363 days

I have lots of stories to tell, but I can't right now because I'm crying too much.

First, there was this.

Then came this.

Too soon, this came.

Then, today this happened.

I'll give a million dollars to the first person who can tell me how to slow this down.  I can't take it.  

Birthday lockdown

I'm not here.  I have officially gone into crazytown panic mode.  I have two full days before the birthday party and about five full days of work to do to get it all done.  So of course I'm writing a blog post.

However, here's what I'll have for ya next week:

• How I sewed my shirt for the party and how it took twelve thousand hours and how I should have just bought a damn shirt
• Aaaaaallll the baking I'm doing.  Have done.  Will have done by the time you read about it.  Whatever.  The grammar/space-time continuum confuses me.  PS, if we say con-tin-you-um, why don't we say vac-you-um?  I think I'm going to start saying vac-you-um.  Or con-tin-youm.  One of the two.
• Lots and lots of birthday pictures!  Amy Barry, of amybarryphotography.com is coming to take pictures and I'm so excited!
• My religious conundrum regarding Easter.  I did go ahead and get Easter pictures for Sofia but I was conflicted about it.

Once again, this is a picture of a picture because they wanted too much

damn money for a digital file.

My parents and little cousin are due to arrive in the next few hours, my brother is arriving tomorrow night, and we have only one guest bed.  We're going to be sleeping on each other's laps.


Ok, I'm out.  I hope to be back next week but if not, send the cavalry because I may have died from blowing up 180 balloons.  That's not an exaggerated number.  


God help me.

The cake will end me

We are T-minus six days until Sofia's birthday party.  Unless I want to pay a bazillion dollars to have the pros make her cake, I'm going to have to make it myself because most bakeries need at least a week's notice.  This worries me because as the party gets closer, the list of things I have to do has gotten longer.  Isn't that how it always is?


A couple of weeks ago, I made the layer cake yet again, this time for a baby shower for one of the moms in my playgroup.

I started taking pictures at this point, because by now

you know how this all goes.

PS, two boxes of cake mix yields about nine-ish cups of batter

which is a lot of damn batter.

And once again, the universe taunted me. That's a lot of damn batter, Desiree.  That's probably enough for a six layer cake. You should try it.  You have six glass bowls, just go for it!

Seriously, the universe needs to quit effing with me.  Because I did it.  I used food coloring again because I had it and honestly, I was a little wary of using beets and cabbage to color my cake.

I went crazy and bold with the food coloring and used

five drops in each layer.  Bitter cake be damned!

Since they don't know the baby's sex, I wanted to do alternating blue and pink layers.

The cake went over well, the Cool Whip was nice and light and it wasn't bitter!  However, cutting even layers is flippin hard.  I was cutting and cutting but still couldn't get them even.  Then, the other night, Drew showed me this little guy and was like I don't know why you don't just use this.

Thanks dude.  Now you tell me, after I've already made three cakes.

My layers were totally uneven but at least it tasted good.

And!  I Am Baker commented on my last cake-making post!  I was so flattered!  She recommended chilling the cake after you brush it with the simple syrup to get the layers to stick together and it totally worked!  This time my cake didn't fall apart, so at least there's that.

But the universe isn't done with me.  Because just yesterday I saw this.

from here via my Pinterest

*sigh*  I love strawberries.  And there's no food coloring.

I really need to just stay off the internet until Saturday.