February was a BUSY month for us. Our daily lives seem hectic and chaotic and sometimes non stop-- but we manage to have fun and enjoy whatever we're doing together!
We celebrated Valentines Day and made it as special as could be! Our morning started with the traditional heart shaped choc chip pancakes that the kids helped me make. I took a few cake orders for some friends and donated 1 cake to an auction event our church was having that evening! These are just a couple of the cakes I made.
Gavins class had a valentines party that I was in charge of (since I'm the room mom) and it was a lot of fun. The kids played musical chairs and did the chicken dance for half the the party. Parents helped out and brought sweets for the kids to enjoy and they had a lot of fun.
We got a few special packages from grandparents on Valentines Day so the kids got to enjoy some cake pops and new puzzles!!
Valentine's Night our church youth group hosted an event called Second Chance Prom to raise money for summer camps. Our group of friends decided it would be fun to all go together, dress up, and party it up at the dance. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! We had a catered meal, tasteful music to dance to, silent auctions where we bid on a few items, and just had a GREAT time celebrating Valentine's Day!!!
Gavins school hosted Dr. Seuss day the week before his bday and the kids were encouraged to dress up as a character from one of his books. Gavin and his buddy, Jeven decided they wanted to be Thing 1 and Thing 2. The only problem was they told me 2 days before the dress up day. I frantically searched our town for red t-shirts, but ended up driving to Target in Amarillo where I found some and then decided to use printable, iron on transfer paper to make the shirts. I found the images on google and 30 minutes later had 2 shirts made just in time for the boys to have the next day at school! Gavin and I met Jeven and his mom at McDonalds before school started and got the boys into full costume-- blue spray painted hair, white faces, and bold eyebrows! They truly were in character from that moment on. The school had special activities all day and we went to the book reading that afternoon. Miles and Brooklyn were grateful to participate and even got to see The Cat in the Hat perform!
February was our coldest month yet and I don't think we've adjusted to such cold weather. When I say cold.... I mean COLD!! What makes it even tougher is the wind that generally accompanies us daily making the air feel even colder!! Snow days are still fun and the kids enjoy playing in the backyard making snow angels, snowmen, and having snowball fights!
Miles has been sick and we're still battling monthly episodes or outbreaks as I call them. I started monitoring his food intake, took fast food out of his diet along with most dairy products and he was still getting sick so our doctors here agreed it was time to run some more tests and pursue other options to get his body healed. He did really good for getting pricked 3 times and having multiple pokes. He was brave and only cried a short time. His favorite color is blue-- like, he's almost obsessed with anything blue, so the moment they started putting a blue bandage on him he was fixated on that! His results showed us his body had some form of infection so we were encouraged to see a Pediatric Gastroenterologist to get a better idea of what was going on.
Gavin lost his 5th tooth, which was one of his front teeth and he was so excited that it finally came out. We tried pulling it off and on for days but it never would come out. He ended up losing it at school during PE when he jumped for a ball and fell to the ground! I'm pretty sure he loved that 1000x more then having us pull it. He said all his friends thought it was so cool how it came out! Our little boy is growing up!
Some of our closest friends here in Saudi had their daughters first birthday party and it was so much fun. The party was an Owl theme and PRECIOUS!! All the little kids got to play together, help open presents, and eat some cake.
I asked Laura if she would let me make Savannah's birthday cake and she agreed. I was so excited to do this for them and for Savy and enjoyed making a girly cake! The cake was made to match the shirt Savannah was wearing and her invitations.
Jacob made his first appearance and everyone was in love with the little man.
Savannah kept eyeing the cake sitting on the table and acted so excited! The moment it got in front of her, she wasn't that impressed. It took her a few minutes and some persuasion from her parents to dig in, but she still wasn't THAT interested. She poked at it once or twice and took a few bites her mom gave her, but that was it. TOO CUTE none the less!
Last weekend we celebrated Miles 1st Birthday with a giraffe themed birthday party! We waited until all of our friends got back from vacation and I spent a few weeks planning, organizing, and working on all the details for his shindig! I ALMOST decided not to have a party because I just felt like there was so much going on and I didn't want to physically over do myself or run the risk of Brooklyn coming early, but then I realized for the rest of our lives we will always compete with Christmas for Miles birthday, traveling, and potentially another birthday close by so I sucked it up and went after it! I really wanted to make sure Miles got the same 1st birthday experience that we did for Gavin 3 years ago and I'm so glad we did it!
Miles greeted his guests when they came to the door. This is his friend Aden who was born in Saudi a week after him- his mom and dad are teachers at the school Gavin goes to and our apart of our weekly meeting group! Love the McGuire Family!
We couldn't have a party without singing Happy Birthday. We've done this twice before so Miles knew what was coming and pretty excited about. Gavin was also VERY excited about the smash cake (he decorated it himself- see below for more details).
Here's a video of us singing Happy Birthday to Miles and him eating his cake! He devoured it! (don't forget to scroll down and pause my music)
Happy Birthday sweet boy! Mommy, Daddy, and Gavin LOVE YOU!!
Some of our friends at the party and their little ones!
Miles loved opening his presents and was semi into it. We helped rip off the paper for him to see what was inside.. that seemed to hold his attention faster and better! Aden helped too!
As always a favorite gift came from Uncle Micah and Aunt Steph... Miles got his very own riding toy and he loved it!! It's just his size and allows him to have something to ride on when Gavin is riding his big boy toys!
Miles birthday party was a lot of fun and I'm so glad we were able to celebrate his first birthday with our close friends here in Saudi! This past year has gone by so fast and we can't believe our little man is already 1. We're looking forward to watching him grow into his personality and are anxious for him to become a big brother!
I was going to make this a separate post but figured I'd just group it all together.
If you're still reading the blog... here's all the details about the party (if you care about this kind a stuff).
I picked the giraffe theme because for the past year Miles has gotten multiple giraffe animals or toys so it just seemed to fit. I wanted needed his cake to be semi easy, but also wanted it to be a cutsey little boy cake and not some elaborate, over the top cake so I went with the number 1 look and turned it into a giraffe. Gavin actually decorated Miles smash cake and was VERY, VERY proud of himself. It was a sweet moment when Gavin brought the cake to Miles when it was time to sing Happy Birthday to him. If anyone came over to our house the day before the party, Gavin would go get the smash cake out of the fridge and show it off. Too cute! I picked up some giraffe stuff while we were in the states and ordered a few things from etsy to top off the party decorations. I got the idea for a first year photo timeline to showcase at the party from a blog and had giraffe themed monthly tags made and then went through all my pictures of Miles from each month and picked out my favorite one or the one I felt represented that month the best and made the banner. It really turned out cute and everyone loved seeing how much Miles had changed over the year.
The birthday boy sporting his birthday shirt! I had this shirt made for Miles to have a keepsake for years to come and ordered it from this etsy store.
Something I'm so glad that I did and didn't think about it until the last minute... was to have some sort of sign in for us to remember who celebrated Miles first birthday with us. For Gavin's party, I had been scrap booking his first year and just made a sign in sheet for his book. For Miles, I'm making a digital photo book of his first year, but I'm not finished with it (my original goal was to have his book printed and leave blank pages in the back so people could sign it, but I really wanted to have Miles first birthday in the book, so I knew I needed something else that we would always keep. Shel Silverstein is a great author and we have 4 of his other books and read them occasionally. When I saw this giraffe book online, I knew this book would be something we would keep for years and years and it hopefully would not get lost! When people came to the party they wrote Miles a sweet note and this will be something we'll cherish for years to come, not to mention remember our time in Saudi and the friends we were surrounded with!
Weeks leading up to the party I searched and brainstormed cute party favors to give to our guests, but felt like things were either too expensive or too corny to give. I refused to spend money on "giraffe stuff" for adults since there were very few little kids to give favors to, so I bit the bullet and made sugar cookies. These aren't my favorite things to do-- they are SOO time consuming and I never feel like they come out good... I've always said I'd much rather make a 3 tiered cake then decorate 2 dozen iced sugar cookies, but I went with a simple design, skyped my sister in law for help (who by the way, decorates AMAZING sugar cookies), and went to town decorating them while Brooks and I watched a movie. Simple and Fun! I think they were a hit with everyone and I'm just glad I had something to give to everyone!
When I came back from our summer vacation, I made a decision to only make 1 cake a week. I figured that would help alleviate how busy I am making cakes. Well, it did sort of. Actually, my first week back, I was booked for 6 weeks straight. Crazy. Last spring, I was making up to 3 cakes in one week, which was nuts! Now, I make a cake. Finish a cake. Start on another cake. Week after week.
I'm loving getting to enjoy this hobby, however, it has quickly turned into a job and I thought having a break from it over the summer, would have helped me in feeling burned out, but I don't think it did.
So, for now, I'm hanging up my apron, closing my cake closet doors and am going to enjoy being a mom and wife, doing whatever I want to do, not feeling pressure for going out and about, or taking a nap, or feeling guilty for hanging out at the dinner table when our meal is finished, or having to stay up until 2am-- because I won't have the idea of making, baking, decorating, and completing a cake order lingering over my head! Who knows.. maybe after a long break, which will probably be pretty long considering I've taken on a new project (more on that later) which will keep me occupied through the end of October. Then we're going to the states mid November through mid December, then half our compound will be away on vacation. I'll make Miles 1st Birthday cake, then I'll spend January expecting, waiting, and anticipating Brooklyn's arrival. Then, once she's here, I WON'T be taking cake orders for a good while (Mom & Steph, hold me to that!!) So, who knows.. maybe by the end of April (or at least for Brooks' birthday in March) I'll be ready and willing to take on a cake!
Until then, enjoy my latest creations.
Please don't judge me on one particular cake. I literally did it in a matter of 4 hours. It was NOT my best cake and one I cringed at when Brooks walked it down to our neighbors (I'm confident you will know which one I'm talking about).
cupcake cake for 1 year old little girls birthday
Cookie Cake #1
Cookie Cake #2- yes, I planned for there not to be a border all the way down the right side
Cookie Cake #3- there were a LOT of people invited to this party
Tinkerbell Cake for 8 year old girl's birthday
Cake for a lady who received her PhD
Spiderman Cake for an 8 Year Old
Star Wars with a Light Saber for 2 young, French boys
Miles has been sick and we're still battling monthly episodes or outbreaks as I call them. I started monitoring his food intake, took fast food out of his diet along with most dairy products and he was still getting sick so our doctors here agreed it was time to run some more tests and pursue other options to get his body healed. He did really good for getting pricked 3 times and having multiple pokes. He was brave and only cried a short time. His favorite color is blue-- like, he's almost obsessed with anything blue, so the moment they started putting a blue bandage on him he was fixated on that! His results showed us his body had some form of infection so we were encouraged to see a Pediatric Gastroenterologist to get a better idea of what was going on. 
