What in the Actual Hell!?

Tom and I are a couple that BBQ year-round. Living in a condo, we have a little balcony that holds our BBQ, and it never gets snow or ice on it. It's actually very convenient. Five days ago we BBQ'd some Vietnamese pork meatballs, and last night, Tom was about to BBQ to some salmon, when he opened the BBQ lid and found this:

A nest!?

GROSS!

What kind of nest? We suspect it is a squirrel nest. I had seen a squirrel on our balcony yesterday, and a friend had mentioned seeing one the day before running back and forth when she was visiting.

Thankfully, there was nothing in the nest-- it was just straw and grass. But clearly, someone has been very busy over the last few days! I don't know what we would have done if there had been babies in it! I cringe to think about it.

Needless to say, dinner was very delayed last night, as we cranked up the heat in the BBQ in an effort to disinfect the inside.

Lacey Frances Greig

The last nine days have been an absolute shock to my system! I had my weekly prenatal appointment on the morning of March 1, and for the rest of the day, the baby was acting like a maniac in my belly. She was kicking, squirming, rolling, and making life generally uncomfortable. This wasn't particularly unusual, she spent a lot of time kicking and stretching. I had spent the last five days either in bed, or laid out on the couch trying to get over a case of the flu, and I had told Tom how worried I was that I might go into labour while still sick. As Tom and I were getting ready for bed, we were laughing as we watched her little limbs flailing around in my belly. 15 minutes later, my water broke. I had a rush of adrenaline as I realized, this is really happening, and Tom and I were off to the hospital.

Lacey was born on March 2 at 8:36am. She was a whopping 7lbs 8oz-- which seems pretty big to me, considering she was ten days early! It turns out labour sort of suppresses all the other things going on in your body-- I didn't even really notice my flu symptoms at the time. After Lacey was born, I had some complications, so we spent an extra night in the hospital-- but we have since headed home, and are settling in. Figuring each other out, you might say.

Tom and I are both run down, but we love our little girl and our little family. There have been plenty of emotional ups and downs as we both try to get some rest, and figure out what works best for us. We are both still trying to shake a cough, the last remaining symptom from the flu with both had Family and friends have been amazing, offering support, food (thank God for all the food!) and some incredibly thoughtful gifts.

We are happy to report that Lacey is thriving! She's back to her birth weight already (usually you'd want an infant to be back to their birth weight after two weeks), and really only fusses when she's hungry.  I'm sure this will change as she continues to grow, but for now, we are thankful that she has a sweet temperament.

Thank you, everyone, for your well wishes and messages! I am trying my best to respond to them all, but time is at a premium these days.

Amanda & Tom

Curtains, Cross-Stitch and Cooking

37 weeks-- we've made it to early term! Basically, this little girl can be born at any time now, and (*fingers crosssed*) she shouldn't have any major health complications. She currently has a foot sticking out my right side. This seems to be one of her favourite positions. No amount of poking or prodding from me on the outside can get her to bring that foot back in. Or rather, she'll bring it back in, but she reclines back into the same position a few minutes later. It's probably getting pretty cramped in there!

I think we are (knock on wood) as ready as we can be for her arrival. We finished our six week baby class on Thursday night, and we've acquired all the major items that we'll need for her arrival. This weekend I did some cooking with my mom and mother-in-law, and stocked up on some frozen meals for the first weeks of chaos. The nursery is basically complete, except for maybe a rocking chair or glider. My mother-in-law, Barb, made these beautiful curtains which we hung last weekend. They really make it seem like a little girl's room!

And my mom gifted us with this cross-stitch alphabet that she made 40 years ago for my oldest sister before she was born. I put it into a new frame, and it's now up on the wall above the change table. Love it!

So the countdown continues. 11 days until my family leave begins, 20 days until my due date. Will she be early? Will she be late? Only time will tell!

Dress Adventures with Elsa

My niece, Madlynn, turned five this week (HOW DID SHE GET SO OLD!?), and gone are the days when I would come up with a random idea for her birthday treats, like these sheep cupcakes, or butterfly cupcakes. This year, Madelynn requested a very specific Frozen themed cake. Basically, the cake is the dress on an Elsa doll.

This was a little outside my comfort zone, but I watched a few YouTube videos and felt fairly comfortable with the process. I have photo-documented my dress adventures with Elsa!

Elsa observes the cooling cakes.

First, I started with four eight inch cake rounds. I'm not going to lie... I have a dirty secret! I used a box mix to make these cakes, rather than making them from scratch! It's so shameful! But I'm 35 weeks pregnant, and I couldn't find the energy to stand and measure out the ingredients... And now that I've done it once, I may have to go back to box mix again! You won't tell anyone... Right?

Elsa takes a bubble bath.

Next, I gave Elsa a thorough bath. Considering I literally picked her up from my sister's doorstep, I figured this was a necessary step. I also gave her hair a brush, and braided it up.

Huge mess.

Next, I whipped up a batch of vanilla buttercream frosting. I've made this frosting recipe several times, and I'm honestly not sure what I was thinking. The recipe said to keep the stand mixer at medium while adding a 1/2 cup of icing sugar at a time. So... I did that, and icing sugar exploded everywhere. So, note to self, turn the stand mixer to low while adding icing sugar. I know that! I have always done that before. I will blame that mistake on baby brain.

Elsa's make-shift shower cap.

After thoroughly drying off Elsa, I wrapped her legs in saran wrap, and made a make-shift shower cap out of saran wrap and tape to keep her hair clean from frosting and cake. Then I stacked, balanced and frosted the four layers of cake.

The next step was to cut out a hole for Elsa. I probably could have used a fifth layer of cake to cover her hips, but thanks to my YouTube video watching, I was prepared for some re-jigging once I had trimmed the cake to the shape of a dress.

I used the cake trimmings to stack up the dress around her hips, and used more frosting to anchor everything in place.

Hombre buttercream.

I took the remaining buttercream frosting and whipped three different batches with blue food colouring to make a set of gradational frosting.

Elsa's dress crumb coat.

My least favourite part of frosting cakes is applying the crumb coat. This is a thin layer of frosting that is meant to seal in the crumbs from the cake so that you can apply decorations without crumbs sticking out. This crumb coat was not very fun, because trimming through the cake let loose a whole new level of crumbs. After I had sufficiently covered the cake, I put it in the fridge for half an hour so the crumb coat would solidify.

Elsa's unadorned dress.

As you can see, the next layer of frosting was a lot easier to apply, and a lot smoother when applied over the crumb coat. This left me with a blank canvas to decorate.

Elsa dress cake.

And... Here she is! Elsa in all her glory! I don't know about you, but I'd wear a dress like that, any day! 

Niece loved her-- it was totally worth it! 

Finishing Touches

I'm officially 34 weeks along now-- 8.5 months! It's kind of hard to believe how quickly the time has flown by. I think Tom and I more or less have everything we need ready now. Crib and change table are set up, we have a bassinet, a stroller and a car seat. The drawers and closet are overflowing with clothes, and the baby is moving around like a maniac, sticking her butt and feet out every chance she gets.

I've been putting some finishing touches on decorations for the nursery. After about ten days of painting non-stop in my free time, I have finally finished them!

The inspiration for my paintings came from a Papyrus card that I gave Tom for Valentine's Day  four years ago. It clearly stuck in my mind because I saved it, and have been thinking about how it could be incorporated into a baby's room in the future.

I really like painting with acrylics, but I think it's been a couple years since I cracked them open. I got in the habit of doing a little bit each night. The paintings pretty much took over our kitchen table.

Now that all is said and done, I am very happy with how they turned out! My favourite part, without a doubt, is the volcano spewing hearts!

And to give you a the full effect, here is what they look like with respect to the rest of the nursery furniture.

Now that I'm done with my sewing and painting projects, I'm not totally sure what to do with myself anymore. I'm going to have so much more free time! I guess I'll just enjoy it while it lasts.

Edible Wool

It's been a few months since I've had a chance to make some creative cupcakes. When I got my Hello Cupcake book a few months ago, I remember flipping through the pages and seeing a design for cupcakes that look like skeins of wool, complete with knitting needles. I thought to myself, "If I ever have the opportunity to make my friend, Corina, cupcakes, this will be the design I use." Corina is a crafty lady, and she always has some sort of knitting project on the go, so they seemed perfect for her.

Well, wouldn't you know it? Right before Christmas, Corina and her husband had a beautiful baby girl, and over the weekend I attended her baby shower.  Her sister-in-law e-mailed me a few weeks ago, and asked if I would be willing to make make some cupcakes.

Would I!?

Sign me up!

Here's how they turned out:

Love it!

Dino Mania!

 I sort of forget how single-minded I become when I start working on a project.

Tom and I finally got our crib set up, and I decided I wanted to make some accessories to go with the crib bedding.  Initially I looked at pillows on Etsy, but eventually I stumbled across some felt dinosaur patterns (here) that would nicely complement a painting I am planning to paint for the nursery.

Etsy Pattern

I bought the pattern online, and the supplies were a quick stop at Michael's for felt, embroidery thread, pipe cleaners and polyester stuffing.  The dinosaur pattern was called, "Angry Dinos", which didn't quite fit with my girl-themed nursery, so I modified the pattern so that the dinosaurs were a bit friendlier looking.

Once I started stitching... It basically took over my life. In this case, single-minded could probably be better described as "obsessive compulsive." Every spare moment, you could find me sitting on the couch cutting felt, pinning fabric, sewing or stuffing dinosaurs. At one point, I even wondered if it would be acceptable if I brought parts of the project on the train with me so I could sew on my way to and from work.  Ultimately, I decided that I was taking it to a whole new level of crazy. I stand by my decision to keep everything at home...

Regardless, I am very pleased with the results. The dinosaurs are not very sturdy, being hand-sewn. So I don't think our daughter-to-be will really be able to ever play with them. But they make great decorations!

Crib & crib bedding.

Friendly dinosaurs!

Close-up of the dinosaurs.

And when I finally finished stitching everything, I found myself buying a second set of felt patterns from a DIFFERENT Etsy store (here), and stitching a new set of dinosaurs.  These guys are more three dimensional, and cute in a whole new way!

Etsy Pattern

 I burned through the sewing and stuffing of these two in a couple of days while recuperating from a cold that Tom infected me with earlier this week. There's nothing like drinking orange juice and ginger ale while stitching and watching TV for eight hours straight...

More dinos!

I'm relieved that I am now officially done this, and I can move on to the next project. And... The next project is currently taking over our kitchen table-- I am painting away! More on that in weeks to come.