Cakes

The pregnancy announcement cake was a hit! It took some of them a few minutes, but they finally got it...YAY!

In the meantime, here's a lovely cake idea my friend emailed me titled "The Worst Baby Shower Cake EVER."

Finally Friday!

Here is a picture of my cake from Course 3. (I forgot to take a pic with my camera at home and brought the cake to work so its a pic from my phone!) We are learning how to use fondant. The bow is not as cute as I would have liked, but that's because you are supposed to let it harden before attaching, but we did it in class, so it had to be done then. Overall, I think it turned out pretty darn cute, especially for my first entire fondant cake. The only other time I used fondant was for my watermelon cake and I only used one 3 inch tall piece around the outside of it. This was a little more difficult. Next week, we are making more flowers, and the week after is our final Course 3 cake - a wedding cake with tiers and of course, more flowers! We are all out of whack with our class schedule because of teacher taking a week off for vacation, then Hurricane.Ike. But she said we'll just chug along and pay no attention to the calendar months. Course 4 is next - more super fun stuff with fondant and gum paste! This is really the only class anyone wants to take, but of course you have to take them all to build up your skills.


Tomorrow is Dean's 35th (!) high school reunion - rescheduled due to Ike. We had to decline 2 other parties that night in lieu of hanging out with some old dudes. Hopefully they will be going to bed early and we can ditch those old fogies and make it to at least 1 other party!


As the 11 week mark is approaching and my pants are getting tighter, I have decided to tell the rest of my team next week. And how better to share the news than over cake! I found a super cute idea on a cake site that I am making on Sunday to bring to a team meeting on Monday. Hopefully they get the idea and not just think its another cake from class!!!


Have a fabulous weekend!

P.S. What's up with someone finding my blog based on a Google search called "Peanut Photo." I am pretty sure they were not looking for an u/s when they came across my page!!! LOL

Getting Better...

Fewer sniffles and coughs today. I finally made it back into the office yesterday. Geez. How does my dear husband work from home ALL the time? 1 week and 2 days was way too long for me. Although I did get my fill of baby shows in - Baby Story, Birth Day, Baby Diaries, Special Delivery, and probably way, WAY too many that showed emergency births or what could go wrong. And can I just say that even though TLC/DHC blur out the hoo-hoo shots, what you see coming OUT of the hoo-hoo made me want to throw up on the spot. I know the placenta has to come out, but all that other crap and fluid too? G.R.O.S.S.

I am missing my weekly photo op with Peanut this week. Dr. H wanted to skip this week and come in at 11 weeks.

A few questions...

1. For those of you have who already graduated to your OB, did you miss those weekly u/s pics from your RE?
2. Did your OB understand and give you pics and u/s anyway at every appointment?
3. Did you rent/buy/borrow a Doppler to get you through the "hard times?"
4. If so on the Doppler, where did you get it from? I found some place called StorkRadio.com.

Thanks in advance for the info!

Sick @ Home

Blah...that is what I feel like today. When I woke up yesterday, my right tonsil was swollen and Dean said it was very red. By the time I went to bed last night, my nose was runny, my eyes were watering and I could hardly swallow. Suffice it to say I did NOT sleep well last night. Between blowing my nose and coughing...EESH.

So I wrote that first paragraph when I woke up and have since gone to see my new GP (Dean saw her a couple months ago). She was very nice and friendly - not too doctor-y. If you live in the Pear.land area, I would definitely recommend her. She said there is no infection or fever so its probably a virus...which means, like always I just have to let it run its course. Probably like a week or so. She did prescribe some cream for me for my face - gone are the days of a glowing face of pregnancy for me. It looks similar to a rosacea breakout I had 7 or so years ago. She gave me a cream for it so my face isn't so flaky anymore!!

Dean left for Dallas again today. Be back Wednesday. Good thing I still have my evacuees to keep me company!

HOLY MOLY - 9 WEEKS

Well...technically 9 weeks tomorrow, but Lord have mercy! Look how much Peanut has grown in just 1 week! Yes, it is zoomed to see better, but still! I cannot believe it. When they were measuring the sac, I asked what was in the sac? Because it sure as hell does NOT look like my Peanut of 8 weeks. Dr. H said, "Why, that's your fetus of course!" AAAHHH! He/she is getting so much bigger! You can even see the head! Dear Husband asked how many weeks this appointment was and when I told him, he said, "WHOA! This is already going by so fast!"

I KNOW!!

Home Sweet Home...

We made it back from LA. The usually 6 hour trip took us almost 9. We had to take several detours due to high water, but luckily we like to take back roads and can navigate with a map pretty well. The last city we saw gas was Jasper, TX. Everything south of there was either out or didn't have electricity to pump it. We saw lots of devastation in East Texas - tons of downed trees, power lines, trees on homes and cars, torn up barns. It looked like it was tornadoes instead of a hurricane. Speaking of, we had tornado warnings all around us in LA from the remnants of Ike coming through. Fortunately they all missed us. It's a good thing. We were in a mobile home (with a permanent roof structure over it) with no where to "hide" from the twisters!
Our neighborhood is fairly new. The oldest sections are 5 years old. Our section is only 3. Almost everyone has sections of their fences or the entire fence down. Luckily, that is all the damage we had. We were very lucky because we didn't even board up any of the windows. Our next door neighbor, not so lucky. They stayed with a relative in the area and didn't come back to check until after the storm passed. By that time, it was too late. They lost 50% of their roof. This caused rain and wind to get inside, soaking the insulation (foam and the blown in kind). The ceilings couldn't handle the weight and just collapsed. The wind blew the wet insulation on everything - furniture, walls. They have a total mess on their hands.

I am sure most of you have been watching the news and our neighbors to the south - Clear Lake, Galveston, etc. didn't fare that well either. Most of their homes were completely leveled...nothing but pilings left standing. It is very devastating to South Texas.

We know how lucky we were and can't thank God enough for watching over our house while we were gone. We just pray for all the others that were hit the hardest for their health, safety, and strength to rebuild again.

Below are some pics of the fence damage....

Evacuating to Higher Ground...

Brazoria County is under a mandatory evacuation, beginning Thursday 8AM. We're at the northern part of the county, but Emergency Mgmt said it didn't matter. We could still have 1-3 Category force winds here. We were going to stay if it was just under a voluntary evac, but mandatory....they said this would mean that if something happened to us, well, we were screwed. No medical, no police, no grocery stores, nothing. Mandatory means everything will be closed.

As soon as Dean gets home from Dallas, we are headed out to north Louisiana to some family property out. There is no phone at the house and the closest "town" is 25 miles away, so I'm not sure how connected to the world wide web we will be. My parents and friends may be joining us, but we haven't heard for sure yet.

Keep us all in your thoughts.