Little Man is Growing Up! :'(

I know it is inevitable, yet that still doesn't stop me from getting a bit teary-eyed thinking about how much Ethan has grown in the last 27 months. There are days that I fear if I blink my eyes too long he'll be going off to college and I will not know where the time has gone. But yes, there are definitely other days that seem to drag on forever (you know, the ones where he is acting like a stubborn two-year-old, and I can't wait for Daddy to get home!) haha! It really hit me hard a couple weekends ago as I was washing up all of his old newborn outfits to get ready for the baby's arrival. Was he really once that little?!? Seems hard to believe now and sadly, hard to remember already (which is why I need to blog more frequently - so I can better remember these moments)! I know I need to start taking in every moment and savoring it because before I know it I will be shipping him off to kindergarden and the rest will be a blur...

Last week we hit another milestone. The big boy bed. More tears! We finished painting his room (a HUGE thank you to Grandpa Frank for doing the majority of the painting while he was here visiting!!), hanging the curtains, and getting everything back in place on Tuesday evening. So, we decided to take the plunge and see how it would go moving him into it. He has been excited about his new bedroom for weeks, always wanting to go in and see it and play on the top bunk (yikes)!

When my parents arrived last Thursday (for Memorial Day weekend) for a visit, the first thing he did was lead them upstairs to check it out! Too cute!! :) But, apparently playing in his new room was all he had in mind the first night...there were tears. Lots of tears. Not only was he adjusting to a new bed, but also a whole new room! We tried to keep other things the same by putting his blanket and animals and cars in bed with him and dressing him in the sleep sack he normally wore at night. But the first thing he did after we left the room was climb back out of the bed. Hmm. Not good. We went back in and put him back down, which made him upset, but fortunately he stayed in the bed this time. He eventually cried himself to sleep (not exactly how I had envisioned the first night going), but he was asleep. Whew!

The next morning he awoke at 8 am. Ouch. Definitely early for him (especially considering that it was pretty late before he finally fell asleep the night before), but still a manageable time. Not sure if it was just the newness of it all that awoke him early or the fact that the room was much brighter than usual. Unfortunately the sun comes up on that side of the house and it gets quite bright at a very early hour right now. He was in a great mood when he woke up, despite the baggy eyes he was sporting due to all of the tears shed the night before (yep, poor guy gets that one from me).

Naptime was also quite an adventure the first day. With nothing there to stop him from getting out of bed, he was up instantly and out roaming around the room. I decided to let him roam just to see what he would do and if he would crawl back in the bed himself. Hmm, not so much. After about 30 minutes, I gave up on him getting back in bed himself, so I went in and put him back in bed and told him he had to stay there. Of course, more tears! :'( But at least this time after just 10 minutes of crying he finally fell asleep.

Things definitely got better and easier as the week progressed. Now he crawls into bed with no issues and stays there without trying to get out of bed. He has been falling asleep quite quickly too with no more tears!! Yay!!! :) Still waking up a bit earlier than I would prefer, but I can't really complain.

His room still needs some more finishing touches (pictures, art and a toy storage system), but here is what we have so far...

I purchased the super cute transportation bedding, made by Circo, at Target. There's a quilt and sheets on each of the beds. And of course I couldn't resist the adorable car pillows (Ethan is snuggling with one of them below)! :) Ethan is a big fan of his cars and trucks room! The lime green Eclipse Bailey curtains and Room Essentials stick lamp were also purchased at Target. The cute, red laundry basket was purchased at IKEA and the furniture (bunk beds and dresser) was purchased at Goree's Furniture in Opelika, AL. The paint on the walls is Behr's Ultra Premium Plus (satin finish) in Riviera Blue (540B-5), purchased at Home Depot.

Adventures in Cake Pops: Part II

It's time for the much anticipated sequel to my first post about my experience with making cake pops! haha!  My parents came to visit for Memorial Day weekend, so I thought it would be the perfect time to make another batch of these delicious little treats. This time I wanted to try using a boxed cake mix (to get that typical cake batter flavor) and my own, homemade buttercream frosting. I chose to use Betty Crocker's super moist white cake mix.

I just followed the directions on the box and baked two 8" round cakes to save a little time. Once they were done and cooled, I trimmed off the sides and bottoms and crumbled what was left into my bowl.

Then I made my own buttercream frosting. I loosely followed a recipe and combined 1/2 stick butter, 1/2 cup Crisco, about 2 cups powdered sugar, 1/4 cup milk and a dash of vanilla extract. I ended up adding more milk to get the consistency that I wanted.

Then I made my first mistake. :( I added frosting to the cake crumbs - what I approximated to be about the same amount as the can of store-bought frosting I had used last time. I mixed it all together well and it was super mushy. So mushy, in fact, that trying to form balls was not working well. Ugh. I went ahead and continued, hoping that the freezing process would help firm up the balls. No such luck. After the 15 minutes in the freezer was up they were still mushy. Too mushy to try coating. Unfortunately, I had already started preparing my coating. This time I wanted to try using some yummy Ghirardelli white chocolate instead of the candy chips.

I used a double boiler technique and put water in a big pan, cranked the heat and allowed it to start steaming. In the pan on top, I broke the chocolate into small pieces and allowed the steam to melt the chocolate.

Everything was going great and the chocolate was a nice, smooth consistency. It happened quite quickly too - it melted completely in maybe 5 minutes? I wanted to add some almond flavoring to kick it up a notch, so I did this, and I fear (after a bit of googling) that by doing that and also allowing the chocolate to get too warm, it started to seize up. :( Ugh. Fail number two! So, I added some vegetable oil (at the recommendation of a few websites) and took it off the heat and this helped. Shortly after this was when I discovered that my balls weren't firming up as I had hoped, so I had to give up for the night. Major bummer.

The next day I made a trip to the store and bought another box of Betty Crocker white cake mix. Same as before I baked a couple 8" rounds and added this cake to the mix I already had. I had kept it cool in the fridge in the meantime, so it was still usable. Success!! This appeared to be the correct cake to frosting ratio that I needed. I sampled it and it tasted just like Starbucks' cake pops! Awesome! I formed the cake balls and stuck them in the freezer. Then it was time to tackle the coating. The chocolate had hardened completely overnight so I decided to just try heating it back up again, using the same double boiler technique. Fortunately, this worked great. I kept the heat very low so as not to overheat it. Then I started assembling the cake pops. The chocolate was working fairly well to coat the balls but the only issue was that the chocolate was not setting up/hardening as quickly/easily as the candy coating had. As a stroke of luck, I happened to be doing all of this in the middle of getting dinner ready, so I had to take a break for dinner. I left the cake balls in the freezer, so they ended up having at least an hour in there before I got back to them to start coating again. I say that I was lucky because this ended up being just what they needed! The balls were nice and firm and by being extra cold, the chocolate hardened very shortly after coating them this time! Yay!! Perfection!!

I think the thickness of the coating was perfect on these and the consistency and taste of the cake (nice and moist) was spot on with Starbucks' version! Woo hoo! This picture is of one of the first ones I made that wasn't really hardened completely. The rest looked/tasted even better than this one.

So, I think I have found a winner for a recipe for these using the boxed cake mix (with that familiar cake batter flavor) with the better flavored homemade buttercream frosting (instead of yucky canned frosting). I think either coating (the candy chips or chocolate) is good, but using the double boiler technique for melting is the key to this working properly. Whew! I hope you have enjoyed this cake pop journey with me. Let me know if you try making some of your own! :)

Snip, Snip!

This weekend I took Ethan to get his first "official" haircut at a salon. I decided to take him where I go -  Phase 2 Salon - to my stylist, Lynne, because she's great! It's been a little over a year since we first cut his hair here at home, but I decided it was time to see what a professional could do. Nothing against Josh and his clipper skills, but since we decided to let Ethan's hair grow out a bit on top, cutting with the clippers wasn't really working anymore (and Ethan's intense dislike of the process wasn't really much fun for any of us either).

For fun, let's revisit his first haircut back in April 2010 (just a month after his first birthday)...here are some side, back and front before/after views...

Wow. Poor 'lil guy. I guess it could probably be considered borderline child abuse allowing his mullet to get so long and icky! :( And yes, he will probably hate me some day for both posting this and allowing him to look so scruffy!! haha! But as you can see, Josh did a great job with the first cut. Using the clippers has worked well for the past year, since we have kept his hair short due to it's incredible ability to stand up straight no matter how long it grew!

Recently, we decided it looked cute as his bangs grew out a bit and he wore them brushed to the side. So, a clipper cut on those wasn't really going to work anymore. That is where Lynne came in. We needed someone with some scissor skills! :) So, I made the appointment, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. My mom and dad were in town for Memorial Day, so my mom and I took him for the haircut since Josh was at work. I'm glad I had someone with me to capture some pics since I ended up holding Ethan for this exciting experience.

At first he seemed to be quite interested in watching all of the others get their hair cut, but when it came time for his turn he seemed to be a bit reluctant. So, we sat him on my lap and I made everything better with a sucker. Yep, suckers can work magic with our child! He doesn't get them often as I try to reserve them for situations that require his best behavior. Maybe not my best parenting technique, but so far, it has worked. ;) Once engrossed in his sucker and with both of us dressed in capes, Lynne went to work...

He was such a goof as he checked himself out in the mirror! ;)

Yep, that's Mr. Cool!

And look at the fantastic results! :) I guess I didn't realize, once again, how bad his mullet was getting. :( Shame on me. Fortunately, he is all set now with a shorter, cooler cut for these HOT temps we have been having this week! 95 degrees in May? No thanks! :(

So that was our big adventure for Memorial Day weekend this year. I also finally completed attempt #2 at cake pops and my dad and I managed to get Ethan's new room painted finally, so I'll blog about those things soon, once I transfer pics and we get the room put back together! :)

Landscaping Project of 2011

As of the end of January of this year, we have been in our Georgia house for 2 years!! Wow! Not sure where the time goes. Perhaps the addition of a child to the mix plays a part in that?? ;) So for the past two springs/summers we have struggled to grow grass in the harsh red clay of the South. We had no idea it would be such a chore impossible! :( Growing grass at our Kentucky house was a piece of cake (throw down some seed and water it a bit and in 2 weeks, bam! A lush, green yard!), but then we actually had soil there, not this messy clay stuff...It probably didn't help that every time we would get a heavy rain it would wash all the seed away down the "pit" of our front yard, or that the nice, shady trees in the back yard were not conducive to allowing Bermuda grass seed to grow properly. Sigh.

This year we decided to do something about our mess of a yard. We were tired of not being able to use the back yard at all (and just part of the front yard) and Ethan is at an age where he really, really wants to play outside (I am talking 24/7)! So, we called Rocky Branch Garden Center and had a nice gentleman by the name of Johnny Bolin out to take a look at our yard. He actually works with the Callaway Gardens too, which is known for their beauty, so we figured we were in good hands. He came up with a great plan for filling in the front yard "pit," sodding the front, back and side yards, installing a 6-zone in-ground sprinkler system, planting some Asiatic jasmine (a vine) and placing some rock on the side hill to prevent further erosion, and filling in some areas that wouldn't do well with Bermuda grass with pine straw. Sounded great to us! We were hesitant at first about doing the sprinkler system with it's added cost, but as Johnny suggested, you would hate to spend so much on sod then have it die because we couldn't get it watered properly. So, with Josh at work all day and me being super preggo, limiting our watering abilities, we said what the heck and went for it! :)

Here are some before and after pics of the results! :) This first one is of the back yard. When they graded everything, they removed over a truckload of dirt from back here to help flatten the yard out on the side the picture is being taken from.

Here is the side yard that butts up to a creek that runs through the trees. While it didn't seem to be a huge area before the renovation, it is now a decent-sized usable space! :)

Here are some shots from the front. Unfortunately you can't truly appreciate how bad the "pit" was by looking at this picture. It took 4 truck loads of miscellaneous fill (rock and such) and 5 truck loads of dirt to help get it leveled out!

And now the "pit" is full of beautiful, green sod and the retaining fence has been removed!!! :)

This side of the driveway was notorious for washing out every time it rained. Water would pour over our driveway, down through the "pit," gouging out huge trenches as it went. Not pretty. On this side, Asiatic jasmine were planted to help with the erosion. Within a season, this vine should spread out and cover the area. They also placed some rock in one particularly bad spot.

Here is another angle of the back yard, showing the 12' x 16' outdoor building that Josh is currently working on. It still needs the garage door hung and the hardieplank siding completed, then it will be good to go for storing the lawnmower, 4-wheeler and various other items. :)

And here's one more angle of the back yard. The perfect area for Ethan to run and play now!! :)

Here are some shots looking out towards the road. This is a large area that is now much more level.

And here is a closer look at the front yard. So much more usable space now it is incredible!!

So as you can see, we are quite happy thrilled with the results of our project. Perhaps next year we will tackle a fence for the backyard (making it easier for me to keep the kiddos corralled!) and maybe a pool if we can swing it too! ;) Ethan still needs a playset built too, so we'll see if we can manage that yet this year as well. Next up inside the house is getting Ethan's big boy room finished up so we can move him over there and have the nursery ready for the baby! Whew! I guess we better hope this little guy decides to cook for the full 7 weeks he has left! ;)

Adventures in Cake Pops

Alrighty. Coming at you is the highly anticipated start to my cake pops journey. I was going to wait and blog about it after I finished my first batch, but it appears I have waited too long to do so and those yummy little cake morsels that were still awaiting their coating have started to get kind of hard. :( I guess that's what happens when you leave frosting-laced balls of cake in the fridge for nearly a week. Oops! Something to remember for next time...and I guess I'll just have to whip up a fresh batch tomorrow. Oh darn! ;)

Before beginning my journey, I watched a how-to video by the Bakerella, a lady who has apparently been making these tasty little treats for awhile now. I learned some tips and the general steps to making a cake pop. If you have ever checked out this product before you know there are some amazing cake pops being made out there. My first attempt was a simple one, but with time I would love to perfect my skills enough to make some of the stunning creations that can be found online.

I decided to use my favorite vanilla sheet cake recipe in my attempt to recreate my favorite cake pops - Starbucks' birthday cake pops - which I blogged about a couple months ago. I gathered my ingredients and with the assistance of my special helper (my nephew, Jacob), we set out to bake a yummy vanilla sheet cake. :)

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks butter
• 1 cup water
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups plus 2 Tbsp flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup sour cream or buttermilk (I substituted with 1/2 cup regular milk plus 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 Tbsp vanilla

Directions:

In a saucepan, bring the butter and water to a boil. Remove from heat and add sugar, flour and salt. Beat with a mixer. In a small bowl, combine eggs, milk (plus lemon juice), baking soda and vanilla. Mix well. Add to the mixture in the saucepan. Beat well and pour into a greased and floured pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-35 minutes (depends on pan - 20 for jellyroll pan, 35 for 9" x 13" pan like I used).

After the cake was baked, we let it cool completely. 

Next it was time to crumble it up. I decided to cut off the edges first because they were a little more crisp than I wanted in the pops. Looking back, I probably should have taken a little off the top of the cake too, to give the cake crumbs a consistent color. Below is the cake, crumbled into crumbs and the frosting that I decided to use. I am not a big fan of frosting in general, especially of canned frostings, but I also don't really like making frosting either, so I thought I would cheat and try it out using a canned frosting first.

On my next attempt, I think I may try making my own frosting to use. Not sure yet though. I am also thinking about trying a simple boxed white cake mix too instead of the vanilla sheet cake. I think the flavor will be more similar to that of Starbucks' pops. Here is a pic of the crumbs with the frosting mixed in.

Next came the messy part. I think it's easiest to just get your hands in there and make the balls...

In hindsight, I think I made the balls too big. I had a bit of trouble with some of them wanting to fall off while coating, so next time, I will make the balls smaller. Once the balls are formed, I placed them in the freezer for 15 minutes, as instructed by the Bakerella. In the meantime, I got the candy coating ready by melting some pink Wilton's candy melts in the microwave.

Another tip for next time - I think using a double boiler method for melting may be a better technique than nuking them. The candy melted just fine, but by halfway through the process of coating the pops, it was starting to harden in the bowl too, making it difficult to use. I needed to be able to keep it warmer for the duration of the process.

Once the cake pops froze for 15 minutes, I took them out and started coating them. The Bakerella had instructed to dip the lollipop stick in the candy coating slightly, then insert it into the cake ball.

Next you place the cake ball into the candy coating and turn it, coating it evenly on all sides. Then you are supposed to hold it over the bowl and tap the hand that is holding the cake pop lightly to allow the excess coating to drain back into the bowl. Hmm. The balls coated just fine, but I had trouble getting any excess to come back off. :( I think the coating needed to be a bit thinner somehow. So, I was left with a pretty thick candy coating on each cake pop. So thick that 14 oz of candy only managed to coat 17 cake pops! And I had a lot more cake balls leftover that needed to be coated...For my next attempt I bought some Ghirardelli white chocolate to use as a coating. I may try adding some almond flavoring to it too and hope that I can get the coating much thinner and easier to work with.

Sadly, I did not think ahead and get something to put the lollipops in to dry/harden. The Bakerella suggests styrofoam blocks, which would be great for sticking the sticks into and allowing the cake pop to stand and harden into a beautiful round shell. So, I had to improvise and chose to just set them on their tops on some wax paper. As you can see below, there is plenty of excess coating at the bottom/tops of the pops and you can also see how rough the coating was starting to get as it cooled down. :(

And now for the final product...They were fairly close to Starbucks as far as moistness was concerned. The shell was a bit too thick for me, but I am going to work on that next time. The taste was good and hubby said he actually preferred it to Starbucks' version! :) Now I need to work on making them more beautiful.

And one final pic of my favorite little taste tester, who, of course, loved them! :)

Stay tuned for part two to my adventure!!

Quite a Bit of Catching Up!!

Whew! I am not really sure where the past month has gone since things have been so crazy around here.

Ethan has become quite the independent little man with a mind of his own. A few weeks ago he took off the usual white socks that he wears because he wanted to pick out his own socks. Here was the result...

Long, dressy black socks wouldn't have been my choice for an 80-degree day, but hey, at least he picked black instead of brown, right? ;) I guess he just thought they matched his outfit better!! haha!

We celebrated Easter here at the house with an egg hunt. It was a quick one so that the candy wouldn't melt in the super hot temps we had that day, but I think both Ethan and Daisy had fun searching for their respective eggs. :)

At the end of the month Ethan had visits from two of his grandparents. We wonder if he was a bit confused at the lack of a match - his Grandma Frank and his Grandpa Seeley were here at the same time. My mom came down to help watch Ethan so I could get some things done around the house in order to prepare for this little guy's arrival. Josh's dad made the trip down to help Josh work on his outdoor building. In just three days they managed to get a lot accomplished. All of the walls are up and the roof is on and shingled. Now he just needs to get the hardiplank siding on, hang the garage door and man door and get it painted! :) Next up for outdoor projects...we are having our yard done!! Yay! We will have to be sure to post before and after pics of that once it is completed.

While my mom was here, I walked in the March of Dimes March for Babies walk (with my local MomsLikeMe team) in downtown Atlanta. The walk was set for 5.5 miles, but unfortunately, my almost 30-week preggo body couldn't handle the entire walk, so a little over 3 miles in, my friend Tammi and I took the "pooped out" van to the finish. I was proud I was able to accomplish that much in 80+ degree heat with an extra 15 pounds on my tummy! It was great to finally meet Tammi in person since we had been talking online for over a year and a half. Thanks again to my friends and family for their very generous donations to this great cause!

Last Friday afternoon, Ethan's new bedroom furniture was delivered. Yay!! We found a great bunk bed at a nice family business (Goree's Furniture) down in Opelika, AL. So we purchased that and a matching dresser for his new big boy room. They came in much faster than anticipated, but we were excited they made it in time for the Corbett's visit so that cousin Jacob could test them out for us! :) We still need to get the room painted and curtains hung, then we will be ready to move Ethan in, but for now, he definitely enjoys climbing up the ladder and playing on the top bunk! Yikes! I'm so not ready for that!! haha! I'll add more pics once the room is finished. :)

My sister and her family (the Corbett's) came for a visit this past weekend. On Mother's Day, we decided to make the trip over to Pine Mountain to go through the Wild Animal Safari. Ethan loved it last time we went (in October), so we wanted Jacob and Rachel to experience it too. It was a warm day again, but the kids had a blast in the zebra minivan, feeding all of the animals! :)

After our excitement at the park, everyone zonked out for awhile back at the house, then we decided to go to Red Robin for our Mother's Day dinner. We had a yummy, uneventful meal with three kids three and under! Nothing better than that! ;) haha. The next day we got some yummy smoothies at our local smoothie shop and Jacob helped me make my first batch of cake pops! Woo hoo!! Stay tuned, more about those later... :)

We also had a photo session with the cousins and got some GREAT shots for a change! :)

We had a fun visit and the two fur kids, Daisy and Pickle, got to meet too! They loved playing together after getting the initial meeting part out of the way! ;)

Whew. Well, I think that is all for now. My next post will hopefully be coming soon!