Diary of a Mighty Mom: Milestones

Back to School!
Back to school time brings such mixed feelings for a parent. At least this one anyway. On one hand, I'm so very sad to see summer over already & have to entrust them with a teacher & a group of students to be their guide & mold them - with probably more influence than I can ever give them as their mom. It's so sad to see them grow up so fast & watch the grade levels tick up so quickly... I feel like I just had them in my arms just yesterday & blinked just a little too fast. And knowing that this is the last time I will ever have a "first day of school" experience with one of my littles kinda breaks my heart. Having the house so quiet in the mornings is a little tough too. I've grown accustomed to being bombarded with Bubble Guppies songs in one room & the soothing sounds of zombie blasting in the other. ;) But I will be totally honest with you. Despite all of that, it was kinda nice to drop them all off, have a quiet walk home while we sip our tea, then enjoy a three mile run with my husband. Freedom is nice. It scares the crap outta me & it makes me sad too... but it's nice!! lol (I think that will only make sense to a mom in the same boat as me right now! lol)

My three big kids ready for their first day of school!


I kinda wish there was Facebook & Pinterest back in the days of Mark & Gavin's first days of school so I could've thought to do this! So cute! Essentially the child wants to be Doc McStuffins when she grows up. I'm okay with that! lol

And incidentally, Natalie now thinks that it's customary to take a picture before every day of school! We've taken one every day this week. ;) lol

Walking to school with daddy.

Anyway, Mark is now in 6th grade (WHAT?!?!), Gavin's in 5th, & Natalie has just started Pre-K. Almost old enough for Kindergarten, but that darn October birthday got in the way. Oh well. I get to hang on to her for one extra year. ;) The way my kids' school works is 5th & 6th grades do a lot of working together (so do 7th & 8th). So if I didn't treat my kids like twins before (I do. Often. I totally do. Always have!) then I certainly will now. They're sharing teachers & classroom experiences & it's kinda fun! We were worried about how that would work out in the sibling rivalry department, but so far so good! :) Natalie, my little shy girl, had a hard time letting go of Mommy's arm the first day, but she did, & neither of us cried (a little lump in my throat, but I did good!) and she had a great first day. She LOVES her teacher & has so far brought me home three pretty paintings. I love preschool! :)

Also while we're on the topic of milestones, I feel the need to mention that my little girl tied her own shoes yesterday morning! It adds a full 5 minutes to our morning routine now, but that's totally okay! She's VERY proud of herself, & I am too! :)

Let Our Birthday Season Begin!
One thing I haven't had time to blog yet is Mark's birthday!! My baby boy turned ELEVEN on the 23rd. How does that happen!?! Quit growing so fast dude! It's Gavin's turn for the real birthday party this year, but Mark got to have a couple of buddies stay the night before school started. They had a good time playing Minecraft like it was going out of style. (Which it may have already where you live. Here in Vermont our kids were still into Pokemon just last year! lol)

Mark & his presents. We wrapped his new backpack too because we're mean cruel parents who think a brand new L.L. Bean backpack is gift-worthy. What were we thinking! ;) lol

The boys laughing at Gavin's card. Something with a "nut" reference. Sigh. Boys. ;)

A new Kindle Fire!! He got a Nook tablet for Christmas last year & let me tell you, the thing is junk. We felt so bad for him that he couldn't play all of the games his friends were playing! So he's all up to date now. But you must get some reading time in on that sucker once in a while too buddy, okay???

So you guys know me & my cakes by now. I have to make something crazy with it. I don't know if I've ever told you guys why I do it though. Not a huge story or anything, but the first set of birthdays for my kids after the storm were really hard for me. We were finally out of the hotel & in our first rental house at that time, but the kids had only a few of their toys & we weren't able to go nuts with a big party for their birthdays with everything going on. I knew they really didn't care as much as I did, but I needed a way to show them that they were special & I wanted to do something fun to make their birthday memorable. Crafty scrapbooker + crazy mom = making their favorite characters out of icing! I'm nutso. I'll admit. That first year I made Phineas & Spongebob (that's love cause I friggin' hate Spongebob) & I just drew them free hand. They turned out pretty cute! But I attempted Dora for Natalie & it was an epic fail. I sobbed irrationally. It was crazy & I think my husband was tempted to take me in for treatment. ;)
But then I discovered this neat little trick that makes me look like this super artistic & talented lady, when truthfully I'm a big fat cheater. Now I can make almost anything that I can find an image of! I'm about to share my secrets with you all because I love you that much. ;) I know that's not my usual format for this blog, but it's fun!

First of all, my son wanted a Zombie cake. Pretty sure the local grocery store doesn't do that kind of thing. So I went looking through google images & found the Plants vs. Zombies guy. (And for those of you who worked with me at CMH back in the day know that that holds a special place in my heart anyway & you all know why. :')). So I decided to go with him & printed that out. I flipped it over & taped it to a piece of cardboard, then traced the lines so I could see them just a little bit better. Then I covered the whole thing with saran wrap & lightly taped that to the back.
I made my icing as usual, using my favorite buttercream icing recipe. (It's so easy you guys. You should try it!) But after that I take sections of it & mix it with food coloring, then put each of them in ziplock bags. (I like Wilton's food coloring gels the best).
Then, after snipping the tiniest of corners off of the side of my ziplock bag, I start tracing my picture. I start with the small details first so that the colors can layer each other & nothing gets missed. The key to making this work though, is making sure the colors don't smear each other. To do that, you have to do one layer at a time, then put it in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes. Once you have all of your layers filled in & your last freeze complete, all you have to do is flip it onto your cake, peel off the saran wrap, & voila! :)