the long awaited rainbow cake post

I made a five layer rainbow cake for Melody's 5th birthday this year. It was my biggest cake endeavor to date. I spent 3 hours on it. This cake was my inspiration. I love this perfect photo so much that I am thinking about framing it for my house. My cake did not turn out so perfect, but it was a success, thanks to Chad's help.

Here is the finished product:


Here are five bowls stacked and ready for food coloring:


Mixing:


Baking:


Cooling:


Here is where things got tricky (and I got tired). I used 9 cups of powdered sugar for the frosting, and still ran out. I used too much between the layers and things started to lean. Chad shored things up with these skewers and we let it sit overnight.


The next morning (hours before the party) I remembered I had some heavy whipping cream in the fridge. I whipped it up and covered the cake again with more frosting goodness.


The outcome was pretty!


And this face made it all worth it. She was pretty excited for me to cut into the rainbow surprise. It was the sweetest cake I've ever tasted, with all the frosting, but I didn't make this cake for taste... it was for looks.


Here are two more fun cake ideas. I might use this one next. It looks easier. And this one could be fun for Valentines Day. While we are on the subject of edible rainbows, check out these pancakes.

leah's birthday

Here I am again, after my longest blog hiatus ever. The past several months have been busy. Here is a bullet point list of what's up....

• In November and December we celebrated three birthdays, one anniversary, Thanksgiving and Christmas. We went to Houston for Thanksgiving and Illinois for Christmas.

• Chad loves his new job. He is more fulfilled in his work than ever before.

• We have buyers for our house!! After being on the market for 5 months, we have buyers. Keeping it clean enough for showing was a huge task for our family.

• We will move to Fayetteville this month! I can't believe it's finally going to happen! Chad and I are both excited to live near everything again. We can't wrap our brains around the idea of being right down the street from everything. We know there are things we'll miss about being in the country, too. We'll still have 12 acres out here, so that will help.

• I am 27 weeks into this pregnancy already. We are having a BOY. We are all thrilled to meet this little one in May. We have no name yet, but a short list of possibilities. I'm seeing my same midwife, Jennifer Creel, and am having a good pregnancy. I'm trying not to gain 55-60 lbs this time!

Below are pictures of Leah on her birthday on November 11. She asked for a dark blue cake. I couldn't figure out how to pull that off with my light blue food coloring, so this is what we ended up with. I used mini m&ms and sprinkles on top of light blue heavy whipped cream. Underneath all of the blue was the Hershey cocoa chocolate cake I've made at least 10 times in the past two years since I discovered the recipe on the can. No joke.





Coming up in the next few days is a long awaited rainbow cake post from Mel's 5th birthday party. And after that I'll post some pregnancy pictures.

leah's love

Leah is a mama's girl. She often chooses to hang out when me when we are in groups with other kids. These two photos show a fun progression of her affection and her goofy humor. She makes me laugh everyday.

the update

Chad was laid off in April. From May until August he did various side jobs for our church, including remodeling a building for a new thrift store in Fayetteville. Our church offered him a job as a manager at this store. A couple of weeks ago he decided to accept the offer and we are now employed again! I immediately became excited about start the adoption process again. We were on hold the entire summer -- from Memorial Day until Labor Day. I decided I'd call our agency, Gladney, on Tuesday after Labor Day, with the news. Tuesday came and I felt weird. I decided to take a pregnancy test before calling. The test was positive. We are pregnant!

I was shocked into tears at the sight of the positive pregnancy test. I told Chad and his response was a surprised smile, "This is good news." he said with emotion. His positive statement brought me from tears to joy in a matter of minutes. I was sad about the adopted baby. I have been waiting for him for almost a year now. At the same time, we have been ready for another baby for a long time. We didn't expect it to happen this way, though!

I am due around May 10, which seems like a really long time away. The other night Melody asked, "Mommy, will we have to wait 30 years for this baby to get here?" Having a 4 year old in the process with us is fun. She talks about the baby all of the time. We gather she is thinking about the new baby nonstop! She even dreams about the baby. The other day we were talking about girl names. She said she liked the name Flower. I explained there are many flower names people use for girl names. Rose, Daisy, Lily, etc.

She said, "I know what we can do. We will write down all of the flower names. Then we can spread them all over the couch in rows. Then me and you and Daddy will look at them together and decide what to name the baby!"

I finally called Gladney to tell them the news. Our caseworker, Jessica, was amazing. In fact, she knows just how I feel because she got pregnant while in the adoption process as well. Gladney's guidelines state that we are not able to pursue adoption while pregnant. I am okay with this because I cannot imagine doing both pregnancy and adoption at the same time! We will be able to start the adoption again when this new baby is six months old, if we choose. For now that is our tentative plan.


For now I will leave you with a photo of Melody, Leah and myself. A sweet friend of ours, Hope, did a photo shoot in July. I have outtles of pictures to share with you over the next few weeks.

big update coming soon...

swim lessons 09

This was our fourth year to have swim lessons. Even still, the week wore me out! Swim lessons are a lot of work. I like the sun. I like the water. I like being with my kids. I like leaving the house. Put it all together, and you get one tired mama and two tired kids. Maybe its the long list of things to remember... swim diapers, sunblock, water, snacks, towels, changes of clothes, regular diapers, hair up, swim buoy, goggles... Forget one and things start to unravel quickly. Like the day Leah pooped hugely in her swim diaper 20 minutes into our water-baby lesson. (I was in the water with her.) Changing that diaper was like trying to clean up an oil spill. Impossible. Swim diapers are great, but can someone please invent a way to make it less of a mess when they POOP in them?



Here's Melody using the kick board with her teacher, Heather Fedosky. We've known the Fedosky's for five years now. (!) They go to our church and I was delighted to discover Heather was Mel's teacher.



Mel jumping off the diving board! I have to admit, I was very excited and proud. I clapped and squealed each time she jumped. I remember the first summer I jumped off a diving board. What a thrill! I love her smile in the picture.



Leah and I sitting in the shade during Mel's lesson. This was Melody's first year to be in a lane class. There were four kids in her class and two teachers.



Here are Heather and Melody posing after the last class on Friday. Melody has started using a posed smile; gotta love those.

lil' brother graduated!

My brother, Chris, graduated from John Brown University last month. It was a happy day. He studied Construction Management (same as Chad) and worked hard to put himself through school. He amazed me by the small amounts of sleep he tortured himself with. I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning a lot my freshman year, but after that I got at least six hours a night most of the time. Not Chris. I think 3am was his typical bedtime. I have no idea how he did it. He's in Colorado working at a camp this summer, and we are missing him. His weekly visits were our excuse/reason to make homemade chocolate chip cookies on a regular basis. Congrats Christopher!



Here's the whole happy family.



This is Jim Caldwell, the main Construction Prof at JBU. Jim has been a great friend to Chad since we graduated 10 years ago. I rarely see Chad laugh as often and as hard as when he is interacting with Jim Caldwell. You can see Chris is laughing also.



After the ceremony my dad took the family out to Shogun's in Fayetteville. (Thanks Dad!) Melody and Leah used chopsticks for the first time. Goldfish snacks. Do they eat those in China?