It's a GIRL!

Sam and I got the biggest surprise of our lives this week when we found out Cate is on her way to join our little family! Wow, we were both SO SURE it was a boy! It has actually been fun to be so surprised--I just love surprises--and if it had been a boy I wouldn't have been surprised at all!

Within about 5 minutes of leaving the dr's office we had decided that what I had thought was a great gender-neutral nursery idea (vintage carnival using primary colors) would simply not do for our little princess. In fact, a few weeks ago after seeing a very girly rug in the children's section I said to Sam, "You know, if it's a girl I might regret not doing pink and purple." He said, "Well, if it's a girl we can just change it. We haven't done that much." But, we both agreed, it's a boy. That conversation is one of maybe three we've had in the last five months about the possibility of having a girl. We were both just so sure it was a boy!

We are sure excited about filling our Cate's room with sugar and spice and everything nice: our carnival is about to turn in to a soda shop! The pinking and purpling of Cate's room has begun in earnest! Next step: change the red and blue on the dresser we already painted for her to pink and purple and get her bookshelf painted pink (with some sparkles if we can find the right supplies!). We're keeping the lime green and yellow from round 1. Sam is about to have two sparkle loving, sprinkle loving ladies around (at least until she's old enough to announce herself as a bug-loving tomboy!).

We are so excited. Here are some pictures of Miss Cate! She is perfect. Her little four-chambered heart is about the size of the tip of your thumb, starting with the nail. She has two kidneys, a bladder, a spine, a good looking brain, and a stomach that was full! That full stomach means she's swallowing away, just as she should. Her diet is pretty bland right now, just amniotic fluid, but she seems happy enough--she was spinning and rolling all around! She even stretched out her legs and arms for us. She is about 10 inches long and weighs about 9 oz. She's in the 78 percentile for growth and our due date was adjusted to December 22, giving her a few additional days to bless us with a tax credit (kidding, just kidding).

Here she is, looking like a human for the first time:
Miss Catherine Lee Major!

Another Post: I'm Getting Serious about Blogging. Seriously.

So Sam made yet another amazing cake today. Here it is:


And up close:


The branch part is made out of chocolate fondant. Sugared kumquats and lemon leaves top it off. Oh, and yes, it is sitting on a bed of wheatgrass.

I'm pretty excited about some of my recent projects, too! First, the food I made for my friend Karen's baby shower:

(Confession: Sam made the macaroons.)

And the little signs I made to say what everything was:

And, my most recent project, centerpieces for 6-year-old Kelsey's upcoming birthday party (there's a magician coming!):

Thanks for visiting.

Cakes, Cakes, and More Cakes

We're pretty sure no one even checks our blog any more, but now that Baby Major is on the way we figured we'd better start ramping it up again. Sam has made some pretty amazing cakes lately ... so we'll ease back in to this with some photos:

This is a cake Sam made for his co-worker's daughter. The baby's name is Brina, hence the giant "B." I actually helped with this--cut out the dots of fondant for the top layer and stuck 'em on there. Obviously the real talent is in the harlequin pattern on bottom.

And now for something a little different:

The bride's dad cut down a tree to make that cake stand! The meringue mushrooms were the bride's special request, and as you can see, they cover up a bit of the bottom layer. Here's a closer look at those beauties, which Sam made by hand:

When the bride's mom saw Sam putting the cake together she asked if she could take one of the mushrooms up to her daughter in the bride's room! Sam obliged and picked her out an extra good one.

All right, folks, that's a wrap for tonight.

Our First Post

We had big plans to have this blog up and operational before our wedding, hence the blog address on the favor tags,but that didn't really work out. So if you're here because you read the address on our favor tags, thanks for coming. Or if you came after seeing it on our favor tags and there was nothing here but you decided to try again, thanks for coming. Or if you came after you saw it on your favor tag and there was nothing here but you came back because you saw our next shameless plug for ourselves on the return address labels we put on our thank you cards, thanks for coming (back). We knew building readership for our blog without an adorable toddler would be hard enough. We've found it's even harder if we don't post anything. But if you'll promise to stick with us, toddler-less bloggers though we are, we'll promise to start posting. Deal?

Where shall we start? How about with a photo of our beautiful, delicious, amazing wedding cake:

Sam's boss, Raymond Lammers, made our cake. When we arrived at the reception location to change in to our wedding clothes, Raymond was there working on the cake. I was so mesmerized that I couldn't get myself to move from in front of the cake to the dressing room! I just stood there staring as the catering people bustled around, as the florist pinned corsages on, listening in a daze as my mom reminded me that I needed to get into my wedding dress.

One common question we get is whether we saved the top layer, as is tradition. The answer: No. We ate it the day after our wedding. The whole thing. Sam said we could eat it and he'd make me a new cake for our anniversary. So we did, and I'm sure he will. Ah, the joy of being married to a pastry chef!