Baby Shower

I had the privilege of hosting a baby shower for my sister-in-law, Chrissy, this past weekend. Technically speaking, I'm not entirely sure it can be called hosting when it wasn't my house. Either way, I was able to prepare yummy food and slightly ridiculous, but entertaining, games. 

Angel food cake was on sale for 97¢ at Harris Teeter. I took advantage of this steal and made super cheap parfaits.

My sister used to make these delicious turtle pretzels that I've been craving. What money I saved on the angel food cake, I spent on the overpriced square pretzels and Rolo's. Confession: I may have eaten a few handfuls of these while taking them out of the oven.

Another party favorite to make is cinnamon-sugar tortilla chips with fruit salsa.

Other foods included chicken salad sandwiches, chips with queso, cupcakes, brownies, Cheerwine punch, mints, and veggies with dip. As always, I had more food than mouths to eat it, but I don't think any food was wasted due to family and guests taking extra food home.

The guests were all good sports at playing the games (Price is Right, art contest, and blindfolded feeding). I detest so many baby shower games like dissecting candy bar "poop" in diapers or guessing the girth of the giant pregnant belly with toilet paper. The guests could have very well thought the same thing with the entertainment I provided, but they at least laughed and smiled through it.

My mother-in-law funded the food and helped set up. I know so many women who complain about their in-laws. While I'm not completely exempt from this, I am most definitely blessed to call these two women family.

I love the genuine smiles on Jason and Chrissy's faces. I hope they felt the love and excitement we all have for their second child.

Since my siblings are finished having children and Jesse and I are unlikely to have more children, this nephew might be the last addition to either side of the family. The countdown is on. We are more than ready for some baby loving. (Of course, we're happy to wait until the due date!) 

Get Your Bake On

Over the last few weeks I've had plenty of excuses to bake pretty desserts. I love baking, but I've had no reason to do so since Jesse and I stopped eating sweets. However, during July I had several birthdays, Wednesday night small group, and a baptism to provide desserts for. Here are some of my favorite sweets I've made over the past few weeks.

Cake smash for trio's first birthday

Batman birthday cake with sugar sheets and black buttercream

Mini chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese icing

Cinnamon pita chips with fresh fruit salsa

Strawberry shortcake bites

Chocolate peanut butter truffles

Paw print smash cake

3 dozen dog themed cupcakes, smash cake, and other treats

6-layer baptism cake

Baking is easy and fun. Decorating is tedious and time consuming (more so with four small children). Watching reactions from people as they see an aesthetic pleasing cake or taste a delicious dessert makes it worth it. Cakes make the occasion.

As Julia Child says, "A party without cake is just a meeting."

DIY Smash Cake and Cake Stands

If you haven't noticed, we've been living pretty minimally these days. It's hard to go over the top with decorations and outfits when you have a tight budget. I've been determined to make everything perfect for the babies first birthday, despite low funds.

My favorite first birthday tradition is the cake smash. Since their party is not on their actual birthday, I decided to let them have a cake smash on their birthday, and a small cupcake on the day of their party. As I was getting everything ready for the cake smash, I realized I couldn't put the cakes directly on the ground. A paper plate would look tacky and a glass plate could break. I looked online for prices of miniature cake stands and quickly decided that wasn't in the budget. So, off to Pinterest I went. I stole the idea to make my own cake stands using plates and bowls. It could not have been any easier! I spent $4 total at the Dollar Store on one pack of small plates and three plastic bowls.

You simply hot glue the base of the bowl onto the back of the plate. Within two minutes, I had three miniature cake stands that cost just over $1 each!

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Of all the birthday details and decorations, I felt most confident about baking the smash cakes. I baked them in my five inch round pans. (One cake recipe only made enough for two cakes. The second recipe made the third cake and 24 mini cupcakes.)

After the cakes cooled I leveled them. You could either cut the dome off with a serrated knife or use a cake leveler. I did not apply a crumb coat because the rose decorations would be more than enough icing on the cake.

Because I wanted to cover the cake in roses, I had to make a LOT of icing for these small cakes. I doubled my usual buttercream icing (double recipe: 1 cup butter, 1 cup shortening, tbsp of vanilla, 8 cups of powdered sugar). I tinted half of it pink, the other half blue. I used 1M tip to make the roses.

Once you fill your piping bag halfway, you simply swirl the icing onto the cake in a circular motion until you have roses. After swirling the roses on the sides and top of the cake, you'll be left with open spaces.

To cover them, you can either overlap more roses on top, or simply add swirls to fill in the gaps. FYI, it would not look great if you just filled it with dollops of icing because it would look like roses and stars. Try to swirl in the same direction as the roses so it looks less obvious.

Here are the final cakes on their cake stands. I already had all the supplies for the cakes since I bake so much, but you could buy all the ingredients and a 1M tip from a craft store for less than $20. If you didn't have small cake pans you could use a sheet pan and cut circles out or use ramekins.

I cannot wait for the babies to tear these cakes apart!

Birthday Week

July is full of birthday celebrations!

1. Happy birthday to me!

I celebrated my 28th birthday with not one, but two family get-togethers. Unfortunately, the birthday lunch I requested caused me to be violently ill for the next 12 hours. Apparently fried shrimp and cake is not much of a treat when your body is used to eating fresh produce and meats.

In addition to an upset stomach, multiple events throughout the day caused unnecessary stress. Red dye that only created pink, being unable to attend weekly coffee, having to cater to Jesse's schedule, and resentment over not teaching next year were a few of the factors that put me in a bad mood. Thankfully, the evening ended on a high note with my family piling into our home for a taco feast.

2. Happy birthday, USA.
Fourth of July was very low key. The only celebrating we did was lighting several packs of sparklers on fire.

3. Happy birthday, Jason.
Jesse's brother, Jason, was surrounded by family and food of his choice. Hopefully those two things were enough to create an enjoyable birthday. I didn't think to actually take a picture of him, though I did take a few pictures of the daughter of a family friend playing with the trio. They could totally pass for quadruplets.

4. Happy birthday, Katie.
I completely missed the traditional midnight phone call to wish my sister a happy birthday. Hopefully I was able to redeem myself by showing up for lunch with a chocolate mocha cake. I love that lunch with sisters takes priority on our birthdays. This is a ridiculous picture for multiple reasons, but it is a pretty accurate reflection of our silliness.

With four birthdays down, we have four more to celebrate next week. My niece is turning 17, then James, Amelia, and Madeline are turning ONE!

More Fun with Fondant

I've used fondant, gum paste, and candy clay in the past for cake decorations, but I had never covered a cake in fondant before. When a friend requested an Angry Birds cake, particularly the black bird, I knew fondant would be the best choice. It is difficult to dye buttercream a true black, and it would be a mess on little hands and mouths. I baked a three-layered cake, iced it with vanilla buttercream, and watched a few YouTube tutorials on how to roll out fondant. 

It wasn't flawless, but I think it turned out okay considering I lacked the "necessary" tools. I just used what I had on hand: wax paper, a large rolling pin, and a knife. 

After covering the cake with black fondant, I traced the circumference of the cake pan on wax paper. I used various fondant and sugar sheets to build the bird's face on my wax paper model. 

I was pleased with the final cake and went to bed. The next morning, Jackson took it upon himself to peel parts of the fondant off and eat it! I managed to recover most of the damage, but not all of it! Here's the final cake:

The fondant made the cake harder to slice. It still turned out fine.

I was worried that the cake wouldn't feed enough people so I also made a dozen cupcakes. This is the same chocolate icing that I ended up eating in excess. So, so good, yet oh so bad.

All in all, a fun cake to make and a very fun party!

Fun with Fondant

A friend requested a construction-themed cake for a baby shower. I knew the best medium for the construction signs would be fondant. Since I could get away with the signs all being one color, I cheated and purchased pre-made fondant. Creating the signs was tedious but easy. Here are the simple steps I took to make the main decoration:

Step 1: Roll fondant between two sheets of wax paper. It takes a bit of work to get the fondant to the same thickness.

Step 2: I happened to have a square cookie cutter and was able to use the bottom of my large icing tip (for sides of cake) to make a perfect circle. It took less than a minute to punch out my signs.

Step 3: I used an edible marker to outline the edges of each shape to make it resemble a road sign.

Step 4: I had fun coming up with cheesy baby-related "construction signs".

Step 5: I placed the completed signs on my iced cake.
(I had made a two tiered strawberry cake with cream cheese icing. I used black sugar sheet and very thinly rolled fondant to make the road. The "dirt" was made from chocolate cookies ground in the food processor. And my friend supplied the construction vehicles.)

I used the round signs for cupcakes.

I love making cakes that look more complex than they really were to decorate. Hopefully the guests enjoyed it, too.

Wheat Belly Meals

It's been a week since we began our grain free/sugar free diet. Jesse and I are fully committed to eating this way for 30 days. If Jesse's blood work shows improvements with cholesterol and blood sugar, our goal would be to continue this diet indefinitely. We're just taking it one day at a time right now.

Many people think Wheat Belly is simply eating gluten-free, but that is not the recommendation. Most packaged gluten-free items are full of potato starch, rice starch, and many unpronounceable ingredients. The whole idea of Wheat Belly is to eat foods that are lower on the glycemic index so you can avoid the constant spike and crash in blood sugar. The diet is similar to Paleo, with the addition of dairy.  The goal is to eliminate processed foods and use as much fresh foods as possible. I love to cook and experiment with recipes, so that's not too challenging. Our greatest obstacle is to create a variety of meals within a strict budget.

To clarify-

• When I say "we" I am only referring to Jesse and I. The kids are still eating mac-n-cheese, graham crackers, PB&J, quesadillas, etc. They also eat plenty of produce and meat. I don't know when we will fully eliminate sugar and grains for the kids. Of course, I think "If it's not good for me, why would it be acceptable for my children?" If we decide this is the best way to eat forever, I will stop purchasing processed foods for them. For now, I will continue to buy processed foods because of the convenience and low cost. 
• We are eating anything that contains natural sugars, including fruit, honey, Stevia, etc. We are not eating or drinking anything that contains artificial sweeteners. 
• We are purchasing regular meat and butter since we cannot afford grass-fed, free range, hormone free, etc. 
• We are avoiding all wheat and corn syrup, including modified food starch. That eliminates most dressings, sauces, creamy soups, and other surprising items.
• For the first few weeks at least, we will be abstaining from rice, quinoa, oats, etc. I imagine we'll reintroduce those carbohydrates occasionally, but I'd like to get a solid foundation on our new way of eating first.

Here are some of the meals we've eaten this week:

scrambled eggs with green peppers and cheese, strawberries

Paleo cereal: strawberries and pecans in almond milk

Turkey and tomato wraps using romaine lettuce rather than bread

Banana nut pancakes (made with only egg, banana, and walnuts)

Lemon-pepper roasted chicken with veggies

pan-seared salmon, roasted broccoli, baked sweet potato fries

Fajita melt (onions, peppers, beef on a WB tortilla covered in cheese), avocado, salsa

I'm in love with this new gadget!

chicken, honey glazed carrots, sauteed onions and zucchini

Eating those meals is easy. They are satisfying and tasty. The challenge is avoiding grazing on chips, crackers, cookies, etc.

I am so, so proud to share that I have baked a good bit this week but not indulged in a single lick of batter or icing. Here's what I baked and did NOT eat:

two dozen dark chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese icing

Marble cake with vanilla buttercream icing and candy melts

Mother's Day Weekend

The kids were especially silly during our regular Friday play date. I had dressed the girls in over the top girly outfits. They protested their enforced gender roles by playing in the toolbox most of the afternoon.

The boys rummaged through my sister's extensive dress up closet and put on quite a fashion show for us.

We eventually corralled everyone and headed home for a low key evening at home.

Saturday proved to be busier than usual with grocery shopping and cleaning the house. In preparations for a new diet, Jesse and I purged our kitchen and replenished it with tons of produce and meats. We went to Sam's as a family and ate a variety of samples (asparagus, cheese, mango, pineapple, baked chicken, hamburger, Snicker's ice cream bar, etc).

Saturday evening was a long awaited date night. It had been two months since Jesse and I last managed to get out of the house. My best school friend was in town with her husband and graciously volunteered to watch the kids while Jesse and I escaped the house. We didn't realize that it was graduation day for the nearby university, in addition to prom night for local high schools. We spent more time looking for a place to eat than we did actually eating. Alas, Mexican food never fails We even ended up with free fried ice cream.

I was able to catch up with friends for a few hours and have a glass of wine once the kids were in bed. I felt like an actual adult. 

Sunday morning began with the usual pancake breakfast. Jesse surprised me with this beautiful necklace.

Confession: I was upset about a slight error, but sincerely appreciated the thoughtfulness.

While it would have been nice to do nothing all day and let Jesse take care of everything, that was impossible. Feeding, changing, and clothing three babies, caring for a toddler, washing never ending piles of dishes, and preparing food for in-laws are all tasks that require two people, if not more.

Lunch was delicious. Jesse grilled veggies and pork chops. I was in charge of mac-n-cheese and dessert.

Our families keep growing, which means we need two tables to accommodate us all. The more, the merrier!

After family left, we cleaned more. I've failed to mention the fact that we haven't had a working dishwasher in over a week. The repairman came out on Thursday, only to inform us that our dishwasher needs to be replaced. We are working out the details of getting a free, used dishwasher. Until then, we all take turns washing dishes.

The only thing I wanted for Mother's Day that I didn't get was a picture with all four kids. I've decided that a picture with everyone in good moods is next to impossible. I settled for dinner on the deck, then enjoying time with the babies while Jesse gave Jackson a bath.

Just pretend like I'm ending this post with a cute picture of me holding all four kids. We're all smiling and looking affectionately at one another. Ha!

Happy Mother's Day.