Hello March.

Well, blogging in February was pretty much a bust. Whoops. Add 16-hour days to a trip to Vegas (for my friend's birthday) and the busiest cake-baking month EVER and it pretty much sets me up for blogging failure. Oh well. It's a good thing that there are only ten or so people who read this blog and would be disappointed by my lack of consistency. And all ten of them completely understand my situation. Or least pretend they do... at least to my face. :)

Anyway. I have lots of pictures of the boys, but I have yet to organize them. In the meantime, these are the masterpieces I was busy with last month:

Birthday cake for my mother-in-law's surprise party.

 If anyone is into cake decorating, I did the rose cake above in regular buttercream topped with marshmallow fondant I made myself (recipe I used is here). I made all of the roses out of royal icing, let them dry overnight (though I should have left them longer) and glued them to the fondant with leftover royal icing. It worked perfectly! Royal icing will melt if it comes into contact with grease, but I guess the fondant and royal icing had dried enough not to be affected. Yay!

This was for a friend's daughter's Sofia the First birthday party

The quilting took FOREVER, but totally worth it, yes?

 I had never made the swags (purple curtain-looking things) before, but I thought I did pretty well overall. I had never done the quilting effect either, but think I did okay on that too.

We'll get back to regular programming (*ahem* pics of the boys) later. For now I just wanted to brag. :)

My trip to Chicago

Since Johnny was born, I haven't been on a vacation. Yes, I've been here and there to visit family, but let's face it, since the kids are there, they were more like "business trips" than vacations. The longest I have been away from Johnny is about 30 hours when my in-laws took care of him for a weekend so John and I could prepare his "big boy" room. I have been away from Hank for 8 consecutive hours in his one year of life. And he stayed with John the whole time and it most certainly wasn't overnight. I have always been a phone call away from my boys should anything happen or if I just needed to see them.

Last weekend of my best girlfriends from high school got married... and I wasn't about to let any offspring keep me from being in Chicago for her wedding. I definitely agonized over how long I was going to be gone, since I wanted to go a little early to actually hang out with her but I wasn't crazy about leaving my kids for so long. In the end, John stepped up and said I should just go. He has been on many trips in the last few years and he insisted I should go on this one. So, I purchased an airline ticket that left San Diego at 6PM on Thursday and returned me home on Sunday at 10:30am.

That Thursday was such a long day. I was having horrible anxiety attacks whenever I thought about leaving my babies. I'm talking, nausea, stomach pains, the shakes - the works - new for me since I'm not usually anxious enough to feel physically ill. I kept thinking that if I really needed to, I could take Hank with me since he would be a lap child on the plane and didn't need a ticket... but that would effectively ruin any chance I had of enjoying every minute of my trip. Finally, it was time to go. I kissed Johnny goodbye (Hank was napping) and walked out the door for three days on my own with minimal tears.

It was a long time, but it went by ridiculously fast.

The best things about being on a vacation for me:
- I got to shower AND brush my teeth every. single. day.
- I didn't wake up in the middle of the night to a screaming toddler.
- I didn't have to prepare food for 13 hours straight.
- I could leave out whatever I wanted wherever I wanted. For instance, my iPhone? I left it on a low nightstand more than once. And guess what? It was there when I went to get it! Incredible.
- I got to sit for two uninterrupted hours while sipping a coffee, reading a book and people-watching with no one to worry about but me.
- I got to go to the bathroom BY MYSELF!!!

And I had a BLAST. I got to hang out with my girlfriend, whom I hadn't seen since I got married (!) and meet her friends and her fiance, as well as catch up with her family, whom I hadn't seen in a decade. The whole day and the wedding itself was so much fun since I got to spend the entire time with another good friend from high school. We navigated the public transit system of Chicago all by ourselves and then drank entirely too much wine at the reception.

All in all, it was a successful trip. I mean, my friend did end up getting married and that was the whole point, so I consider it a win. 

Congratulations, Mo!!! You were beautiful and your wedding was beautiful and your people were beautiful.

P.S. I did get some pretty great shots, but I don't want to publish them here for the world to see. This one is on facebook, so I figured it was safe. :)

Pinterest = Awesome

For those of you who are not on Pinterest... I'm almost a little jealous because you probably have more free time than I do. But I pity you as well. Why, you ask? Because Pinterest has changed my life in many small ways.

Just in case you don't know what Pinterest is, it's a site that is set up like a bulletin board on which you can "pin" favorite things you find the Internet. So instead of finding a great article and then bookmarking it and never looking at it again, you can make a bulletin board on Pinterest called "Articles" and save the location for later perusal. The best part is you can see what other people are "pinning" to their boards and you can find some majorly cool stuff.

For instance, these bad boys:

These are Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies. And they are everything a cookie with that kind of name should be. I made them this week just for the heck of it and I was not disappointed. Just the sheer size of these cookies made them worthwhile:

Yes, they are (okay, okay, were) amazing. And I would never have found them without Pinterest. Other cool things I have found and have done:

Felt flowers
Power cord labels
Andes Mint Cupcakes
Ruler growth chart
Meal Plan dry erase board

Admittedly, only a few of things I have pinned have actually been realized, but it's fun to take a look at things that other people find. I've found a couple of awesome blogs through Pinterest and have found some of what I consider my style... which is a big deal considering I've had NO style for a while now.

Bottom line: If you're not pinning, you should be. It's awesome.

Just wait.

I am so sick of hearing those two little words: Just wait.

When I was pregnant with Johnny and complaining about being tired since my pregnant body wouldn't let me get into a comfortable position, people said, "Just wait until that baby comes, THEN you'll be tired!"

When I managed to get down to my pre-pregnancy weight after only four months of having Johnny people said, "Just wait until you have your second baby! THEN we'll see how easy the weight comes off."

When I was talking about how mobile Johnny was when he learned to crawl and how fun it was, people said, "Just wait until he can walk! THEN we'll see how great you think it is."

When I was pregnant with Hank and complaining about being able to just sit down while taking care of Johnny (because he was a Nazi about people resting at all) people said, "Just wait until you have TWO babies! THEN we'll see how tired you are."

When I would tell people about how I wanted to go without pain meds for Hank's birth people said, "Just wait until you feel those labor pains! Then we'll see how fast you ask for those pain medications."

And a couple of days ago, while talking to another mother of two about how the first two months with two babies haven't been as bad as I was expecting, she said, "Oh, just wait! It'll get worse, I promise you."

I admit that I have said those two little words on occasion, but after that mother made her comment a couple of days ago, the negativity of them has finally clicked.

The people around me, strangers and friends alike, that I have talked to about anxieties, fears, complaints or even what I'm proud of have downplayed my emotions by telling me that my future is a black abyss of exhaustion and frustration. That the only good thing I have going for me is that this moment doesn't suck nearly as much is the next moment will.

I refuse to believe that.

So when the pregnant mom with her 15-month-old girl asked me what it is like to have two babies so close together, because she'll be there in two short months, I told her that it hasn't been as bad as everyone told me it would be. Yes, I'm tired, but it's not worse than the exhaustion I felt with the first one and it's outweighed by how much less your second baby cries because you know what you're doing. She walked away with a smile.

The next time you're about to tell someone, "just wait [insert snarky comment here]"... just don't. Say something positive, you'll feel better about it.

Has anyone else had that "just wait" thing thrown in their face?

Johnny's "big boy" room

John and I set up Johnny's big boy room at the end of May and I promised pictures... so here they are! Finally!

We managed to get the exact same crib as the one in the nursery on clearance at Babies R Us.

I know this one is dark, but you can see the window with the blackout curtains and the dark blue valence.

This is a ruler growth chart that John made. I saw it on Pinterest and asked John to recreate it, so he did!

Truck wall decal.

The theme of the room was "construction" so I got him bedding (just a crib sheet) with trucks all over it and the wall decals are all construction-related. The green truck with the pile of black dots? Took FOREVER to get on the wall. Worth it, though.

We don't spend a lot of time in Johnny's room because it gets really really hot, but the whole thing is child-proofed nonetheless. That way if Johnny ever climbs out of his crib while we're still sleeping we don't have to worry about him pulling the dresser over on himself. Because John bolted it to the wall. Genius.

Tomatoes?!

So last year, I planted 7 tomato plants. Oh yes, SEVEN tomato plants. I nourished them and took very gentle care of them throughout the summer... but never ended up eating a single tomato from any of them. Then five of the plants were eaten by cutworms and I figured that the other two would be killed by the winter... but I was wrong!

Turns out all I had to do was ignore the plants to get them to grow and flourish. Go figure.

Freedom Garden

I've been working on trying to grow some of my own vegetables both as a hobby and because I want Johnny to learn about where food comes from when he's old enough. I figure that I need to do some practicing before Johnny's old enough to watch seeds grow. Turns out I'm not too bad at growing eggplants.

After a mere six months of growth, I finally have eggplants growing! Yay!!!

Meal Planning!

I have become a pretty religious meal planner. I sit down on Sunday afternoon/night with John and plan out what we will be eating for dinner the entire week. Then on Monday, Johnny and I go out and get our groceries for the week including snack stuff, possible breakfast items, etc. It's awesome. I only have to drag Johnny to the store once a week, sometimes more than that if I forgot something. PLUS it makes it easier to incorporate vegetables into our meals since I plan to include them. And it makes to try new recipes every week so that I can widen my repertoire of meals to choose from. And it relieves that stress I get around 3:30pm when I stop and think, "Uh oh, what am I making for dinner?!" Basically, I love meal planning and there are some other bloggers I read that do the same thing, so I'm going to try to keep this up every week and let you know how my new recipes turn out... and you can always give me new things to try!

Monday: Sam the Cooking Guy's Fish Stick Tacos and refried beans (I have yoga in the evening so dinner has to be quick and easy)
Tuesday: Elk burgers and corn on the cob (John is hosting poker, so dinner has to be quick and easy again)
Wednesday: Spinach Quiche and salad
Thursday: Leslie's Butternut Squash Soup and Sam the Cooking Guy's Pesto Grilled Cheese
Friday: Honey Nut Chicken (my own modified recipe) and salad

NBR: My newest hobby

 I took a cookie decorating class a month ago and have been practicing my decorating skills all month so that I could make a cookie bouquet for some friends of ours who hosted a pumpkin carving party (more on that tomorrow). So this is what I made:

Not bad, huh?

NBR: The Flowbee Fiasco

So remember when Johnny got his hair cut? And I mentioned that John wanted us to cut it ourselves?

Well, John's clippers broke, unfortunately, but John thought that cutting Johnny's hair with a Flowbee would be easy (win!). Plus, he could use it on his own hair and not leave clippings all over the bathroom counter (double win!). So he ordered a Flowbee.

Of course, the second it arrived, we had to pull it out of the box and try it out. Do you remember the "Suck 'N Cut" from Wayne's World? Yeah, that's what it is. It consists of clippers that are connected to a hose which is then plugged into a vacuum cleaner. The idea is that the vacuum sucks the hair up and the clippers cut it. There are guards that attach to the clippers so you can adjust the length of hair that is sucked up and clipped.

When we pulled it out Johnny was definitely fascinated by the hoses.

John, on the other hand, was ready for the cutting action of the Flowbee to commence!

And here's what we ended up with:

So... he purchased a cheap pair of clippers. And is back to normal... a little short, but  normal.

Needless to say, the Flowbee will be up for sale on Craigslist soon.

Non-baby-related: Highlight

When I was teaching, I was very careful to avoid being "friends" with students on facebook until after they graduated. Once they graduated, we could be "friends," but until then, I felt it was inappropriate since, well, I was practically their age. Now that I'm not a teacher anymore, I am "friends" with some of my former students on facebook, which often can be a weird experience (especially when they post pictures of themselves doing things like consuming alcohol while underage or wearing scandalous clothing), but sometimes it can make my day week. One of my students posted the following comment on my wall:

So sweet, right? Thank you, my former student, for making me feel like a made a difference in your life.