A quick trip to Superstore.

Who would have thought I'd find inspiration to blog at Superstore?

It just made me laugh because I just needed to buy a quick three things (I don't even remember what they were), but the lady behind me in line also needed to buy a quick few things.

In her cart was:
- a large box of instant white rice
- a huge bag of white flour
- a huge bag of brown sugar
- a huge bag of white sugar
- a 10 pound bag of potatoes
- a box of Coke

Now, it's not that there's anything wrong with any of these items. It just made me laugh because every single item in her cart is banned from my diet forever. Oh, how things change.

I hit a big milestone the other day. I have officially lost over 40 pounds. It did reach 44 pounds this week with me having the flu, but now I'm back to 41.5 pounds. I'm happy with that. I still have a ways to go, but I'm really happy so far with how I feel (and look!)

With losing weight, I've really held off on buying new clothes, because I know they won't fit nicely for long. Sure, I've bought a few things here and there, but nothing really. I've dug out some older clothes from like 6-7 years ago that I had shoved up into my closet, and I've done some altering of clothes that I own.

However, I was still wearing my pregnancy underwear. It was so big and baggy and saggy, it was embarrassing. I'm proud to say I've thrown all of it out and have bought new underwear! Hooray for me and my butt.

The wheels on the bus.

I'm dedicating a separate post just to this cake. I love this cake. It turned out great! It's actually 3 cakes baked in loaf pans, smooshed together with icing and then carved with a knife. The stop sign is red marshmallow fondant on a skewer. The road is graham cracker crumbs and the grass is icing. I love it!

Cupcakes.

I made lemon cupcakes with a lemony cream cheese filling.

Love is in the air...

The zoo. Good times were had by all.

Ari and Chelsea hit it off.

I do, however, think that Dave and Heather could have just saved the gas money and shown their kids a puddle. They loved the water more than the animals!

Chelsea is getting so big. This isn't the greatest picture, but she looks so old.

So tired.

Had a busy week. I think I'm adjusting to working full time. It's crazy busy though. Crazy. But it seems to be working out.

This weekend we went to the zoo with Dave and Heather and the boys. It was a blast. I'll post some pics soon - I promise!

On Monday, I hit a major milestone. I've lost 40 pounds in 111 days. Woo hoo!

Last night, I spent sleeping in Chelsea's rocking chair, holding a feverish baby, knowing dang well she has an ear infection. This is #3. I am sad because I've tried to do everything to avoid it. I even took her to the chiropractor. Now, I know the next step is to eliminate dairy and that makes me sad because Chelsea loves cheese.

Gotta go to work. This is another thing I don't like about working full time. I'm exhausted and had a terrible night and now I have to go teach with lots of energy. Fun!

Exhausted beyond belief.

I am so stinkin' busy. Last week was crazy with subbing, helping with a garage sale and baking cakes. This week, I've been teaching grade 1 full time, then Monday night I had cake class in Winnipeg and Tuesday night I went to a movie with some friends.

I feel like I'm so tired, I don't even know where to start. Chelsea isn't sleeping through the night anymore, so I'm not getting good night rests. I feel like a horrible mom for going back to work - horrible. The guilt can be overwhelming. I see her for a few rushed minutes in the morning, and then for about 3 hours before she goes to sleep. The idea of missing her days makes me sick to my stomach. The past two days she's gone to bed super early and so that cuts into my time even more. I hate it. hate hate hate.

I should clarify that it's not the job I hate. I'm actually enjoying grade 1. I hate being away from Chels. If I ignore that, the job is going great. I love my students. Grade 1 is pretty good. I get more hugs a day then I have in my whole life I think. I've got some really amazing support people around me and I think I could easily fall in love with this school. It's definitely going to be hard returning to my old school.

But, I think that's it for now. I should go plan a bit for tomorrow, and mop my floor or clean a little.


I really want to bake some cupcakes though... I think this cake decorating thing has become an obsession.

Duck Cake

Close ups of the duck cake I made for Chelsea's birthday. I really want to make another duck cake so I can do some things a little differently.

The latest batch...

The rainbow cake I had to make for cake decorating class. It was very simple, but the staff at my school said it tasted great. (I filled it with vanilla pudding between the layers.)


Here's a pink Scooby for a girl who wanted Scooby. Easy enough!

This little girl loved the movie, "High School Musical" so I made her this cake. I used marshmallow fondant for the first time. (The yellow and white are fondant, the black and red are buttercream.)




This cake was to be girlie and bright. It turned out good, I think!




And that was just last week's cakes! This week... cupcakes! Yay!

Cake-a-doodle-doo!

So life changes quickly. I got a call on Monday morning, asking if I'd like to accept a term position teaching grade 1. It would start the following Monday, until the end of June. Wow. That's huge. I did all my education and student teaching for highschool and thought I was pushing it to teach Grade 7 and then Grade 6. Now to teach Grade 1?? I have no idea what to do, but the principal has assured me that I will have support and resources and so I accepted. Wow. Grade 1, eh? It also means that I will be going back to work full time. I was working about 3 - 4 days a week subbing, so it will be more than that, but the pay should be much better, which is a total answer to prayer. So that means this weekend will be spent trying to figure out what to teach the little cuties.

However, I also have 4 cakes to decorate before Monday! Ack! I have another Scooby to make, a High School Musical themed cake to make, a cake for Mother's Day that I want to try something a little different with, and then I have to make and do the first coat of icing on a cake for my class on Monday. Wow! Who needs sleep? I don't, I don't!

Speaking of sleep - we had a bit of a crisis last night. I wrapped Chelsea up and put her to sleep at 8:00 - usually we don't hear a peep out of her until 7:00 the next morning... Well, last night at like 10:00, she woke up, cried for 3 seconds and then was quiet. But she did this over the next hour and a half a bunch of times. Cried for an instant, then was quiet. Finally at 11:30 I figured I'd go in and nurse her so she'd be peaceful and get a good sleep.

Well, I go in there and her little legs are stuck in between two rails of the crib! I tried to push them back through, but one was stuck. Now, she's screaming and I'm starting to panic inside, thinking she's got a broken leg, or she's going to get one. I call for Chris to come and help me and we wind up having to cut off her pajamas (they were footie pajamas so we couldn't pull them up) and grease her leg with margarine so we could pull her knee back through. She was fine, and doesn't even have a bruise there, but it was scary! She often kicks the side of her crib, so she must have been doing that pretty hard and her leg slipped right through. Crazy girl.

I gotta go though. The only reason I had time to post this is because I'm at work and I have a prep. I'm going to miss the relaxing days of subbing!

Soccer Cake

I was doubtful, but it turned out pretty good! I'm not 100% happy with the color of the green grass, or the writing on the side of the cake, but all and all, not too bad, I say!

Stay off the sidewalks, Winkler!

Look what $12 buys you off pembinavalleyonline.com!

Scooby Dooby Doo!

This is for my friend's daughter's 5th birthday party tonight. My friend happened to have the Scooby pan and asked me to "smear some icing on".

Here's the result.

Thankfulness.

I know there's so special thing like this passed around in email, but I figured I'd kinda do my own.

I'm thankful for...

- my messy house because I know somewhere under the doghair and dust is a nice house.
- the piles of laundry that need to get done because it means I have a family that wears clean clothes.
- the cupboard doors often being left open, because it reminds me I have a loving, but forgetful, husband.
- the ring around the bathtub because it means we shower.
- my disorganized fridge, because it means it's full of food.
- the toys spread all over the floor because it means my daughter has been happily playing.
- the books tossed carelessly around because I know Chelsea is developing a love of reading.
- my dirty socks in the livingroom because it means I took some time to relax on the couch.
- the dishwasher that needs to be unloaded because it means we enjoyed homecooked food.
- the empty toiletpaper roll still on the holder because it makes me laugh at my husband.
- the fingerprinted window because I have a curious daughter.
- the unmade bed because it means we had a comfortable sleep.
- the busy calendar because it means we have friends who want to see us.
- the dog hair because (this one is a stretch) it means we have a cute, hairy dog.
- the sticky floor under the highchair because it means Chelsea had enough food to eat.
- huge grocery bill because it means we eat healthy.

More for me than for you...

I was thinking the other day about funny things that happened during my labour with Chelsea. I want to write them down to remember them, so this is more for me than for you, but you get to benefit. These are in no particular order.

- I was hungry and didn't want hospital food. Chris went to Dairy Queen. Because they are DQ in Winkler, they messed up our order, but this time, they gave us the wrong bag of food. We only discovered this at the hospital, so we ate it. There was probably enough food to feed a family of 4. Chris just watched in disbelief as I ate 2 double cheeseburgers, large fries, a hot dog and then finished off his burger. I think he was scared.

- When I got to the hospital, they insisted I change into a hospital gown. I HATE hospital gowns. As soon as I could, I changed into my labour "uniform" black shorts and a black t-shirt. I wore this for 2 and a half days before sending it home with my mom to wash and return asap. I seriously made her drive home and back as soon as they were dry. I was particularly attached to wearing these clothes, for some reason.

- Chris had downloaded the entire 3 seasons of Grey's Anatomy to watch while I was being induced. I played it on my laptop while Chris watched movies on his laptop. At one point in time, I had 3 nurses and a doctor watching Grey's with me. I asked if Boundary Trails had as much action going on as Seattle Grace. One nurse answered, "I wish!"

- My parents came out the Friday (I was admitted and began induction on Thursday). They made me walk... a lot. We walked many slow laps around the hospital parking lots. My stepdad kept saying I should run. I think at this point, I may have weighed twice as much as him. All I wanted to do was sit on him.

- Chris made me laugh hard at one point. Then he helped me up out of a chair. We thought I peed on the chair. Turned out, my water had broken.

- On day 3 or 4, I finally asked for the laughing gas. It didn't make me laugh. It just made me slow my breathing down. I'm pretty sure breathing into a pillow would have been just as effective. My husband however, used the laughing gas and started laughing. It made me mad. I think I yelled at him.

- When I finally asked for the epidural, I was bawling. You have to sit at the edge of the bed and kind up curl up so that your spine is sticking out. I was holding onto some nurse's arms as she was crouched in front of me and I looked at her through my tears and said, "This better be the best looking baby I've ever seen. I don't want to go through all this for an ugly baby." Sounds mean, I know. But I had been through a rough few days. Now I find it funny.

- When we got to the hospital, there was a woman labouring without drugs in the room across the hall. After hearing her, I decided drugs would be an okay option.

Okay, I think that's it.

Mr. Clean would be ashamed...

I'm lazy. Tired, and lazy. Not a good combination. I think going back to work is starting to catch up with me. I'm tired. When I get home, I don't want to clean. I want to spend time with Chelsea and then spend time with Chris. I don't want to wash, dry, organize,wipe, sweep, mop, scrub, fold, or tidy. And so, I don't.

My house is a disaster, especially for me. It probably wouldn't look that bad to you, but I'm the girl who used to get up to go pee in the middle of the night and wind up cleaning the bathroom for 45 minutes. My house needed to be spotless. I spent so much time cleaning that I was called obsessed by my friends. Everything needed to be neat.

Now, if I have warning, my house will get cleaned. But, even then, if you value your life, don't open any closets or the pantry - objects have been known to topple down. You might be struck by a kitchen appliance, a box of cereal, a pile of clothes, or who knows what else is hidden away in there. My organizational skills as of late have been lacking. I don't know what it is. I don't know what to blame it on. I'm tired and lazy. I haven't been running or to the gym in a week, and there's absolutely no excuse for that. I said I would go to bed early tonight, and yet, here I sit in bed with the laptop at 11:20. I could be sleeping!

Tomorrow we are skipping church. We were there today from 8:30 - 2:30 for a marriage conference. I want to spend time with Chelsea tomorrow because I feel like I've barely seen her. I, however, also need to clean this house from top to bottom. Having a one year old and cleaning don't seem to go hand-in-hand right now. There's only so many tasks I can do with a little person clinging to my leg.

How do you keep your house clean? Do you have a schedule, or do you just do it as it needs doing?