Happy Mothers' Day!!

I am so blessed to have an amazing mom who is also one of my very best friends and who is an incredible grandma to Caden!  Click here to see a little tribute video to mom. I tried and tried to get it on my blog, but it wouldn't work. Anyways, enjoy! And Happy Mother's Day, Mither!!! I love you!

Oh dear...

I just won my ward's Relief Society hot dog eating contest... I am still deciding how I feel about this...

Three Things Thursday

Wow, I can't believe that it has been almost an entire month since I last updated. I guess I have a lot that I need to catch up on, but since its late, I'll start with Three Things Thursday- the three most recent cakes I've made. 

1. This wedding cake I made about a month ago. Nothing special, just the same fondant, ribbon and flowers. But it was fun to make anyways. 

2. I made these cupcakes and cake this past weekend. Half of  the cupcakes were lemon and the other half were chocolate, both with cream cheese frosting. The cake was chocolate with chocolate ganache and chocolate fondant (holy chocolate!)

Isn't the cupcake tower AMAZING?! Ben and his dad made it for me! I had been searching forever to find a nice one and the cheapest that I could find was over $200 and I didn't really even like it. So Ben made me this gorgeous tower that I am in love with, and it can be changed to any size. Amazing, hey? So hopefully I'll get a lot more cupcake orders! 

     

3. This was mom's birthday cake. I had planned it to be a lot different from what it turned out to be, but after half of the cake collapsed on me and I had to carve another circle, this turned out better than I expected it would. It was chocolate cake filled with fresh strawberries and chocolate ganache and topped with chocolate covered strawberries. 

Doesn't mom look beautiful?! I hope that I can look half that good when I am her age!

Baby!

I am officially twelve weeks pregnant. That means that I am suppose to be feeling better by now (which I mostly am, I am just always very tired!) I had my first midwife appointment yesterday and it was great! I am really excited to be going with a midwife this time. Carol (my midwife) thinks that I will have another fast labor and that I'll only have to push for about ten minutes which would be GREAT!

I heard the baby's heartbeat!! It was amazing, but slightly scary to realize that there actually is a baby growing inside of me! It all seems a lot more real now. Speaking of scary... I have already gained five pounds. I've been trying to convince myself that all the weight has gone to my boobs, but deep down I realize that I am just going to be getting bigger and BIGGER and BIGGER!!

(This is the best shot we were able to get of Caden's "I'm gonna be a BIG BROTHER shirt!")

The baby is now about 2.5 inches from crown to rump (head to butt). It can move its fingers, squint, swallow and pee! The baby even has fingerprints and private parts already! Weird, hey?!

I have my 18week ultrasound booked -the one where we can find out the gender! It is booked for May 8th! I am really excited because it is just a few days before Mother's Day! So hopefully we'll be able to tell the gender of the baby for a nice Mother's Day surprise!

Three Things Thursday

Three things going on at our house:

  

1. Lately Caden has fallen in love with the scriptures (or Jesus' Book as he calls it... "GEE!"). He will sit for a really long time just flipping through the pages of Ben's spanish Book of Mormon, the whole time just saying "GEE, GEE, GEE!!" If I try to take the scriptures away from him he has an absolute fit... complete with falling to the ground and repeatedly hitting his hands and legs to the floor saying "NOOOOO!!" He likes to hear me tell him stories about Jesus from the scriptures. He loves seeing pictures of Jesus and can point them out anywhere we go. The incredible thing is that (even though we should have) we really never taught Caden about Jesus. One day, he pointed to a picture of Him and said "GEE!" Parenthood is definitely rewarding!!!

2. I think that Caden will grow up to be an animator/cook. He loves to cook with me and gets so mad if I don't hold him the entire time that I'm cooking and let him stir the food with a spatula. Caden LOVES Ben's animation. I think that he is Ben's biggest fan. He will watch the animation over and over again and every time it ends, he signs "more, more!" He smiles throughout the entire movie and makes sounds to go along with the movie. He will watch the movie as many times as we let him (no exageration- he once watched it 8 times before we made him do something else, and he screamed and screamed because he wanted to watch it again!) Speaking of Ben's animation, I just want to say how PROUD I am of him! It was such a huge job, it took hours and hours. Every time I watch it I can't help but smile. He did such an awesome job.

  

(The pictures above are of Caden trying to get as close as possible to watch Ben's animation and Caden helping me make a smoothie)

3. Caden had his first haircut on Saturday!!! His hair was starting to look really funny because there were some pieces that were about 2 inches longer than the rest of his hair. It was all really uneven, so we just evened it up. It pretty much looks the same, just cleaner. He was a pretty good sport (as long as he was watching The Wiggles and holding a cookie in each hand!) 

  

So things are great with us. I have been working on a wedding cake today and I think I've had a permanent smile on my face all morning because I've been having so much fun. Ben's department has been laying people off like crazy, this morning there were 6 or 7 more people laid off. He was called into talk to his boss and given even more responsibilities. It seems that every time they lay someone off, Ben ends up getting their job duties as well as the ones he already had. We are just really grateful right now and feel very blessed by tithing. 

Ben-Jammin Pictures presents....

Hello all, and welcome to the world premiere of my movie (and the world premiere of Ben blogging, for that matter).

I know many of you may have been wondering why a grown man would ask for Lego for Christmas.  Let me answer that for you.  Animation is Ben's favorite pastime.  And to animate, you need, well, Lego.  Clay modeling was never my forte, so I took the easy way out and used pre-made models.  I say that I took the easy way out, but behold, I do err, for it was not very easy at all.  Stop-motion animation is a painstaking process whereby the animator (yours truly) poses the models (Lego in this case) and takes a single picture of the pose, then modifies the pose ever so slightly and takes another picture, and so on, until there are enough pictures that can be strung together to tell a story.  And that's just the video; audio still needs to be added.

I visited a few royalty-free sound effects websites and downloaded all the sounds used in this movie, modifying them to suit the action, turning the volume up and down as was called for, and at times even blending different sounds together.  This was a process that I didn't fully appreciate until I realized how much it adds to the final movie, nor did I appreciate how freaking hard it would be, or I would have been more conscious of it when writing the movie.

Music was the final addition.  I took three music tracks and spliced them all together to match the pace of the action, keeping in mind the tempo and any key changes....blah blah blah.  My point is that all of it was very hard and I just want to brag about it for a little while.  So...

This movie contains:

approx. 1600 still photos,

about 25 sound effects,

1000+ pieces of Lego,

2.5 months of blood, sweat, and yes, tears, and

the infinite support and understanding of my wife through these dark times.

I've said all I wanted to say, and if you've actually made it this far reading without getting bored and leaving to visit some other cooler website, you deserve to see what all the fuss is about. Without further ado, I present:

INDIANA JONES AND THE STOP-MOTION CRUSADE!!!!!

Thank you, thank you.  No pictures, please.

Life Lately

I have been horrible at blogging lately, I am sorry! It seems that every time Caden is down for a nap or I have a few extra minutes, I either want to sleep, throw-up, or curl up in a ball and eat peanut butter. I lead a very exciting life. 

(This picture is me holding the positive pregnancy test)

Things have been going well though. This morning we had a Relief Society "Lets Do Brunch" at Cora's in Northland. I am in love with that restaurant, so much fresh fruit! We had a really good turn out which I was very grateful for. I am busy planning our upcoming Relief Society Anniversary Party. We are doing a Luau theme ("Becoming a 10 Cow Woman night- Realizing and Reaching Your Potential" - after Jonny Lingo). It will be really fun, the decorations are going to be incredible and the food is going to be really good. So hopefully people will come! 

I have been booking a lot of wedding cakes. I am getting kind of worried about making cakes during my pregnancy. I hope that I feel well enough to do them. My next one is coming up next week (it will be a boring cake, so I'll post pictures but don't look forward to them!). 

Caden is sick today. He has had a runny nose all week, but today his eyes are watering and he is really clinging and sad. I hate when he is sick, I feel so bad for him. He is a good sport about it though. I had an enrichment meeting yesterday and he LOVED playing with the other kids! It always amazes me how social he is with other kids. He knows the names of all of the kids his age and he recognizes their homes when we pull up in the car. He loves giving them hugs and playing with them. Unfortunately, he is the only one his age who cares about playing with other kids, but luckily, Caden can't tell. Ignorance really can be bliss!

Oh guess what! I am going with a midwife for this next pregnancy! Jo-Anne's good friend is a midwife and she got me in as one of her patients without any wait list, etc. I am really excited because I want to do this next birth with no pain medication again. Midwifes are strong believers in natural birth. I am still going to deliver in the hospital, but I think it will be a much better birth this time (with no nurses trying to get me to take medication, hopefully no doctors threatening forceps and HOPEFULLY no brutal tear!)

My yoga class has ended which I am sad about. It was so much fun, I definitely recommend yoga. I am trying to sign up for a pre-natal class right now, but I am having a hard time finding one that will work with my schedule. Can you imagine a class full of pregnant woman doing yoga? It won't be pretty... but it will be fun! 

...So thats whats been going on in my life lately. I promise to do better with blogging from now on!