Mini Scrapbook

So Fionn is sick yet again but probably just a cold.  Our family doctor sent us for blood work today to check things out so we'll see if that shows anything.  He's in good spirits though, for the most part.

Anyways so while he was napping I got started on my mini scrapbook which I am making while following my online class at make something splendid.  I'm having so much fun already and it's only the beginning.  Today will be a short post since I just wanted to show you my progress so far.

Not sure why it rotated sideways but it wouldn't rotated back :(

Happy belated Mother's day to all the mothers out there.  I hope you all had a wonderful day.

I had two orders this week, an order of red velvet cupcakes and a birthday cake.  Red velvet is my absolute favorite and is always a pleasure to make and this birthday cake was fun since I had to write Happy Birthday in Romanian!  The birthday cake was a coffee cake with a mocha buttercream and I also added a bit of simple syrup to the cake to make it extra moist.They both turned out really great and I hope the recipients all enjoyed it.

We got some great news about Fionn this week.  Along with not having cystic fibrosis, he has ZERO allergies!  I'm so relieved and happy about the results.

The moment of Prince William and Kate's royal kiss on the balcony.  He then  came over and  gave me a big kiss!

Fionn and his cousin Zoe.  The only one he shares his minou with

Community cleanup day.  My little helper

Fionn and his cousin, Felix, outside ikea

 I love my iPhone for many reasons but most of all I love it for the amazing camera that is always within reach when I need to capture a memory, remember something important, or just simply to take a random picture of the everyday.

I'm not sure a lot of people know but I'm an avid scrapbooker and I love to journal and keep my memories alive that way.  Also because I just never want to forget and it looks so pretty.  Anyways I follow a number of scrapbooking blogs one of which is dear lizzy.  I love her blog and her style is incredibly fresh and lovely.  A few weeks ago she launched another website for online workshops and classes for a whole mess of crafts and one of those crafts happens to be a sweet little mini scrapbook.  Since it also came with a kit I thought it was too great to pass up.  So today I got my kit in the mail and it was the first day of the online class over at make something splendid.  Tomorrow we will start working on the book itself as today was only an introduction.  I'm so excited and happy to be part of this.  I hope I learn lots of new tips and tricks as well.  I'll post pictures of my process as the weeks go by too.

I'm also hoping to move this summer if everything goes well.  and ikea has the sweetest little wooden patio set that would just be perfect for our new place and it's only $149!!.  I'm looking forward to summer, aren't you'?

"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see." -Degas

Worst Blogger Ever

I realize I haven't updated in a while and the last posts have been sparse but I've been busy.  I know it's a poor excuse and the fact that I myself do not have internet at home is just on the list of poor excuses too but I'm working on becoming a better blogger.  It's a work in progress.

So since I last updated I've done a number of things, some of which has been baking.  I made a lovely last minute chocolate cake for my sister's best friend and it turned out to be the best cake she ever tasted.  Which I don't quite understand since I've made this cake before(Martha Stewart's one bowl chocolate cake) but this time I made my own little variation to it so maybe that's the key.  Either way I was pleased by the comments.  I also made some peanut butter cupcakes with a peanut butter and chocolate buttercream swirl icing for my Discovery toys party.  And for easter I made some golden eggs which I got HERE.  If you've never been to her blog before you'll be amazed.  I've also been reading her book 'My life from scratch' which is where I first got the recipe.  Anyways I'm pretty sure that next time I'm in Vermont I'll be stopping there for a pastry or 5.  

Things have been going good for Fionn and I lately.  I've been thinking of going back to school to take on a bigger challenge.  I'm going to apply to university this time and hopefully get a bachelor degree in International Business.  Yes I know it's not baking but I've always wanted to go back and study business at some point in my life and well why not study it now.  Plus international business has my love of travel and languages mixed in there so it's win win.  But I've got to get in first so I'm not getting ahead of myself here.

So I'm excited by what's possibly to come.  And spring is here!!  I love spring minus the smell.  Well the first signs of spring smell when the snow melts to expose all the garbage and lawn cigars(dog poop).  But once everything is thawed and dried and blooming it's wonderful!

my piping gel failed 

cowboy Fionn!

"Seize from every moment its unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys" -Unknown

Choo Choo Felix is Two!

Sure his birthday was actually March 18th but we had his official birthday party today.  My nephew is already TWO!  It seems like yesterday I met him for the first time, with his little cone head.  He sure is one cool kid too.

We had an amazing time at Gymboree where the party was held.  Tons of kids playing everywhere and not one real injury!  A few bumps here and there but that's to be expected.  Everyone seemed to have a good time and the cake was a hit.  They had a Train theme, since Felix loves trains, so I made him a train cake!

Felix, the birthday boy

Fionn (in green), Felix(in the middle), and Dylan(behind felix) having tons of fun!

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Cake time!

Make a wish!!

It's been a rough week but today made it all worth it.  I have an amazing family and though we may have our differences sometimes(okay maybe lots of times), we always seem to come together when it really matters.  Maybe it took having kids for us to get over ourselves and just be nice to one another.  Either way, I'm grateful for my whole family and glad to have them around.

Fionn is doing well these days.  A little coughing here and there but mostly he's great.  We go back to Cheo(Chrildren's Hospital of Eastern Ontario) on the 20th for the sweat Chloride test and then go see an allergist not long after.  We should have some answer as to why he keeps getting pneumonia soon I hope.  But in the meantime we're enjoying life and we're happy!  Ohhh and he sings all the time now.  He's real good at singing  itsy bitsy spider, twinkle twinkle little star, and oh mcdonald had a farm.  My little boy is growing up so fast!

I've got two nice quotes today since I forgot to add a quote on one of my last posts.

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?" - Satchel Paige


"It is important to spend most of your time in the company of people who support you without meddling, who give you the space to grow, who applaud when you spread your wings in whatever way YOU want to fly." - Jonathan Lockwood Huie

IWD... It's a good day

I survived the weekend, just barely!  Fionn had some sort of virus that started on thursday and I managed to not catch it until Sunday and now it would seem our his daycare provider also got it.  It's going around.  Fionn had his appointment with the resperologist yesterday and he got some blood work done and he's got to go back for a sweat chloride test before we see the doctor again in 2 months.  So we don't know anything yet but at least they're running tests and covering all their bases.

The wedding cake went very well.  I may have over calculated what I actually needed ingredient-wise and now have way to much but it won't go to waste thats for sure.  But I was told everyone liked the cupcakes and cake so that makes me happy.  Half of them were a vanilla toped with a citrus buttercream and the other half were chocolate topped with a vanilla buttercream.  I had some minor difficulties with the fondant but we worked it out in the end.  It kept wanting to crack and rip no matter what but I beat that out of it.  And in the end I think it was pretty nice!

Fionn and I made a plaster hand print today from a kit he got for one of his birthdays and as well as a clay foot impression.  As soon as they are dry we can paint them.  I love the little hand print even if it did mess up a little bit... That's all part of the fun.

"When woman are depressed, they either eat or go shopping.  Men invade another country.  It's a whole different way of thinking." -Elayne Boosler

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMANS DAY!

Weekend of nothing

Chocolate Chocolate Cake

I have been ultra tired these days.  Work usually has that effect on people I know.  I've been able to get some baking in between days, when I can muster up the energy that is.  Let's see, I'm having trouble remembering my days.  I made a small chocolate cake for a friend of mine, which she said they enjoyed very much (I always like to hear feedback).  I made brown sugar pound cake cupcakes with the left over chocolate icing from the chocolate cake. And some little treats here and there like cookies and bark.  Fionn is doing alright these days, just working on getting better.  The pneumonia is still there and RSV on top of it but he's recovering.  His little finger has healed nicely and the leg is healing very well.  We won't need to go back to get his cast taken off because they cut it down the sides and put more fiberglass on top so that I can take the whole thing off myself.  They also cut down to below the knee and said he can start walking on it.  He was very happy about that.  He's been walking around and enjoying the knee bending freedom.  We had a scare last weekend though when I took the cast off.  At first he was all about walking, wobbly and limpy but walking non-the-less.  And then the next day he wouldn't put ANY weight on it at all.  So I got worried and brought him back to the hospital and waiting ages for them to tell us that the bone looks intact and to just put the cast back on for another week.  So we did that and I took it off yesterday to see his progress and it's not looking so great.  Might have to put the cast back on for another week.

Fionn's break one week into healing

The full cast before it was cut down.  A quick sponge bath at Dylan's birthday party

We are enjoying a lovely long weekend and I have ZERO plans and I'm loving it.  I'm content just sitting at home in my PJ's and vegging.  I'll probably do some cleaning later but it's nice to just do nothing for a while.  We had a mini flood last weekend and that was pleasant.  Took all the towels I had to soak it up and there was still more water.  It's all dried now thanks to my sister's dehumidifier.

As for Valentines day... I spent it with my sweetheart.  AKA my son!  He is the one (little) man that will always have my heart no matter what.  I love you more then words can say.  You are my life, my love, my world!  xoxo

And now for some not so great news, not that the rest of my news has been so great either but this news sucks.  We are giving our dog Chinook away.  With all of Fionn's asthma and pneumonia's, I don't want to have the animal dander as an added trigger if I can help it.  My neighbour is a professional dog trainer and she already has an older dog, very similar to Chinook, and has expressed interest in her in the past.  So I went over and talked to her and she said she would take her no problem.  So this tuesday Chinook will be leaving us for her new home.  She'll be just next door so we will be able to see her often enough and this way she will get some proper training and obedience.  And now maybe I'll get a bit more undisturbed sleep.  She still wakes me up at least twice a night to go pee.  But she's been a good dog for the time that we've had her.  We'll miss her.

And just because I love taking random pictures I thought I would share some random moments.  

one of Fionn's lovely paintings

Fionn painting the above painting 

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Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

I don't even know where to begin.  I've been busy with work and then getting home late and only having time to eat and a bit of Fionn and me time before he goes to bed.  Then I have a little bit of time to myself to prep for the next day and it happens all over again.  It gives me a newly rejuvenated love for the weekend.  So a couple of weeks ago we went through the break of Fionn's leg and I was hoping for a nice quiet weekend since today we had my nephew's 3rd birthday party.  But that was asking too much since while we were out and about town on Saturday we managed to get Fionn's little index finger stuck in the bathroom door at Starbucks.  It was bad, bad enough to merit a trip to the ER and  it ended up needing 3 stitches.  Seriously, will it never end?!  What next?!

4 hours post injury, after cleaning and before an x-ray.  It was still bleeding.

In the middle of all that I managed to get some baking done.  Some mini cupcakes for Dylan's daycare and then his birthday party today.  He wanted 'Where the Wild Things Are' theme so I found a cute cake online which I did my best to re-create.  I think it turned out pretty good.  The cupcakes were the buttermilk vanilla cupcakes that I posted previously with a buttercream icing and the cake is Martha Stewart's one bowl chocolate cake recipe with a different kind of buttercream.  This one has shortening and butter which I find makes for better decorating.

So now we start a new week and I hope it's comfortably dull. I think we've had our share of injury for the next 10 years.  This week I need to just man up and catch up on my cleaning and laundry.  Now I think I will go to bed.  Sleep sounds so good to me right now.