gas ovens and cakes

I have produced the worst cake ever in my 16 year cake baking history. Never before have I had a cake tank so badly. I am not counting my experience of mixing 2 boxes of cake mix and then pouring said 2 boxes into only 2- 8" round pans. 2 boxes cake mix + 2- 8" round pans = an overflow of cake that falls onto your stove element and catches on fire. The reason I do not count this disaster is that the cake never actually came out of the oven fully cooked...

Anyway, I am getting used to cooking with a gas oven. I have previously only used electric. This is a wonderful way to bake as you have instant heat and such. However, I am having a problem either undercooking or overcooking items. I am still not sure which one happend to my cake for youth group today. All I know is that it stuck in a perfectly greased and floured, timer set, toothpick tested cake pan. Half the cake stayed in the pan when I dumped it out! On both layers!!! This resulted in the lopsided cake you see pictured. I would normally never serve a cake so warped, but as I figure it's for bunch of teenagers, who cares. Thus ends my tale, one which you could probably care less about...

tile

Liam has quite the aversion to crawling on the tile floor. To solve this problem he has started crawling on his hands and feet, rather than his hands and knees. This, of course, is very funny. What's impressive though is how fast he can move this way! I tried to take some pictures of him as he came at me, so hopefully you will be able to see what we mean!

wedding pictures

Jason and I have been married for 6 years and while I have had a few pictures from our wedding printed, I had quite a few more that I have never had the money to develop. I have never actually liked most of my wedding pictures. They guy we chose presented a beautiful album of previous work and my dad and I (the ones who saw his portfolio) decided that he was great! He then did a really bad job at my wedding. Shadows and such, and fuzzy, unbalanced pictures. However, he did turn over all the negatives to us and my parents decided to put the negatives onto a disc so that we could all have copies and print them at our will. This was a wonderful idea till the gal who copied them reversed the images and then loaded them in low resolution. They look "ok" online so I have included a few for my blog. Hopefully my dad can take the negatives to AZ and have them more "professionally" loaded onto a disc and THEN we can all really enjoy remembering that day!

birthdays

Ok, so I have been waiting on pictures that my parents took at Liam's party to post a new blog. Here it is!

On September 16th, Liam turned one, but we celebrated on my actual birthday of September 20th. We had a bunch of close friends and family come and enjoy the evening with us. I was excited to enjoy all the "good" food that's "bad" for you as my birthday dinner- fried chicken, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, biscuits, green salad, corn and watermelon, which I guess balanced out the other stuff. I made a chocolate-chocolate cake for Liam in the shape of a bear and of course there was ice cream. A real "Southern dinner for the Texan girl," as Jason put it.


We couldn't wait to see how Liam reacted to his cake. Katie enjoyed her first piece of cake and got somewhat messy, Evie ate only the icing and picked at it with 2 fingers hardly needing even a paper towel to clean her up, but Liam....Liam needed a fire hose to get clean. We set his cake in front of him on a little plate and he proceeded to dump it off immediately. He then grabbed the cake with both hands and squished it in his fingers all the while making this very boy noise of "ooouuugggghhhh." After he was done smashing it up beyond recognition he started to stuff it in his mouth. After a few bites he thought it was pretty funny and smeared it in his hair. Anyone standing in a 2 foot radius found out that Liam likes to "swish" his highchair tray (wipe his hands across the tray as fast as he can and watch the food fly) and they very quickly backed up to avoid chocolate on their clothes. All in all he had everyone in stitches and was really fun to watch him enjoy his cake! One of the highlights was that I got to go for a ride on my brother-in-laws Harley. I have been asking for a ride since he got it a year ago and he finally took me! After we got back Katie convinced him to try on her princess hat and he did so, he then proceeded to go for another ride on his bike wearing it! (My brother-in-law is a former Marine, if you didn't know and did two tours in Iraq.) Ok, now you should understand why this was so funny to us. So Happy Birthday to me and to Liam.

birthdays and ick

At 3:15 am on September 16th, 2007 ~ Liam James came into our lives. He was 8lbs. 2oz. and 20" long. At our 1 year well check today he was 22lbs. and 30"! What a big boy! We of course had our usual doctor's office adventures. I love the doc that the kids see, he is a great guy who works well with them, but the nurse that usually works on his rotation is a nightmare! Today she put Liam on the scale then adjusted it, making this huge racket and scaring the daylights out of him! He started to cry and reach and call for mama and she just looked at him and asked if that scared him? I felt like saying duh! I picked him up as quickly as I could and tried to calm him down before we moved on to the next "torture," measuring his head. Unfortunately, Liam wanted NOTHING to do with the nurse. He pushed her hands away and tried to get down off my lap. She was baffled by his response and asked Liam why he wouldn't sit still. I again felt like responding, this time with the comment that in Liam's opinion this gal was the spawn of Satan and he didn't want her anywhere near him! She has done or suggested other stupid things in the past with the kids and I have just flat out shot her down. I don't like her and she probably doesn't like me because I just go into the situation with an attitude. I try to think WWJD, but the "thought" isn't always acted upon.

After the check up I went to run errands and about half way to my first destination I asked Evie if Liam had spit up (because it kind of smelled in the car suddenly) she told me that yeah, he'd spit up, everywhere. Evie has a tendency to exaggerate so I didn't really think much of it. Boy was I wrong! It looked as though someone had dumped a pint of cottage cheese onto Liam's lap, car seat and surrounding area. It was bad. I can handle all the "stuff" that comes along with children, except for puke. I have a terrible gag reflex and it was so hard for me to even drive 15 minutes back to the house with the smell emanating from the back seat! I rolled all the windows down and Evie complained that she was cold. I asked her if she wanted to be cold or smell Liam and she said she'd put her blanket on her lap.

Thus ends most of the adventure for today. I have spent all morning dealing with annoying nurses and cleaning a child, car and car seat of ick. I now must survive taking the girls to get their hair cut.

On Saturday we are having a birthday party for Liam! Check back soon for stories and pics from that adventure!

the life of boys

In the last year Liam has been dropped by Evie when he was 4 days old, eaten a fly, gotten a black eye, eaten toilet paper out of the toilet, taken his own diaper off and peed all over the crib, tried to suck up his own puke off the tile floor and chewed on the metal rings of the bar stools. I wonder some days if I have a dog or a little boy?

NEVER did these things happen with the girls. Can I expect these types of "experiences" to multiply and intense with age? I am assuming so. Therefore I ask for your prayers as this new adventure continues. Considering all I could think about the other day was if Katie had remembered to flush the toilet that Liam was eating out of.....

that time of year

It's that time of year again. The time to gather up glue and pencils and make sure that the new birthday backpack doesn't have too loose of straps. The time of year to talk about what goes into the lunch box...apples... and what doesn't...twinkies. It's time for school to start. Katie is entering her second year at Our Saviour Lutheran as a 1st grader. I just can't believe it. She started school 10 days after her birthday, too soon to really enjoy those fun birthday presents. My mom called after I took her last year to Kindergarten to see if I cried. I didn't. It was time for her to spread her wings and fly, but I did this year. Not a lot, just a tear or two, but I will miss my butterfly and all the joy that those wings take with them.

fairies, flowers & princesses

Evie is really into fairies and flowers and anything to do with princesses lately. She didn't even have to think about what she wanted for her face paint at the fair, a butterfly!

She is my girlie-girl. Katie enjoys a good dress-up romp, but Evie is my purse toting, heel wearing, make-up applying child. She asked for a fairy party for her birthday in October and the items to make her day special have been trickling in lately. It's so hard to tell a 3 year old that she has to wait. The fact that Katie, Liam, myself and my mom all have birthdays before hers doesn't help any either. Her dress arrived in the mail last week. I found this great deal on eBay for dress, wings and headband for under $40! Wahooo! The gal making it said it could be customized to any color, size, etc. Evie LOVES purple. So the dress is purple. She looks so cute in it! But once again, I had to explain that her birthday is still a ways away. "It's ok," she says, "Just buy me the princess Barbie at the grocery store now Mommy..."

black eyes

Well the first ever Earley family black eye has occurred. And it's Liam's. He really likes to stand up in the tub and hold onto the side and well... he slipped. Right as Jason was reaching for his towel to take him out too. Such a bummer. Anyway, I didn't get a picture of it, but his left eye swelled up and was all black and blue across the top. Figures that the boy would be the one to get the first black eye. I just didn't think that he would be this young....

katie's birthday

Katie's birthday was August 17th and she turned 6!




Katie picked out a Lilo & Stitch cake at the store so we decided that she should have a "Hawaiian" theme to her party.
We had water balloons, a slip and slide and the sprinkler all planned and then on the morning of her party...it rained. I panicked thinking we had all these kiddos invited and we couldn't even go outside! So I got some games ready to go and we had a blast playing those. The winner's prize however was the BIG hit, it being a whoopee cushion! We also made a magnet "thing" to go on the fridge.


























The weather did clear up enough at the end of the party for a couple water activities, the slip and slide and water balloons! Katie had a blast! She loves presents and was really happy that all of her friends brought her one! (If you can't tell by the pics... she was excited about everything!)

I do believe that all of her guests had a good time too! Every birthday I say that next year's party will have less, but who can say "no" to this? ~