Houston, We have a Problem

I was in Gavin's room packing his suitcase for our trip to Florida when he decided to join me.  He quickly realized his froggie and paci were in his bed and he wanted them, BADLY.  The rule in our house is he only gets his frog and pacifer when he is going to sleep and they have to stay in his crib.  So, naturally, as he continued to express his hearts desire for his items, I placed him in his crib and let him have at them while I continued to pack him up.  After a few minutes Gavin wanted out of his crib, but wasn't willing to leave his paci and froggie.  So, he took matters into his own hands. 

I realize this video doesn't show the entire "problem" fully or completed, however, please know that he successfully completed his task multiple times, EXCEPT for when I tried taping him.  When we return from Florida we will be having to change things up a little.  Our goal was to wait until we moved to Saudi to put Gavin in a big boy bed, but we don't think we can wait 3 more months! 

**Scroll down to the bottom and pause the music so you can hear him. 

Latest Projects

It's been exactly a year since I decided not to teach this year, in order to stay home before we moved.  I remember thinking what in the world am I going to do with all my time?  Well, I think it's safe to say that  I have found several new interests to fill my time with.  

This past week I worked on two cakes and two baby door signs for some friends and clients.  Now that all these projects have been completed, I realized that these projects were fun for me!!  I made sure that I didn't put any pressure on myself, took time while working on the projects to take breaks and hang out with Gavin.  I even went shopping one day!   I purposed it in my heart, that I wasn't going to allow any part of these projects to stress me out and it worked!  I'm really thankful to have these hobbies and have enjoyed them a lot.  I actually don't have any more cake orders or cakes planned so I'm going to get a nice little break for a while.  Brooks and I are starting to work on our checklist that must be complete before our departure date so I'm going to spend time getting those things taken care of.  

Here's a cake I made for one of my best friend's baby shower that I helped host on Saturday.  The top tier was chocolate with chocolate mousse filling, the center tier was red velvet (the mommy to be's favorite), and the bottom was white cake with almond/vanilla filling.   Addison Ray Carpenter will be here sometime next month and we can't wait to meet her!  I also made a door sign for Addison's nursery and for her parents to use on their hospital room door.  

I've been selling baby door signs for almost 2 months now and have been enjoying getting to be creative with different nursery themes, colors, etc.  I made this door sign for a friend of mine from church whose best friend was having a baby.  Her room colors were pink and brown.  I think this sign is my new favorite-- now if I only I could learn how to make pretty bows.  

Here is a cake I made for a 7 year olds birthday party.  Her mom told me that she LOVES bright pink, lime green, and black!  This is the "theme" I came up with.  I had so much fun making this cake and was really excited about the way it turned out.  For the little girls birthday party, her mom rented a limo and is taking her and her friends to get their nails done.  How fun is that?!!?  This is a 2 tiered cake- the top tier is chocolate and the bottom tier is white with cookies-n-cream filling. Yummy!!

Audrey Cate

A few weeks ago I posted that my brother, Bryan, and sister in law, Anna, welcomed their daughter, Audrey Cate into the world!  She came 10 weeks early and is still in the hospital getting cared for by some amazing NICU nurses.  One of them made a PRECIOUS tutu for her.  I think she's THE cutest thing I've ever seen!

Audrey has been doing really well with her daily tasks.  She has started eating on her own and is gaining weight daily.  She is currently 4lbs 4oz.  This is a big jump for her for being born at 3lbs.  I had the opportunity the day she was born to see her for a few minutes and it was a very special time!!  I'm so thankful to have had that time with her; to love on her; and to pray over her.  I miss her tons and think about her daily.  We're all hoping and waiting anxiously for the day to come when she gets to go home with her mommy and daddy AND meet her big brother, David.  Thank you for continuing to lift her up in prayer.  

Too cute for Words

Gavin's friend, Peyton, came over on Monday and spent the morning with us.  I had been telling Gavin all day Sunday that she was coming over and when he woke up Monday I reminded him again and he attempted to say Pe-tn.  It was cute.

Peyton came over and the kids hung out in the playroom and watched cartoons.  They played with blocks, cooked on Gavin's kitchen, read books, and much more.  I was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher and looked up and saw them sitting in the chair together-- it was beyond words too cute!  I quickly snapped this picture.

Sesame Street came on and to say these guys were excited would be an under statement.  They squealed with excitement and both danced around waiting for Elmo to appear.  

We took a walk around the neighborhood in the double stroller we picked up from our neighbors garage sale a few weeks ago (not for us, but for Bryan and Anna, they just haven't come and picked it up yet).  Gavin and Peyton had fun going around the block- we saw lots of birds and squirrels.   

I let the kids play outside for a while in the garage before it was time for lunch.  They took turns pushing each other in the toy car.

Yes, they shared!

We started blowing bubbles and chased them out of the garage and Peyton found some visitors on the side of our house.  She was very interested in these ducks or birds (I don't know what they are), they weren't real interested in her though.  

Gavin, on the other hand, did not want to have ANYTHING to do with those ducks so he ran back into the garage and bounced on his cow!

After the kids played their hearts out in the garage, they were ready for some lunch.  

They played some more and then both began expressing their desire to take a nap.  I decided to make a pallet on the floor since it wasn't quite nap time yet and we played peek a boo with all the blankies.  I walked away to grab my phone and came back into the room and found them laying down.  Now, THIS is too cute for words!

I think it's safe to say Gavin is going to miss his friend, Peyton, when we move.  

Being Called Mom

Last night I was woken up by Gavin crying.  Brooks got up with him because usually when I go in his room he doesn't always let me leave as easily.  When Brooks came back to bed, I couldn't sleep.  So I laid there staring at my clock trying to fall asleep until I heard Gavin again.  This time, it wasn't just cries I heard from him... he called out, "mama, mama".  My heart skipped a beat and I immediately jumped out of bed.  Brooks offered to go to his room again, but I said NO WAY.  He called for his momma!  (which was a first for him to do from his crib)

I went into Gavin's room and did what any mom would do to calm their child down.  I rocked him in his rocker.  I rocked him in our recliner.  I laid the recliner down and let him sleep on my chest.  I laid on the couch with him to help him sleep.  Nothing worked!  Two hours later, he asked me for juice.  Needless to say, I got him some juice.  At that point, Brooks was getting ready to leave for work (yes, Gavin was up from 3-5am) so he decided to try to put Gavin down and see if he would fall asleep... and he did!!  He slept til 9:30am.  It was great-- I even got to sleep in a little.

I wrote all of that to say that my heart is filled with so much joy getting to love on my little boy.  It was wonderful to feel needed and wanted by him.  Everyday he does something that makes me love him even more then I thought I could.  Yet, last night having him cuddle up with me and hug me was priceless.  A while back, Gavin started twirling my hair while I'm holding him on my hip and he pretty much twirled my hair the entire night.  Not sure where he got the idea from, but it seems to be something he likes.

Since Gavin's night was not easy on him, I decided to make today a fun and enjoyable day for him.  I love how God tends to remind me how I'm not in control of things.  I had our entire day planned to a "T" in order to get a bunch of things done and instead, I threw it all out the window.  We hung around the house during the morning and were lazy.  I let Gavin have butter AND syrup on his waffle AND I gave him 2 cups of chocolate milk.  Gavin played around with his toys and  I worked on a baby sign order that was due and then realized I had to make a trip to Hobby Lobby to pick up some ribbon that I had run out of.  I didn't mind having to go to HL but told myself that today was all about Gavin so we made a FAST trip.  After HL I took him to Chick-Fil-A and then ran to Toys R Us where we picked up some Mega Lego Blocks and a Basketball goal for outside.  He seemed to have a great day and only took a 30 minute nap.  We're not real sure what last night was all about, but we're hoping he won't have any more nights like that one for a while.

Garage Sale

Saturday Morning:

6:00am- Wake Up

6:30am- Set stuff out on driveway

7:00am- Open for business

7:05am- Pray the rain stays away

7:30am- Pray people will show up

7:34am- 5 people arrive and start our garage sale

8:00am- Gavin wakes up and joins us

8:05am-10am- non stop selling stuff

10:30am- Bored.  

11:15am- Decide to shut her down!

This was Gavin and I during the one hour of SLOW NESS!!

Here is what was left around 10:00am

We did a lot better than what we thought we were going to do.  So, we were pleased with the outcome.  A lot of clothes that were left over we are going to bring to our church to help those in need and the rest is going to Goodwill.  Having this garage sale makes us realize our move is coming soon!

Pull up a Chair

Gavin has moved up in the world.    He now sits at the table with us, without a tray.  Our neighbors had a garage sale a few weeks ago and we picked this booster seat up from them.  We decided to set it up this weekend and see how Gavin would like it, and he LOVES it.  The best part about this was I bought him some place mats for his birthday and Christmas so now we get to use them.  He stares at the pictures on them while we eats.  

  

Speaking of the dinner table, Gavin has decided that he wants to join Brooks and I when we pray.  Now, since he was little we've always encouraged him to pray with us, but this past week he started wanting to hold our hands while we pray (that's what we do when praying).  It was THE cutest thing when we realized why he wasn't eating and it was because he was ready to pray.  The way we figured it out was when he bowed his head once he was holding our hands.  Our hearts were FILLED with so much joy to see our little man praying.  He has even mastered saying amen afterwards. 

Spring Fun

We have been LOVING the warm weather Houston has had this past week and are taking advantage of getting to get outside.  This weekend we took Gavin to the park to let him run around and play.  We let him go on every set of playground the park had.  This park was right on the water and the wind was blowing, so the air was a little chilly.  Gavin did not mind at all.  He laughed and giggled the whole time he was there.  He went down all the slide.. the straight ones, curvy ones, bumpy ones, all of them.  Brooks and I were "not allowed" to go down with him either.  He did great on them and was sad to leave.  

Yesterday, some of the girls in our small group from church took our kids to Houston's Butterfly Museum.  We were the only people there, except for 2 sweet older ladies, so the kids were able to explore and not be in any one's way.  They loved it.  When we first entered the museum there was a large caterpillar statue that they wanted to climb around.  We took advantage of the photo op.  Part of the museum was interactive, giving you lots of info about butterflies, insects, and much more.  The kids got to press buttons, look at real insects in cages, and then got to walk through an area that had butterflies flying around.  We saw a HUGE iguana and a waterfall along with some butterflies.  The kids enjoyed the water puddles along the walk path, too. After the museum, we got our lunches and had a little picnic in the park outside.  It was a BEAUTIFUL day and we all enjoyed getting to soak up the sun!  The kids played, ran around, and ate lots of good food.  It was a very fun filled day with great friends.  

Off they go...

Have I mentioned that some of our best friends are moving overseas with us to Saudi Arabia?  Well, they are and we are SUPER excited about living over there together.  Three years ago we met Micah and Stephanie and became instant friends.  Micah and Brooks work together, and Stephanie is a PE coach, lived in Baton Rouge for a while growing up, and we just had a lot in common with these guys!  They lived near us and Stephanie and I even worked at the same school together.  Stephanie's parents have lived in Saudi for 5 years, thus this couples willingness and enthusiasm to move over there!  I don't think that I'd be so "eager" to go over there if they weren't going too.  

Well, they had a going away party this weekend with friends and family.  It was a crawfish boil- woohoo and a lot of fun!  Micah leaves in May for Saudi and Stephanie will join him in June.  The process for families/spouses to get over there is different and I will explain all of that as we get closer to our departure date.  We're really going to miss having them here in Houston, but know that we will get lots of time together for the next 3-5 years!  

Here are some pics from the party!  

The Sperling's 

All the girls hanging out!

Steph's parents giving their speech!

Gavin and his best buddy Cade goofing around! 

Stephanie asked me to make a cake for their party.  She originally wanted a crawfish coming out of a mud hole in a desert.  Well, I was a little nervous my mud hole would turn out looking like a pile of poo so I decided to incorporate the two a different way.  

The camels are sugar cookies made from a camel cookie cutter Steph's mom purchased in Saudi.  I made the palm trees using pretzel rods, covered in fondant and the leaves are fondant, too.  I made the "sand" by crushing up Vanilla Wafers in a food processor.  The crawfish pot is chocolate cake covered in fondant.  The pot's lid was removable and the crawfish inside were edible.  I found these cute crawfish molds online and filled them with vanilla flavored candy melts.  The table cloth under the crawfish pot was fondant and I painted the red squares on.   The flames on the bottom of the crawfish pot were red and yellow buttercream icing mixed.   Micah and Stephanie's favorite kind of cake is white cake with white icing so that's what this one was.  I had fun making this one and liked getting to try new things!  

I caught Cade eating one of the palm trees... too cute!

Egg-cellent Hunt

I can't believe that this was last year, and here we are again at Easter a year later. Wow, it's amazing how time fast goes!  We spent Easter in Lake Charles this year and went to the same Easter Egg Hunt, fun day that we did last year.  This time, Gavin got to walk to the eggs and found a few.  He realized by the second egg that he could open it and there was a surprise inside.  This caused a small distraction for him and he wasn't too interested in hunting more eggs.  I tried to get him to look for some more, but he was really concentrating on the candy inside egg #2.  He was also busy watching all the other kids run around like crazy that he wasn't too sure what was happening.  Now thinking about it, we could have practiced with him by hiding eggs around the house or something for him to go find them.  He enjoyed getting the three eggs that were in his basket as well as enjoyed dumping them out and then putting them back in.  

  

After the Easter Egg Hunt we took Gavin to the petting zoo.  For some reason, he was not interested in these animals.  He wanted Brooks to hold him while we walked around the cage and was adamant about not touching them.  

We got to enjoy the afternoon with our cousins and managed to get this picture of the kids!  Impressive, huh?!?  Wish Audrey Cate could have joined us, but we will get plenty of pics with her later! 

Now, I know you got to see my skills in the moon walk (that's it's name, not a jumper) but check out Gavin!  You should know that Brooks put him in the moonwalk while the festivities were going on and there were like 50 other kids in it.... he did not like that.  So, when it was all over and we were the only ones there, we put Gavin in it and he went to town.  It took a few jumps for him to get use to it and then we played chase and he went to town on that moonwalk.  He loved it!  He laughed so hard, ran really fast, and would throw himself on the ground to purposefully roll over.  Oh, he was precious!  We are looking into getting our own personal moon walk to take with us to Saudi.  Have you ever seen the "miniature" ones for backyards?  Academy and Toys R Us have them.  Some friends of ours have one and the kids LOVE playing in it and jumping around.  I'm thinking it will provide lots of hours of entertainment outside!  

We ate lunch sometime between all the fun and Gavin was entertaining us with his faces!  I have NO idea where he gets them from!  Haha.  He is just soooo much fun!

I'll post pics from actual Easter day soon.  Need to run!  Have a blessed day! 

Birthday, Easter, and Baby

Here are a few projects I worked on last week.  I'm finding myself staying busy in the kitchen, but have learned how to manage my time with all the necessary prepping that goes on when making, baking, and decorating a cake.  I'm really enjoying making cakes and think I found a new passion.  However, I decided after making that movie cake, I don't love cake making more than my family.  Last week, I made an effort to keep the house cleaned and picked up, the laundry caught up, and made sure to play outside with Gavin multiple times a day, and took him places just to get out of the house! 

   

Saturday was my friend Stephanie's birthday.  We went out to dinner Thursday night so I surprised her with this cake.  She likes the color purple... can you tell?!?!

I decided since this was our last Easter in the states for a while, I wanted to make all of Gavin's friends a little something to celebrate Easter!  My mom found these cute mini bunny cake pans so I went to town making them with that Funfetti cake mix!  I colored the icing and copied the look off of a picture I saw of an Easter bunny.  I thought they turned out precious and they tasted delicious!

For our family Easter dinner, everyone was asked to bring something for lunch so I decided to make a cake, figures huh?!?!  My mom also found me a bunny shaped pan so I wanted to use it while I could.  This cake was just a bigger version of the mini cakes.  

    

A friend of mine from church asked me to make a baby sign for one of her cousin's baby shower.  The baby's bedroom is themed with butterflies.  I found this sweet butterfly at Michael's and even though the colors weren't exactly the same as her bedding, I went with the look.  It ended up turning out really cute. I found some subtle beads to put on the sign that really livened the look up!  This was a fun sign to make and I was very thankful my mom was in town to make the big bow on top.  I really need to learn how to make bows!  

Hope you and your family had a blessed Easter!  

I still got it...

Let's see here... I graduated High School in 2001, taught gymnastics for 3 years during college, and that was the last time I tumbled ever!  Today, we took Gavin to an Easter Egg Hunt (pictures and a post about that to come soon) where they had a jumper.  We were the last ones to leave the place, which gave us the jumper all to ourselves.  I decided to see if I could still flip and after chickening out three or four times I finally did it!  Whew--- who knew??!?  I wonder if this is something you can always do... I mean, I use to do them ALL THE TIME, for years!!  It was fun and brought back a lot of memories.  Yes, I even did the flips in a dress.