This is as clean as it gets these days.

This is actually pretty good for me, really.

Happy birthday to me!

Having a nice, quiet day so far. Jon handled the baby duties this morning, and I got to sleep 'til 11:30, which was fabulous.

Looking forward to my b-day dinner tonight at Gianno's!

Things I've learned this week:

-Kool-aid with Splenda tastes the same as the sugary stuff.
-Dexter is just as good the second time around.
-Having the store do my shopping and only having to go pick it up is so so nice.
-It doesn't take much to get people whipped up into a full-on, foaming-at-the-mouth frenzy.
-I really like the song "Tomorrow Never Knows" by The Beatles. Something about the seagull noise.
-Honesty truly is the best policy.
-Grilling is the best way to cook food.

Cake wreck indeed.

Let me say first, I have a new-found respect for all bakers everywhere.

In all my infinite wisdom, I decided it would be a good idea to bake a test cake before attempting Ella's actual birthday cake....just to make sure that I could do it like I wanted. I'd found a pretty simple idea online, and I felt like I could probably do it without much problem.

Unmitigated DISASTER.

Problem one: I couldn't get it out of the pan. I greased and floured the pan before baking. Did my cake care? Noooo. It wasn't budging.

After many smacks and drops of the pan onto the counter, I managed to dislodge a corner. From the rest of the cake. Well, that's okay. I can sort of fit it together and use a little frosting like mortar, and it'll work out. Fine.

Finally, the rest of the cake is out. It's got a huge bubble on the top from baking, so I grab my serrated knife, and proceed to smooth it out. I've seen this done 100 times on TV. This was actually the most successful part of the whole thing. I managed to get it pretty level.

Once that was done, I cut the cake into the shape I wanted. This went okay, aside from the part that was broken off from before. Jon was actually able to recognize what it was, so I figured that wasn't too bad.

Now it was time to frost. (I should mention here that I'm not making this from scratch -- cake was boxed, frosting was canned. I'm not completely crazy.) I know how to SPREAD things onto a surface. I know how. But when I started to frost this cake, it went downhill so fast, my head was swimming. Crumbs all through the frosting, holes being ripped in the cake...just awful.

This shouldn't be this hard. Should it? Is it possible that I'm so incompetent that I can't even FROST A CAKE? I thought momentarily about taking a picture to you can see the train wreck that it is, but it's THAT embarassing.

So it looks like Ella's first birthday cake will be a Costco special. At least they're yummy.

11 months!

Special delivery

So, this is what I found in the mailbox today.


Yikes. Certainly not what I was expecting.

I shudder to think how long she's probably be in there, and how often I just stick my hand into the mailbox without looking.

And yes, that is an egg sac.

*shiver*

Good Eats

Ella has been a great eater ever since we started her on solids. I can't think of a single food, in fact, that she didn't like. The past couple of weeks, though, have been a gastronomic adventure! She's tried:

-Tofu
-Strawberries
-French Fries
-Baked Beans
-Pancake
-Mango
-Toast
-Kiwi
-Veggie Pasta

And she loves all of them! I love seeing her chow down on new foods...I was really nervous about moving her to chunks of food, since she still really only has 2 teeth, but she does great! I hope her enthusiasm doesn't wane as she gets older.