Sassyfras: birthdays

MUNO CUPCAKES
For Sawyer's 3rd Birthday he was REALLY into Yo Gabba Gabba. So, I decided to make him Muno cupcakes.
I just used the regular white cake mix recipe and whipped icing recipe. Then, I took a pizza cutter and cut out "muno-shaped" pieces of fruit roll ups. I used tiny pieces of black licorice for the mouth. I put two dabs of frosting on the upper part of the body then I used chocolate mini m&ms for the pupil. I broke red mini m&ms in half and stuck them on the edge of the body. Tada! It's MUNO!

SOFT SERVE CUPCAKES
For one of my niece's birthdays I decide to do "soft-serve" cupcakes. I totally used the wrong muffin tin. It was supposed to be deeper. You can find the proper one here. I took an icing bag and skipped using a tip. I just cut the bottom off of the bag and iced in a clock-wise direction finishing off with the "Dairy Queen swirl at the top). I sprinkled some sprinkles on, stuck a candy stick in for the straw, and topped it off with a hot ball on top for the "cherry".

DIEGO CAKE
Okay, The Diego Cake, oh the Diego Cake. I made a backpack cake (you know, the annoying one from Diego? Yeah, him) for my nephew. The cake split down the middle so I had to stuff it with the remnants of the part of the cake I cut off. So, it didn't look too bad after I had iced it and made the eyes and mouth. I turned around for a second to grab the foam piece I used as the straps, and as soon as I turned around, I was in tears. My son had dug a big ol' finger full of cake out by the middle of the cake. Long story-short, he was banned from the kitchen and I managed to kind of repair it. SO, the point of all of this was to explain why it doesn't look as good as you could make it.

GUITAR CAKE

SO, this one doesn't look as awesome as Bekka and I had planned, but it was hard work, so I'm still proud. There was a lot of icing, and a lot of carving.

SPONGEBOB CUPCAKES

I just decorated these with Spongebob horn blowers and red sprinkles. Easy enough!

DEATH BY CHOCOLATE

This is just your regular ol chocolate cake with chocolate icing. However, I added cookies and creme kisses on the top and peanut butter cups on the bottom. This was SO good!

Music Cake

This is yet ANOTHER cake that cracked. But hey, the sides are pretty! This has crushed oreos on top and chocolate chips make up the musical notes.

Well, there you have it. I know they aren't perfect cakes, but I worked hard on them. Hopefully you can execute some of these ideas a little better. =0)

Happy Eating,
Heather

Today is the 4th year of my son's existence on this Earth. I remember at one point in my life, I never wanted children. NEVER. Boy, that would have been a sad life.

I've decided to tell y'all the story of Sawyer.

As I mentioned before, we found out we were pregnant 6 weeks after Josh came home from Iraq that we were pregnant.

The Cookin' Stage-
I was moody, tired, and pukey. But hey, what's new? Well, apparently something else was off about me because everyone at work kept telling me I was pregnant. I didn't want to get my hopes up, so I just dismissed it for about a week. My symptoms kept getting worse so we decided to go get a test the next Monday. Josh went in Walgreens and came out with a digital test. I despise those, so huffily told him to go get a box of the line tests. We got home and I ran to the bathroom. I anxiously waited while I saw one line appear and then... "Oh crap! It's only one line. I told them I wasn't pregnant!"

The week went by and by Saturday I thought I had the most God-awful stomach flu. We got home from work and I thought to myself, "I'm going to go take a test and double check." I didn't tell Josh what I was up to. I quietly slipped away to go do my bid-ness.

So, here I was again, staring at one line. I set the test on the sink and went to pull up my pants. I had them up, but I hadn't zipped or buttoned them when I look down and... "Holy crap! There's two lines." I remember thinking to myself, "You wanted this... now what? ....Oh my God! I'll be a terrible mom! What was I thinking?"

Then excitement set in and I ran out of the bathroom with one hand holding up my pants and the other the test. I shoved it in Josh's face and like a three year old proud of a drawing, I said, "What do you think?" You know that smile that Ralphie does in A Christmas Story? One of those smiles slipped across my face when I said it.

We told family, and then friends, and then random people who we didn't know. I gain all of my weight in the beginning of my pregnancies, so I looked 5 months pregnant when I was just 8 weeks. So, I just lied and said that's how far along I was. (Yes, I'm a terrible person. But I only said that to strangers.)
I had sciatica, all-day sickness, and mood swings. Poor Josh had just survived war and he probably was more worried about surviving this pregnancy. I was miserable, he was miserable, everyone around me was miserable.

Why, Hello There!-

We decided to induce due to scheduling issues. (Never again) I had my water broken and pitocin started at 9:00a.m. on the 10th. I remember sleeping through most of my labor (except when I had a contraction or when people were playing with their phones). We had gone to birthing classes and the told us to find a place in the room to focus on during the peak of your contractions. Mine was a little outlet outlet on the wall, under a table at the foot of my bed. I don't know why I chose it, but I remember Josh standing in front of it during one particularly bad contraction. I screamed at him, of course. He was so confused. He had no idea what I was talking about.

At some point in the afternoon on the 11th, they told me that they needed to do an emergency c-section because the baby's heart rate was dropping. They wheeled me in to surgery. The nurses were discussing something that was wrong with their cars and I said, "Oh! We just fixed that on our car! This is what's wrong and here's how you fix it." The room got silent. I think they were confused as to why I was discussing cars when I'm splayed open on an operating table. Who knows. I heard them say that he was out, but not crying. Once they untangled the cord around his neck (it was wrapped twice and in a knot) I heard the most amazing sound- his cry. "We made that! A life just came out of me!"

Sawyer was born at 6:31 p.m. He weighed 6lbs 12oz and was 18 in long. They rushed Josh and Sawyer out of the room and I was left alone. I thought they would put me to sleep, but oh no, they couldn't be that nice. I heard them discuss my hemorrhaging, my "lazy uterus" (Yes, a male doctor actually said that. A female nurse scolded him and said that it was NOT lazy, just tired. It had been working hard for a long time.), and how they had never seen this problem before. When they started talking about how they didn't know how to fix it or what to do, I asked to be put to sleep.

When I woke up in recovery, I got to hold the most precious being I had ever seen. All of the hard things that had led to this were just a distant memory. This was my life now. Amazing.

The Later Years-

Sawyer is now 4 today. We made it through the 9 months of colic, the ingesting of one of perfumes when he was 1 year old, the move to our new house, the tons of hugs and kisses, first words, and first steps.
My son is a sarcastic, hilarious, hyper, smart, caring, loving, bossy, insightful little booger. He's into superheroes now. I shared this as my Facebook statues awhile back but it's worth repeating.

"My son says he's going to save the world one day... and I believe him."

To those of you who know Sawyer, you know there is no other child in the world like him. He amazes me every single day. I can't believe a person could have this much love towards another person. But, there it is.

Loves him.