Cubbie Bear Cake

Another busy month is behind us.  It seems like it's never ending here, plus having a baby doesn't help!  We have painted over our gray walls (although I haven't taken any pictures of it yet), it looks really nice all the one colour, very professional and complete.  We've also moved some furniture around in the living room to open it up more, which I really like. I'm not saying I still don't want to move, but I do like the house more as we work on it. 

Besides working on the house, we have been doing work outside, cleaning up the yard and gardens, John's been working on Cara's dresser and we had Cara dedicated this past weekend.  Despite the party girl being overtired and not handling being with anyone but mommy and daddy, the whole day went well.  No crazy outburst in front of the church, lots of food, lovely visits with our families and a beautiful day to sit outside and eat.  Couldn't have asked for a better day!

In the midst of all this, Cubbies came to an end for the year and I decided to celebrate by making a Cubbie Bear cake for the kids, by shaping the cake into a bear.  I have seen this how to on Pinterest and know a friend who has done it and it looked super cute, so I thought that I would give it a try.  It turned out great!  All the kids and adults loved it.  The whole thing didn't take me as long as I expected, just an afternoon to shape and decorate the whole thing.  I was expecting to spend the afternoon, evening and next morning doing it - only because I expected to be interrupted a lot, however Cara got the memo and slept almost the whole time!  Here's a few pictures of the progression of the cake...

All cut and pieced together

All the pieces are iced together and the decorating
has begun!

The completed product!  

Well it seems like my time is up as someone has woken up!  Until next time!

6 month old and changes!

We've been busy here this month since my last blog.  First of all, Cara turned 6 months old!  I can't believe how fast the time has gone, I've loved being able to spend so much time with her and just watching her learn and discover new things.  This month has been a big one for that!  She's learned to sit up on her own in the last month and is getting pretty good at it, her only downfall is that when she looks behind her while sitting her loses her balance because her head is so big. She's fallen more than once because of that.

She's also started solids, which she loves!  It's so much fun to give her real food now and watch her face as she tries new things, I hate having to wait and see whether she's allergic to something because I just want to keep giving her new things to try.  We gave her banana to start off with, which she gagged on and not much got down, however that had more to do with the texture I think, as the next day she gobbled it all up with minimal gagging.  It took her a bit to remember what was going on the third time we tried it, but by day four she had her mouth wide open by the time I had her all buckled into her high chair looking for food.  Now when the food is done, she grabs for the bowl looking for more.  So far she has had banana, brown rice cereal, sweet potato, chicken and peas, all of which she enjoys with the exception of the chicken, she gagged on that so bad I had to stop giving it to her and mix it up with some sweet potato.  I think she couldn't handle the texture of it, however I know with time she will.

Cara has also moved into her own room!  That has been a long time coming.  John wanted to keep her in our room until 6 months since that is what is recommended to help prevent SIDS, I on the other hand would have been okay with moving her sooner...but since he was showing care and concern for his little girl I agreed (plus the convenience of being able to just get up out of bed and take two steps to feed her won me over haha).  However, for the last couple weeks of March into the beginning of April, Cara was starting to wake up when we would come to bed and/or waking up twice in the night and that second time deciding that it was time to play, so after I'd feed her she would talk, squeal and cry until I got up and put her soother in or rock her.  Eventually we got to the point that we needed to let her cry it out, which would go on for like an hour at 3am!  One night John finally left and slept in the spare room because it was pretty clear sleep wasn't happening in ours!  At this point we had been preparing her room to paint and get get ready to move her, mainly we were waiting to get the window in her room replaced, since we figured we would do that and then paint, however when we ordered them we found out it could take up to 2 months, so we decided it was time to get a move on her room.  We got the room all prepped, John had to do some patch work and fix a shelf in the closet.  I was going away for a weekend with Cara to my grandmother's, so this was going to give him time to finish everything up so that when I got back I could paint.  Little did I know that he had other plans!  He worked the entire weekend getting her room completely done for when we got back!  When we got home, he took us upstairs, where all the doors to the rooms were closed.  I opened our bedroom first and saw that everything was back to the way it was, which made me start to tear up and I walked right over to her room and just started crying because everything was all set up for her!  I realized how loved I am and how lucky I am to have a wonderful husband!

Everyone seems happy with the move.  It didn't seem to affect Cara at all, if anything it helped her sleep better!  And Mommy and Daddy are sleeping better too!!

My last update is house related, as we have been trekking through getting the house done.  We recently got all the windows replaced, I haven't used them much yet as it's still too cold to open them, however they look much nicer than the old ones!  Since we had to move everything out of the way for the windows to be replaced, we decided to do some painting this weekend, which started with some touch ups and painting over the green wall in the living room.  We've painted it the same colour as everything else, and while I'll say that the green seemed to grow on me, I am REALLY happy with the grey, it just looks more professional, I think it will really help with selling the house as it really transforms the living room.  It's amazing how one wall can make all the difference!  Here is what it looks like now!

This week I am hoping to start painting some of the baseboards and trim, specifically I'm starting with the dining room window, as you can see from above, they had to replace it with an unpainted piece, so since everything is moved out of the way, I'm going to start with it!  We're also hoping to get the green wall going upstairs painted to grey in the next week...I'm sure that will involve another blog! However for now, I'm done with the updates, I'm off to enjoy the rest of the evening with my husband!

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

It's been a while since I last blogged, probably because we haven't been doing any work on the house but mostly to do with Cara taking up so much time and it hasn't been top on the list of things to do!  However that is all going to change - at least I hope!  There is change number one ;)

John and I have been motivated by the spring weather and the desire to get our daughter into her own room so we can have ours back, to start a push and getting things moving again on the house.  There are only a couple of big jobs left and then A LOT of painting and touch ups/finishing touches to complete the house and make it look good.  We recently ordered new windows for the whole house, so stay tuned for a blog on those once they are installed.  We've also began some painting and changing some of what we had originally done.

For anyone following my blog, will remember that when we redid the living room, we decided on grey with a green accent (for those who don't follow it, check out my Home Reno 2.0 series for reference - Home Reno 2.8 if you want to only see what I'm talking about).  I was never keen on the green, but John really liked it so I went with it (mainly because I knew we weren't staying here forever haha!).  However, over time John has decided that the green may be a bit too much for people who may be buying, so he's decided that we need to paint over all the green!  Ironically, I'm a bit sad because I've become accustom to it and thinks it suits our space, but alas, we are not staying, so again I'm going with it.

We've begun with painting the mantle from green back to white.  I can tell you that as the person who has painted this mantle twice in a matter of years, I hope that this is the last time I do this!!  The white has really given the room a different look, with the light that comes in from the patio door, it reflects onto the grey, making it look lighter.  Here are a couple pictures of the transformation...

All prepped and ready to go!

First coat done

Final product!

 Next up for the mantel - new glass doors which were broken the month after John moved in and then to do something with the brass!

Next up on the house - prep and paint Cara's room!  Can't happen soon enough ;)

Speaking of Cara, she's a joy these days!  She's really found her voice, going from one octave to another in two seconds flat, aslso full of "ba-ba-ba", "da-da-da" and "ma-ma-ma".  She's also learned that if she rolls onto her stomach and then cry because she won't roll back, that one of us will come get her (however I watched her this morning roll from her back to her tummy and then back to her back when she didn't know I was watching).  We had our first swimming lesson today, she was captivated by all that was going on, as there is an aqua fitness class in the other pool beside us going on. She can also sit up on her own, although I wouldn't walk too far from her when she's doing it unless she's got padding all around, even though she's learning that if she tips one way, she needs to tip back the other way (yesterday she overcompensated and fell over the other way!).  AND we have our first tooth coming in!   Last night she woke up around 9, we gave her some time to go down on her own, but eventually we had to go get her, as soon as I got my finger in her mouth I felt how swollen her gum was!  Poor thing, not easy having teeth break through!

I must run now as she's awake and crying.  Until next time...

Kitchen 2.0!

It's been a while since I have written a blog entry, which I have finally decided to remedy!  You see, it was a VERY busy fall, preparing for our baby to be born, impromptu add on to the kitchen renos, having the baby, adjusting to the baby and then Christmas. Now that all of that is behind me, I am hoping to start updating my blog, as my little bundle of joy will allow me!  For now I will begin with the impromptu kitchen reno and then move into the birth and life with Cara in the following weeks!  

Okay, so my last kitchen reno blog made it sound like we were all done the kitchen, that was because we thought we were.  However, leading up to the long weekend in September, we had been discussing putting in a backsplash in the kitchen.  We had debated it so much, but finally the week leading up to the long weekend we just decided to do it.  We went out and got what we needed and got to work and finished it all up by Monday!  All I can say is that being 8 months pregnant and doing that was extremely difficult!!  Besides the fact that I was big, tired and swollen from just carrying around the baby, I was having a difficult time getting in close enough to clean the tiles off due to my stomach and the counter...more than once I made some negative frustrated comment about it, however I made it through and we are so pleased with the results! We really feel like it gives the kitchen a more completed look as before it just looked like it was missing something.  Here are some pictures of the work and final product!

Getting started, cleaning off the walls and taping/protecting the countertops

The tiles...John and I went back and forth on these.  I loved them
but for some reason he didn't think that they would work...he was wrong.

John's set up to cut the tiles...very safe...

Getting the tiles up!

One wall completed!

Almost done, just finishing up the little pieces around the plugs.

All up!

The grouting has begun!

John put so much on that it took forever to clean off...and I mean
FOREVER!

My swollen feet, I was little help one evening, as I needed to just sit down

Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning...

All done!  Now to just clean up the tools!

The completed product!

First Quilt - Baby Noah's Art Quilt

A while ago (longer than I care to admit), I bought a baby quilt kit in hopes that it would an easy way to make my first quilt. I got the kit from Walmart, which is Noah's Ark themed, I thought it made a good gender neutral quilt, plus I really liked the material it came with.  I forgot to take a picture of all the material, but it came with some different kinds of material, specifically normal cotton, flannel and this soft plush material.  The plush material feels so nice, however it is very difficult to work with.  It gets everywhere when you cut it and it's hard to pin to the other material to sew because it just slides all over the place. However, I got it to work, so that's the main thing!

Here is some of the cut plush material.

Here is the piece of fabric for the center panel of the quilt.  Most of the time while I was working on the quilt I was afraid that I would mess it up, I tried to be careful and measure things like 5 time, but I still was able to make mistakes!  You will see later on, but I did make a mistake in cutting the center panel, a one inch mistake, however I was able to fix it by sewing some of what I cut back on and cutting it to the correct size.

The rulers I have were not quite long enough to cut the long rectangle pieces, so I had to improvise.  Luckily a have a couple of rules which were able to help out!

After these rectangle pieces, there were a number of square pieces to cut out.  Luckily I have a square ruler set which had the exact size I needed for the squares which made the job a lot easier.  I was able to cut them up quickly and then sewed them together pretty quickly too, using a tip from my sister-in-law about guiding them all through at once, so that I save time and thread.  Here they are sewn together in strips:

Isn't the animal pattern cute?

After putting the squares together, I attached them to the center panel with the rectangle pieces around it.  This made for the front of my quilt.  I was pretty excited at this point because I could see it coming together.

Once I got this done, it took me quite a while to get the rest of the quilt finished.  Part of that is because I changed how the backing was supposed to be attached.  The pattern says to attached the backing on as if you were making a pillow, but after talking to my sister-in-law, we decided that would be a pretty light duty quilt.  Instead, I decided that I would put batting in the middle and then create a binding for it.  Once I bought the extra material, it took a while for me to get going on it again.  I think a large part was that I was afraid to mess it up, but finally I just decided that if I didn't do it, I would never complete the thing.  So after researching online and help from my sister-in-law, I finally got to completing the thing.

After attaching the front, back and batting, I quilted it together in just straight lines, trying my best to follow the lines with the squares.  The lines aren't the straightest, however I think that they are not too bad considering that I was doing them free hand.

Close up of my fix for the center and of the wiggly lines!

After this, I prepared the binding. I found a very helpful Youtube video which showed me how to make my own binding from scrap material (or in my case, new material just for the job!).  I cut, ironed and sewed the stripes for the binding together pretty quickly.  I found that preparing the binding was quite easier than I had suspected, which was nice.  Here are a couple pictures of the process.

I ironed the pieces in half, to make a double binding, which was
good because the material I had is pretty thin.

I sewed the strips together on an angle in order to get them to
lie flat together...

...then I cut the excess material off.

Voila!  A nice bind (it became flat once I
ironed it!)

Once the binding was ready, I attached and sewed it to the quilt.  I had a little trouble with that because I was trying to free hand a 1/4 inch seam, based on what the woman in the Youtube video told me, despite having a 1/4 inch seam foot which makes sewing a 1/4 inch seam a breeze.  About half way through I gave up and switched the foot and it because 10x easier to sew the binding on!

After the binding was attached on the front, I watched a couple more Youtube videos on how to hand stitch the binding to the back and began that process.  I found that it was a little tedious because it takes a lot longer and I had to be hunched over it, so it took me about a week to do as I could only do so much at a time.  I found that my stitches weren't as tight as the ones in the videos I watched, so I think I make have to fix it once it has been used for a bit, but we will see.  All in all, I think it came together pretty well for my first quilt.  Here is the finished product!