Family Update and Other Random Stuff

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!  Well, we've had our new puppy, Monty, for a few weeks now and he seems to be settling in nicely.  Hope isn't so sure about him but occasionally she will dean to play with him.  Zoe absolutely adores him and I think he likes her too.  We are trying to teach her to be gentle with him and for the most part, she is doing well.
The house breaking, while trying at times, is going pretty good.  We've pretty much decided to keep him in the kitchen or a playpen we bought him.  We are hoping that we won't have to replace carpets before we move out of our rental...let's cross our fingers!
We are getting excited about buying our home (hopefully) by the end of the lease in November.  Hopefully mortgage rates and the housing market don't get too crazy before that time.

OK, enough of the family update.  I have been thinking a lot about things that I can do to feel more fulfilled while I am in the middle of raising a family.  It's funny that I thought I would have absolutely no problems transitioning into the role of motherhood.  While I think that I have had it easier than some, I still find that I sometimes get a little overwhelmed, or maybe underwhelmed, with the life that I am currently leading.  I LOVE being a mom and I know that home with my baby is where I am supposed to be.  I do, however, sometimes feel that my mind goes numb from the monotony of my life as a SAHM.  I need brain stimulation which, let's face it, does NOT come from changing diapers and making sure my kid doesn't pull the lamp on top of her in the living room all day long.  Anyway, you get my point.
I'd really like to take some art and cooking classes once my kids are in school.  Until than, I'm just not sure what would help me.  Any suggestions?

Zoe's First Birthday Party

My sweet Zoe turned one year old on Saturday and we threw a family party for her!  She has been the light of our lives since her arrival just one year ago...I can't believe how fast that year has come and gone!  We decided to do a "Wild about 1" theme.  Of course, there were a MILLION decoration options for the princess theme but I figured that we'd have PLENTY of those parties in the future, if she's anything like I was when I was little.  I made the flag banner for her and we pretty much just bought a few balloons and some streamers and called it a day for decorations.  I found very quickly how crazy you can get with the decorations but we weren't really budgeting for hundreds of dollars.  After all, it's not like she's going to remember most of it anyway.

My sister has been begging me to make Zoe a tutu so I decided to make her a birthday tutu with the theme colors.  I must admit, she looked darn cute in it although the poor thing couldn't really crawl around much in it so we put it on for pictures and then let her free.  We'll use it for professional pictures once she is walking anyway.  They are pretty easy to make it turns out!

Here it is.....the completed cake!  All in it's fondant glory:-)  My sister in law, Erin, is AMAZING and has taught herself how to put these puppies together.  She helped me with the decorating of the cake.  We almost had a disaster on our hands when we were trying to get the Zebra stripes to stick onto the white part.  It was making the fondant weaker and kept tearing apart every time we attempted to pick it up.  Erin managed to save it however and I think it turned out great, all things considered.  I think that next year, I'd like to learn how to use icing tips and decorate that way.  Fondant is a bit tricky.  It looks amazing but it doesn't taste all that great.  It was a fun experiment though and I enjoyed trying something new.

 

Here is Miss Zoe trying her cake out.  It's the first time she's had chocolate and I think she likes it.  After all, she's my daughter:-)  Steve grilled super YUMMY kebabs and we kind of had a Middle Eastern themed lunch with yellow rice, lamb, beef, chicken, and veggie kebabs and homemade Persian flat bread.

Zoe got way spoiled with presents this year.  Of course, her favorite things were tearing the wrapping paper and playing with the bows.  All in all, I think she had fun!  I know the adults certainly did:-)

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY TO OUR SWEET ZOE!

It's been a joy having her in our lives and we love her SO much!

The Birthday Cake Experiment

Today began my the first day of the birthday cake assembly.  You may think that I am crazy, and you may be right, but there are people that start this WEEKS in advance!  That seems a little too over the top for me, plus I can't imagine that the cake would taste any good after sitting around for a week or two, just saying.  Anyway, since it's Zoe's first birthday and she's my first baby, I HAD to go a little crazy for her birthday, right?!  Anyway, I decided to keep it a basic yellow cake with a whipped chocolate ganache middle and chocolate buttercream icing on the outside.  I'm going to decorate and cover it with marshmallow fondant tomorrow with my sister in law, Erin, so I will post the completed pictures tomorrow.  I have to say, the cake turned out really good.  I was a bit over exuberant with my ingredients so I ended up with enough to make a small sheet cake to taste.  Steve was very disappointed in having to taste test...lol.  I got all my recipes online at various recipe websites.  I just chose them based on the reviews they had.  I really liked how the yellow cake turned out.  I must admit, I have never actually made a yellow cake from scratch before!  After making this, however, I've decided it is SO much yummier.  Here's the website I found it at if you're interested:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/07/best-birthday-cake/

I didn't use the frosting recipe she recommended just because I was "dirty" icing the cake for fondant and I wasn't sure if her frosting would work well with it but it looks good too.  I will have to try it another time.  Instead, I just used a basic chocolate buttercream icing recipe.

Believe it or not, I took this picture AFTER I had iced the cake.  Yes, I went a little overboard on the icing.  I was just nervous about not having enough since I was making a double decker cake.  For the center of the cake I made a whipped chocolate ganache frosting.  Here's a picture of it before I whipped it:

If you like dark chocolate, holy hannah...is this the icing for you!!!  Yumm-O!  I just got the recipe for this from the Food Network website.  It's an Alton Brown recipe although it's pretty darn basic and you can find similar recipes all over the internet:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/ganache-frosting-recipe/index.html

When I started putting the parts of the cake together, I was a little afraid that the ganache would be too soft and cause the cake to slip and slide off but it held together.  I'm hoping a night in the refrigerator will help it solidify.  Here's the semi-finished product (tomorrow is decorating day!):

I thought I did a pretty darn good job for this being my first time for a huge cake.  I really enjoyed myself today too.  Maybe this is a hobby that I can start getting into.  We'll see:-)  Anyway, I will post pictures of the finished product soon and, of course, pictures of the birthday party too.  We are doing a "Wild about 1" theme for Miss Zoe.  Zebra print, hot pink and lime green!  Should be fun:-)

Introducing the Newest Member of the Arnold Family....Monty!

Well, at least being sick forces me to stay inside catching up on things like my blog, right?!?!  Anyway, I just wanted to share the news that we have decided to get another dog.  Yes, I already know that we are crazy but, hey, if ya have one dog already, it's not like having a second one is going to add too much to the craziness, right?!  Anyway, my friend and visiting teacher, Helen, breads her yorkshire terriers and Monty is from their most recent litter.  We couldn't resist!  His Mommy and Daddy are sweet and very social little dogs who love kids and we had been talking about getting second dog soon so we figured, what the hay!  Plus, this is a great time for me to train a dog now that Zoe is getting older and before we are thinking about having a second baby.  It will give me plenty of time to get him all trained and ready to go before another human baby hits the scene:-)  He is, of course, still with his Mommy and will be until the end of next month but we will keep you posted...isn't he just the cutest thing ever?!?!

On the GO:-)

Man, I am the worst at keeping my blog up to date!  I'm hoping now that Zoe is getting older, I will actually have more and more to post.  I have discovered the the first year of having a baby, especially when it's your first child, you really don't have many exciting things to post.  Not that life isn't exciting...cause it sure is.  But it's mostly exciting to you and not necessarily things that your friends and family would get all worked up about.  Zoe is starting to really get mobile.  She's not crawling, per say, but she pretty much does everything but.  Her doctor said she may be just one of those kids that starts walking before she actually crawls.  We'll have to wait and see.  We are getting prepped for the big birthday next month...can't even believe that she's going to be 1 already!  Time flies!  We'll post pictures soon.  I think I might start another blog and gather ideas and activities that I find to help stay at home moms keep their kids interested and engaged in the world around them.  I'm starting to look around for stuff and I'm finding that there are lots of things out there but they're kind of scattered so you have to dig.  It might be fun to gather some of those ideas into one place and talk about my experiences doing them with Zoe.  I will post more later!

2011: In the beginning...

Zoe sporting her winter hat from Aunt Heidi...we'll need it for Chicago!

Zoe turned 9 months today!!!  I can't believe how big my little girl is getting.  We are well into January already and I've been doing fairly well at keeping up with my resolution of exercising every weekday.  It sometimes means getting up early since I never know if Zoe is going to be in the mood to watch Mommy sweet like an ice cube in the sun.  Even though I hurt by Saturday, it was a "good" pain:-)

We are super excited to fly to Chicago next week to see friends and freeze our bums off.  It will be Zoe's first flight...we'll see how that goes.  I'm just glad Steve will be there too so we can share the adventure.  He's got business up there and we had some frequent flier miles so...off we go!  We'll share our travel log when we get back!

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2010

Hello to all our friends and family!
I realize that I have been neglectful of my blogging duties of late.  Time seems to run away from us these days.  We have had a wonderful holiday season thus far.  We started with a road trip to Utah to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Arnold clan.  Zoe had a lot of fun visiting with cousins and being showered with love and kisses from Grandma and Grandpa Arnold.  We came back to Texas ready for a wonderful 1st Christmas with Zoe!  We even got a real tree this year for the occasion, complete with about a loud of presents for Miss Zoe and one or two for Mom and Dad:-)
Zoe is now talking up a storm.  She'll have whole conversations to herself before mommy comes to get her from her crib in the morning and continues to be a very happy and sweet baby.  She has been the greatest Christmas present we've every had.
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  I will try to do better at updates in the future.