake two birthdays ago. He is very excited for his upcoming 5th birthday. He has specifically asked for a spider man cake, and I'm glad that I can deliver what he wants. Whenever he is invited to a birthday party, he constantly nags me what their cake will look like. Think he's surrounded by cake?

My third ever wedding cake. (Believe me, you don't want to see the first. I didn't even take a picture of it, that's how bad it was.)

 4th wedding cake. As is the case with most cakes I've made, I wish I could go back and do this one over. No particular reason other than I just know I could do it better now. Interesting side note: I had my wisdom teeth removed 1 hour after I delivered this cake. It was also our anniversary.

 I LOVED making this Phantom cake, but again, I want a redo. I could make that rose look so much more realistic!

 A fun experiment for my friend's birthday. 

 Doing these "birthday present" cakes feels like old hat to me now.

 Who doesn't love elmo?

 My latest creation, and one that I'm very proud of for a very specific reason. I dreamed it up all on my own! I normally have to steal ideas from a book or the internet. But not these Mickey Mouse cakes. These were all me! (All 15 of them!)

  Isn't it funny how the things that bring you the most frustration also bring you the most joy? I know we all feel that way about our children, but who else feels that way about their hobbies? Baking and decorating cakes brings out the very best and the very worst in me. Now I just need to figure out how to focus on the best and leave out the worst. 

Who's is He?

My mom made me make my bed every day.

I don't know what James' mom's rule was, but even if it wasn't required, I have no doubt that each of her children made their beds every day anyway.

One day when Logan was 2 years old, we asked him if he would start making his bed. That's all it took. He makes his bed about 6 out of 7 days of the week with out being asked. And on the days he forgets, he acts devastated when he discovers his unmade bed that night.

In another story, all it's own, Lizzy has started acting scared of sleeping in her own room. The only way she would sleep in there was if we put the rail back on her crib. I wasn't comfortable with that since Siri's due date just a few months away. So, last night I took Lizzy shopping for her new bedding. We moved all of her stuff into Logan's room and made up the lower bunk with her new blankets. Last night was their first official night of sharing a room together.

Miracle that I hope continues: they slept great. Granted, they did wake up about 30 minutes earlier than normal, but I expected that.

Now the story gets strange. I got myself up and dressed and as I walked past their room, I decided to poke my head in just for fun. What I saw was that both bunks were made up.

I return to my question; who's is he? The answer is obvious. He's a Mickelsen.

(FYI, I make our own bed every morning. Not James.)

New Challenges

This cake was full of new challenges for me.  Luckily, I have good and understanding friends who will let me experiment on their cakes.  I'll walk you through it, ok?  Not that you care, but I do, and this is my blog. :)

Challenge number 1:  The hibiscus flowers.  If you google how to make those, they will tell you to special order special tools to make them. I didn't want to to do that, so I combined all of the ideas I saw into one I knew I could do. I realize that a professional baker would make them look more realistic, but since the rest of the cake hardly looks realistic, I figure it works.

Challenge number 2: Making the Happy Birthday sign. I just don't have enough experience with gumpaste/fondant to know the best way to make the sign.  Now that I've made that one, I have some ideas on how to improve it.

Challenge number 3: Making the girl. I have never made a person out of fondant before and really wasn't sure of the best way to go about it. I got to make this little gal twice because she was too long the first time.

Challenge number 4: Painting the sunrise on the top tier. I know you are all asking yourselves, "That's a sunrise"?  Yeah, that's what it's supposed to be. I'm not so artistic and don't know how to paint at all. I watched a bunch of tutorials on youtube, but they still didn't seem to help. (I plan on taking a painting class some time in hopes that it will help me with future cakes.)

Challenge number 5: Making the coral.  I'm kind of the most proud of the coral. Underneath all that royal icing are small grape stems. The coral took a lot of patience and faith that it would look good. I may have yelled at the kids a time or two while I was making it. They kept hovering waiting for me to give them a glob of royal icing to eat.

Not a challenge:  Even though it was a first for me, making the seashells was not a challenge. I just used a chocolate mold and I have used chocolate molds before. Just not a seashell one, but that makes no difference. :)

Overall, this was a very fun cake to think up and create. I hope the birthday girl likes it, because I sure do. I'm usually quite critical of every cake I make, but I really am proud of this one. (Don't worry, I can still  point out the MULTIPLE flaws with it, but as James always assures me, you probably won't notice them like I do.)