Time After Time

I am constantly amazed how quickly time passes. I remember sitting in elementary school staring at the clock thinking how slowly time moved. When I would comment to my mom about it, she would tell me it goes faster as you get older - she was so right (she usually is). On Monday Maddy turned FOUR! Another year and a half and I will be sending her off to kindergarten! It doesn't seem possible. My youngest neice will be ONE tomorrow, Daegan will be TWO in 10 days, my youngest nephew will be ONE in 5 weeks and Lilly was 5 months on Monday. I know where the inspiration for the song Don't Blink came from!

While Lilly and I were in STL for 11 days, I watched A LOT of Cake Boss. So I decided to try my hand at fondant icing on Maddy's birthday cake. I expected it to be much harder than it was. It turned out great! I'm going to do it again for Daegan's cake to make sure my success wasn't just beginner's luck. For Maddy I baked a heart-shaped red velvet cake, frosted with buttercream and covered with lavender fondant with pink cookie cutter shapes on top (a couple hearts, an X and an O). For Daegan I think I'll do a baseball. Probably chocolate with buttercream and white fondant. I'm still so proud of myself! For their party this weekend I'm going to do a giant red velvet cupcake and a bunch of little cupcakes. I'm so excited! Can't wait to see everybody! I'm getting hungry with all this cake talk! The baking begins again tomorrow! Giant cupcake, here I come!

Snowy Day Fun?

Lilly and I got to come home after 11 days in the hospital.  It was such a relief to be back home surrounded by our family and our things.  Maddy is still being clingy 5 days later and Daegan is finally beginning to forgive me.  He completely ignored me for a full 5 minutes when I first got home.  He was hugging and poking Lilly and seemed to not care Mommy was home.  It was adorable how excited he was to have Lilly back home.  I was glad to be home for about a day.  The kids were still reeling from not having Mommy for about a week so they were being crazy which was making me ready to leave again since I had gotten to see and hug them.  Now that they are settling back in, I am truly glad to be back home with my entire family.

Monday we were buckling down bracing for the "blizzard" that was supposed to be the biggest snow storm in 18 years.  Yeah, right.  We didn't even get 6 inches!  What a letdown!  Now my brother 4 hours north got a blizzard.  Nearly 2 feet of snow with drifts up to 4 feet!  At least we got enough to play in.  And, of course, it shut the entire area down for a couple days.  Cbin fever hasn't set in too bad yet.  Though it has only been two days.  Check with me again in another two and I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune.  It has both helped and hindered that we came to my parents' house to get snowed in.  The kids have enjoyed having different things to play with and a fireplace to entertain them but bedtime has been a challenge for Daegan as he just recently got good at going to sleep in his own bed at home.  The last 2 nights it has been around 1am before I've gotten him to fall asleep.  Ugh!

The question of the day today?  What to do for entertainment this afternoon?  It's way too cold to go play outside!  Windchills in the negative temps!  Maybe we'll make cookies.  We'll have to get a little creative since my parents are on Atkins and don't keep sugar or chocolate chips on hand.  I bet we can handle it though.