February Fixes

I really got on a roll in February with house fix-its. I kind of went on an organizational streak!

My main goal for the month was to re-hang the shutter that had fallen off the house. It had been sitting propped against the house for months! I was starting to feel like we were "that house" on the block. I am trying to pick my goal project to be something that I've been putting off, or that isn't fun to do, so if I do want to do other projects it's just a bonus!

We (and by we I mean mostly Cory) spent a good part of a couple of afternoons trying to drill the holes in the mortar for the shutter screws. That is, until our drill bit broke! Oops. So it turns out, you can buy a masonry drill bit that is mean to drill into that kind of stuff. Once we got the right kind of bit, it took about 30 seconds to drill the last hole (whereas the wrong bit was costing us about 20-30 minutes per hole). I hammered in the shutter screws, and project done!

I also reorganized the closets in our guest room/craft room and in our hallway (where we keep all the cleaning stuff). It's crazy how doing something small can make such a big difference! It also keeps me motivated to keep going more things around the house.

I don't have a picture of the shutter, but it looks like all the other ones now, really. Here's a picture of the redone guest room closet, and a before/after of the hallway:

Ten months

Penny's tenth month included Christmas and New Year's. A busy month! We took Christmas pictures with Katie:


Had lots of fun in the bath!


Chewed on everything possible:


Went to visit our Louisiana family:


Smiled! A lot!


Woke up Christmas morning with a new lovey in her stocking!


Took lots of snuggly naps. :-)


All in all, a great month! She didn't even freak out too much when Daddy chopped off all his hair. :-)

Nine months

Penny's ninth month was a lot of fun. Lots of smiles every day!


She went to her first concert with me, Aunt Kim and Katie - Yo Gabba Gabba! During which she may have taken a nap. :-)


Still standing up and crawling at every opportunity.


She loves looking out the window, especially when Daddy's raking the leaves!


I know I'm totally biased, but I think she's the prettiest baby ever. Look at those doe eyes!


She's still sucking her thumb at night and loves her lovey.


Happy nine month old girl! Sixteen pounds, ten ounces of sweetness!

Eight months

Penny is moving right along!


We made a trip to Louisiana for her cousin Steve's birthday, and she even snuck in one time standing up without help! She's so close to trying to walk - we think it will be soon. At the birthday party, she got to try playing in an inflatable bounce house - less fun when you're crawling, but she seemed to enjoy it enough. (It was just her and mommy in there.) We also had our first trip to the zoo!


She and her daddy are best friends. I love them so much!


She's really mastered pulling up, and stands up (holding on) whenever she gets the chance. She loves to explore and get into things.


She's eating well, and we're trying to give her gradually chunkier foods and work more with picking up things to eat, like puffs. She likes them now! We're also letting her practice with a sippy cup.


This month was Penny's first Halloween! She was a strawberry. We went to our church's Halloween party and also visited our friend Shanna for her neighborhood block party!


We love you Penny! Happy eight months!

Seven months

Penny has been up to so much in the past month! It's official: she can't be stopped. She's crawling all over the place, even out of the room! Whenever she gets a chance, she stops to try to chew on something (the rug, Buster, our feet, a TV tray) or pull up on something. She can pull herself to a standing position now. Look out!


Eating continues to go well, and she's trying a few new foods every time we make a batch of food for her. I've even started giving her tiny mushed up bites of other foods we eat that I don't make just for her (like chicken or potatoes).


She's right at the end of 6 month clothing, and ready to start getting into some 9 month sizes! She's still happy all the time, and her little two-tooth grin always makes us smile.


She's now closer to a year than her birth day! Big girl!

Fixin' it up

So, I never posted anything about New Year's, but I did make a resolution: to do one new house project a month. It doesn't have to be anything major, but I have to do or fix at least one thing about the the house during each month in 2012.

So far, I've kept it! Last month, Cory and I replaced the wax seal under our toilet in the master bathroom, a process that involves removing the toilet and putting it back (side note: toilets are HEAVY). That fixed our poor wobbly toilet!



This month, my personal goal is to rehang a shutter that has fallen off the front of the house. In our case, that means drilling holes and hanging it properly (as opposed to using the velcro the previous homeowners used). I'm going to keep a list in the sidebar of things I've done this year to the house; I hope to add more and more!

brain dump

- It's been way too long since I've blogged. Penny is almost ten months old now, and it's almost 2012! I could make a lot of excuses, but really I've just let a lot of other things get in the way. I really do want to keep these memories of Penny's first year though, so I'll probably be putting up some catch-up posts soon.

- I just got back to work after having almost two weeks off. Ouch! It's so great to have the time off, but it's hard to get back into the swing of things. Thank goodness for having a long weekend coming up!

- Penny is super close to walking. I see her take a step or two pretty much every day now! I'm excited for her, but I'll miss her little one-leg scoot.

- Cory and I got each other Kindles for Christmas. I'm so excited about reading more! I just finished Tina Fey's Bossypants and I just started reading Chelsea Handler's first book. I made a new feature on the sidebar to show what I'm reading, just in case you're interested.

- I also got the new Legend of Zelda game for the Wii. It's a lot of fun so far - exactly what you expect out of a Zelda game, plus flying and a little more action because the remote is the sword (aka a lot of swinging around and jabbing things). It came with the 25th anniversary CD of orchestral versions of the game songs and I can't wait to listen to it.

- Work has been busy and interesting lately. I'm starting to work on mobile apps (think Android or iPhone apps). Let me know if you need an app for something and can't find it; I might be able to make it for you!

- That's a good start for now. Just trying to stretch my blogging muscles and get back into it!

Cake week part two

Well, Tuesday was pretty busy, so I just baked the last layer of the groom's cake. Then, last night I got started on building and icing the bride's cake. I started out by making the filling - strawberry cream cheese filling. Yum!



Then, I set that in the fridge and made a batch of buttercream icing. The cake is supposed to be a tan color, so I tinted the icing.



I always start by putting a smear of icing on the cake board, to keep it from slipping.



Then I take the layers out of the fridge, and one by one put them on the cake board, pipe an icing border...



and fill in with the filling...



and repeat...



until you have a filled and stacked cake!



Then I do what's called the "crumb coat," where I put a thin layer of icing on the cake to trap in loose crumbs. It makes it so much easier to go back a put a smooth, pretty coat on later! I learned my lesson with this, though: make your crumb coat the same color as the final coat, because you don't want a different color peeking out!



Two more tiers the same way, and you have one refrigerator full of cake!

Wedding cake week!

On Saturday, my friends David and Margaret are getting married, and I am very excited to do their wedding cakes. I was going to start the baking on Sunday, but a snafu with the ingredients (picked up the wrong kind of vanilla) pushed it back to yesterday. I'm making a three tier round cake for the bride, and a sheet cake for the groom in the shape of his guitar.

Last night, I baked four batches of cake and refrigerated them. It came out to nine round layers for the round cake, and one (of two) for the groom's cake.

This is really the grunt work, mainly because the mixer does half but the second half must be mixed by hand. Also, I am constantly washing dishes and preparing pans for the next round.

I have to admit, it's still scary to me every time I flip over the pan to get a large cake out! I have cracked and broken several cakes doing this (though none this time, whew!).

By the time I was done with the fourth round of baking, I was beyond ready for bed. One last round tonight and then I can get to the building and decorating! The layers stay wrapped in plastic in the fridge so they stay fresh while I'm working with them.

New poll!

I'm working on a new batch of posts, but while I get my pictures going and my words flowing, check out the new poll! I know a lot of people have Halloween as their favorite holiday. Is it yours? What are y'all doing for Halloween this year? I haven't even thought about a costume - I'll be baking all week for David and Margaret's wedding! I might work on a series of posts about that. Maybe to atone for the cake series I never finished a couple of years ago.

Enjoy the fall weather! Don't get too cold!

Brain dump

Oh my gosh! Where does the time go. It has been really rare for me to have a free night anymore. I have really gotten lax on the blogging. I really want to keep a good record of these years, though, so I ought to get to it!

- Cory and I are still on the kickball team. We have a game this Wednesday, but the low that night is going to be in the 30s. Yikes!

- Speaking of kickball, I have been super accident prone lately. Injured my finger at practice, have a huge bruise on my leg (have no idea where that came from), and cut myself with a safety pumpkin carving knife! I need to be more careful, for real.

- I haven't posted Penny's seven month blog yet, but I'm working on it. She is growing so fast!

- Cory and I upgraded to the iPhone 4S last week, and I love it. It's a real breath of fresh air from the slow 3G phone I used to have. I find myself checking Facebook on it and then wondering what I can do with my spare time when I'm done, because it's so much faster!

- I'm working my way through reading the Song of Ice and Fire books. I just started the latest one today. I can't wait to finally talk about them with people! Although I find that they're long enough I have forgotten a few details from the earlier books already.

I'm not ready for it to get cold yet. I find myself looking out the window at work, being sad I'm missing the last few warm days outside. Enjoy them while you can!

Pinspired

Have you heard of Pinterest? It's a bookmarking site that allows you to save links and pictures from any website. It's a great way to see what ideas other people from around the world have for homekeeping, organization, parties, recipes, fashion... anything, really!

My sister got inspired by one site that consolidated a DVD collection by putting all the discs into sleeves an storing them in a decorative box. She asked me if I wanted to do it too, and we hunted down some cute boxes this past weekend.

Our DVD collection went from this...



... to this!




I made a little space on our existing bookshelf for the box, an now we can get rid of our entire DVD rack. I'm always looking for ways to save space in our house!

Six months

Penny has accomplished so much this month! She has started to crawl, is starting to sit up, and is eating a big variety of foods!


This month, we got into all kinds of vegetables, fruits, rice crackers, and puffs. She's really good at holding things, and often when we're feeding her she tries to grab the spoon or hold the bottle herself.


She's totally on the move now! She went from scooting and rolling to really moving several feet in one direction, crawling. Big girl!


She's also noticing everything around her. She pays attention to anything and everything, and has taken a special interest in Buster. She's grabbed him a few times, and he's attempted to give her kisses more than once. :-) She also totally notices if you have a bottle nearby, so we have to be a little stealthy about it to make sure she eats plenty of food, too!


Six month stats: 25 inches, 16 pounds 0.5 ounces