Red velvet & cream cheese.

Tonight we celebrated my niece's birthday! She will be 10 on Monday, which is hard to believe. For the past couple years she has mentioned that she has wanted a luau themed birthday party.  This year my Mom made it happen-- and thankfully the threat of Hurricane Irene didn't rain it out. There was a brief down pour, and then we were back outdoors.

Since I make the cakes in the family, I was naturally asked to make the birthday cake-- actually it's kind of expected. Kind of random but the request by my niece was a red velvet cake. I don't think my sister was even aware that she had ever had red velvet cake. She wanted me to attempt to make the cake in the shape of a "Hawaiian Flower", and red velvet typically comes with cream cheese frosting.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate working with cream cheese frosting??  It tastes absolutely delicious! I'm a huge fan of anything with cream cheese in it, but it is a literal pain in my side for decorating. It just doesn't get the the right consistency necessary for decorating. I've tried a few different recipes and they have all turned out kind of goopy and runny which isn't conducive for a pretty cake unfortunately. So I'm not happy with the look, but here's the birthday girl and her cake-- I will say that it tasted great, and I came home with an empty cake pan. Daniel says, "you can't sacrifice taste for looks, who cares what it looks like?" I'll go with that on this one, although I am a little disappointed.

And can't resist a post without Leeland!!?

Fall Fever.

Many of my friends may smack me for saying this, but I am SO ready for cooler weather! I've never been much of a Summer person aside from the fresh fruits and veggies that can be found around this time. I've become even less of a Summer person now that I have a child. It will probably get easier as Leeland gets older but he's not much of a Summer boy either.
Leeland doesn't like the pool, he has sensitive baby skin, and I just feel terrible for him when his cheeks get SO rosy from the heat. It's even hard driving places-- since we live in an apartment and I have this fear of our car getting stolen, I can't exactly start it and get the A/C going.  So then we wind up getting into my VERY hot, black tiny car, and Leeland is just miserable. We still have him rear facing, which requires his seat to be in the middle of the back seat, which makes for not much air circulation and his whole body just turns so red.  Also who knew that plastic could get so hot? You expect the metal buckles to get warm on his seat, but really the plastic pieces almost heat up way more than the metal.
With all of that said, there are SO many things to look forward to when Autumn comes. Fall in North Carolina is pretty darn fabulous.

• Scarves
• Pumpkins! And pumpkin patches!
• Pretty leaves
• Comfy cardigans
• A car that's not too warm and not too cold
• Football!
• Delicious soups and chili's
• Holidays that revolve around food
• The Women's Only 5k, which I will probably walk this year
• Any excuse to eat or taste pumpkin-- Pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, pumpkin ale if you are able to drink
• Perfect weather to wear boots and tights
• Dressing up my little boy for Halloween and then eating all of his candy (sharing with Daniel of course)

Have I sold you guys on the beauties of Fall yet? Anything that you love about Fall that I left off of my list?

Where I've been....

I've been missing from the blogger world for a week or so now and I feel that once again I have to explain myself.  Two words-- MORNING SICKNESS.  Morning sickness really blows! (suddenly hears shouts of "amens" from fellow mommies.)  A friend of mine has this theory about children and pregnancy, she says that we Mommies get "pregnancy amnesia" after the baby is born. It is SO true!!! We have these miserable pregnancies where we are sick all the time, break out like a pre-teen, can't sleep and pee our pants (yes it happens... frequently) and then a year or two after the baby is born we start wondering, "what happened to my baby?", "I miss being pregnant!", "I'd love to have another!"..... NO!!  You just got all wrapped up in how darling your child is and you forget how miserable you were!  I have even found myself, as I'm lying in the bathroom floor hugging the toilet, saying to Daniel, "I don't remember it being this bad when I was pregnant with Leeland?!"  He cordially reminds me, "OH YES IT WAS, I remember."  Husbands are good for those helpful reminders when we aren't thinking clearly.

Seriously though, I have been SICK! And it really wasn't only morning sickness. This past week, I found myself with one of those 24 hour stomach viruses where I couldn't keep anything down for over a day-- not even water. We nearly went to the hospital, we called and spoke with one of the nurses and she gave me some handy tips to try first. (Praise God for a nurse that was understanding about us not really wanting to pay a hospital bill).

The good news though is that I am now 13 weeks-- and knock on wood, but much of this should be fading away soon!  In the mean time, I will continue to take advantage of the fact that this is the one period of time where I can play the, "I don't feel well card" and get away with being lazy around the house just a little bit longer. :0)

Our Ultrasound

I know, I know, you all are tired of hearing about the baby on the way-- well guess what, we have 30 more weeks of this. Just teasing-- we did go in for our more official ultrasound today where there was measurements and such. We had been basing our due date on my last cycle which puts me at 11 weeks. The measurements today put me at 10 weeks 5 days, so it was about the same.  In all reality the "due date" is really just a "guess date"-- nothing to write home about, the baby could come anytime 2 weeks before or 2 weeks after.  So our little one may not even be born in February!

Daniel and Leeland came this time and got to see the ultrasound.  It was really special to have them there. Daniel said it was really exciting and that he enjoyed getting to see the little fluttering heart.  Leeland sat in Daniel's lap eating goldfish and didn't really quite "get" what was going on.  Although I will say that he was a total ham and thoroughly enjoyed the attention he was getting from all of the ladies at the office.  And he brought home a fetal model of a baby that is 11-12 weeks-- just a little plastic baby.  He swiped it out of the basket and proceeded to put it in his mouth claiming the baby as his.  Kind of cool how the little model fit in his hands though-- which is how big his baby brother or sister is currently.  We did get a sweet little picture today that I wanted to share though. 

My latest love.

I recently ran across "Educated Mama Decals" on Facebook.  She makes vinyl decals that are used mostly for car windows but you can also put them on your cell phone, wallet, toys, or if your a sticker collector like me you just might have a guitar case covered in them.  I haven't ordered any yet (mostly because we're broke), but also because with baby #2 coming next year, there is talk of getting a minivan (fingers crossed)!!! And the stickers would need to go on the van so I can sport them around town.  But since I'm sharing, here are a few that I would LOVE to have.

 We are far from a "full" quiver of arrows, but I really love this scripture and Daniel and I like to tease each other and joke about our quiver. We truly our blessed with baby #2 on the way and I would totally sport this with only 2 arrows (so far). She does offer the option of ordering arrows "for the future."

 LOVE THIS! In case you don't know, the American Academy of Pediatrics recently changed their recommendation about rear facing your child until the age of 2. The current law is 1 years old and 20 pounds which is not appropriate for your wee one's developing neck. We are proudly still rear facing our 15 month old boy and will continue-- his seat will rear face to 45 pounds and he is always very low on the percentile charts for weight, so we have a long way to go before he'll be turned around!

 Love supporting breastfeeding! Many of you are aware of the struggles I had breastfeeding Leeland. SO many latch issues in the beginning which required SO much pumping, then working hard to get him back on to the breast-- and shortly after that, a battle with post-partum depression wiped me out. It was a sad sad time for me. I'm proud to have breast fed for a little over 3 months (that's more than most babies get), but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed also. With #2 on the way, that is one of the things I am most looking forward to! Giving breastfeeding another shot and this time I am determined to succeed!! So what I had a bad 1st time!? This is a whole different baby and a much more experienced Momma.

Yay for cloth diapers!! This one is pretty self explanatory. Just wanting to advocate and spread the word about cloth diapers. I still run into people that picture flats and plastic pants when I say cloth diapers. Cloth diapers are a whole different ball game from when my parent's were babies. SO many options out there, so many cool designs and something that would work for every family.