Spring is here!

Well we can tell spring is officially here, our local ground hog is awake and back hanging out by our shed, he survived another winter! Baby bunnies are out, and we have a new visitor to our backyard - a baby Cooper’s hawk. He’s been coming over and hanging out the beam of our swing set. Mike was able to capture a great picture of him by taking it through the lens of the binoculars (our camera zoom was not enough to get a close shot of him)

Ashley got a new bicycle!

Ashley’s little tricycle has become way too small for her, so last weekend we went out to get her a bicycle with training wheels. At first she couldn’t figure out how to pedal forward (the pedals don’t turn backwards) but got the hang of it pretty fast and was zooming around the Toy’s R Us store on it. This is a pretty cool new trick for her. She’s very proud of herself :)

Another cool trick that our neighbor Emma taught her is to pump her legs on the swing herself, so we don’t have to push her. She can go really high without any help!

She’s becoming so grown up so fast, definitely huge changes even from 6 months ago!

Katelyn's Dancing Bears Music Class

Since January, once a week we’ve been taking Katelyn to a music class at Dorbrook Park. This is the first semi-structured class she's ever attended. The instructor plays guitar, blow bubbles, they sing songs, dance around with scarves, drums and bells and play with balls and parachute. At first she was a little shy, didn’t want to participate, and preferred to go out in the hallway to climb the stairs. But now she’s really into it. She likes to help clean up the stuff the instructor hands out, and pays attention for the whole 45 minute duration of the class. It’s very cute. Here is a small video of the “Good Bye” song that they sing:

Ashley's Driving!

Spring is almost here, so Ashley has been practicing a lot driving her pink Cadillac. She and Katelyn hop in and off they go. A lot of the kids on the street have these, so they get together go around the cul-de-sac. Ashley started with 2.5 mph setting and now Mike's bumped up the speed to 5 mph for her.

Typically we keep her car in the shed, but sometimes if we are too lazy to walked it there at night, we back Mike's car out of the garage and park Ashley's car there instead. It looks so funny there next to my minivan :)


Here's a video of Ashley and Katelyn (this is her second time driving)

Mike's Birthday Cake

Since I've been on this cake making kick for a while now, I offered Mike to make whatever cake he wanted for his birthday. He chose basketball theme. So with a little help from Google, here's a cake that I made for our family dinner:

For dinner Mike requested Coq Au Vin with spaetzle and French string beans. Coq au vin is a french chicken dish, slow cooked in red wine, with bacon, pearl onions, mushrooms and herbs. Spaetzle is a dish of German moodles enhanced with fresh herbs. Both of these recipes came from William Sonoma cooking demonstration classes that I did last fall. We really liked the flavors, however I had to tweak the recipes to make them more healthy.

My Cake Decorating Class

In the month of February, I took Wilton's Flowers and Cake Design class. We learned to make a variety of flowers from different edible materials including daisies, pansies, roses, apple blossoms, primroses, daffodils, lilies.

Coincidentally the last class ended the night before Mike's birthday. So my final project was Mike's birthday cake :) Do to the nature of the class, the cake came out very girly, turns out it's hard to make a manly cake with flowers..

I don't have pictures of all of the flowers that I learned to make, but here's some:
Daises and Pansies from fondant:


Some apple blossoms and primroses that I made to put on the cake for the final project:


Here's the final product:
Marble cake with chocolate ganache filling and vanilla buttercream icing.


Basketweave on the sides and crunchy, sugary flowers on top:

The Family Portrait

Ashley's been into drawing our family. Here's one of her family portraits of us:

It's Mommy, Ashley (the biggest one), Daddy (the smallest) and Katelyn.

Diaper Cake

This past weekend I got a chance to make a diaper cake for Nelya's baby shower. I used 100 diapers and since she's having a girl, I decorated it with all things pink - ribbons, ballerina kitty, diaper pins, hair bows, chew toy, pink sockies and little carseat toys and a soft blanket.


Since I didn't post this earlier, here's a picture of the diaper cake that I made for Jen's baby shower last fall:

Katelyn went on the potty for the first time plus more "Sissy" Love

Both Ashley and Katelyn were sick with a virus last week, so to rule out any infection, Dr. Yia asked that we give her Katelyn's urine sample. The problem is Katelyn is still in diapers and the topic of potty training has been deferred until warmer months. Dr. Yia gave us a baggie with tape round the opening that she suggested we try to use on Katelyn inside her diaper, however knowing how stubborn Katelyn can be there was no way she was going to agree to wear a plastic bag in her pants, besides we wouldn't know if she went, so it may all spill into the diaper. So I decided that we would try to potty route. So armed with a book and mini M&Ms I convinced Katelyn to sit on the potty after her nap. She didn't like the idea, but being that she really likes sweets, she couldn't resist the M&M. And I'm happy to report that in less than 10 min we had success! I'm not sure Katelyn even realized what she did, but she certainly got a lot of praise for it!

Her test came back negative and both of them are feeling much better this week. We again managed to avoid antibiotics. It's been more than a year since the last time that they had to take them! I think it's quite an accomplishment, being that both Ashley and Katelyn go to activities outside the house and interact with other kids all the time.

Here are some more recent pictures of the "sissy" love at our house :)

Valentine's Day Cards

This year, Ashley made some home-made Valentines Greeting Cards for all of her favorite people. Here's one that she made for Daddy :)