30 Cupcakes for 30 Awesome Years

as i mentioned a few posts ago, my wonderful friend cindy turned 30 last week. i really wanted to make her a cake since 1. i took that stinkin class and i really feel like i should be making more cakes with my new found skills and 2. because i had no real money to buy her a real present, and so i wanted to make her a cake that she would love and that would be her present. i thought of what kind of cake i could make for her, and it dawned on me to make 30 cupcakes to represent 30 years of her amazing life. i haven't taken the fondant class yet, but it seemed simple enough from the sounds of it on the internet.

so i went to Michael's and bought a block of ready-to-use fondant, and a box of food coloring (the serious kind. it has a 'copper/ skin stone' color in there. it was perfect!) and just as i thought, fondant is really easy! if you know how to play with play dough, you know how to use fondant. the only tools i needed were a few butter knives, toothpicks (for the food coloring, and the eyes on the people), ziploc bags, and clear plastic wrap (to keep the unused fondant 'fresh). and i stored the little models in tupperware for 3-4 days. i started this project at wednesday's nap and just barely finished before the party on saturday. i only worked at nap times and when the kids were asleep.

mike and christin, cindy's husband and sister, helped me out with some meaninful things that happened to cindy throughout the years, and cindy did too, though she didn't know what she was helping me with. the beginning years are kind of abstract, i added things like 'i love the ocean' because cindy started an oceanography club at her elementary school where she was the best 6th grade teacher, and i happened to not have anything to put on that particular year's cupcake. here are some fruits of my labour of love (1. i love cindy, 2. i love making sweets for people, 3. i kinda love fondant now)


maybe not the best shot of all 30 cupcakes, but i wasn't tall enough to get a bird's eye view shot.
cindy's favorite colors are pink and teal, so i wrapped a metal baking pan with tissue paper of those colors.


one of my faves. it says "I'm 5!" I need to work on my penmanship (or my pipingmanship?)


the first 10 years from 1980-1989. which included christin's being born when cindy was 2, and cindy's accepting Jesus into her heart when she was 6.


the next 10. this included her favorite childhood memory of sliding down the stairs in her sleeping bag and peeing all the way down (you are gross cindy. but i love you. and you are also pretty.), her first kiss at 16, and her meeting her husband mike when he was 16 and she was 19 (so many comments could be made here, but i shall refrain!)


the last 10. this included a couple trips, her getting married (yes, that's a ring pop. that and the candles are the only things not handmade on the cupcakes.), her coming to sun valley community church which was of the utmost importance otherwise i would not have her in my life, and her almost getting arrested for partaking in a joking eyebrow snip at school (such a long yet amazing story...)




another one of my favorites

making flags is one of the easier things to do since you just roll out and cut stuff out.

all you need is a little water and pressure to make things stick together. this was good for me since cindy is quite the traveler!

i originally was just going to do the 'ASU' sign, but then cindy's sister 'dared' me to make a sun devil, and i cannot pass up a dare!

this is the 2009 cupcake, which is the year when cindy's baby will make her appearance, and we cannot wait!

there were 30 candles on the 'cake' (at ages 8 and 22), but i would not recommend putting 22 candles on one cupcake. drew almost lost his eye brow and the front section of his home!)

anyway, if there is anything i can create for you or a loved one- let me know! this was too much fun to not do again. (and i promise to work on my sloppy writing!)

Little Miss Lily

Lily is not like me in a lot of ways, but she does a mighty great job of immitating me, especially when I am acting like a complete fool. As I mentioned last week, I was in hysterics for most of it. And Lily saw every moment of it! I slammed my fist on the table one night when the kids wouldn't eat. The next day Lily would smack the table and shake her head in dismay and exhale as loudly as she could. Man I look like an idiot in front of my kids! And when I was crying in front of the kids that same night as the table banging, I was crying at some point in front of them, and Lily looked over at me and said "Kiss? Hug?" Cause in her world, those things make everything better. That's a good world to live in.

Lily's fixations of late include 'Finding Nemo' and toy cars. We have to tell her that Nemo is napping and that's why she can't watch him, and that is a plausible excuse to her. And she loves her little toy cars. She carries them in her purse, she has to have them when she goes to bed, and if she is wearing pants with pockets, there should be a car in a pocket at all times! Sometimes I think Lily is already a very materialistic little girl, but I think she has had a lot of change happen in her short lifetime, so she really gravitates to things she can hold on to and have and control.

Another thing she does that has been cracking me up lately is she is really trying to 'write'. She sees me doing my devotions at the kitchen table (not everyday, but close!) and she sees me hunched over my journal writing, and so when she gets a chance to hold a pen, she hunches over whatever paper she has, and 'writes' really small little figures. Modern day hieroglyphics if you will.

Tonight Chris and I went to our beautiful friend Cindy's 30th birthday party. Which I want to mention that Mike, her husband, did such a great job planning the party (with help from Christin, who also did a stand up job!) with a travel theme. Way to go Mike! There is almost nothing out there that warms my heart more than seeing a husband making a real effort to do something nice for his wife. Anyhoo, back to Lily though. So Barb came over to watch the kids here at Wes' house. And we pretty much ran out the door when she got here, and didn't realize that we didn't tell her where the kids were sleeping. (This house is giganormous.) Fortunately Barb had Lily. She asked Lily where Toto slept, and Lily showed her. Then when it was Lily's turn to be put down to bed, Lily asked her Nana for her 'night' (which means night light, but actually also means light.) Nana had no idea where it was, so she told Lily that she would leave the door open a crack. As Barb was walking away from Lily's room, she heard a 'click' and the door shut. Lily turned her own night light on, and closed the door for privacy. What a funny little girl.

Anyway, I love my Lily. I know I complain about her a lot. And unfortunately that is my nature- complain and whine! But I love her and I don't give her enough credit for being a loving and responsible older sister who truly takes care of her brother, and even me and her dad! And she's only 2 and a half!

Happy Hour is Upon Us

hello dear friends.
so much great news to share! i woke up with a gross head cold this morning. i kinda feel like dying. and i was supposed to have people hanging out with me at different points of this evening- but they've bailed on me, or i have bailed on them. so great. i love me some fellowship, but tonight i need to lay low.
and even in my sucky feeling state, chris and the kids and i managed to get our butts to the mesa house for the last time to clean out the garage of the last of our boxes so that our new renters can move in! yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! praise Jesus. times a million times a million. then we met our new renters at starbucks to give them their keys and to pick up their deposit and first month's rent! how good it feels to not have the burden of an empty house on one's shoulders!
thanks thanks thanks to all who have lifted up this situation in prayer on our behalves. we are so grateful. i life up my root beer float in salute to you all out there!

Labour Day

yes. i spelled 'labour' with a 'u'. that's how we canadians spell it. and apparently only canadians actually respect 'labour day'. in this crazy state of arizona, most kids have been back in school for about a month already. that's called craziness people. there are a butt load of kids in my home town of toronto, ontario in canada getting ready to start their first day of school Tomorrow. the day after labour day. the day you are SUPPOSED to start school.

What is labour day though? really? why do we celebrate this day? allow me to share what i found on Wikipedia:

"The holiday originated in Canada out of labor disputes ("Nine-Hour Movement") first in Hamilton, then in Toronto, Canada in the 1870s, which resulted in a Trade Union Act which legalized and protected union activity in 1872 in Canada. The parades held in support of the Nine-Hour Movement and the printers' strike led to an annual celebration in Canada. In 1882, American labor leader Peter J. McGuire witnessed one of these labor festivals in Toronto. Inspired from Canadian events in Toronto, he returned to New York and organized the first American "labor day" on September 5 of the same year.[citation needed]"

i have been celebrating labour day for 28 years and i never knew this! actually, i probably 'learned' it at school one year and forgot it soon after needing that info for a test or exam. i wrote all that canadian stuff in that first paragraph before even knowing the info about the holiday. i think we should all start writing 'labour day' with a 'u' since canadians really did start the whole thing! go canada!

we are celebrating this wonderful holiday as a family. for the most part. chris let me 'sleep in' this morning. (for an extra half an hour. i will take what i can get!) we had a moment where all four of us were on the same couch, laying on top of one another watching tv. it lasted for about 30 seconds, but it was one of the best 30 seconds in recent memory. man my kids are cute! then we picked up the van that had been sitting at Discount Tire since saturday (i had a flat and then needed to replace the two back tires since they are always going flat on us. that was awesome cause we have SO MUCH MONEY right now...) and then went to visit a friend of ours who is kinda on bedrest for the next six weeks until her baby is due. (that sucks! but she and the baby are healthy, so that's all you can ask for!)

we are STILL looking for renters. saturday did not go as planned (no cocktail hour. thanks for asking though shannon). don't think i am withholding information/updates from you dear readers! i am just WAITING to be able to write a drunken post full of good news. (i am no lush. i will probably just end up having a root beer float sans alcohol. and that will probably be way better than a cocktail!) if any of you know anyone who wants to rent a 5 bedroom house in far east mesa, you just let me know!

anyway, that's it for now. hope you all have wonderful labour days with your friends and families. and if you should happen to come accross any canadians today- you americans just might want to give them a hug and thank them for this day. ;)

(canadians i know that you might know: ryan delvikan, half of lindsay watson, half of both my kids, and my sister three weeks ago before she became an american citizen.)

it's like a vacation...

i am starting to treat my time here at the wes and kim watson residence like a vacation. cause it kinda is. but when you have kids, and they go anywhere with you- it's not a complete vacation. there's always so much more laundry with them, sippy cups that i need to wash by hand, food scraps that need to be picked up/scraped off the floor. but being here at wes and kim's makes me feel like i am not at home in a good way. they keep telling me to 'make myself at home' and i have in lots of ways- i raid their pantry every other hour to grab a handful of peanut m&ms (note to self: buy a new bag of peanut m&ms before i leave); i have a pile of 'crap' on their kitchen table that includes my devotional materials, crayons, and colouring pages. they don't have piles of 'crap' laying around anymore, so my creating my own shows you how comfortable i feel here; i have overtaken their tivo to record backyardigans, mickey mouse clubhouse, ni hao kai lan, and of course- so you think you can dance!

this is actually my second time living in this house. i moved to arizona a month before chris and i got married in 2005. so i lived here while chris lived in our gilbert house. it was awesome then, especially since breanne and josh still ived at home, so i got to know my step-sister-in-law and step-brother-in-law better, and it's awesome now. cause wes and kim really do everything they can to make us feel comfortable. but the reasons i feel like i am on vacation, and not at home are awesome too: i feel like i am at a resort! they have a pool here, so we have gone swimming almost every day. i used to think i could never go swimming with the two kids without another adult present. but the kids are pretty good about listening around the water, it's like they know their lives depend on it; they have a workout room downstairs that i am going to take advantage of as soon as i finish blogging (because of all those blasted m&ms! and the ice cream, and the pop corn... oh what a wonderful pantry they have!!!) the workout room is perfect because the eliptical machine, treadmill, and stationary bike are all facing a ginormous tv. so great! and i just seem to have a lot more free time while the kids are napping and sleeping (as you can tell from my blogging three days in a row! and being able to work out!) i perform my chores way faster here for some reason...

anyway, most of the stress from moving and being in a new place have subsided. i am in limbo here because there is nothing to pack, and nothing i can really unpack. which is very nice. tomorrow we show the house to another family who is interested in renting it. so should that happen to pan out, i will probably be lounging in the pool with a cocktail in hand, in full-out stress-free vacation mode.

One Day at a Time. Part 2

Yesterday's post was getting a bit too long so I cut it off. But I never really got to the good part of my superlongwinded story!

In the midst of my hysterics, I realized I was very frustrated about Lily's sleeping again. She wasn't getting enough of it. She was waking up at 3am, then wouldn't stay in her room. So then I was having to sleep in the room with her. If this were happening at our house, I would have locked the door and thought nothing of it. But being with Wes and Kim, letting Lily scream for an hour while banging on the door in the middle of the night just didn't feel like an option. And they are leaving for Birmingham tomorrow, so I figured if we could make it till Friday, we would all be ok. And though I was worried about the negative effects my sleeping in Lily's room would have on her for the next few days, I remembered the verse about just worrying about today cause tomorrow would have it's own problems to worry about. That actually helped quite a bit.

So then 'tomorrow' came (which actually was yesterday). And it was awesome! I slept with Lily from 3am on, but we didn't get up till about 7:45am! Awesome start! Kim was already up and feeding Topher who was also already up. All this moving and stuff has affected Topher's sleep too, so instead of sleeping his regular 12 hours, he has only been sleeping 11. Not the hardest thing for me to deal with. Then it was nap time, and Lily cried for about 5-10 minutes. And then slept for over two hours. Superawesome. We hung out and played, and then when it was bedtime again, I put the kids down and didn't hear a peep from them till 5:20am!

I used to think 5:20am was really early, until I met 3am. Now I am thankful when 5:20am is the first thing I see in the morning, along with Lily's precious dimpled face asking for 'Mook', aka. milk. I was going to buy a sound machine yesterday, or possibly even some hard drugs off the street just to get Lily to sleep better. But I guess all she needed was a little time for herself to get used to the new changes in her life. I am trying really hard to be much more patient and understanding towards my kids, cause they are probably not really understanding what is going on. And they will probably be confused again when we move again in two weeks. And again in another 52 weeks... To stay sane, we are really trying to take all these changes one day at a time...

One Day at a Time

I meant to write yesterday. I really should have written yesterday. I was absolutely hysterical and stressed and sleep-deprived yesterday. All those reasons contributed to my not writing yesterday. But today was a new day and ever so different than yesterday- and Praise Jesus for that!



I am presently at Chris' dad's place. We have been living here since Monday evening. Monday was not the best day either. But it was better than yesterday. Monday we tried to 'finish' packing (it's Wednesday, we are still not 'finished' packing.) Then Robert and Chris proceeded to move all of our boxed stuff, and furniture to Barb & Jerry's garage, and Wes & Kim's house. We fortunately did not have a lot of furniture, so this made the move bearable. But I give serious props to Chris and his brother for moving in triple-digit weather. The kids and I hung out at Robert & Lindsay's all day, which was tons of fun. Even though Lily did not nap. I tried to put her down for a nap, but she is not very good at sleeping in different places. She used to be good at it when I made her sleep in her car seat when I would hang out with my friends at night. Oh the good old days! But once Topher entered the world, it was sleep at our house or bust. No game nights for us unless they were hosted by us. Anyhoo, I did not mind that she didn't nap, and I had a great time hanging out with her, Lindsay, and my nephews. Lindsay even got to go grocery shopping alone while the boys napped and I hung out with Lily. I felt very happy to be able to bless my sister-in-law with that gift, cause grocery shopping alone is a SERIOUS gift that you don't appreciate until you can't do it any more.



So Monday night I put the kids down, with Lily screaming and crying for about 20-30 minutes, then when Chris got home from school (yes, he is taking a night class, and two online classes. He is CRAZY!!!!) I went to our house to 'finish' packing up... Needless to say- that did not happen. Once I got there, I called Chris and he dropped a bomb on me: the renters that were supposed to move into our house on Friday were not going to move in. Ever. BOO!!!! So I sat around, felt sorry for myself, then packed. Very, very slowly. Not motivated at all. This sucked cause the next day Chris was going to haul all the rest of our stuff to Wes' house, plus run a few other errands while he had the trailer and truck that we had borrowed. I went back to the house in the morning, with the kids, to 'finish' packing. Topher broke a light fixture, his second piece of glass that he broke in two days, and we decided Chris would be better off packing by himself. So I went home with the kids to put them down for their naps. Topher would cry every time I put him down too, but only for a few minutes. And he's still in a pack and play, so he is not likely to break free like his sister. Lily on the other hand screamed and banged on the door for about 45 minutes. I sat on the ground holding the doorknob on the other side for about 20 of those minutes. Those 20 minutes really, really sucked. The other 25 also sucked, but at least I was being productive. Lily finally realized that she was not actually locked in anymore, so she broke out.



So as much as my day was sucking, Chris' was sucking too. Tuesday is a busy day for anyone who has a real job. So Chris packed up the trailer and unloaded it by himself. Until he got called into work. Oh criminals are always ruining the day for someone! So Chris had to hustle back to our house, leave the borrowed truck and trailer, grab his work car, go to Scottsdale, arrest this guy, miss out on family fun time, come home, eat dinner, go sell a couch that we had posted on Craigslist that was at our other house, come home, finish his dinner, and finally go to bed. Barb got caught up in the horribleness that was our day too, and that just really really sucked too.

I had an evening and night full of crying and hysteria. Most of it coming from me, some of it coming from the kids. I could blame it on stress, I could blame it on tiredness, I could blame it on so hormones, but I will just say that I have a season pass to Crazyville and sometimes my kids drive me there, but I often manage to get there on my own well enough too.