Shaved White Chocolate Cupcakes

Strawberry cupcakes with whipped cream icing and tinted white chocolate shavings.

Shaved Chocolate Cupcakes

Pound Cake cupcakes with Homemade Chocolate Buttercream icing and Chocolate Shavings.

Cake Blog

So I started a new blog for my cakes. Hopefully I can keep up with that one also! I still have a ton more to add to it, but here's the link: iced-by-amy.blogspot.com

Card Cupcakes

Lemon Cupcakes with smooth-iced homemade buttercream icing. Cards are fondant and hand-painted.

X-actly What I needed!

I've been needing an X-acto knife for when I use fondant for my cake creations. Tony kept offering to give me one of the brand new ones he has, but I couldn't stand the fact that my cake knife would look just like one he would use in the garage. What if he accidentally used it for something else and then I used it on a cake?! Not OK!

But I was at Walmart looking at their cake supplies, which happen to be near the scrap booking supplies, when I found this:

Sweet! Now I have my own X-acto for my cake needs, and it definitely won't be confused with any others that are around the house. Not that it was really necessary for me to have a pink X-acto, but at least I know Tony won't be using it!

Pink Heart Cupcakes

Strawberry cupcake with smooth-iced homemade buttercream icing. Heart decoration is made out of fondant and royal icing.

Owl Cupcakes

Strawberry cupcakes with smooth-iced homemade buttercream. Owl decoration is made out of fondant.

Red Heart Cupcakes

Red Velvet cupcakes with fondant icing icing and decorations.

Baseball Cupcakes

Pound Cake cupcakes. Baseballs are hand-painted fondant.

Practice Cake - Topsy Turvy

This was a practice cake. The cake was Chocolate Cake and White Cake. It was filled with Homemade Buttercream and iced and decorated with Homemade Buttercream and Homemade Rolled Fondant.

30th Birthday Cake

Ryan's 30th birthday cake was a two-tiered cake. Both tiers were Chocolate Cake with homemade Peanut Butter filling, made from scratch. The cake was iced and decorated with Homemade Buttercream and Homemade Rolled Fondant.

Baseball Cake

Landen's baseball birthday cake and cupcakes. The cake and cupcakes were Chocolate Cake with Homemade Buttercream for the filling and icing.

Masquerade Cake

Masquerade Cake for Lyzzie's 25th birthday. This cake was a White Cake with homemade fresh Strawberry filling, made from scratch. The icing was Homemade Buttercream.

Class Cake - Car

This was another cake I made for my first buttercream class. It was White Cake, filled with Homemade Buttercream, and iced with Homemade Buttercream.

Class Cake - Hearts

This was a practice cake I made for my first buttercream class. It was Chocolate Cake with Bavarian Cream filling. The icing is Homemade Buttercream.

Two on Tuesday

1. I don't know what I was thinking when I decided that I would be making the cake for Tony's 30th birthday party. As if I don't have enough going on the week of his party already!

2. I am excited to be working on a new blog. More details coming soon!

Iced by Amy

Taking a Break from Baby

I'm a little irritated with some of the comments that I've heard that have been coming from the peanut gallery.

Let me get one thing straight. Tony and I waited a long time to have kids. We have been together for 8 years and have been married for 3. We didn't want to have kids just to leave them behind. We decided that we wanted to wait until we were ready to include them in everything we do. We didn't understand the point of having a baby, then leaving them to do other things. When you have a baby, your life is changed forever. We realized that, which is why we waited. We waited until we were ready to include our baby with everything we do, whether that be river trips, or birthday parties, lunches, dinners, bunco, whatever it may be. If you have an issue with my baby coming along with me, then don't get pissy when I decide not to come. And keep your comments to yourself. Sure, I've hosted adult-only events before, but when the people that have kids declined to attend, I understood. That was their choice when they decided to have kids.

I'm sorry that I want to include my child in everything I do, that was something that was decided when we had a child. I'm sorry that I don't feel the need to take a "break" from him and run off to do other things. He will be included in my plans, and if he's not, then don't expect me to be there. Our days of bar-hopping are over. We are both almost 30 years old and have both done our share of partying. I no longer understand the point of going and sitting in a bar getting trashed off of expensive drinks in a room full of young 20-somethings. I can hang out with friends in their home or our home just as easily. In fact, I would rather do that then spend all night in bars.

Looking back, I guess I'm not angry that these people are talking. Really, I feel more sad for them than anything. These people that don't have kids because they're not married, or these people that leave their kids often because they just can't handle them or just don't want to deal with them. Yes, I feel sorry for them. My baby is my priority.

Family BBQ

Yesterday we went to a BBQ at Tony's Aunt Jeri's. Diet? What diet? Yes, I cheated. Moving on.

Braysen got to go swimming in her pool, which he of course loved!

His little feet were kicking the whole time! And surprise, surprise: his arms were moving the whole time, too!

Braysen also got to meet his cousin Vivian, who is just 6 days younger.

And if you were wondering, yes, he did make her cry.

Boys

Last weekend we went to Kyle and Lindsey's. Most of my friends (that I've spent time with lately) have baby girls. It was nice to be around their little boy Gavin, because it made me feel better about how much energy and how wild Braysen is. I was starting to think there was something wrong with him, like an early case of ADHD, every time I saw him compared to everybody else's baby girls. But once I saw Gavin's energy in comparison, I felt so much better. I guess Braysen is just all-boy!

Gavin and Lexi were so interested in him when we first got there. Braysen was interested in them as well.

Gavin making faces at me.

Love at first sight.

Kisses!

Lexi thought she'd lean in for a kiss, too...

But she didn't know that Braysen also loves to pull hair!

I don't know what it is, but my kid just loves to make girls cry!

What I found pretty funny is that after we got home and I was looking through our pictures, I realized that pictures of us and our friends have pretty much become non-existent since we all had kids.

Last Week

* I typed this post last week on Monday. As you can see, I forgot to publish it and didn't even realize it until almost a week later. Yes, we had a rough week. :)

Yesterday was the day we were supposed to start our new schedule. I had a special time built into that schedule to blog. Obviously I didn't blog. We had a rough night on Sunday, which turned into a rough day on Monday, so the new schedule went out the door and we just worked in survival mode for the day. Yeah, it was that bad.


Back to our fun happenings last week. We had a play date with the girls last week. And by "with the girls" I literally mean all girls: Marlo, Emery, Valerie, Sawyer, Vannessa, and Brooklyn. Braysen was definitely outnumbered again. Don't worry about him, though, I don't think he's afraid of any of these ladies. Marlo made the comment before we came over that she was worried that Emery would hurt one of the younger babies because she is older and very curious. I joked with her and said that Braysen's arms are so strong and out of control that he could probably handle himself.

And so he did. We tried to get some group shots, but it wasn't until right before we left and all the babies were tired and ready for bed. As we were each talking to our babies and trying to get them to smile, or at least not cry, for the pictures, Braysen got more and more excited. The more excited he gets, the faster and more out-of-control his little arms get. Before too long, he was whacking poor Emery in the back with those flying fists.

It was then that he spied the straps to her shirt. He just can't resist a good swimsuit or spaghetti strap. He gets his fingers wrapped around that little piece of fabric and holds on for dear life. So after he pommeled Emery, he the aimed and caught hold of her shirt. Poor thing, she didn't know what to do.

The Wagon - Part 2

It was four weeks ago today that I blogged and vowed to get my food and exercise situation under control. I'll be honest, I think I've exercised a whopping ONE time since that blog. My eating has been better, but I still cheat more than I eat healthily. Even with all this, I managed to lose 4½ pounds in those weeks. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it is a huge deal for me!

Four weeks ago, I had 2 pounds to go until I reached my prepregnancy weight, with 7 more pounds after that I just wanted to lose, so, 9 pounds total. I've lost half of what my goal was in a month!

I have healthy foods in my house, but I choose to eat other things.I need to make healthier choices. I also think I've found a way to streamline our schedule, so hopefully I will be able to have time and energy to actually exercise every (and I mean every) day. I'll check back in 4 weeks with my progress (maybe). If you don't hear any more about it, then it probably is bad news! :)

I have much more to blog about, play dates and a BBQ, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm tired. And with my new schedule that I set up for myself, I was supposed to be in bed 6 minutes ago!

4 Months Old!

I tried to take Braysen's 4-month pictures today. He wasn't exactly cooperating. But, it's perfect, because that pretty much sums him up at 4 months! I took about 120 pictures, and these were the best I could come up with.

Practice Cake

We're having a 30th birthday party for Tony in August. Yeah. Dirty 30.

I'm making his cake, and I really wanted to make a topsy-turvy cake, but I haven't taken the class. Heck, I haven't even taken the Fondant class, which you need to take before you can take the topsy-turvy class. I wanted to do a practice cake, just to see if I could even figure out how to do it. It worked. I figured it out. Here's a picture of the practice cake. Lots of mistakes, I know, but at least now I know what I need to do to make Tony's cake turn out right. His cake will be bigger with more tiers, I just didn't see the point in making a huge cake, especially when I'm trying to watch what I eat. What the heck was I thinking!? His cake will also be a different design, and obviously, a different color scheme.

P.S. - After publishing the post, I realized that some of the circles are gritty looking. It's actually these really cool edible cake sparkles. The look really neat in person, not so neat in pictures.

Cooking for Baby

Yesterday I got a head start on making Braysen's baby food. He will be 4 months this week, so he gets to start solids! I originally didn't plan on actually making his baby food. Who does that?! Really, though, I didn't know anybody who'd ever done it before, and actually had never even thought about it.

I read on Valerie's blog that she planned to make Sawyer's baby food. I'll be honest, I thought she was a little nuts! :) Who in their right mind would spend the time to make baby food when you can buy it already prepared? And when I priced it, it didn't seem expensive. But once I started doing some research, Tony and I decided that we wanted to try making Braysen's baby food. When you think about it, our homemade baby food will not have any preservatives or sugars added. As an added bonus, it turns out that it is actually a lot more cost effective to make than to buy.

He looks interested!

 

 I was able to make 16 containers of food from about $3.55 worth of sweet potatoes and apples. Do the math, it comes out to a little over 22 cents per container. So it's better for him and it will save us money? I'm sold!

Speed Racer - Part 2

Earlier today I blogged about how much Braysen loves his walker. I put him in it again this afternoon, and he wasnt as interested in the toys this time. Maybe that's because he discovered how to make it move! My furniture and new baseboards better beware! I see them becoming thrashed very soon!

Go Speed Racer Go!

I put together Braysen's bouncer/walker this morning. He loved it! When I hold him, he always wants to stand, but he makes my arms tired because his legs still aren't very strong, so I have to literally hold him up.  He also is very nosy and loves to look around. Sitting in his bouncer he could stand up and was able to look around and check everything out. He lasted for a good 20 minutes before he got tired and wanted out.

4th of July

I'm leaving to spend my first 4th of July at the river, so here is my early...

Love,

Braysen

Inch by Inch

I don't know what the heck this little inchworm thinks he's doing, but it's pretty comical to watch!