Gillian Quote (and fondant)

I added links to the bottom of my Cake post for those of you who want the recipe for fondant.

Gillian: "I want to paint my whole house pink."
Tim: "A pink house, oh my goodness."
Gillian: "It's not 'oh my goodness'! It's perfect and it's awesome."

My Stats

So today I did the math of how my body has spent the past 7 years (April 2002-April 2009).

During the past 7 years I have spent:

2.42 years pregnant (34.52%)
1.83 years nursing (26.19%)
2.75 years (39.29%) not nursing and not pregnant

In 7 years, I have shared my body with my children 60.71% of the time or 4.25 years.

During the 2.75 years I had the luxury of my own body, I spent 1.17 years at a "good weight" (which has less to do with weight and more to do with feeling like I had my own back).

So in the past 7 years, I have had what I consider "my body" for 1.17 years.

I think I am going to stop being so hard on myself for not having my body exactly where I want it. As my sister-in-law Sara said, "considering how many children you have had in the amount of time you have had them and how big your babies were--you should give yourself at least 4 more years before you start freaking out about things."

Thank goodness for sisters with the reassuring voice of reason.

We Want Cake! Where's Our Cake!

I love making birthday cakes, as many of you know. This year I tried my hand at the marshmallow fondant I've been seeing and hearing about everywhere. Tim came home Sunday morning after his 24 hour Ob/Gyn call (they let him do all kinds of cool things, insemination, stitch up a c-section, deliver two babies--so much cooler than general surgery) and was so intrigued by the process that he forwent his much needed nap to help us out.

Tim has such a fun loving and vibrant personality that everything is a joy with him around and we had a fabulous time. Those of you who know Tim, know that he is a BIG proponent of the Least Amount of Work Possible way of doing things and so it was tons of fun to see him get so into something that was actually a great deal more work than necessary for a birthday cake (see I can admit it).

Eleanor found a bowl of Buttercream.

Last week I had Tim cut me a piece of PVC pipe for a rolling pin. After 9 years of domesticity we still don't have a rolling pin and I needed something more smooth than the cups I normally use. (Tim and I have a hard time not spending money on expensive things and a really hard time spending money on the small things. It is all about opportunity cost. That, and I hate cluttering up my kitchen.)

The cakes in various stages of the process. First the buttercream, then the rolled out fondant.

Gillian has been talking about having a Hello Kitty Party for almost a year now. I think hers is officially my favorite cake I've made (although I did also like the lady bug one she had for her 2d)

I got to experiment a little more with Eleanors.

**addendum: people have expressed interest in the wonderful world of marshmallow fondant. Click here to see the instructions I used to make the fondant and here to see a site that shows what fondant cakes are suppose to look like. Next time I might invest in the fancy shmancy tools necessary to get such clean cut lines on the cake.

Birthday Girls

Our good friends the Talks came over to celebrate the girls birth with us. It's a good thing too because I forgot to buy a present for Eleanor. Without Wyatt's present, she wouldn't have had anything to open. I've said it before and I'll say it again...Poor Little Third.

We almost didn't give El her own cake, it was the only yellow cake after all. But despite being a Third, I guess she does deserve some of the things the other kids got.

James got to pick out the ice cream treat since I never could find an eggless cake recipe that tasted good AND could be used for decorating and tiering.

Trip to Raleigh

We (including Tim this time) drove to Raleigh last weekend to see Baby George** in his last highschool play, Guys and Dolls. While there we also...

Helped my Dad set a trap for his nemesis squirrel.

James and the Trap.

My Dad demonstrating how the Trap should work.

Saw the PlayNicely Nicely (aka George)

above: singing about not rocking the boat

below: with his loving family

Had a Birthday Cake for Eleanor and Gillian

a picture from our January trip of Gillian helping Grandma
cook.

**James the other day was telling me something about "Baby James" and it took me awhile to figure out that he was talking about my brother James and that "Baby" was the title he now has for "Uncle" i.e. Baby Tony, Baby John, Baby Jesse etc.

Gillian's First Hair Cut

While in Raleigh, Laura Alvarez gave Gillian her First Hair Cut. I figured it was about time. It was more of a trim really, but it made such a huge difference have the strawy ends off. It never tangles anymore and just looks so much neater. Even Tim (famously opposed to girls cutting their hair) had to agree, it did look better.

Ignore the scowl, she didn't really mind the hair cut. She just scowls and shuts down whenever anyone asks her to do anything that is out of the ordinary or not on her regular game plan. I was just glad the recalcitrance didn't occur until the end rather than the beginning.

Switching Places

My cousin Emily switched places with Tim during his Spring Break. She came here for the week and Tim flew to Utah and the kids stayed in their respective homes. It was awesome...albeit a little cold. Luckily I remembered to tell Emily that we always had hats and socks on in the house.

The kids took to Emily immediately. James had to show her all the neat stuff he could do and Gillian followed Emily around the house narrating her life story. Emily was very gracious about it. Below is a picture of Gillian and Emily napping together.

Emily snuggling my almost-not-a-baby.

A Real Snow Day

On Monday we woke up to snow and even a little build up on the ground. I was actually impressed with the amount of snow. I of course pushed everyone outside for pictures.

It was Eleanor's first snow experience. She seemed pretty non-nonplussed by the experience...up until she touched the stuff. Her reaction is documented below as well as the various other children's reaction to the snow.

The Beach

On Friday the weather finally warmed up, we picked James up from school early and headed to Virginia Beach. I can't emphasize enough how completely perfect it was. It had all the beauty and isolation of a serene winter beach without having to brave the frigid wind and temperature. The water was too cold to play in of course, but the beach was full of smooth rocks and shell fragments and we had a great time beach combing.

We've never been to Virginia beach off-season (fine, we've only ever been during Emily and Ryan's last visit in June), but apparently they comb the beach clean of all the fun stuff during tourist season because there were no shells last time were here.

We had such a fabulous time that we got up early on Saturday and went again before Emily's flight. It was even more perfect on Saturday. Can something be "more" perfect? Perhaps Saturday was perfect and Friday was almost perfect.