Painting Pumpkins!

Tonight, we carved and painted pumpkins. Hunter had lots of fun painting his. In this picture, you can see the face he painted on his, but by the end, it was under lots of layers of paint.

Here is our finished products. Can you guess who's is who's?

Now it's time to enjoy the roasted pumpkin seeds!

Changes

I've been thinking about this a lot in the last few weeks, but with our 5 year anniversary here it really made me think about it even more.

I've been pondering a lot about the woman I was when Greg and I married verses the woman I am today. I've changed so much in 5 years. Is it because of maturity with age, maturity from God, or a mixture of the two?

I was 18 when Greg and I married. I made a meal for us every evening but it was, lots of times, out of a box. Bless Greg's heart, he never once complained (and only gives me a hard time about it now.) ;) I bought flaked mashed potatoes, and crock pot dinners out of the freezer section. I'm not criticizing these dinners or anyone that makes them. But because of health issues in both of our families that I'm sure we'll inherit, God has put it on my heart to make things homemade more, mainly because of the differences in nutrition.

It's not just food though. Never once would I have considered making my own laundry detergent, or sewing my own crib set for my child (which I think I may be doing soon!) And don't even mention homeschooling! I always thought homeschooling parents were crazy! And now look at me, haha.

It's been little things here and there over time that I've changed but I'm thankful that I have made the changes. I made homemade chicken tenders and onion straws the other day, which have to soak in buttermilk for at least an hour. If I'd come across that recipe 3 years ago, I'd have passed it up as soon as I got to the buttermilk part because it would "take too long." Now, I find myself wanting to make homemade cinnamon rolls that have to sit and rise for 3+ hours!

I would love a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer for Christmas this year. All I can think is, "oh, the possibilities!"

None of this may matter to any of you and that's ok, it just makes me laugh to think about the changes that have happened in me over my marriage. I thank God for them because they're changes that have made me into a better wife and mother. And I'm constantly asking the Lord to change me into the wife and mother that He desires me to be...so I guess that answers my question from the beginning of the blog. :)

5th Anniversary

While thinking about which picture from our wedding day to make as my profile picture on facebook (because that's what I do,) I decided I couldn't pick just one. I also had so much fun looking through all the hundreds of photos from our wedding day (because I'm female, and if we had a DVD player that would play our wedding videos, I'd make Greg watch it from start to finish with me) that I decided to pick my favorites and share them on my blog in honor of our 5th wedding anniversary today. I'm pregnant. Does that last one surprise you?

Happy anniversary, my love. I can't believe it's been 5 years, but they've been the best 5 years of my life and I wouldn't change a thing. You make me happier than I ever thought I could be, and I'm so thankful for the amazing husband you are to me. I love you, Gregory Douglas.

Birthday Boy!

Happy 3rd birthday, Hunter! 

27 Weeks

Baby is definitely getting bigger! She is starting to hurt me sometimes when she kicks, and let me tell you - this little girl does NOT like a full bladder in her way! She is terrible with kicking me to remind me I need to use the bathroom!

She is getting so big that I can sit and watch my belly move. A few times this week, I have had a lopsided belly because she was on one side of it. The other day, I was laying on my side, and I felt a bump and Greg felt it and pointed out that it was probably her head because it was very round. I can't wait to kiss that little head! I love that she's getting big enough that we can identify different body parts.

I realized today that this pregnancy is going by SO much faster than Hunter's did. I don't know if it's because I was also waiting for my husband to return from Iraq, or because I have a 3 year old to keep me busy and pass the time, or maybe a mixture of both. I'm not sure. All I know is that I can't believe I'm 6 months pregnant already. I got preregistration papers and labor and delivery papers at the Dr's the other day. SO EXCITING! I'm sure she'll be here before we know it!

Hunter's Lightning McQueen Fondant Cake

We used this marshmallow/powdered sugar recipe for the fondant (which is different from the professional kind.) It is supposed to be refrigerated overnight. The colder it is, the less sticky it is which makes it easier to work with, so plan ahead! Very important note: If you don't have a heavy duty mixer, like a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer, you WILL burn out your hand mixer mixing the fondant. Mine was toast before we were finished. The second batch we made was done by hand, which is what I recommend if you don't have a good stand mixer so you don't do what we did!

After refrigerating, we colored the fondant. We bought professional cake dye colors for the red and black since we wanted such rich colors. I don't know that regular food coloring would get a strong enough color if you wanted it to be really bright. Also, be prepared to have dyed hands because you knead in the color. Two days later I'm still trying to get all the red off my hands! Also, the longer the dye sits, the brighter it becomes. Our red wasn't as red as we've have liked it, but it became a truer red over time. Anytime you're dealing with the fondant with anything (whether it be your hands, or a rolling pin) at anytime during the whole process, make sure you spray it with Pam and keep doing this if it starts to stick again.

To make the cake, we started with an 11 x 15 sheet cake with 3 cake mixes. A frozen cake is easiest to carve because it doesn't break apart as easily. I cut it, stacked it, "glued" it with frosting, and carved the basic shape. Here is some of the carving taking place. A couple weeks ago, I made a 9 x 13 cake and did a smaller cake as a trial run to figure out how I'd carve it and if I was capable of it. I highly recommend a trial run!

This is the finished carved and crumb-frosted cake. We used chocolate graham crackers for the spoiler and chocolate donuts for the tires. We stuck toothpicks in a couple places to hold pieces together, but obviously just remember where you put them for when it's time to cut and eat the cake! There were a few spots that weren't as perfect as we would've liked them but we read somewhere that fondant is forgiving. As far as marshmallow fondant goes, this is not the case! If you see the three different pieces we used of graham crackers, we even had it draping in between the pieces and had to fill it with more fondant. The next step was to cover the cake with the fondant. We rolled the piece out on greased wax paper, and made sure the dimensions were as big as we needed them to be to cover the cake in one piece because it's virtually impossible to smooth two separate pieces together without being able to tell that's what you did. To cover the cake, it took us 8 different ways of starting before finding a successful way. It was a little nerve wracking because you only get one shot and the piece of fondant was so big it took 8 hands to get it on there! We had fondant rolled out on wax paper, then covered the top side with more greased wax paper. We slid it on a big cutting board, and started to wrap it under the cutting board, and peeled of the paper on top. We took that end, and started laying it on the cake, and slowly slid and unwrapped more fondant and layed it under the whole thing was covered. I hope that makes sense! Here it is right after we'd covered it. Please ignore my old lady-looking hands. In the picture, I'm trimming off the excess around the edges.
Decorating just consisted of dying white fondant a color and rolling it out and making whatever shape we wanted. To smooth out spots that needed it, we got our fingertips wet and just rubbed the spot until it almost melted the sugar and smoothed it.

8 hours later, here is the finished product!


If you have any questions because you'd like to try it yourself, I'd be more than happy to answer them!

Hunter's Birthday

This weekend we had Hunter's birthday party. All last week I was prepping Hunter for the party, because I think I was more excited than he was! Both Greg's parents and mine, along with our 5 year old nephew Andrew, were able to drive down for the weekend to attend the party. They arrived late Friday evening (because a 13 hour drive turned into 18 hours from traffic and stuff) and Hunter started to show signs of getting sick right around the same time. :( He just has some chest congestion and is coughing a lot, but he was a trooper for the party!

Saturday was spent prepping all day. My mother and I made a fondant Lightening McQueen cake and it "only" took us 8 hours. My mother-in-law was a HUGE help for the 8 hours, because we would set a dirty dish down and it would magically become clean! :) She kept our workspace and dishes clean while we kept messing them up. The cake was lots of fun to make and I definitely learned a lot about dealing with fondant, but I don't want to bore you with the details of what it took to create it if you're not interested. That's why I decided to make a separate post about it if you'd like to read about it. Here is the finished product.


The party was Sunday afternoon. Here's a picture of the decorations. The crepe paper design was my mother in law's and was executed by both mothers since they didn't like me standing on chairs and the edge of the couch. Didn't they do a wonderful job??

Here's a picture of the birthday boy who wouldn't smile. Please note the M&M dye all over his mouth. The bowl of M&M's were taken away from the 3 and 5 year old not long after this picture was taken. :)

Our neighbors, and a couple friends of ours attended the party.

Here he is blowing out his candles. He had been looking forward to this moment for weeks. Whenever I brought up his party he would say "And cake, and candles, and fire!"

He had a wonderful time, and I am so glad. I feel like the three year old birthday party is the first one where he's very aware of everything going on and can even get excited about it beforehand. He had a lot of fun, and I'm so glad.

Here he is at the end of the night in his new pajamas (that I LOVE) homemade by Nana Wehrman.

No smile again, but then we did get a silly face!

Thank you for everyone that attended, and thank you, mom, dad, mom, and dad, for coming down here to spend this special day with him. I know he loved being with all of you, as did Greg and I. Thank you for all of your help, also!