Cake Dreams and Dairy Denial

If you are a facebook friend (which I'm sure most of you are), then you saw Olivia's one year photo shoot preview.  We are really happy with how they turned out.  We are getting the disc of all of the pictures later this week, and I will certainly be sharing them on here with you all.

That's not what this post is about though.  This post is about CAKE!

I have watched my fair share of cake shows on The Food Network.  Everything from the challenges to the series.  I knew that I wanted a 3D owl cake for Olivia's party.  I have been on a mission to find the right baker for months now.

I finally found one a few months ago.  I sent her a description of what I was looking for, along with pictures from the internet.  I specifically said I did not want an abstract cake (as in one oval equals entire owl).  She sent me back an email and included a picture of the exact abstract cake I had in mind when I said I did not want abstract.  Ay yi yi.  We went back and forth a few times with ideas and then she just stopped responding to me!?!  Bizarre.

So I set out to find another baker.  People were either booked, their pictures looked terrible online and I wasn't confident in their abilities, or they sent back emails with no punctuation.  Yep.  I disqualified a guy because of his lack of proper punctuation and lack of a period at the end of his sentence.  Seriously.  This is your business!!! You can't punctuate properly?  Then I don't want you doing the details of my cake.

Then I found out Bronwen Weber was from Dallas! If you have watched any cake challenges, then you know who she is.  I think I first saw her about 5 years ago!  She is one of my favorites.  I figured...it's cake.  I mean, I know a 3D cake is expensive, but it's flour and water and eggs... how expensive can it really be?!  So I called.  Um...$12 a person!!!!!!  Holy freaking cow! What?  Plus $75 for delivery.  Yeah.  I guess you can charge that much when you are a Food Network Star.  Obviously some people pay. Not this girl!

I finally found someone.  I have no idea how the cake is going to look, but I'm hoping and praying for the best.  I will be seriously bummed if it is not what I am envisioning.  Even this lady had a problem returning phone calls.  I joked with Michael that I should start a cake business.  I'm not a great baker.  I'm not a cake decorator.  But I CAN return phone calls and emails--that immediately puts me a leg above the rest!

On to the other cake.  We did cake smash pictures as part of Olivia's one year photo shoot.  I was all excited to have found the perfect cake on the day of.  It matched my purple and yellow theme and was just the right size.  The whole entire photo shoot was an hour, so it was probably 40 minutes in when we went to do the cake smash.  The frosting had completely melted! :(  I mean completely.  I used my finger and tried to cover it the best I can.  Then our photographer did some nice editing to try to cover the issue. Darn Texas heat!

Olivia wasn't bothered by the droopy frosting.  She was slow at first, but then she went to town.  I had no doubt that she would.  That girl loves to eat! :)  She ate a TON too. We finally cut her off after 65 pictures and 3/4 of a cake later.  She probably would have eaten the whole thing!

Unfortunately, we paid for the store-bought-off-the-shelf-with-buttercream frosting cake later.  We paid at 11:30 when Olivia woke up in pain from gas.  Ugh.  Sometimes I'm in denial about her issues.  I really thought that she would grow out of it within a year.  Plus, usually her symptoms aren't that bad.  So sometimes I let things slide more than maybe I should.  She's never had that much at one time though.  Now we know.  It isn't good.  She had a not so pretty diaper the next day too.  Sometimes I like to tell myself that the doctor was just being overly cautious when she said no dairy for a year, but the truth is, that is probably our reality.  Thankfully, our baker is making Olivia's party smash cake dairy free.  Poor girl.

Picture Giggles

Here is another video for you.  This was taken about a month and a half ago.  She was sitting on my lap and saw pictures of herself on the computer and started laughing.  So I signed on to facebook and started showing her more pictures of herself. 

The video is a little jumpy.  Partly because we are sitting in a rocking chair and partly because I was trying to keep her from jumping out of my lap and attacking the laptop.  Either way it's still cute.  Please excuse the fact that we are in our jammies. :)

Food love

We have SO MANY cute videos of Olivia, and I keep meaning to post them but never get around to it. I'm finally going to share one from last week.

The set up: Olivia is almost always in bed when I get home from work, so therefore she is in bed when we eat dinner. I was off of work last week, so we were eating dinner with her awake. Usually when this happens she is either in the highchair next to us at the counter, or is on the ground next to the counter playing. On this night we took an impromptu walk with her new wagon, so when we got back we just grabbed our plates and sat in the living room. Olivia immediately came up to me and tried grabbing for my plate. As I was trying to move it away and protect my corn she stuck her hand in my mashed potatoes and got an entire handful!! She then proceeded to eat. She had just eaten dinner! Then she begged for more. Every time I would give her a bite she'd do her cute little head tilt. When I wouldn't give her a bite, she'd whine and fuss and try to grab for it. When my plate ran out she moved on to Michael...



As soon as this video ended and Michael stopped feeding her... it was MELTDOWN! You'd think she starves the way she acts. As we can all see, the girl doesn't miss a meal! :)

Side note: I almost NEVER make instant mashed potatoes, but someone at our life group was raving about a certain brand so I thought I'd give them a try. I didn't even think about there being milk in them. It was once again confirmed (by a nasty diaper rash) that she is not ready for dairy. :(

Stop the presses!! Almond milk yogurt!?!?!

You've heard me lament on here before about how I am bummed out that Olivia can't have yogurt.  There are a few reasons for this. First is simply that it can be a fast and easy protein.  Second is that the probiotics in it are so good for kiddos.  I once heard a pediatrician say, "A yogurt a day keeps the pediatrician away".  Lastly is just the simple fact that most kids just love yogurt.

Well guess what?!?!

.....

There is almond milk yogurt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Who knew?!

(Well, probably healthy food store shopping freaks, but still....)

I was browsing a post on the internet related to MSPI and a mom was asking "when are you going to give yogurt?".  One of the responses was that they had tried it and it was ugly, so from now on they are sticking with almond yogurt.  I'm not going to lie, I seriously almost jumped out of my seat!  I exclaimed the good news to Michael and then immediately went to google to see what I could find.

It was sold in two stores near us. Good.

It has 6 live active cultures. Good.

It does not contain soy. Good. 

(Someone told me some almond products contain soy, so now I have to check.)

It doesn't have as much protein as regular yogurt, but it still had a decent amount for Olivia. Good.

I knew that all yogurt has sugars, but I was a little worried that the sugar content was high.  Then I went and looked up the yogurt that I would be giving Olivia had she not had these issues and it was almost double, so I felt better.

While at the healthy food store picking up this delight, I saw that they also sell coconut milk yogurt.  It had less protein, more sugar and was more expensive, so I think we'll stick with the almonds.  Hopefully we won't have any sort of nut allergy!!

It's sort of expensive ($1.50 for a 6 oz container and she eats about a 3 oz serving), so she won't be getting it every day, but I am thrilled to have this option for her.  She seems to like it too!

Project 366: Week 22

148. Most of you probably already saw on facebook, but my college roommate Amanda took her bridesmaids dress from Michael and I's wedding and had her mom turn it into a dress for Olivia.  This is just one of the many pictures I took of her in it.

149. Watching the crazy people on the jet skis.

150. So silly!

151. Shopping for birthday supplies

152. She does this weird thing where she scoots around the room with her head to the ground.  We haven't quite figured out why, but she did it here and came up with her hair all a mess and her bow hanging down. (No, it wasn't really that cold out.  It is pretty much in the 90's every day here.  It did drop to high 70's for a day or two though.  On this day it was rainy and looked cold out and I knew we wouldn't be leaving the house, so I dress her in comfy clothes.)

153.  I was trying to take a picture with my phone to send to Michael and she crawled a little too close. :)

154.  I don't know why, but I love this picture.

Memorial Day

We wanted to do something fun to get out of the house.  There is a lake that is really close to our house (as in 10 minute) and we had yet to visit it.  It is a rather big lake and we thought we'd just take a picnic and enjoy what the area has to offer.

It didn't quite turn out the way we had expected. First, we got a little lost trying to find it.  We could see the water, but we couldn't find the actual park.  Second, it was super crowded.  Third, there was no "beach" area, it was super hot, and the water was dirty.

However, after the effort it took to get there, and the fact that we had to pay to get into the park?!?, we decided to give it a shot.

Olivia had a great time!

She was fascinated and amused by the boats and jetskis in the water.

Michael and I ended up having Subway and Olivia had a mis-match of food that was easy to pack: applesauce, puffs, black beans and dried pear chips.

Then Michael took her down to put her feet in the water.

Then we took a little time to rehydrate...

enjoy the view...

and take a phone call

Then we left to get ice cream! :)

There are many different parks on the lake.  Next time we are going to check out the one that is a little farther away.  We're hoping for better results!

You're Invited!

It's June!  The month in which my sweet daughter was born.  I cannot believe she is almost a year old.  I'll leave all the sappy stuff for a later post though.  I just wanted to share with you the invites I made.  They were sent out last week, and I think they turned out pretty cute.

I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture, but the black paper is shimmery and the green and blue paper are sparkly paper.

You may have seen one similar floating around pinterest.

I ordered the pdf file from an etsy seller and then did it my way.

Cute, huh?

Y'all are invited!

Because of the time and money investment, I only sent them to a few people even though I knew they wouldn't be coming.  Those few people included grandparents and great grandparents.

So if you are an aunt, great aunt, cousin, friend, or anyone else who loves Olivia, then this invite is for YOU!