The birthday cake disaster of 2013

This post refers to the birthday cake disaster of 2013, not the birthday cake fiasco of mid-1990s in which my very long hair got caught in the mixer. This was far less painful and messy, but still disastrous nonetheless.

Today was Jackson's fifth birthday and boy was he as excited as ever. It was a super fun day and I can't wait to post about it. I forgot to do his annual birthday interview before he went to bed and by the time I checked on him ten minutes later, he was already fast asleep snuggled up with his new Optimus Prime.

For tonight, I just thought I'd share the story of Jackson's birthday cake.

I posted a photo on Facebook and Instagram and it got far more praise than I was expecting... especially the whole "coolest mom ever" comment! Looking at it now, it really is a pretty cute cake. But that's not how I was seeing it at the time.

 The Leonardo cake was FAR from what I had envisioned. The entire cake making process was a nightmare. Nothing went as planned and it seems like things were so much more complicated than they needed to be. I didn't plan my timeline well and so I was rushed at the end which didn't help things at all. 

I figured I'd go ahead and share my "inspiration" as what I was originally intending to make. 

source

I am not even kidding. Quit laughing.

I was going to use blueberries to make the fruit glaze. 

I picked the cake recipe out last night and I knew I'd need to go to the store to pick up all-purpose flour because that's not something I have at home anymore. I don't care for whipped cream, so I opted to make a different kind of icing using powdered sugar. I didn't want to have to buy an entire bag, so I figured I'd make my own with the pure cane sugar that I have at home using my blender. 

Jackson and I started making the cake and had everything in the bowl before I realized I was out of vanilla.... and Belle was already napping! Ah!!! Fortunately, my father-in-law saved the day and delivered some vanilla. Also, I wish I could've sifted the flour since the whole wheat flour makes a cake more dense.

I only had one circular cake pan, so I had to bake the cakes in two rounds, which wasn't a big deal other than taking more time. When it came time to make the powdered sugar, I didn't have enough pure cane sugar (ugh!) and so I used some coconut sugar, which is brown. By the time I mixed the butter with the sugar I had ugly brown icing. Oh, and I remembered that I needed vanilla for the icing too, but I already sent it back with my father-in-law. I was hoping to avoid food coloring, but I had no choice! If I was going to have icing that didn't taste good, I'd need it to be pretty. Green was the only "boy" color I had and I didn't have much. 

I ended up with an ugly shade of green, but it was going to have to work. I iced the first cake and when I put the second on top... the top one broke into several pieces! It was a mess (ugh!). I was so flustered! I decided to scrape the crumbling mess and just work with the bottom piece. Derek came home at this time and all I could see was a disaster from what I was really hoping to create from the beginning.. An ugly green circle. 

At this time, I happened to glance at the kitchen table to see a cup with four turtles the same ugly green as my cake. I dug through my sprinkles to find sprinkles to match any color of the turtles and behold I found some blue. The whole sprinkle process was frustrating because they were going EVERYWHERE and then the icing for the smile was runny. Right before I snapped the photo of the cake, I was huffing and puffing to Derek in the kitchen about the huge disaster of a cake I made. I was embarrassed to serve it to our family who were all here to celebrate Jackson. 

I cannot help but laugh at the whole ordeal. I mean, I ended up with a Ninja Turtle cake. A blue one. Jackson's favorite-- which would have been his choice had I ever known it to be an option!  I thought I failed big time! But when the first compliment came in-- I just couldn't believe it! I had to look at the cake from a different perspective to realize that it really did turn out pretty good! *

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. If life gives you an ugly cake, make Leonardo!

*By good, I mostly mean looked cool. I have tried making a cake from scratch twice now and haven't achieved major success either time. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't amazing either. But at least it was cute. :)

Jackson's Firefighter Birthday

Yesterday, Jackson had several friends over to celebrate his birthday. He's turning five tomorrow. FIVE! We had a firefighter party this year and it was so much fun. His friends came over and we had just a couple simple activities and treats and then we headed to the fire station for a tour!

Belle is up spending the weekend with my parents. At first, I really wanted her to be here and go have fun with us, but after Mom invited her up I changed my mind. Why would Belle want to stay here and watch Jackson be the center of attention when she could be up with Grammy and Papa and BE the center of attention herself... for an entire weekend. Before she left, we played fighter fighter games though. 

I picked up a firefighter costume at a consignment sale last month and he wore it to great his guests!

His little friends each got a fire fighter hat and a sticker sheet that I ordered from Oriental Trading.

 

Here's Jackson's finished sticker scene:

I dug out some foam letters for the kids and they decorated their fire hats.

Everyone congregated in our family room while the kids worked on their stickers and fire hats.

We enjoyed yummy cookies by my friend HanNah along with some clementines and juice. 

Jackson opened his presents and then we caravanned to the fire station. The kids were SO excited.

The guys gave a tour of of the vehicles and showed them several of the tools they use. 

They got to climb in and out of all of the vehicles!

 The kids lined up to check out the fire suit. 

The guy got fully dressed in 1:03 minutes!

The kids also got to take turns shooting the fire house! I think this was everyone's favorite!

 ... except mine when they widened the spout and I got drenched. 

The firefighters showed us their living quarters-- their kitchen, living room, and bunk room. Jackson thought it was so funny that the beds folded down from the wall! 

The kids had a great time. In fact, many of the parents mentioned that they enjoyed the tour, too! It was such a fun birthday party activity-- and the fire department didn't even charge for the tour. When I asked Jackson about his favorite thing about his party his first answer was, of course, presents. But his "second best" thing about the day was seeing his friends. We are so blessed to have great friends to celebrate our special guy!

Fall trip to Deanna Rose

Somehow I managed to forget to blog about our trip last week to Deanna Rose. It's one of our favorite places to visit each year! We typically make a few trips, but we've been busy with our season pass to the zoo this year! I realized a couple of weeks ago that it was going to close soon and so I made plans to meet up with a friend-- pronto! 

The goats kept trying to eat different articles of clothing. One untied my shoes as I was taking this photo!

 

My friend Kandice with her girls... and another one in the making! :) We were friends in college and it's fun having our kids the same age!

 

This is such a good shot of all of the girls!! Jackson on the other hand... 

The bench is my favorite photo spot!! 

2009

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2012

2013

I love that our city has such fun (free) things to do and I love getting to enjoy those places with such good friends while our kids play!

Menu Monday

I always plan our meals for two weeks at a time, so I'm going to include both weeks! Derek and I'll make one big trip to Whole Foods to both weeks, but I'll pick up the fresh veggies and other things I forget (it always happens!) at local grocery stores, typically Aldi. I love meal planning because it keeps me from going to the store several times in a single week to pick up things. Our budget appreciates it too. I'm linking up with Laura again.

• Monday: Oven Fajitas & Black bean salad. This was on our menu two weeks ago. It was so yummy that I had to make it again. And black bean salad-- my favorite thing ever. I've never found a recipe that had all the ingredients I wanted so I just throw a black beans, red peppersa, green peppers, yellow peppers, onions, corn, cilantro, lime, corn, and tomatoes. Delish! :)
  
• Tuesday: Garlic Lime Pork Chops & Cilantro Lime Rice. I bought pork chops this time! I loooooove cilantro lime rice. It tastes so much like Chipotle. The recipe calls for white rice, but I have always used brown.
  
• Wednesday: Lemon Garlic Tilapia & Wild Rice. Another recipe we ate recently. But again, it was a hit, so why not? I don't care for fish much, so I normally load up on veggies for this meal.
  
• Thursday: Quiche, organic bacon, & whole wheat waffles with pure maple syrup! I love breakfast for dinner!
  
• Friday: Roast with potatoes and carrots. Oh crockpot, I love you!
  
• Saturday: Jackson's Birthday party! But before the party, we'll have tomato bisque soup and BBQ Beef sandwiches with left over roast beef for lunch.
  
• Sunday: Crock-pot Whole Fryer Chicken. Again, much love to my crock pot. It's cooks overnight and while we're at church. Sunday lunch is so easy! Plus, I use the rest of the chicken in other recipes.
  
• Monday: La-zombie! It's Jackson's birthday so it's his request! Most people refer to this as lasagna. :) The recipe-- it's the oh-so-delicious recipe handed down from my mother. Of course, we'll have cake and ice cream when family comes over to celebrate!

• Tuesday: Beef tacos, refried beans. I love the leftovers for taco salad the next day!
  
• Wednesday: Poppyseed chicken. Another familiar recipe. It was gone so quickly! I want more.
  
• Thursday: Spaghetti. Homemade sauce on whole wheat noodles
  
• Friday, Saturday, & Sunday: Derek will be at drill and I don't have anything planned. We'll probably just eat leftovers and simple things. Also this weekend-- my brother-in-law and his family are moving from St. Louis back to Kansas City. So exciting!!! :) 

As always, our dinners are full of veggies! I load up on shopping trips, but I don't really plan them with meals. My favorite is steamed broccoli with vegetable seasoning. Derek loves roasted cauliflower. Jackson is a good veggie eater and Belle is hit or miss. I bought some butternut squash this weekend from an the Amish store. I have never, ever eaten it...nor cooked it... so we'll see how it goes! Any suggestions for how to cook it??

The journey to eating real food

Making the switch to a "real food" diet was a big change. Before I share more about the specifics of our new eating habits and how it's been going (great, yummy!), I'm going to share about the process of how it all came about.

As I was thinking about the actual phases I went through to get to where I am now, I could not help but relate it to the Stages of Change proposed by Prochaska. I'm sure you didn't come here to be educated about psychology theories but I'm fresh out of grad school, studying intently for my license exam, and several of my text books were by the guy-- this is just the way I think!His theory was developed for substance use, but it applicable in other areas, like, changing eating habits!

Here's a brief visual. It's pretty simplistic.

(Source)

So, here's a brief documentation of my cycle of change. Derek's was a little different. I'll share his later. (Don't you feel sorry for the guy that he's always subject to psychoanalysis?)

Pre-Contemplation (all my adult life): 

The was my entire life up until about two years ago.

Contemplation (2ish years): 

This was a long process. Somewhere around two years! It began when we had a speaker in my MOPS group about eating "real food." It all sounded good and all, but it sounded complicated, and well a little crazy. Geesh. I mean, we are mothers of preschoolers--Ain't nobody got time for that!! Besides, my food is easy, yummy, and it works with our budget. Why all the fuss?? 

What I see now is that the little seeds that were planted in my thoughts that started to question what foods I put into my body. Those seeds blossomed as time went on. I acquired knowledge here and there-- sometimes from blogs, books, friends! On facebook, I followed along as several friends made similar switches to diets that are distinctly opposite of the Standard American Diet. 

Preparation (6 months):

Now this one process overlaps with the latter part of the previous category. I didn't fully take six months to actually prepare for our September menu, but the information that I absorbed into that time was necessary to prepare for the change! If I would've tried to make the switch prior to seeking as much information, tips, recipes, etc I can imagine that we would have failed. It was toward the end of my last semester and internship that I fully began to formulate an timeline on how to implement. I remember sitting at a Buffalo Wild Wings in July talking about how I wanted to test this new eating habit during the month of September because it'd be the first time I'd have to pour the time and energy into making it happen! 

Action (6 weeks, current stage) 

The actual change happened seemingly overnight and almost on accident. One day, Derek's mom watched the kids and we decided to hit the farmer's market and Whole Foods and we haven't looked back! We completely cleaned out our cabinets, our pantry, and our refrigerator and restocked with "real foods". 

Maintenance:

I'm not entirely certain how one progresses from action into maintenance regarding a change in eating habits. I'm in control of what I eat. I don't succumb to cravings-- I don't even have cravings which is the most foreign part of this new eating change. I feel like we're in a good grove, past the hardest part of the learning curve-- but six weeks still seems too new. Giving an actual time period is arbitrary, but I'll say that after day 100 we'll cross over to the maintenance stage. 

A note regarding relapse: 

Being that this model is mostly due to substance abuse and behavior change, relapse is a big deal. With our change in diet, I hardly feel it applies. I would define a relapse as a complete abandonment of our new "real food" lifestyle and embracing the standard american diet once again. With the knowledge that I have acquired and am still learning, I just can't comprehend a future when I want to go back to eating "food like substances" because the real stuff is just so much better, anyway. 

Will we enjoy a treat, yes! Will I buy regular milk instead of waiting a week until I can go to a store for organic milk, yes! Will we go out to eat sometimes-- yes, oh yes, and I won't beat myself up for it either. Life happens. I will make the best decisions with the options that I have before me and I am comfortable with that. 

Derek's Cycle of Change

Now, the thing about the Cycle of Change is that the cycles are as unique as the individual. This is me speculating on Derek's behalf, but I bet I'm pretty close. 

• Pre-contemplation (all of his adult life) 
• Action (6 weeks)
• Contemplation (couple of weeks)

He is such a supportive husband that he dove right in with whatever I came up with! We had multiple conversations along the way, but he was in his supportive role as opposed to a personal desire to make a change. However, once we have made the switch he has done his own research and come to his own conclusions, which are similar to mine. Thankfully. :)

So this was our process. I wanted to share because the concept of "real food" was very weird and so foreign to me once! (It's okay if you think that about me, now. I completely understand.) I guess I just thought the people were just born crazy or paranoid or maybe had too much free time!

But eventually that all changed and it changed because of the blogs and the books I read. I am by no means an nutritionist nor an expert in anyway. Click here to read about the changes we made as a family. Again, I'll direct you to 100 Days of Real Food, Food Babe, or any of Michael Pollans books for articles explaining the purpose and benefits of real food.

Here, I just wanted to share the journey-- the behind the scenes before we finally made the plunge. We're happier and healthier because of it!

I had more comments, emails, facebook messages and questions from friends in real life regarding our "real food" change than anything I've ever blogged about. Feel free to ask away and I'll do my best to answer! If there's something you'd like me to write about-- let me know!