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!