red velvet

I'm doing my daily flickr hunt, in which I browse through all my contacts' current uploads/inspirations and mark about half of them as favorites. I have such talented flickr friends! And I'm so lucky to know them all, even if only through their beautiful images.

It was during this routine (that can sometimes take all day, I'll admit) that I found her lovely red velvet cake diecut. (Seen here)


Jenny is her name and art is her game. She and her P. I. C. Aaron paint and create beautiful works of art for all of us to gobble up in her etsy shop. I've bookmarked her work before, and am particularly in love with the Well Read Raven print she has. (That raven will be mine one day, I promise!)

But this red velvet cake diecut image spoke to me. I commented on her image, saying it reminded me that red velvet cake is truly my favorite cake...and I always forget that. It's like this - if I were ever on a quiz show in which the question is "What's your favorite cake?" I'd need to say "red velvet." BUT I would have a brain fart and say something dumb on the spot like "cheese cake." Which is delicious and in a league of it's own, but it certainly isn't my favorite.

Red velvet cake and I go back very far...all the way back to my first Christmas with my new family. I was probably 4, and hadn't been legally adopted yet. But I was living with my new family regularly during an unofficial trial period (because my birth mother would drop me off randomly and leave me there for weeks on end to go do God knows what).

SO I have this picture of myself that my grandpa probably took. He was the assigned photog in the family, and because of that I have precious few pictures of him, and probably only one that I know of with us together, which is a family picture. The picture Grandpa took is of me, on Christmas day, playing in the new toy kitchen my new mom bought me. That Christmas set a record. I think every present under the tree was for me...and I appreciated it more than anyone can ever know. It's difficult, to be living somewhere with your mother, only to have to leave unexpectedly (probably because of rent reasons) and leave behind all your earthly posessions. I was a child and had no idea why we left when we did, and why we left our things behind. So, to have this sudden influx of more things, things that I could love for however long I wanted, really took me to my maximum bliss. Not only because I loved the things (of course) but because I knew that they would always be there, and the people who provided them cared for me enough to do that.

So, sorry I'm rambling. When I think about the red velvet cake of Christmas day, I really feel all these emotions on the inside...because I'm remembering it all as fresh as if I were there. This is why I love red velvet cake. It reminds me of the epitome of happiness. The moment in my young life when I realized who my real family was and who cared for me best.

I think baking holds a special place in my heart for these reasons. Who would ever guess that a single person (in this case, Grandma, who has incidentally taught me most everything I know about food) could make such a beautiful and delicious cake, and say it was special made just for me? Why? Why would someone make a special cake just for me? It blew my mind.

So I ate my yummy red velvet cake at my new toy kitchen, in the middle of the living room. Grandpa came to take a picture of me and like a pro, I opened my mouth to reveal to him my big red tongue.

birthday blast

My baby is 4.

4 years old.

I cannot believe it.

Lookie. Look at her blowing out her candle.



She had a wonderful birthday!!!

She loved the Tinkerbell theme, and wore a Tinkerbell shirt. The huge Tinkerbell balloon was her favorite thing (aside from the toys she got) and still floats (barely) in her bedroom.




Joe's mom came in for the party, as well as Joe's sister Kayla and her daughter Faith Eryn (who is 3 on September 13). We had our friends Amy, Bobby, and little Hailey here too, and had a great time.


(telling Grammy who is on her dress: "Aaaaaaa-rielllll")

It was so relaxed and fun...and really easy considering. Eleana didn't have a meltdown at all I don't think...not that I can recall. She just opened presents, ate cake, and rocked out with her friends. It was awesome.


(Eleana, Faith Eryn, and Hailey, pretend rocking to Chipmunks and Spongebob music)


(singing Goofy Goober Rock from the Spongebob movie: "You're a goofy goober!!!")

birthday prep

Eleana's birthday quickly and evolved into something more put together yesterday. It was weird. I knew I wasn't going to bake, so we knew we would go order a DQ ice cream cake. They are minimal on the egg (if not entirely eggless?) and therefore E-friendly. Plus, even though it's been raining it's still very hot and muggy.

So other than cake and recycling left-over party favors from last year's bigger bash, I had no clue what was going on, party-wise.

Every day I check my email via my iPhone about 10-15 times. I get a lot of daily emails from marthastewart.com - daily cookie recipes, daily craft ideas, and something else that's daily. Also, I get great emails from Kraft with easy recipes, too. So the other day I glimpsed a great craft idea from miss Martha, involving magnets, flowers, and a table cloth. And I immediately thought this light blue tablecloth I have would be really cute with some blue and purple flowers.

Then, yesterday Joe, E and I went out to run a TON of birthday errands. We stopped first at Dairy Queen to order a cake. Usually we just go with a standard white ice cream cake with colored writing. Simple, easy. But I guess since we had to move the party back to Sunday, we had enough time to order something cooler. Joe wouldn't tell me what kind of cake he ordered at that point.

We headed to the party supply store, and I fully intended to just get the basics: plates, forks, and napkins. So I was looking for the solid colored inexpensive stuff and where does he gravitate to? Tinkerbell stuff. I thought it made sense, since E's new bed is Tinkerbell themed and she has some vinyl Tinkerbell stickers in her room...and then Joe says, "Can you guess what kind of cake I ordered for her?"

Which ends up being perfect because the Tinkerbell stuff is generally light blue and purple...the same colors as the table cloth and flowers!

Joe went crazy for E's birthday, and it was a pleasant surprise. He even ordered a giant Tinkerbell balloon, with 12 blue and purple latex balloons. It was very cool.

We headed to Toys R Us, where E got her crown and balloon, and we shopped for presents. We ended up getting her a Crayola art easel with a pad of easel paper to go in our office/craft room, a wooden Thomas train track set with water tower (the water tower is her fave thing to play with at the Barnes and Noble train table), a Thomas birthday set which includes Thomas and a caboose, a new Littlest Pet Shop pet, the Olivia DVD, a stuffed Olivia (which we gave her early because she LOVES her), a Spongebob karaoke microphone, and something else that I can't remember.

Also, to optimize music time and space, I found my first iPod (which is named Hotty McHot, and I'm wondering if I can change the name...) which is a first generation white iPod nano, and turned it into Eleana's iPod. She has an iPod speaker in her room, and usually at night I put my iPod in it with her lullaby songs playing on repeat. But that leaves me with no iPod for the rest of the evening. So last night I reformatted Hotty McHot, added only Eleana's playlists (entitled "Eleana's lullabies," "birthday jamz," and "kidz jamz." Then I erased those playlists from my iPod (which is named Green Momster, as it is a secong generation, 4G, apple green iPod nano). So I'm going to wrap the ipod and give that to her as well.

Ooooh, and here is a picture of E's table in the office/craft room after I crafted last night. I created the magnetic flowers, as well as a simple circle garland with embroidery floss, Tinkerbell-colored papers, a circle punch, and a glue stick. It took a while, but felt great with a glass of wine.



Now I'm off. We must go to the laundry again to wash our clothes. The washer and dryer aren't going to arrive for quite some time and we had put off laundry thinking the machines would be here this weekend. Sadface. After we come home and fold laundry, we must go to the commissary for some small groceries...I wanna make pigs in blankets for the par-tay. OH, and to Batteries Plus to see if they have a charger for my camera......I lost mine and my digi cam is a MUST for the party. Pictures later, charger pending. :D

We are MOVED!

Yay! The crowd goes wild!!!! WOOOOOHHH!!!!

There are many things I love about my new house. I love the layout of the whole thing. It makes sense and yet gives enough weirdness to add interest. I love how big the kitchen/dining room is. For the first time ever I'm seriously in need of a buffet table to fill a very large empty space along a wall in the kitchen. I love the back yard...though it's been entirely too hot to do anything at length out there yet.

I love that my stuff seems to fit nicely here, that everything has a place and a way to be stored ever so nicely.

I also love that there isn't a TON of space, which leaves me purging a lot of items. I've dropped off trunk loads of things at Goodwill 3 times, and still have more to drop. I like getting rid of all the extra junk we used to think we needed but really don't need. We used to have a day bed, and had sheets and sheets and sheets to fit a twin bed leftover, so I donated all those because we only have one bed now other than Eleana's bed.

Also, paint is my friend now. I'm rethinking a lot of rooms and have already painted a significant amount of furniture. I painted 3 ledge shelves (which used to hang in my living room) white and hung them in our small master bath to supplement for the lack of medicine cabinet in there. There is a rather large medicine cabinet in the main bath, which is super small, so that helps. But I really need to keep all my hair/makeup/and face stuff in my bathroom, hence the storage issue.

I found a wonderful little shelf that fits in a corner in my bedroom and serves as a night stand. I painted it white, and it looks great in there. Pictures soon after I figure out what exactly to put on it other than a light and alarm clock.

I'm sitting in the office for the first time, using the computer for the first time, surrounded by loads of office-y stuff, and also crafty stuff. Haven't gotten everything put in its place yet though. I'm working really hard to finish this room particularly, since Eleana's little table and 3 chairs are in here. It's my vision that while I'm in here blogging (which I'm vowing to do more often) or scrapping (same deal) she can be at her little table coloring or crafting or playing with play-doh. We'll craft together.

Two of the walls in this room are black, which is bothering me less and less. The landlady was supposed to have painted them white, but ran out of time. This is the first time she's rented a house to anyone, so I'm leaving room for error. We had planned on painting the walls, but then our stuff exploded in here and the thought of moving everything around just to paint is scaring the bejesus out of me. Especially since this isn't OUR house, and we're out in a year. My office won't be photo-worthy, but it'll work. For a year. Besides, the black walls look kind of cool with the stuff I'm putting up. You'll see a picture probably. Eventually.

Additionally, Eleana's 4th birthday party is THIS Saturday, and I have zero plans finished. I know my in-laws are coming, and my sister-in-law and Eleana's niece, so I'm crunching to get the house in some sort of order/state of normalcy. The kitchen still acts as a sort of spill zone for random things we don't know what to do with, because it's so big. Definitely isn't ready for any dinners or parties yet, so I'm working working working.

I at least just need to get things on shelves in the office, without worrying too much about any sort of organizing at this point, because a lot of the things in the kitchen need to come in here eventually...and currently I have empty shelves, and things all over the floor.

So I'm blogging instead of cleaning.

I really just wanted to pop in to say I'm here, I'm alive, and I'm happy. Extremely happy.

I'd post a picture of our sort-of finished and really cute living room, but I'm too hungry to do it right now.

Lunch time!