Kaitlyn's 2nd Birthday

Today is Kaitlyn’s Birthday. She is two. Oh the terrible two’s. I think Kaitlyn entered this mischievous stage months ago. Kaitlyn is very smart, very loving and very sensitive. I have never seen such a young child get her feelings hurt so easily. I think it is because she wears her heart on her sleeve. If I am sitting down for over five minutes I am guaranteed a visit and lap sitting from K-Bear. She’d rather be snuggling than sitting alone and when she gives you a kiss you sense meaning behind it.

Teagan was only four months old when I found out I was pregnant with a second child. I really wanted a boy. A girl and a boy, I’d be done. Even when I was told it was a girl I still hoped they were wrong. I guess all the hoping is why Kaitlyn looks just like her Father. From her smile, to her pout, to her leave me alone glare she is her Father. Now that I have her I would never ever trade her for a boy. Kaitlyn is perfect and the girls are perfect for each other.

I was also very worried that I would not love Kaitlyn as much as Teagan. I hear this is a common thought for Mother’s expecting their second child. Teagan was such a blessing that the very thought of her would swell my heart to bursting and I had so many doubts that this feeling would not exist with Kaitlyn. I was wrong. When Kaitlyn was born they gave her to me to lay skin upon skin to warm her. In that instant she looked up at me as I cooed to her and my heart surged. It was the same breath taking love I had for Teagan with no failing. My Kaitlyn had her own place in my heart and it was just as vast.

We were blessed when we had one beautiful, smart wonderful child. We are humbled to have received two. Kaitlyn you are my heart with legs. You are my joy and I am thankful to be your Mom. I love you and hope you have a very Happy Birthday.

Dancing Bear

Birthday Cakes

Birthday cakes. The center of the Birthday party. This year I wanted two cakes, one for each bear to have a candle on and blow out. I thought of Max and Ruby or a Dora and Diego but I kept being brought back to Sponge Bob and Patrick. It’s a square and a star so how much trouble should it be? If you allot for the time it shouldn’t be any bother at all. Time, my fatal foe.

I bake two 9” rounds the morning of the party. Taking each round I cut out the figures. Piecing together arms and legs. Teagan and Kaitlyn come in to the dining room and see the uncovered chocolate figures and yell out “Sponge Bob…Patrick.” If nothing else the figures are recognizable so I suppose I’m off to a great start.

I mixed up a big batch of frosting. I am not use to frosting cakes and I was afraid of running out of frosting. There was so much leftover I could have made a thick frosting on another set of cakes but it was worth it to easy my mind. I took several bowls and doled out servings for all the colors; yellow, green, pink, purple, brown, and red. I cheated and bought black. The colors were okay but brown is not an easy color to achieve without it getting brackish.

I decide to frost Patrick first. His body was easy, as were the shorts. I pipe on the flowers on the shorts and they end up looking like blobs. I put on his eyes and pipe in the retinas, mouth and of course belly button. Patrick is done. He actually looks cute. I’m not going to win an award but he’s definitely Patrick and I’m happy.

On to Sponge Bob. He’s square so he should be even easier. I coat his body and move on to his sleeves and pants. I was not pleased with the color of the brown but the pants went on well. At this point I look at the clock. I have thirty minutes before people should start arriving and I have not taken a shower, done my hair, make-up or gotten dressed. Time, damn, damn, damn, time. Because of the new stress I decide to forget the shirt and I pipe on his tie. Well that just looks stupid without the shirt. So I lay out a line for the shirt. Better but you can tell it was an after thought. I put on his eyes and pipe out the tongue. I take the black and pipe the retinas, eye lashes (the are important), and mouth. I realize the little tube of black is not enough so his shoes will have to be the horrible brown. At this point compromise comes easily. Something is missing. Not just right. I forgot his two huge teeth. Without them it’s just not Sponge Bob. So I carefully try to squeeze in teeth. They are little nubbins but they will work.

I have no more time. They will have to do. No they are not as good as I could have done if I had mapped the time accurately. However, I am over all satisfied with them.

Every one recognized them and actually gave me kudos. My SIL was the only one who was brutally honest and chalked them up to a tolerable rendition. I think that’s why I love her so much. She did like the frosting and so that is notable.

The girls loved them and even their cousin was pleased. Once I gave her Sponge Bob’s eyeball. A good time was had by all and I will of course take a crack at it next year.

Birthday Cake Decorating

Tomorrow is the big party for the bears combined Birthday’s. There will be presents, games, food and of course the very special Birthday cake. This year I am once again taking on the task of baking and decorating the cakes. My experience in this area has not been stellar. When it comes to cooking and especially baking I can make decadence out of the ingredients. However when it comes to decorating I am not skilled or even competent. Yet here I am trying again.

I blame the fact that I am abysmal at decorating on not getting enough practice. Three times a year is not adequate preparation. This is why there is a niche for cake decorators. Alas I strive every year to be the Mom who makes the best Birthday cake.

Last year for Teagan’s Birthday I made a Tinker Bell cake. Or at least that is what I called it. We had Grandparents and their Great Aunt coming in so I saved the baking and decorating till the very end. The cake was lemon with just the right amount of tart in the midst of sweet. Perfect. Then came the decorating.

I thought I was being easy on myself by making a 9” round and doing a 2D image of Tinker Bell. Ha! I frosted the overall cake. Good job. Next, time for the actual figure. I started with her dress. This was surprisingly painless. When I started mixing the food coloring for the body I was having issues in achieving a pale peach. You see Tinker Bell is a fair fairy and food coloring doesn’t come in fair. Mix, mix, mix. The best I could accomplish was spray tan orange. Have you ever seen an orange fairy? Me neither. Running out of time I sucked it up and decided to proceed. Neck merging into the first arm. Not bad. Next arm... oh, stop that… no, not that wide… gorilla arm. Damn. I tried lifting the excess off with a toothpick, smudging white frosting over some more. Okay so Tink has been working out. Moving on. Legs. Now this fairy does have massive thighs as if she does squats every morning before breakfast. So I go for thin and add where I need to. Right leg… left leg… hey, not bad. Little green shoes. Yea, that just looks like blobs. Running out of time, tick, tick, tick. Time for spray tan face. Oh wow. That’s bad. The arms, the legs, but having the face with the spray tan makes her look like an oompa loompa. Tick, tick, tick. Blonde hair. Not the best tresses but you at least know it’s hair! Facial features. Eyes and mouth only, because the nose is not going to stand out in the sea of orange on this face. Left eye… right eye… dot of blue for each… outline in black. Uh, that looks odd. Maybe because they would be better suited for a larger face that was on a man. On we go. Mouth. Red puckered lips. Lips that look like they have been injected with silicon. Seriously at this point Tinker Bell has morphed into a street walker. Short skirt, spray tan, heavy eye make-up with a slathering of red lipstick. The gorilla arm just adds to the mystique. Ah yes and to finish off the look, scary blue things sprouting out of her back suppose to be light and airy fairy wings. It looks like she is holding gigantic scissors behind her back with her gorilla arm. I suppose women of the night need protection too. I can do no more. Damage that is. I write Teagan’s name and add sprinkles.

As I stand back and scrutinize the disaster in front of me I feel little arms wrap around my leg. “Hello Mommy” comes a semi-sleepy voice of my then almost two year old Teagan. She spies the counter. “Me Birfday cake?” I pick her up to show her the mess. “MOMMY! That’s Tinker Bell!” And she hugs me.

And that is why I will once again make a cake. She knew who it was and more importantly was over joyed that Mommy had made her Tinker Bell.

Irish Twins

My girls are a 380 days apart. One year fifteen days. By definition they are not Irish Twins which have to be born within twelve months of each other. I tell you the extra fifteen days do not count. They are twins in every way. We have to buy two of everything or we have issues.

As posted, yesterday was Teagan’s Birthday. There were no presents. This had already been decided by Hubby and I. Neither girl will get presents on their day this year. We are having a joint Birthday party in between their days and that is when the presents will flow. Why? Did you not listen to me earlier? They go bat sh*t crazy if one gets something and the other doesn’t. They are only 3 and almost 2 so it’s completely understandable. Maybe next year this will be able to be explained to them and they can decide what they want. I think the current plan works well. So well, that I won’t be surprised if it’s a tradition in the making.

Now for their day we do fun things and they get a special dinner with a cake. Nothing elaborate but still a marking of their Birthday. Kaitlyn being the youngest doesn’t fully understand why Teagan got to blow out the candle and not her too. This was a little touchy but she got over it okay. In fact the overall low key celebration would have been perfect if I wasn’t stupid.

Seriously have I mentioned that at times my brain just up and leaves and goes shopping or something?

I got Teagan a Birthday card with a cut out princess crown. As soon as Teagan put it on Kaitlyn’s chin hit her chest and she sulked out of the room into the living room and plopped on the floor. Daddy who rarely has brain issues (his brain leaves when I ask him to do/remember/fix something) came to the rescue. He took the remainder of the card and spliced it to make Kaitlyn a crown too. No it didn’t have the glitter gems or scalloped edges but it had some princess’ on it and was a hat. She was happy.

Happy Birthday Teagan!

This is a very special A Thousand Words Thursday for me. For eight years I was told by doctors that due to a previous illness I would not be able to conceive. At times this would bother me but I wasn’t at a place in my life that I felt children fit so the fleeting moment would pass. I’m so glad Doctors can be wrong.

When I met my future husband the things I wanted or desired changed. Within weeks we knew that our future was together so I shared with him what I had been told. Even though we both wanted kids he decided he wanted a future of “us” more. In April of 2006 our world changed. On April Fool’s day I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. I will admit that I was freaked out at first. Future Hubby was beyond cool and collected and just this side of ecstatic. He told his family the same day.

She was born early and weighed only 4 lbs 15 oz. She had two holes in her heart, sleep apnea and a small brain bleed. They kept her for five days in NICU. The last two days I was not in the hospital and leaving her at night was almost more than I could endure. However we were blessed and were able to take her home. We named her Teagan Shae which means “Beautiful Gift.”

I never knew how much I could love someone. It is the closest to unconditional love that I could possibly feel. I am amazed by her every day. And even on the hardest days she can laugh and everything wrong melts away.

My Mom use to tell me and my Brother that she was made to be our Mom. I thought that was corny. Now I know that I was made to be Teagan’s Mom. And then Kaitlyn’s.

Happy 3rd Birthday Teagan! You are and always will be my Tea-Bear.

Please enjoy other wonderful bloggers photos for A Thousand Words Thursday at Cheaper Than Therapy.

Happy Birthday Nicole!!

I have five girlfriends that have been everlasting. Today is one of their birthdays. Happy Birthday Nicole. (She's the classy one on the left.)

This wonderful woman has been a part of my life for seventeen years. Now that might not seem like a long time to most of you but it is extraordinary for me. No, I’m not so difficult that I cannot keep friends. It is because as a child my family moved. A lot. And I didn't have the chance to make solid friends.

I grew from a teenager into an adult with her by my side. We were wild. Really wild. Yet never got into a detrimental situation because she constantly had my back. As I did hers. In fact she took me in during the most destructive time of my life to help save me from myself. And to pay her back for all these wonderful years I want to share a story. One of my favorites.

Several of us decided to host a “real” party at Nicole’s. We had impromptu parties all the time but wanted to have a planned blow out. We had the classy hors d'oeuvres; pizza rolls, cheese puffs and of course fruit dip. Then there was the horde of alcohol. Beer, rum, tequila, vodka and the all time favorite Goldschlager. I swear I have no idea why we liked hot cinnamon schnapps with flakes of gold in it. And we didn’t mix it. We used is as a straight shot. Mmmm expensive red hots liquefied.

For such a classy soirée jell-o shots was a must. No one wanted to waste good vodka on jell-o shots so we had the bright idea to use Banana Rum instead with cherry flavored jell-o. This rum had been in the apartment for months. And being young college kids this was saying a lot. Basically it was so potent nothing you mixed it with made it possible to drink. Yet we knew jell-o would do it. Yeah, no.

The party was rocking. But not a soul would drink the jell-o shots as one person had tried one and spit it out due to the banana rum and the fact that we used too much. Not to be deterred half way into the night Nicole decided she was not going to be wasteful. We both have issues with being wasteful and it was said more than once on this eventful night, I’m going to finish this whole thing. She picks up a cup of jell-o and shudders one down like an oyster. Not so bad she claims. So I chuck one. It was bad but left a very warm feeling in the belly. So we have another. And another. And a few more. By this point the only people left are the apartment mates and other drunk people who have pulled up some carpet for the night. For embarrassment reasons this is very lucky for Miss Nicole and I as we had decided that we just had to dance to Erasure – Chains of Love. Not such a big deal except Nicole kicked the wall and broke a toe and a friend threw a cheese puff at me and I hit the ground as if a brick had cracked my skull.

Not only did she “play" through the pain. She stayed up to clean and got up early the next morning to cook breakfast for the entire house. Nicole was the mother hen and took care of us when we didn’t know how to take care of ourselves.

If ever I need a pick me up I can think of her and all the times we have shared. There are friends we have that are great and then there are friends that make your world do a positive 180 with a simple phone call. Nicole is one of these friends. I am blessed to have her in my life. As adults we are almost completely different yet she is the friend who has always understood me and loves me anyway.

Once again Happy Birthday Nicole and be thankful I didn’t share the story of King Henry’s Feast. Or Epcot. Or the time you caught your hair on fire. Or better yet the time you caught your but on fire at my 30th.