Turning 6!

I can't believe that my little girl is now 6 years old! It only seems like a couple of years has gone by since that cold winter day, when she came to be with us in the outside world. What a stressful/beautiful/ trying/rewarding time in our lives and we have enjoyed the ups and downs of all things Daelyn. :D

We celebrated her birthday on Saturday by having some of her friends over for a kid party. We don't have the biggest house and we're kind of limited to being indoors so unfortunately we couldn't invite all of her friends/classmates, and for that I do feel guilty and apologize. We had friends of ours from out of town come over for the weekend as well as they have a girl the same age as ours and we always try to get together for their birthdays. Daelyn was thrilled to have her friend come and stay with us for 2 sleepovers. LOL So anyway she had asked for a "Ducky" party this year, surprise, surprise, and when I saw this cake pan I knew I had to make it for her. It is way out of my comfort zone but knew I could at least try it. I don't have a lot of pictures of the actual party to post, because I didn't feel comfortable putting too many of the guests pictures up. The ones that are up are blurred for privacy.

Here's a progression of the cake:

So the pan comes in two pieces, one with a stand to keep it level, the other with a hole so let out any extra batter. It said to use one box of cake mix and that it would fill it right to the top of the pan. Well mine filled it this much so I was a bit worried.

You put the top on it, and tie it up so the rising batter won't push the top pan off while it's baking.
You can take the top pan off for the last 10 minutes of baking so it looked like this.
But the other side was perfect!
And here's Ducky all decorated! If you were to look at it straight on it would look like a "strokish" Ducky. LOL So here she sits in a bath of blue jello and marshmallow bubbles. :) A couple Smarties for eyes completes the look, and I think I did a pretty decent job. Daelyn loved it so that's what matters!! =D

The activity of the party was to make playdough (a quick easy Kool-Aid recipe) and then they played for nearly half an hour with it.

We also had a Ducky Pinata to break open, although it was a little tough and we ended up just ripping it apart! LOL

Oh and who can forget the very pathetic game of "Pin the beak on the Duck" LOL By pathetic I am referring to my attempt at drawing a duck! Daelyn made the beaks, based on her beloved Ducky. :)

So that was it! Add in the present opening (order determined by a rounding game of spin the bottle) and some initial playtime to start with and we had parents coming to the door before the cake was finished. I say it was a very successful party! :) Thanks to all the girls for coming, everyone of you helped make the day special for my sweet 6 year old!!

.... okay I gotta say the Helium Ducky balloon that is floating around my house casting shadows on the walls is freaking me out a little. LOL

'Till next year!!

Wordless Wednesday

Ok, maybe a word or two. Isn't he cute?!?! LOL He's wearing the amber necklace I won that is for pain relief. I got it for me to help with my headaches but it is also for teething. Technically it should be shorter for him but he doesn't seem to bother with it... AND he doesn't wear it while sleeping or anything, just while he's awake and supervised of course. Each "bead" is knotted so if it were to break they won't go all over the place, so that's nice. He does suck on it and that's ok to help with his teething pain. He's popping through his last of the four, one year molars. Oh and yes I realize he's not wearing the cloth diapers that I loved so much to begin with. Sadly he's having poop issues, so hopefully once we get that all sorted out we can go back to using them again.

Dining Table- Stage 1

So most of you have likely heard about the new dining table we're getting. But if you haven't, I should fill you in. The Hubs, in his daily work routine, has met an elderly gentleman in the area who hand crafts dining table and chair sets for family and people he likes. When I say elderly, I mean.... 91. Yup, you read that right! He does this as his hobby and charges very little, but only for people he likes. I don't say that to boast, but just to say that he doesn't have a store, and he doesn't take orders. So this was talked about in our house for a few months and finally, I gave the go ahead. We were wanting a new dining set soon (it had been placed on "the list" a few years ago) so this was good timing.

So after a few months we got word that the set was completed. Now it's not totally finished. We have to do some sanding and staining, as he said he's not allowed to stain anymore because he gets drunk off the fumes. hehe Hubs made a couple trips to this guys place and picked up the rather heavy, good sized table, and 8 chairs and they are now sitting in our friends heated workshop waiting to be finished. (Thanks guys!!) I figured I better get some before pictures to start documenting this as we go along. I have to say, I've been a little nervous about this whole thing, the size of it, and the look altogether. I did see some pictures of a few projects of his but this was/is still taking a lot of faith on my part...

The table is about 6 feet (I think) and he gave us two 1 foot leaves. He originally said they would be drop down leaves (you know the kind that stay under the table all nice like) but Hubs figures he must have forgot. LOL What can we say, he's 91! LOL We got him to make 6 regular chairs and 2 captains chairs, so we'll have lots of room for family and friends to come over and enjoy a good meal with!

The table doesn't have the legs on it yet, we'll do that after it gets stained. They will be 4 spindle legs, one on each corner vs all in the middle. I believe it's made out of solid oak? We're planning on giving it a dark stain to off set our lighter cupboards. I hope it will look ok?????


Here's the captains chairs


Close up of the cut out pattern. Apparently this is his signature pattern, he's done it for years. (This is where the faith comes into play)


The chair seats are the same, we'll attach them once they are stained.
The two table leaves. You can kind of see the little detail he put around the edge of the table here. I like that. Oh and the top half of the legs are in this one too.


And the underside of the table for those inclined.

He's a quick learner.... for some things! :)

One thing he has picked up pretty quickly is sign language. He started with "milk" (of course), then moved on to "more", (of course because that's more of the milk), "all done", "bath", "please" (which took probably the longest to learn) and "thank you." By doing this, I'm hoping to minimize the tantrums that I believe are heading our way. LOL