Always Busy

So another crazy weekend comes and goes. Actually Friday was pretty mellow, we stayed home and I was working on a birthday cake for our friend Christa. Saturday we got up and started doing yard work and I was finishing up the cake when the doorbell rang. Well Mark was outside doing the yard and I could see him talking to who ever it was at the front door so I figured he had it handled. Then the doorbell rang again. What the heck was going on? Well I answered the door and was shocked to find my parents standing on the front porch. Apparently they had driven down for a friends birthday who live about an hour and a half away from Austin. My parents had the day free so thought they would zip up and surprise us. Well it definitely worked, I was shocked! They hung out and helped me finish my cake. Then we went into Austin and had lunch at Wholefoods. Then they headed back to their friends and we went back home. I was so happy to see them even though it was just for a few hours. I can't wait until they come back in July. Well after our surprise visit we came home and got ready to head down to San Marcus for Christa's birthday. They were having a beer Olympic themed party so I decided to make a beer shaped cake. I asked Christa's husband Dusty what her favorite beer was and he said Stella. Of course it couldn't be something easy. Well it took me three days to make the cake but I had so much fun doing it and I think it came out really good. It is one of my favorite cakes to date.

Lots of details, I tried to get as many little things in as I could.

Here is the cake next to the actual bottle of Stella beer.

The birthday girl loved her cake.

Dust and I were on a team. We were so close to winning the gold!

Beer Olympics was really fun. They had a bunch of different games. Everyone was paired with someone and you took turns competing. They gave out medals after each event and then the team with the most medals won the overall gold. Mark and his teammate were the winners. Dusty and I were a close 2nd. We ended up staying the night in San Marcus and then got up bright and early (6am) to drive home and meet up with Tim and Shara to go to the Astros games. We had a lot of fun. Mark and I had never been to Houston we didn't get to see much but really liked the ballpark. I only managed to take one pictures of Brody and Shara but it was a good one.

Cakes and Pregnant Women

That pretty much sums up our weekend. We decided to have some friends over on Saturday for dinner. Matt, Abbey, Robin and Justin all came over. Abbey and Robin are both pregnant and do later this year. I have been wanting to try out the Marshmallow Fondant recipe so it was the perfect excuse to make a cake. It was the worst cake I have made so far. I made so many mistakes but I learned a lot. I tried a milk chocolate ganache filling. The milk chocolate takes a lot longer to harden then dark chocolate. I got impatient and tried to put a icing ring between the cakes and then poor in the ganache. Well it started leaking out the sides. I finally got the cake frosted and covered with fondants but it began to sag in the middle because of the ganache. Then I tried this sparkle frosting stuff and it completely didn't work. So I just sponged the color on the cake and then did the black pipping. The cake looks ok from a distance but it was such a disaster. It tasted yummy and I learned a lot so I guess that's all that mattered.

Then on Sunday we went to Chris and Tiphini's (she is also pregnant) house for a BBQ and she asked me to bring something sweet. I decided to try this baseball cake because I was thinking about making it for Brody's birthday and wanted some practice. This is the first non-fondant cake I have tried. It came out pretty good, again I learned a few things and am excited to try again for Brody's birthday.

So I'm really getting into the cake making thing. Mark and I are talking about putting a website together and seeing what happens. So if anyone needs a cake or cupcakes for anything let me know. I'm not sure on pricing yet but we'll figure it out. Also I need help naming my business. So let me know your ideas. Mark likes Tasty Treats and I like Not Just Cakes but we are open to any suggestions.

Brody 11 Months

Brody is getting so big. He is eleven months today. I can't believe he is almost a year old. Time has gone by so fast. He is walking better and better every day. His new favorite thing is the telephone game. He thinks everything is a telephone. If you say "hello, hello" he holds up anything he has in his hand to his ear and starts talking. And if he doesn't have anything in his hand he will just put his hand to his ear and talk to that. It's pretty cute. He sleeps really good at night usually from 8pm to 8 or 9am. It's wonderful. He still loves bath time and being in the water. His only bad habit is that it is getting harder and harder to feed him. He does really well with breakfast, lunch is so so and then by dinner it takes a 3 ring circus to get him fed. Mark's mom read that kids who start walking between 10 and 11 months tend to loose interest in eating. So I guess it's normal but it is very frustrating. He used to be such a good eater and now it's such an ordeal sometimes. I guess I probably shouldn't complain, overall he is such a good little boy. I can't wait to have another one! We went over to our friends house for a BBQ last night and Brody got to play with Kayson. They are pretty cute together, they are going to be such heart breakers when they get older. Here are a couple of pictures of the two of them.

Our two little bald babies!

Brody and Shasta bird watching.

We were taking a bunch of pictures for Brody's birthday invitation and these were some of the ones that didn't make the cut, but they are so cute I had to put them on the blog.

Our week so far

So lets see. On Saturday we went with Tim and Shara down to Kyle for a fish fry at Tim's brothers house. A fish fry is basically a BBQ where you fry fish. It was FABULOUS! They had fried catfish and shrimp, blackened talapia, corn bread and hush puppies. I ate so much but it was all so good, I think the shrimp were my favorite. Then Sunday was Mark's first father's day. Brody and I made him waffles and sausage (his favorite) and then had a wonderful lazy day. All Mark wanted to do was relax and watch sports so that's what we did. On Monday one of our good friends from college was in town. His name is Cameron and we lived with him during the summer of our sophomore year. He was in town for a work conference so we picked him up from the airport and went out to dinner. It was great to see him and catch up. Tuesday was pretty uneventful as was today. Tomorrow Brody and I are going to a mommy/baby brunch at our friend Tiphini's house and then I think we are going to try and get together with Matt and Abbey at some point this weekend. I'm going to be attempting another cake soon. I just got a new recipe for a marshmallow fondant that I want to try out. If things work out I will take pictures and post them. Hope everyone is having a good week.

Walking

So Brody is officially walking. He started last weekend and I'm sorry it took me so long to get a video. The first couple times I would try he would take like five steps and then lunge for the camera. So today he was watching Mark mow the lawn and I sat down as far away from him as I could and told him to walk to me. And what do you know he actually did! So here is Brody in his walking debut.

Grrrrr

I'm so sick of bad drivers. On the way to the gym yesterday I was driving on the frontage road and had a green light. The speed limit is 45 so I was going right around that speed when a guy going about sixty decide to run the red light right in front of me. I had to slam on my breaks, the car fishtailed and turned sideways but luckily I didn't hit him. First I was honking and screaming a few choice words, then I was shaking and then I was crying. It scared me to death. Brody was totally unfazed but I was a mess. People need to stop doing a million other things while driving and just pay attention to the road. One of my best friends (Abbey) was just in a pretty bad car accident. She had a green light and the guy coming the other way thought he had a green arrow and basically hit her head on. She is ok but she was pretty banged up. Oh and did I mention she is 7 months pregnant. I can't even imagine how scared she must have been. I was in an almost accident and it totally shook me up. So to all the drivers out there. Please pay attention to the road!

Pigs must be flying somewhere...

Or hell has frozen over or the planets are out of whack. Something strange is going on. Everyone knows my feelings on exercise and the gym. If you don't lets just say I'm not a fan. Well that seems to be changing. I joined the gym a few months ago and have been going to yoga and pilates 5 sometimes 6 days a week. Mark and I actually did an hour and a half class last Saturday. Well the last couple of weeks I've actually been going to the gym twice a day. I don't know what has gotten into me. I get up in the morning and go to my class and then I have been meeting Mark in the afternoon and doing weights or cardio. I'm motivated for the first time in my life. It actually feels good to go. Maybe it's just finally having the time to do it. I don't know. Either way it's crazy. We'll see if it lasts. But for now I'm actually enjoying it. It helps that Brody really likes going to the little kiddy care place. He really likes to play with other little kids and they have so much fun stuff for him to play with. Oh yeah and did I mention he is walking. That's right last weekend he just sort of figured it out and has been walking all week. I'm trying to get a video and that will be my next post.

Swimming

Brody has loved the water ever since he was born. Mark was a big swimmer when he was young so he definitely gets it from his dad. When he was little I needed to wake him up to eat so I thought I would give him a bath but he ended up sleeping through the bath. Like I said he loves the water. So when he was just a few weeks old we took him swimming for the first time in Judy and Joel's pool. Of course he liked it but was way to young to appreciate it. Well last Thursday we took him swimming for the first time since we moved here. He was so cute, he loved the water. He was splashing around and kept accidentally putting his face in the water. I really like our pool area. The pool is all 3 and 4 feet deep. There is a great big splash park and then outside the gates there is a playground and picnic tables with BBQ pits. I think we will use it more and more the bigger Brody gets.

This is a picture of the three of us in Judy and Joel's pool when Brody was just a few weeks old. Look how little he was.

This is Brody and I last week in the pool. It was kind of hard to get a picture because he was looking all over the place and wanting to splash and play.

Movies, Movies, Movies

We have been on a total movie kick lately. I hadn't seen a movie in so long and then all of sudden I feel like I have been to a ton of movies in the past few months. So I thought I would share what I've seen and what I thought of the movies.

The first movie I saw in Texas was 28 Dresses. It was a very cute movie. A classic romantic comedy.

Then I think I saw Vantage Point which was pretty good but a little repetitive. It's a movie that shows the same incident from different characters vantage points.

Next was Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I was a little disappointed in this movie. It was funny but it just wasn't that great. Oh and warning to anyone who hasn't seen it there are several shots of full frontal male parts. It took me by surprise to say the least.

Then Mark and I saw Iron Man. It was soooo good and we weren't expecting it to be. We only saw it because Mark hadn't been to the Alamo Drafthouse and it was the only movie playing. We both loved it. I think it's the best movie I have seen so far this summer. Oh and on a side note there is a crazy story to go along with this date night. Sydna had agreed to watch Brody so that we could go see a movie together. Well towards the end of the movie we started getting phone calls and text messages from everyone we know making sure we were safe. Safe? what was going on. Well as soon as we got out of the movie we found out the 3 funnel clouds had touched down about 10 miles from our house. Everyone in the movie theater was in the lobby waiting for one to pass. We made it home safe from the theater, Syd was a little freaked out. It was one of the craziest nights, the lightening and thunder was like nothing I have ever seen. Anyway the storm passed and we all survived and the movie was fabulous.

After that I wanted to take Syd to the Alamo so the next week we went to see What Happens in Vegas. It was very good. Again a classic romantic comedy. I love Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz so I might be biased.

When we were in New Mexico we saw Indiana Jones. Again I really liked it. I thought they kept the integrity of the previous films and I like the way they played on Harrison Fords age and didn't try to make him younger then he really is . And I love love love Shia LaBeouf. As far as action movies go I still think Iron Man was better but this was definitely good too.

And last but not least I just saw Sex and the City. It was all I wanted it to be and more. I was such a huge fan of the show, I used to watch it every week. In fact I had my first cosmo for the finale of the show and have been hooked on them ever since. I was a little sad that it all came together so well because it didn't really leave room for a sequel. But overall it was a really good movie and I will probably see it again when it comes out on DVD.

So those are all the movies I have seen in the theater. We have rented a ton more, but too many to list. I will say I have been trying to see old movies that I never saw. So far I have seen Kramer Vs. Kramer and Pan's Labyrinth. Both were really good Kramer Vs. Kramer was good but so sad, especially if you have kids. Pan's Labyrinth is a Spanish film and is all subtitles but I really enjoyed it. It's very different but I would definitely recommend it.

Well leave me a comment and let me know if you have seen any good movies lately or if you can think of any classic older movies that are a must see.

Baseball in Texas

On Saturday night we drove up to Arlington to go to the A's-Rangers game. It was so much fun. We just loved going to a new stadium. The Texas stadium is really nice. We had awesome seats right behind home plate. Abbey's sister Jamie and her family were at the game and we were able to meet up with them. I haven't seen them since Abbey's wedding. They were actually able to come sit with us for the end of the game and then we all watched the firework show. Jamie's kids were really cute, they loved Brody. The entire night was a lot of fun, Brody loved the fireworks. I was a little worried they might scare him but he was just fascinated with them.

Brody and I before the game, Mark totally taught him to clap when we chanted "go A's".

And he also taught him high five.

Mark and Brody at our seats.

Brody watching the fireworks, he was so tired.