congrats to Tom!

Last week Megan's Tom graduated and is now officially a Doctor of Podiatric Medicine.  Congrats to Tom.  AND congrats to Megs who went through all of his undergrad & med school & had 3 babies during that time.  I'm so glad you'll be nearby in Tucson for the Residency years!

birthday cake for me.

D's design.

With all the cakery going on of late, I did not turn his vision into a sugar reality.  My mom, however (and as always), did come through with some amazing coconut cupcakes to celebrate the occasion.  And a darling cake stand. And a delicious dinner. Such a welcome birthday treat to come home to on my May 31 after our long, dirty, camping weekend!

cake wreck.

Jim said it would be catharctic to blog about it.  For days I felt completely nauseated even thinking about it, so no post.  But now that a few weeks have passed, I'm ready to call it a good experience, laugh and move on.

Here's the story of this masterpiece of cake wreckage...

Cyndee teaches Yearbook.  The job requires sweat & deadlines & blood & maybe even tears.  I know because I've watched her do it for many years now.  But the culmination and fulfilling moment after all that pain is the schoolwide Yearbook Party.  For which she asked me to make a cake this year. 

A cake to feed 200.  That's big, people.  I've done cake dummies that large, but never all real cake of that magnitude.  And that's where the problem came.  Jim guesstimated (and the man is ususally uncannily accurate) that the entire thing weighed about 70 pounds. 

Those who know me see the problem at once.  I am an absolute weakling.  Well, I got the bottom two tiers stacked and then realized it had to be put in the garage fridge while I worked on the top.  It was heavy, but I wasn't sure who to call for help, so I foolishly went for it.  Before I made it to the destination, my arms were noodles and I dropped the whole thing about five inches onto the shelf.  At that point I sensed that the support dowels were out of place.  I was working on about four hours of sleep and had already had a nightmare experience with red fondant, but instead of taking it all apart and starting over, I just crossed my fingers. 

(really poor lighting (& focus & color) in fridge! the cake actually looked great at this point, just bulging some on the bottom tier)

So the second all out nightmare experience came as I rode in the back of the Expedition with my nearly 20 hours worth of now unsteady labor.  About halfway there, I realized that despite 10 crossed fingers and many mumbly prayers, the cake was going to topple.  I reached for the top two tiers, which were still stable, and took them off just in time. 

The rest fell to pieces.  Sad pieces.  And I laughed.  And laughed.  And felt really bad when we reached Cyn's school and I had to break the news. 

A painful lesson in poor decisions.

I did not follow my intuition to get someone strong to move the cake.

I did not follow my intiution to re-stack the beast. 

The bright side??  I blessedly DID follow my intuition to put a towel in the back of my Expy for the trip.  

The towel was disasterized while the back of my vehicle remained pristine.  Small victory.  I'll take it.  And the lessons learned.

teacher appreciation

Mrs. Cammack taught Aidan in Kindergarten.  And 1st grade.  She is fantastic, and flowers or treats or cutesy crafts obviously can't properly thank the woman enough for her patience with my wiggly firstborn recess-lover.  Really I think the woman should head out on a Mexican Riviera cruise the day after school ends.  But that's not in my budget.  So something else had to be done. 

And it had to be simple. 

It was made even simpler by Mandi picking up all the supplies before coming to my house today.  Everyone should have a Mandi sister.  But if you aren't so lucky, these are the materials you will have to pick up instead to do this project:  plain note cards & envelopes, textured paper, thread, red ink pad.  I provided the Apple.  

Stamping was quick and I love how the ink picked up the details of the apple.  I stamped apples with the joy schoolers last October using acrylic paints.  It was not nearly so lovely.  We added a simple stem with brown marker and used the sewing machine to stitch the paper's edges. 

sidenote:  my thumbnail still bears the marks of my red cake nightmare of yesterday...

that post will be coming next.

a mother thrice.

Aidan, Davyn, Azure.  5 months old.

Time flies so. darn. fast.  Yesterday I was holding Azure and lamenting how grown up my older two have suddenly seemed.  I daydreamed myself into time with each of them as infants.  What I wouldn't give to have one hour laughing with my baby Aidan again.  One hour cuddled up with my sweet baby D.

...

I started the paragraph above as a mother's day post attempt weeks ago.  And then something distracted.  Motherhood probably.  It's a busy business.  And my three are all in busy modes.  Aidan, putting holes and stains in every article of clothing he owns, rules the backyard happily - a graveyard of golfballs, soccer balls, and ants.  Yes, ants are the latest obsession.  One day he rushed in with the proclamation that he was building them a playground.  Then he insisted that I take him to the library so we could find a book that would reveal their preferences.  He is passion-driven and single-minded.  Davyn caught the craze and asked me if the ants' tv (because of course they have one) is made out of sand.  He was disturbed to learn that not only do they lack television, but also kitchen tables, beds, toilets. 

Davyn is busy gabbing my ear off.  I know I tune him out too often, but mostly he's asking me either/or questions with little relevance to the moment.  Just about all day long.  Red or blue?  Man Bat or Poison Ivy?  Left or right?  Adios or goodbye?  Oh yes, he's a big fan of Spanish, too.  And sometimes Chinese.  One day he shouted down to me, "Ayudame, Mom."  I was confused until I realized it was Spanish.  I had to laugh. 

But the biggest laughs for these two come from their sister.  Azure adores them.  I see bits of both of them in her.   As a newborn, I proclaimed her an Aidan look alike.  But then she became so Davyn.  And now I'm back to seeing Aidan.  I suppose that's why I wrote that first paragraph.  This baby phase is so fleeting.  I grasp at glimpses of those two and hold her tight to memorize her own unique traits. 

I'm happy to be a mother thrice.  And that's partly why I want to write here more regularly.  This full-time mothering gig will end more quickly than I realize....so this is where I will then come to imagine them into my arms again.

Aidan, Davyn, Azure.  Days old.