{Almost} Wordless Wednesday

This is what happens when we forget to let the bath water out immediately and wait until after the diaper and pjs have been donned!

Bubbles, Bubble, My Bubbles

So I've come to grips with the fact that the above quote is practically unrecognizable. Sure. There are other more famous quotes about bubbles and toils and troubles...but it just didn't fit!

Where might that quote have originated...? Find!ng Nemo of course (one of my all time favorite movies)! Bubbles (so aptly named) is thoroughly fascinated and otherwise obsessed with bubbles. Considering he lives in a fish tank, he's not short on outbursts in which he exclaims, "Bubbles, bubbles. My bubbles!"

Addie does not seem to have a full blown {no pun intended} obsession with bubbles, but she sure does find them fascinating!

I took these pictures back at the end of April but never got the post done. I apparently had forgotten how to blow bubbles, but quickly remember with some assistance. I really think it was the bubble wand and not me, but oh well! I've overcome that now, much to Addie's relief!

We spent several afternoons outside {when it was significantly cooler during our 2.5 days of spring} playing on the front porch. It's great because it gives Addie a somewhat confined but larger play area without me having to fear the cars speeding by!

As you can see, she thoroughly enjoyed herself! I have a video somewhere of her playing with the bubbles while Abbey tries to eat them, but I'm having technical complications with videos right now.

Everyone {Abbey and Fuzz included} enjoyed the bubbles!

And I even managed to get Abbey to pose for me!

Happy Bubbling!

You Can Have Bake Your Cake and Eat It Too!

As I mentioned in this {post}, I had the honor of making my best friend's daughter's 5th birthday cake this past weekend! We explored many options. You know, the typical: ...Princess cake...Hannah Mon@tna cake...B@rbie cake, etc, etc.

But their favorite cake was a 3 tiered cake made with fondant...in Hannah Mont@na colors of course!

Well, it was quite the experience! I'd never worked with fondant, but I was just itching to give it a try. And thankfully Di and Ellie were crazy daring enough to give me the chance! The Wi!ton's fondant we bought was D-I-S-G-U-S-T-I-N-G, although it looked pretty! So, I found this recipe for Marshmallow fondant. It was easy to make, but I think I gained a few pounds in arm muscle from kneading it!

I'll spare you pictures of the first two cakes I made for practice, but Paul's co-workers seemed to enjoy them!

So here's my Adventure in Cake Making!

It all started out simple, baking 6 layers of cake in three different sizes. But it got a tad complicated after our dog ate half a layer:

But we I recovered.

So it was onto letting the layers cool, stacking and icing each tier, and waiting for the icing to set.

I'd made the fondant the day before because apparently it's better when you let it sit for a day (in the fridge). But it had to be colored. I managed to color the light pink, dark pink, and purple. But by the time it came to the turquoise, I begged Paul to come in and knead the colors in because my hands were so tired. It turned out to be my favorite color!

Then it was on to rolling out the fondant for the layers and finally cutting out the shapes for decorating! It was really cool to see the progression of:

But then I loved finishing all the layers and watching:

So off we went to the birthday party! It was quite the experience trying to transport it. I know, Ace of C@kes puts theirs together on-site...but that wasn't an option and I'm no Ace of any Cake!

The party was at Pump !t Up.

So imagine this:
4 HUGE blow up things.

2 with slides

a double wide jumpy jump!

10-15 five year olds + moms and 2 dads

and Addie

Well I wasn't going to let her age size or lack of mobility keep her us from having fun. So off we trekked up the very steeply inclined ladder with kid sized rungs meant for climbing with both hands leading up to the top of a very tall slide...held up only by AIR, all while carrying a 30 pound bag of potatoes baby!

and sliding down! Addie strictly forbids you to click on this picture for fear of being dreadfully embarrassed of her mother's fearful look! I love roller coasters, but honestly people, that slide was steep, slick, and FAST!

But you can't have a ball in a room without Addie honing in on it! The 5 year olds were playing with a tennis ball and one kid let it go. Well, Addie was off after it at lightening speed, daring any 5 year old to get in her way! She pounced on it; and as you can see, didn't miss a beat!

One of our friends from church was there and her little sister came along too. Anna (the little sister) has been walking since she was 8 months old. So while she was a tad much surer on her feet, Addie kept right up with her. They were so cute together!

Daddy was a great sport about the whole thing. He drove while I held the cake and yelled kindly requested that he quit taking turns at such high speeds. Ok people, in all reality he probably wasn't driving that fast, I was just trying to make sure the cake didn't melt or slide off!

It was by no means perfect. It had bumps and dimples that I just couldn't seem to smooth out. The top layer wasn't completely centered. And it near about drove me crazy to look at these pictures...but this:

sure did make one precious 5 year old a very happy birthday girl! Happy Birthday El-Bell! We love you!

I think Addie might have enjoyed herself a tad bit too!

...ya think?

the Proof is in the Pudding Walking!

I finally found my little Canon Powershot that we use to video. I had uploaded a picture from it a few weeks ago and let Addie play with it. Well...she lost it. I say lost it in the loosest sense though. Maybe I should say she hid it?

Well, whatever you call it, I had to do an all out search:

under the lazyboy {type} chair

in between the big chair cushions

underneath her playhouse

in her toy bins

underneath the marble top table

And found it...?

Slid into the edge of the fireplace. Now, before you think we're letting our child play in the fireplace, let me say this: we have the gas turned off and the gas logs covered so she won't play in it. So technically speaking, she wasn't playing in anything, she just hid my camera in it!

All that being said, I finally got our baby girl on video walking. She's so much more sure on her feet than she was a week ago. She can actually walk over her toys now without falling. She often self-corrects and regains her balance; but still other times, she just plops down on her hands and knees and takes off crawling!

And an fyi: she doesn't normally have her paci during the day except at naps, but she getting at least 2 more teeth right now so I decided not to pick that battle today!

Enjoy! (they are all really short)

(she found a little puddle of water to play in here)









(I put a toy on the metal planter so she'd walk towards it...so that's what she's "getting")

Well there you have it people! Let the chasing begin!

Wordless Wednesday

"Not Me!" Monday

Well, it's that time again. Make sure to check out MckMama's blog and see what she (and others) have not been up to this week!

Here goes:

Addie did not just grab my Blackberry, chunk it to the floor, and crack the screen. I don't let my child play with my phone...not!

Fuzz the cat did not kill an actual rodent this time (I just can't consider a squirrel a rodent, except for the one living in our wall, and certainly don't consider a bird one!). I did not take pictures of this poor mouse. I will in fact spare you the picture in an effort to have a "Not Me!" post without the remains of a poor victim of our cat! This mouse did not in fact still have all the necessary body parts, unlike the squirrel and bird! We do not have mice anywhere in the vicinity of our house.

Addie is not tall enough to reach up onto our end table. She is not constantly pulling things off of it. She did not reach up with both hands, grab my Dr. Pepper and promptly dump it on her face/head resulting in seriously hurt feelings shocked baby girl! She did not immediately recover and try again! I do not drink Dr. Pepper, and I do not leave them sitting on tables!

We did not walk out this morning only to realize that our across the street neighbors had finally rented their house out. Their new renters certainly did not run over our yard in the exact place where we were trying to regrow grass from having our sewer line replaced two plus months ago! He did not come over and apologize today, which certainly did redeem him!

However, this rut in our yard was not filled with water days after it had rained. While trying to fill it back in, I did not realize that our entire water meter hole was full of water. That is not (in fact) supposed to happen. The water company did not come out on a Sunday, and he did not tell us that we were responsible for the leaky coupler. We did not have to call our plumber who spent 3 days here 2 months ago. They are not (they are) going to pay to fix it! Whew!

I did not volunteer beg to bake our best friend's daughter's 5th birthday cake. We did not decide to use fondant instead of icing. It was not the first time I'd ever tried fondant. The store bought fondant did not taste disgusting, so we did not make our own! I did not bake a cake on Sunday and a cake on Wednesday for practice. On Friday, I was not baking the 5th of 6 layers for the 3 tiered cake when I ran out of the kitchen to put Addie down for a nap. I did not come back and find this:

I did not in fact drop half the cake on the floor (i didn't!). However, much to your surprise I am sure, our newly certified Canine Good Citizen did not have a midday snack! This cake did not have to 1.) cool, 2.) be stacked, 3.) iced, 4) set, 5.) have fondant rolled and placed on it, 6.) decorated, and 7.) finally be stacked as the middle layer of a 3 tiered cake...and now have to be rebaked! I was not so furious at the dog that I threatened her within an inch of her life, tossing her in her bathroom and ignoring her for an hour after the fact. I would never leave a cake that close to the edge of a counter with such a well behaved dog in the house...not me!

I did not have to rebake the entire top layer at 7pm because it proceeded to crumble when I iced it. I did not have so much fun doing this (I did!), and I will not be posting pictures of the finished product soon! :)

Addie has finally not cut 2 more molars at once. This has been happening for only 3 weeks now. These two have thankfully not been much easier (they have!). We are not so thankful for this! Three down, one to go!

And that's my "Not Me!" Monday!

I've been so excited to see others join in on the fun through their blogs. Way to go Kelly and Rebecca!

How about you? What have you not done this past week!