The one where the treadmill bites the dust...

So, today I did week 1, day 2 of C25K and actually ran at 7 mph during the running segments. Whew, it was tough, but I felt so accomplished when I was done! I need to work on my breathing while running though.... if I can master that I'll be good to go. Anyway, towards the end of the workout, my treadmill decided to stop working. I knew this day was coming since it's over 5 years old.... I jumped off the treadmill and ran to our building gym and finished the workout. Ethan suggested we fix it, but I don't think it's worth the money. I paid $899 for it five years ago, and it's pretty old as far as treadmills go. I will miss being able to watch my DVR'ed shows while using the treadmill, but I am just going to have to use our building's gym and the YMCA for now. I did tell Ethan that if we have kids, I'm getting a new treadmill... I am not putting our children in YMCA childcare so that they can get the latest cold, and I can't count on being able to get to the buildings' gym as a stay at home mom. He agreed to that of course. Anyway....

Emily and I started on our cupcakes for the teacher's luncheon dessert! It was our first time working with fondant and we had SO much fun... pictures will be up sometime this weekend. We're finishing the cupcakes up tomorrow night, but we spent 4 hours total today - and that was making the actual cupcakes, making and dyeing the buttercream icing, dyeing the fondant, rolling out and forming the fondant decorations, and cleaning it all up....it went by so fast with Emily. I'm lucky to have her as one of my friends. We're both into cupcakes and photography... my talent is with the cupcakes, and hers is with photography. So, we're teaching each other. We're thinking about calling our little experiment NannyCakes. Haha... as a joke, of course - there is no way we would ever want to do this as a business. Takes the fun out of it! After this round of cupcakes, we're going to do some of the cupcakes from "Hello, Cupcake"... check the book out if you haven't already seen it. It's so cool and so creative! It's a good thing that most people are willing and grateful recipients of cupcakes since there is no way that we'll be eating them.

I can't wait for the weekend.... I am so looking forward to sleeping in!

Cupcakes, birthday parties, etc

F's 5th birthday is today, and Baby S is 7 months old today! This morning I made F chocolate chip pancakes and gave him a Darth Vader light saber that lights up and makes the electronic humming noises when you slice it through the air. He absolutely loves it. The above photo is of the cupcakes that we finished yesterday. I baked them all on Sunday, and when F and I came home from school, I set to work frosting the cupcakes with a 1M tip. F took care of sprinkling on the sprinkles and placing the Darth Vader and Stormtrooper rings in the middle of each one. His parents took them to school this morning and the kids went nutso over them. Apparently, so did the teachers and other adults in the classroom. I knew they would, because the cupcakes are amazingly good. Meringue powder will help with that! I had forgotten how much I loved to work with icing until yesterday.... can't wait to make the cake for F's party this weekend!

F's mom decided at the last minute she wanted to have a birthday party for him, and since it seems to fall to me to make things happen....even the "impossible" I pulled everything together and we're set for his party at a local rock climbing gym this weekend. I am actually going to make the cake for his party as well... if they thought the cupcakes were good, WAIT until they taste the cake. I tort the layers, fill it with chocolate pudding and liberally cover it with buttercream. We'll have red candles on it and a Darth Vader mask. F has sensitivities to dye, so the mask is the best solution... he can wash it off and keep it for dress up play with his new light saber. Must get the goody bags done this week too... the theme, of course, is Star Wars.

I am very much looking forward to Memorial Day weekend... I am desperately in need of a vacation and no agenda! I have a little "rant" post coming up.... so be prepared for that!

Things that go bump in the night....

Even though I knew that the alarm went off yesterday due to E throwing her pail into the empty bathtub, causing a loud clatter which results in the "shatter sensor" setting off I will still a little bit on edge when I went to sleep.

Maybe I have watched too many Lifetime movies over the course of my life....or maybe I just have a vivid imagination. I know I definitely watch WAY too many "Cold Case Files" and "Law and Order: SVU" episodes...

I ended up not going to sleep right away last night because I found that I wasn't THAT tired. So I used the time to catch up on Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice (abc.com is great). After I finished those, I did another welfare check on all the kids and went to sleep. Around 2 AM there was an extremely LOUD crash. Has your heart ever started pounding so hard that it literally hurt your chest? Almost like it was trying to claw its way out of your chest and flee from the perceived danger? Yeah, that was my heart when that crash happened. I froze in the bed thinking to myself, "Breathe, Wilkie, BREATHE!" When I worked up the nerve, I sat up in bed (while fervently hoping I wasn't going to find an intruder standing above me and formulating a plan to fight back while protecting the kids if there was) and realized that one of the curtains had fallen down. Whew. Heart was still hammering to the point that it was ridiculous.

It still took me about an hour to fall asleep again.

On the more positive side, Baby S slept through the night from 7:45 PM to 4:30 AM. I gave him a bottle at 4:30 and he went right back to sleep, so I was able to sleep until almost 8 AM. Pretty nice, especially considering that I am usually awake at 7:25, so it was almost like sleeping in a little bit.

........

It's now 3:45 and I am sitting down for a moment. I'd love to take a nap but the kids will be up soon so there's no point. I'll just go to bed early (for real this time!) tonight. I spent their naptime making baby food for Baby S. We now have sweet potatoes, carrots, green beans, and pea baby food freezing in ice cube containers. Tomorrow I'll pop them out of the containers and put them into labeled ziploc bags. 2 cubes are equivalent to 1/4 of a cup of baby food, and we're up to about 4 cubes per day now. F and I also made some buttercream icing for his cupcakes that he's taking to school on Tuesday for his 5th birthday. He wanted Star Wars cupcakes, so I ordered some molded plastic rings with Darth Vader and stormtroopers. After I pipe on the icing, F will sprinkle them liberally with chocolate sprinkles and then stick a ring into the center of each one. I'm sure they'll be a hit. It's been a while since I've whipped up a batch of buttercream. I remember making it all the time a few years ago after I earned my Wilton Cake decorating certificate. Haven't done a full-on cake in a while, but the cupcakes will be fun. Unfortunately, the buttercream we made won't nearly be enough, so I'll have to make some more tomorrow to add to what we made today. We'll definitely bake the cupcakes tomorrow during naptime as a special project.

Ethan is coming over after he finishes studying (finals are next week) and spending the night. I'll feel a lot better having a man with a gun sleeping next to me after all the excitement of yesterday and last night! We're ordering Mellow Mushroom and it'll be fun to just chill with my husband.