Update and Cake Pops

I have been a little slow at updating the blog, not because I don’t want to but at the end of the day I’m just BEAT and simply want to sit and do nothing.  However, when I do that then I feel like I’m not using the blog for what I created it for……me to just dump my thoughts into.   So let’s see if I can provide some highlights of the last few weeks.

Visit with Chris:  Yup, we got to see Chris at the base last weekend. You may be thinking ‘how awesome’ and yes it was but no it wasn’t…if that makes any sense at all.  Yes, it was great to see him and give him a big hug and kiss but at the same time I couldn’t get too excited because there was always that possibility that his training schedule could change at the drop of a hat and then we wouldn’t be able to see him at all.  Because of that I didn’t let myself get excited and I obviously didn’t tell Kennedy where we were going.  I refuse to get this sweet little girl pumped up to see her Dad if there is even a slight change it won’t work out. 

Thankfully this time it worked out!! 

Kennedy was thrilled to see him and talked his ear off and have him some good hugs and kisses.  Me, I was pretty subdued.  Like I said, I was happy to see him but at the same time I have shut off a certain part of my brain and my heart just so that I can survive and get through this.  What I am experiencing is normal and expected but I just didn’t think it would happen so fast.   Don’t get me wrong, I love Chris with everything I have but for the next year it’s the Mel and Kennedy show and in order for me to be able to function I have to turn off that switch or else I would be a friggin WRECK and turns out that’s not a good look for me.  So…..my little wall is up and I march forward.  Thankfully Chris knows all of this and fully expects it…….I thank my lucky stars for such an understanding individual.  I’m blessed FOSHO!

Keepin’ Busy: We are keeping so busy that I have to remember to slow down!!  I have surrounded our family with the best possible extended family and friends that anyone could ask for.  We are constantly being invited over for play dates, lunches, dinners or just a quick chat and I can’t tell you how much EVERY single invitation means to me.  Each of you keep me going and I can’t thank you enough.  I hope one day that I can repay EVERYONE for everything you have done for me and continue to do.  I truly hope you all know how much I appreciate you.

Projects:  I have like 5 in my head I want to do SO bad but I have to slow my roll!!  I’m STILL working on my office.  Yes, I realize this is taking FOREVER but I have to keep everything in perspective.  I have to slow it down and just do a little at a time because if I don’t I will put too much pressure on myself and I will start to feel overwhelmed and that isn’t the idea or the goal as to why I want to continue with these small projects.  So……I will do my projects slowly and I will enjoy them.

OH, but I did try to make Cake Pops over the weekend.  Um, two words….HOT MESS!   What possessed me to try these?  Oh, well my friend Tawsha tried it about a week before and blogged about it at http://www.mybigdayplanner.blogspot.com/  and as soon as I saw her pictures (not much better than mine) I thought ‘Ok, I GOTAA try this!!’  I wanted to figure out where Tawsha went wrong (she is good at just about EVERYTHING) and figure out how to master this so both of us could make these friggin things with our eyes closed.  Um yeah….we ain’t even close!

The idea came from Bakerella at http://www.bakerella.com/make-your-cupcakes-pop/.  We followed the directions down to the last word.  Everything was going great until it was time to put the balls of amazingness on the sticks.  And…..um….that is when this project went downhill!  I think there were a couple things that contributed to the debacle:

1.       Maybe the balls were too big?  <Stop laughing you 12 year olds!>

2.       Maybe I used too much frosting….but is there really such a thing?

3.       Maybe the balls were cold enough?

4.       Maybe the frosting was too thick?

Clearly there were a few things counting against me but I decided to move forward.  I mean I had come this far why give up…right?

However, up until this point I felt good!!  I thought I had it.  Then…..I put the stick in the ball, dipped it in the frosting and it looked like this:

And 10 seconds later it looked like this:

I tried it a few more times and I got the same result, so I tossed the sticks and just dumped the balls of goodness into the frosting and let the kids decorate them, which they had fun doing =)  BUT I’m still left with NO CAKE POPS!! 

These damn things will not beat me!!  Tawsha and I are on a mission…..WHOS with us?!?!  TEAM CAKE POP!

Family Pictures

It’s no secret my sweet little punkin is not the one for photographs.  She doesn’t mind if I snap a few pictures here and there but you bring a stranger into the mix with a big camera and put her in surroundings she isn’t sure of and well….you have a HOT MESS!

We have tried to do family pictures several times and for whatever reason it didn’t work out.  Either the weather was horrible, Kennedy would get sick OR we would schedule the session and try to get what we could based on her mood but in the end it was a HOT MESS.  We tried to have our close friend Mike with http://www.michaelbuzzelle.com/ do some pictures because not only is he a GREAT friend and basically family to us but he is also a GREAT photographer but nope Kennedy would have nothing to do with it. She has a hard time with boys and doesn’t like the camera so add those two together and you have a craptasitc situation.  So I tried to schedule with another photographer and it didn’t work out for whatever reason so at that point I was thinking that this just wasn’t in the cards for us UNTIL I was introduced to the very talented Becky Hales with http://www.beckyhalesphotography.com/ and I had to try again and after you look at her site you will see why.  The only downfall to Becky is that she lives in California but because I’m such a baller I decided to fly her up….HAHAHHA…I crack myself up…I’m kidding people.   Becky is sisters with a friend of mine and told me that she would be in town for a week at the end of February so I pounced on her like a friggin Liger, you know, a lion and a tiger!   Thankfully she was available and was able to book our family. 

YES, photos are scheduled and I’m actually excited and feeling good.

I will spare you all of the boring details but we still had to figure out outfits because they all had to somewhat match. We also had to figure out where to do the pictures AND if I wanted to include any props.  WOW…LOTS OF PRESSURE HERE!!

So with the help of my RAD friends I was able to figure all of that out (you will see in the pictures shortly) but then the day of the pictures arrived and it was a HOT MESS!

It was freezing cold out and when I say freezing I mean it was take your breath away cold and to add to that amazingness it was also windy.  Here is a little known fact about yours truly….wind makes me want to stab people! On top of that Kennedy hadn’t had a nap and I ‘thought’ she would be fine but she wasn’t.  THEN we take her to the park OUTSIDE with new people she has never met before and asked her to ‘smile’.  I’m pretty sure she was mentally giving me the biggest finger EVER and turns out…..I deserved it!  I took this poor tired little girl into the freezing cold and expected her to be happy.  Um clearly I was in some other dimension of reality!!

Although Kennedy barely smiled and although she didn’t look at the camera much and although Chris and I’s patience levels were wearing thin our pictures turned out AH-MAY-ZING! 

These are photographs that we will be something that we look at for years and I’m more than happy about how they turned out.

Thank you Katie for introducing me to Becky. Becky thank you for being awesome and thank you for bringing Chelsea.  Shelley thank you for letting me raid your closet!  See…it takes a village to make anything a happen around here and I love this little village I live in!!

Week 1 – COMPLETE

Yup, that’s right I’ve completed one ENTIRE week….that’s SEVEN days and I’ve already realized a few key notes and things that will take a backseat to my daily activities.  You interested in the list? 

1.       There will ALWAYS be dog prints on my hardwoods cause I will never have time to clean them in between cleans (every 3^rd Tuesday)

2.       Groceries will be purchased on an as needed basis…I don’t have time to determine what we ‘could’ or ‘should’ eat next Thursday, so if there is more than goldfish, pirates booty, chicken nuggets and mac-n-cheese in my house then it’s a REALLY good week…..and dig in. 

3.       Dirty diapers (pee) may or may not constantly be sitting on the upstairs banister waiting to be taken downstairs….I have TWO hands and can only carry so much.

4.       My bed will never be made….EVER

5.       Chasing the dogs off the couches downstairs requires way too much energy, so I figured out a solution: flip up the cushions.  BOOYAH sucka!  (Thanks Kelly)

6.       Vacuuming will happen when I can’t remember the last time I vacuumed

7.       When I think the house is just too dirty or disorganized to function I will toss in a new Scentsy scent and pretend it’s now clean and organized and go about my day

My list is pretty short but I have a feeling it will grow as the weeks go on and on……and on……and friggin ON!

One more thing…..I’m so tired that I can barely keep my eyes open so I’m going to go pass out and watch the back of my eyelids for a good 9 hours.

More to come later……..like our family pictures =)

Happy and Distracted

We all have defense mechanisms that trigger us to do things to either protect our hearts or our minds from either feeling something or thinking about something.  Normally I would say that you need to just feel what you feel and think about what you think about, but I’m not going to say that today.  Sometimes you feel something for so long and you think about something for so long that you just need a little distraction that tells your brain, ‘we are going to focus on something outside of YOU for a little bit!’  Some people go for a drink (trust me I’m one of those people), some people go to the gym (Lord don’t I wish I was one of those), some sit down and eat (yup, been there many times)…..blah blah blah….you get the point – we all do something to distract ourselves. 

For me, the two things that I LOVE doing are baking and crafts

Insert Banana Bread - Something that makes me happy and relaxed is baking and one thing that I seem to make more than anything else is banana bread.  Amazingly enough I have never ended up eating the bread (maybe a piece here and there) because I am always making it for other people and to be honest, 99% of the time I make it for my friend Bethany.  For me there is something so therapeutic in baking but then I don’t want to be left with the finish product so I must give everything away (well let’s be real here….I don’t give everything away) and Bethany lives literally 50 feet from my front door and banana bread seems to be something she really enjoys so it’s basically a match made in heaven….I bake…she eats.

You wanna now the recipe?   This one actually came from Bethany and I keep losing it and asking for it over and over again so maybe this way I will always have it =)

Ingredients:

3 or 4 ripe bananas (I normally use 5), smashed

1/3 cup melted butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt

1 ½ cups of all purpose flour

1.       Start with the mushy bananas that basically slide out of the peel…sounds super gross, right?!?!

2.       With a wooden spoon, mix the melted butter into the mashed bananas

3.       Mix in the sugar, egg and vanilla

4.       Sprinkle in baking soda and salt

5.       Add the flour

6.       Pour into a buttered (I use Pam) 4x8 inch loaf pan

7.       Bake 1 hour on 350 (unless you have convection then you can bake it for about 50 minutes)

SSOOOOOOOOO  good!!

And now on to crafting!! I love making things for friends and over the weekend a girlfriend of mine, Kimber had her baby shower for her 2^nd baby so it was the perfect opportunity for me to get a tiny bit craft WITHOUT overwhelming myself, because turns out I can do that to myself real easily.

Kimber and her husband have decided to not find out if they are having a boy or a girl, so I had to keep the gift gender natural and still manage to make something cute.  Kimber is also a pretty crafty girl and loves fun things and ideas that she can use in the future so with that I hit the internet in search of something cute, easy and something she could actually use once the baby gets here.  And this is what I found……CUPCAKE ONESIES!

I saw this picture and thought…..I GOTTA MAKE THAT!  I mean who can't use onesies and receiving blankets? Done and done!

Remember, since I couldn’t make these ones gender specific they lack COLOR oh and my camera sucks!  Either way Kimber said she loved the gift and it put a smile on her face so I was pleased =)

If you are interested in making your own cupcake onesies, which I think would be AWESOME baby shower decorations, visit http://littlebirdiesecrets.blogspot.com/2011/02/baby-onesie-cupcake-tutorial-and-sweet.html for a tutorial.

No Title

Again…I’ve been gone longer than I expected. Time has gotten away from me and I’ve been focusing on everything and nothing at all.  Kennedy and I have 2 days left with Chris and he has 2 days left with us.  You may be wondering how we are doing and I’d say we are doing fine.  On the surface you would have no idea what we are about to face and I think we prefer it that way for right now.  I think we are both to a point of talking about it just irritates us.  But then again, look at what I’m doing right now….I’m talking about it.  Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t irritate us when people ask us about how we are doing but I think it irritates us to talk about it to each other.  We have gone over the game plan for months and months and months.  I think if we discuss it one more time I’m going to lose my sh*t.  If I don’t know the answer to how to do X task, then I will just need to figure it out when the time comes.  Done and Done!

I have had so many calls and emails and cards sent in the mail to us and I appreciate ALL of them more than you know.  I can’t put into words how much I appreciate all of my friends and family.  And please know that I will come knocking on your door for help and I will call you when I need a friend to talk to.  I may even invite myself over for dinner and stay till bed time =)  Right now I don’t know what I want/need but as soon as I do I will be asking.

I have had a lot of people ask me ‘How do you do this?’ and I’ve always answered, ‘I do it because I have to and there is no other choice’ but I recently came across a website/blog written by other Army wives and this particular post sums up exactly why I do it.  Obviously some parts don’t pertain to me, like the fact that this woman use to be a soldier and she is headed into her husband’s 4^th deployment, but everything else basically rings true to me.

http://herwarhervoice.com/blog/?p=1317

I’ve gotta be honest, I’m having a hard time keeping up on my blog.  I feel like I want to dump all of my thoughts and feelings into this but I don’t want it to be viewed as me being an emotional wreck because that isn’t the case at all.  However, I don’t want to filter what I’m going through or what I’m feeling at that particular moment.  I’m trying to figure out a good balance between raw emotion and fun topics to write about so please have patience with me.

Update on office – it’s STILL not done.  Insert laugh here.  Another shelf needs to be added, a few paint touch ups and some small decorations.  I haven’t lost focus on this project but it’s just taking a little more time than anticipated due to obvious reasons.

And I promise to be back within the next 5 days with a fun baby shower project.  However, I can’t post it right now because my girlfriend, Kimber (who is due in 3 weeks), may see it and it’s for her baby shower.  Let’s hope it turns out as cute as I think it will!