I’m a *little* nervous about Emily’s Last Post

norunning.jpg

Because seriously, talking about running gives me HIVES. I can’t run a BLOCK, people, much less a 5K. And I don’t want to. When it comes to exercise, I prefer not to. BUT I also don’t want to be obese and die young, so I do Pilates. Um, at least I did until about a year ago. The time has come to get my butt in gear because now that I’ve finally weaned Sophie, I’m no longer burning those magic milk-making calories. And, I only have 60 days until BlissDom ’09 (which you all really need to attend!! Emily and I will both be there, and for some reason they are letting me speak. Say what??) at which I need to look HAWT, so…

…Monday I am back on the Pilates wagon. And maybe in nine or ten weeks, when Emily runs a 5K, I will no longer have a muffin top. Or stretch marks. Or that giant wrinkle on the right side of my forehead.

One can dream, right?

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The Great Birthday Cake Saga of 2008

So, a couple of weeks ago when I posted about my yearly birthday cake freak-out, many of you left comments with good cake ideas. My husband also left a comment that simply said “P”. That’s because Sophie LOVES letters, and P is her favorite letter. So, his idea was that I make her a letter P cake.

I really wanted to make her a Little Einsteins cake, but all the ideas I found online seemed WAY too hard, and as I looked at each photo, my blood pressure went up and up. I could feel my feet and fingers begin to swell! So, then I decided, maybe I would make her a cake that looked like a Magna-Doodle, because that is about her favorite toy. She lee-oves it. She loves for us to write letters on it for her and then she tells us what the letters are and then scribbles away happily until she fills the screen. Then we start the process over again. So, I decided I was going to make a Magna-Doodle cake.

Then about three days before her party, I started to freak out that it would be too hard, that it would just look like a colorful rectangle and not a Magna-Doodle, and that I would have to mix too many colors of icing (which was what about sent me over the edge last year). So, I decided my husband was right! (Gasp!) I decided I should make her a letter “P” cake. Bobby would cut the shape out for me out of a rectangle cake and then I’d frost it. Easy peasy!

Except I didn’t hear the timer go off on the oven and the cake got a *smidge* overdone and a huge chunk of it stuck to the pan, leaving a giant sunken portion in the middle of the cake, making it near impossible to cut a letter P out of it!

AAAARRRRRGH!!

Blood. Pressure. Rising!!

This was about 9 p.m. the night before the party, and I was just done. I was near tears, and decided I would just make cupcakes. But then, my sweet, capable husband pieced the thing back together, cut the cake in half, and carved a P out of half the cake, somehow making the broken part become the center of the P that we would have to cut out anyway. YAY! The day was saved! The P was just a little smaller than I’d originally intended, so I did make the cupcakes so that there would be enough cake for everyone.

After we got the P cut out, I went to work frosting it. I thought for a little diva like Sophie, and pink-and-purple P would be appropriate! So here’s what I ended up with:

Sophie's Letter P cake

And here’s how I ended up feeling:

whipped is right.

The next day, we had a great party, and Sophie loved her cake! Well, actually, she ended up eating a cupcake, but when I showed her the P cake, she gave me a very satisfying “WOW!”

cupcake happiness

Which coincidentally, is the same way I feel about HER!

P.S. I entered this post in the linky at Blissfully Domestic to show how darn domestic I am! Go read about the domestic feats of others here!

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My Baby’s Almost Two! What’s a Mom to Do?

joyful, joyful

Sophia Diane will be two in just ten days. TEN DAYS!?! How is that possible? When she was a crazy baby, Bobby would always say, “I can’t wait til she’s 2! Then she’ll be so much easier to deal with.” Hmm…sort of. Since that statement, and all our parenting assumptions in general were based on our experience with Joshua, the World’s Easiest Baby/Toddler, that hasn’t *exactly* panned out. But she is finally talking more, FINALLY weaned, and she has been sleeping really well through the night for almost a year now.
So she is getting to be more like a little person, and she is as SWEET as can be, my friends. Sweet as sugar. (Except for when she’s screaming her head off in a chicken costume while we’re trying to get ready for trick-or-treat. Then she’s just SCARY. See?)

scary chicken

Not that any of this matters. What REALLY matters, mah peeps, is WHAT THE HECK KIND OF CAKE AM I GOING TO MAKE HER FOR HER BIRTHDAY!?!?!?

Yes, it’s time for my yearly Birthday Cake Freak Out!

Because, as we all know:

The amount of time and effort you put into the birthday cake = how much you love your child.

Right, Emily?

So HALP ME, Peeps! What kind of cake should I make?

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