Leighton's Firsts

I have a few “firsts” to report:

Last month, Leighton experienced her first snow. Of course, it snowed last winter too, but she was only a couple of months old, so I kept her inside. Last year we had about 20 inches fall in one day. It was amazing!!!  I didn’t really get to enjoy it or watch Kathleen experience it because I was stuck inside with a newborn who never napped. This year’s snow was very little, but with the mild winter we’ve had, I’m just thankful that we got any at all. Kathleen had been begging me to make it snow and asking when she could play in the snow. And I bought Leighton a little snow suit for Christmas. I’m glad we were able to use it, even if it was only once. When I took her outside, she was a little confused at first, but then she started to have some fun.

Last week, Leighton got her first boo-boo…right on the nose. Joshua was walking her down the street in her Little Tykes car. He saw a hawk and was paying attention to that and not the fact that the car door had come loose. She fell right out. Also, Leighton’s hair is finally long enough to pull up into pigtails. ADORABLE!!!!! Here is a picture I took which shows her boo-boo and her very first pigtails.

And here's one of Kathleen also looking super-cute in her pigtails:

Also, Leighton has apparently taken her first steps. She did this at Mother’s Day Out last week, so I didn't see it. I keep trying to get her to do it at home, but she won’t. I even spy on her when she stands alone in hopes that she’ll take a step or two….nope.

Birthdays!!!!!

I have a lot of catching up to do. It’s March and this blog entry is about the girls’ birthday parties, which were in November and January. Then I guess I should write about Christmas and the snow and a couple of girly projects I’ve done.

Look Whoo’s Turning One!

In November we celebrated Leighton’s first birthday. Grandpa Charlie came down from Wisconsin to celebrate her actual birthday, November 17, with us. I picked up a small cake from WalMart and we went to Mellow Mushroom for pizza, cake and present opening.

 

On Saturday the 19^th, we went to Little Rock for Joshua’s football tournament. After we finished on Sunday, we headed straight home to Atlanta for the Thanksgiving holiday. What a busy week that was! We had Leighton’s birthday party the day after Thanksgiving. Most of our family was there and my good friend, Alycia, and her new baby, Dane, came too. I had planned to make a cake, but our week was so jam-packed and I was so tired, I decided to order one instead. It worked out because Publix was able to decorate a cake with an owl on it (the theme) and they threw in a smash cake for free. I have little artistic talent, so I had just planned to use a “1” cake pan I bought from Hobby Lobby. The owl was much better. I did feel guilty, though, for not making the cake myself. After all, she only turns one once. I spent hours on Kathleen’s cake for her first birthday, and then I turned around and spent a lot of time making the cake for Kathleen’s 3^rd birthday too, so I felt like Leighton got shafted (again). It seems the second baby gets the second-best of everything. In any case, we had a lot of fun with our family, and I’m thankful that we were able to celebrate with (almost) everyone!

Let’s Monkey Around!

Kathleen is obsessed with Monkeys. She’ll even tell you that she is a monkey. I received a party catalogue in the mail that Kathleen quickly confiscated from me. She carried at all over the house with her. When she saw the monkey party supplies, she went bananas (pun intended) and it was quickly decided that she was having a monkey birthday party. We decided to have the party at Aspire Gymnastics Academy. It was nice to not have to clean house beforehand. However, because our local Boys and Girls Club is notoriously slow to get basketball schedules out, we had to wait some time to actually schedule the party because we didn’t want it to conflict with Joshua’s basketball game. By the time we got the schedule, Aspire was pretty much booked. So, we had the party on a Saturday night and the turnout wasn’t great. I was disappointed, but Kathleen didn’t even notice. I planned to make a monkey cake. Now, this is a situation where I wished I could order a cake. But the WalMart bakery is not as talented as Publix and they can only make the cakes they have in the book. There was one monkey cake, but the colors were all wrong and I didn’t like it. Fortunately, I found a template online that was the exact “mod monkey” design that was on the party supplies….YES!!!! BUT, the template was for a 6-inch cake. Two problems: that’s a very small cake and I only had an 8-inch pan. However, I had ordered a mylar balloon that had the monkey on it. And it just so happened that the design on the balloon was 8 inches….PERFECT!!! I traced the design onto a piece of parchment paper to use as my template.

Here is the link to the instructions and template I found for this cake. I want to be sure to give credit where credit is due. http://www.toppartyideas.com/mod-monkey-cake/

Then, at about 6pm on Friday night, I saw some piggy cake pops on pinterest. That’s when I remembered that mom had given me cake pop pans for Christmas. I immediately thought, “Monkey cake pops!” and started searching the internet for ideas.  I found a couple of examples at:
http://blogalacart.com/2011/05/monkey-cake-balls/ 

and
http://sewellphotography.typepad.com/weblog/2011/03/domestic-diva.html

I used ideas from both blogs and added my own touches since these were for a girl's party. Obviously, I used pink chocolate for mine. I did make a couple of brown ones because we had invited a couple of boys to the party. I also used cashews for ears because I couldn't find circle pretzels. I found some springtime sprinkles in the shape of flowers and used those to adorn the head. For the mouth, I used pull-apart twizzlers. Fast forward 13 hours and I’m finally going to bed at 7am after spending all night making a monkey cake and monkey cake pops. Now do   
you see why I feel guilty about Leighton’s store-bought cake?

 

I should also add that we celebrated Kathleen’s actual birthday at Cracker Barrel. We always eat there when we travel. It’s quick; it’s cheap; it’s fairly consistent; and it’s not fast food. There’s one located in Tupelo, Mississippi, the halfway point between Bentonville and Atlanta, so we always stop there and our way to and fro. Geoff has a Cracker Barrel app on his phone, so we can find other locations easily when we’re traveling for baseball, etc. A few days before her birthday, Kathleen was playing games on Geoff’s phone and she saw the app. She kept talking about it. Later in the day, I asked her where she wanted to eat on her birthday and her answer was “Cwackle Baywul!” So, that’s where we went. She opened some presents and we all shared a couple of slices of Coca-Cola cake….YUM!!!