The latest cake orders

I delivered two more cakes last week:

(a football for Jesse)
(and a pricess for Britt)

I wasn't quite satisfied with the results (believe me, they were a bit sloppy), but the receivers were happy. That counts and I just have to discipline myself in not wanting to work too fast.

Little Olive Hope

A premature girl has been fighting for her life in the past 5 months and she lost. Yesterday she passed away. Her name is Olive Hope.
I don’t know her parents. I’ve heard of her through my far-away-friend Kara. And ever since I’ve been praying. I opened the blog about Olive first thing in the morning, reading about her ups and downs.
Today I opened the blog and read “Olive went home to be with Jesus today”. Her parents have also posted pictures of them holding and kissing her. The look on her mama’s face breaks my heart; her heart is broken! She has to let go her precious little girl…

I can only pray that I’ll never have to go through something like that and I’m cherishing my kids even more.

This psalm comes to mind, thinking about Olive and the premature, little body she’s fought the fight with:
“For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful.” (Psalm 139:13, 14)

I pray for Olive's parents. They need it.

http://rustylynette.blogspot.com/

Tulips from...

Chicago! It's the Magnificent Mile, downtown Chicago. Spring of 2001; we had to wait 10 hour for our next plane and hopped on the train to visit the city. It was good!

Spring is on it's way...

I found these pictures in a box full of memories. Isn't it beautiful? Can you guess where these pictures were taken? (I'll provide the answer later this week)

I've been baking

Wanted to try out some things this weekend and really felt like baking and creating. This is the result:
(two carrot cakes, based on the Bananabreadrecipe I got years ago from Jennifer. On the back of the recipecard I keep all my notes to different versions of this cake; the ones I made now is one with almondcookies and one with orangezest. And loads of suiting spices.)

Then I tried the Pioneer Woman Oatmeal Crispies. Good stuff. Even Marc liked it, although I didn't tell him they contain oats.
I also worked on some more delicate things and got help in the kitchen:

The results were quite cool, although it needs some fine tuning. I'll work on that! (Petit Fours and Cake Pops)

Who needs a cleaning lady when you have kids?!

Loose ends

I’ve noticed that I often blog about something, but never follow up on it. Haven’t got complaints about it (heck, if hardly anyone reads this, it figures…wahaha!), but to keep things complete I’ll tie up some loose ends here:

1. The new pants I ordered online do fit. One size smaller than I’ve had for years! Yahooo! (see 7-1-2010)
2. I didn’t make or eat petit fours yet. But I will. I definitely will one of these days. (see Facebook 11-1-2010)
3. Still haven’t found a discman or extra MP3-player (so I can take the discman from Lara’s bedroom) (see 7-1-2010)
4. Didn’t make myself steak yet. I’ll buy some the next time I hit the grocery (see 7-1-2010)


And here are some video’s on Mika’s sign language (see 8-1-2010):

(byebye)

(COLD! or HOT!

(fire)

(Just babbling)

Lara’s snow and ice fun!

She can’t get enough of it; snow and ice! She wants to throw snowballs, ride with the sled and “slide on the ice”(ice skate) every day. And the pictures? Nothing but a huge grin and a red nose:

Cold... brrrr

I’m cold!!! But that’s because I forgot to put on a long shirt this morning. So my t-shirt is creeping up and makes my back go cold. Brrrr…. Well, that’s my own fault, isn’t it? I hate cold, but just “being cold”. So I wear thick warm socks, have a warm water bottle in my bed these days, wear long shirts underneath my clothes and have a warm plaid for on the couch.

The cold we have outside these days I do like. I think the world looks so much nicer with a layer of white snow. And Lara’s enthusiastic “Mama, let’s go iceskating!” is fun to hear too every day. Or going to the Christmas music with our sled and throwing snowballs to the windows. I like it that every day is a surprise, weather-wise. Is there any new snow? Is it freezing? Do I have to get the ice of the car windshields? Will the bus be in time or will it be terrible late again?


But “being cold”, naaa, not my thing! I’m going to put on a long shirt now and grab my warm thick socks from the heater.

Mika

My boy, my baby: my babyboy. Even though he’s not really a baby anymore, he’s still my baby. Probably always will be my baby. It will take less than a year from now before he starts correcting me when I call him “baby”. But in my head and heart I’ll always call him “my baby”.

He’s so special to me (don’t get me wrong, Lara is special to me too, but this post is about Mika. I’ll write about Lara another time). I loved his birth; intense and quick. He must have thought: “Let’s get this over with; here I am!”. In the first minutes I had to get used again to holding a tiny baby, but I remember I immediately started to comfort him: “Don’t cry, it’s ok.” But besides the “don’t cry” I also thought and communicated to him “Ok, if you want to cry, then cry. It’s gonna be ok, you’ll see! Just let it all out if you feel like it.” He didn’t freak me out, we felt so acquainted. We had a bond from the first moment on. He was my boy, my baby, my babyboy!
The months after his birth I often looked at him and got shocked, delighted and amazed at how much he looked like me. As if I was looking at my mirror image! I’m in love with his big blue eyes. My eyes, Marc’s long eyelashes. Our boy, our baby, our babyboy.

Mika is a friendly character. He’s a happy boy, as long as his tummy is filled with food. If he gets hungry he’s not so friendly and definitely not happy! It took us awhile to figure that out and even more time to figure out how much food would be enough to make him happy and friendly again. Let me tell you; he needs a lot of food!

Often Mika is a smudgy boy. It’s hard to keep this child clean. In the first months he threw up a lot. And I mean A LOT, not just a mouth full. When he started eating more than just milk the throwing up got less, but the stains became more intense in color, shape and size. And since he’s eating by himself there is no end to the stains in his clothes, the smears on his face and the left overs between his fingers and in his ears. But boy, does he love his candy and meals!

I love the way he explores the world. He dares a lot, but often he comes crawling to me, so he can check things out within the safety of his mommies arms. Then he heads out again. He’s a real boy; climbing on everything that’s higher than the ground he’s on. And if possible tumbling, head first, down again. Just to get up and do it all over again. When he was about three months old he eagerly looked at his sister’s just-before-bedtime-ritual of jumping and wrestling on our big bed. You could tell he just couldn’t wait till he could join the party!

At this moment Mika is busy learning to talk. He loves pointing out things and naming them. A lot of it is understandable for us yet! Mostly it’s the one-syllable words; ball, star, moon. But with the longer words he picks up the rhythm and tone very quickly. His eagerness in practicing his words is so adoring!
But besides the words he has his own sign language. He signs when he’s done eating or when he has finished something. But he also has a sign for something that’s hot or cold. And the body language he uses if he wants to eat or drink something that isn’t his just makes you melt instantly. I’ll have to capture it all on video, ‘cause it’s too cute.

With all these things he often makes me laugh and I certainly can say that he is a funny boy. Just the way he is. He’s not out to making you laugh, he just makes you laugh by being the way he is.

My babyboy.

Two blogs in one

(before)

Yesterday I blogged in Dutch, today I want to blog in English. Some of my Dutch friends and family members can’t read English, but I don’t want to translate all of my blogs. So I’m always switching, sometimes doubling, sometimes not.

What I wrote yesterday in Dutch went something like this:

“Today I did several things I don’t usually do on a regular day. Let alone more than one of those unusual things on one day!
I did:
• Throw together some banana-walnut muffins in less than 10 minutes (excluding the baking time), using an over-over-overripe banana. We don’t waste anything! 
• I cut down Lara hair about 6 inches, because it was so messy, we couldn’t comb it anymore. And the result isn’t even that bad! I’m actually quite excited about how it looks.
• A procedure at work, which usually takes about 2 weeks of filling out forms, discussions, writing letters and costs the customer quite some money, in just 30 minutes for free. The city counsel ordered us to do so in this special case. Ok?!
• Some planning and research for two upcoming cake-orders. Also ordered materials for it (so much fun!) and I checked in with one of the lucky receivers which color her “Princess cake” had to become. If you want to know; pink! (see, I don’t want to be responsible for disappointing a five year old with a birthday cake that isn’t exactly what she had in mind).
Well, that was it for today. Pictures will follow soon (not of the muffins and not of the procedure. But Lara’s haircut and the decorated cakes will be shown in time)”

And today I had other things popping up in my head, urging to be written down in a blog.

I am:
• In need of listening to more music. I travel by public transport 3 times a week and I miss my discman. My old one is in use at Mika’s bedroom, for his bedtime music cd. And yes, I know discmans are not really “in fashion” these days. It’s Ipod’s and MP3-players. But unless someone is willing to put about 200 cd’s on an MP3-player for me, I’m simply looking for someone who wants to give or sell me his/her old-no-longer-in-use-discman. So every morning I can simply pick out the cd I’m in the mood for and listen it while traveling to and from work. Anyone?!
• Kind of longing for a good steak. I’ve been reading a lot on the website Pioneerwoman.com which is all about steaks (and cows, and a ranch and a cowboy and some very cute kids and more finger licking food). But since Marc doesn’t like steak, I actually never make it. So, putting that on my list for “stuff I’d like to eat”.
• Been quite busy with online shopping and I love it. In the past week I ordered a new family planner (couldn’t find a nice one in the stores), a lot of cake-decorating-ingredients and toys and a big pile of H&M clothing. I love shopping online, then waiting for the mailman to bring it, then opening the packages and then enjoying the stuff I ordered. And about that clothing; I ordered 2 pants one size smaller than I’ve had for the past years. I truly hope they fit. I did lose weight and my other pants are too big. If they fit, I’ll party. It they don’t, I’ll have to return them and wait another time for the mailman to bring the right size.
• Still excited about Lara’s haircut. It’s not perfectly even, but I’m still thrilled about the fact that I cut it myself. And that she looks cute and is saved from the nasty knots in it.

And now I’m going to crash on the couch. Or at least get myself something to drink and some chocolate.

(after)

First things

Happy new year everyone!
Does anyone recognize this; turning from the “old year” to the “new year” I find myself registering what things I do first in the new year. Stupid, because these things are just normal everyday things, but because it’s the new year they become special. (?!) These are my first things so far (and with this I finish this “first things”-thing):
Music: a concert on TV from a Dutch fado-singer. She’s translated Spanish fado’s into Dutch. Very passionate.
Website: a weblog about Olive Hope, a premature born girl fighting for her life.
Drink: diet Pepsi
Candy: fruitgums
Baking: two carrotcakes
Householdchore: turning on the dishwasher

Now I'm done with the first things.