Jackson's First Birthday

My baby turned one! I can hardly believe it. He is getting so big! Actually he's not that big according to the charts, but he sure is big to  me! Our wedding anniversary happens to be on the same day as our little guys birthday and for the second year in a row, we haven't done much to celebrate. But, we did have a big party for Jackson so I guess that's celebration enough. We had lots of friends come and support. It was perfect. Luckily the weather cooled off just in time because we had been having 97 degree days here with no air conditioning. Let me tell you, our apartment was hot! It ended up being a little bit overcast for the party so we were able to leave the back door open so that people could sit out on the deck.

 I made Jackson's "Birthday Suit" onesie. It was pretty simple. I ironed on the words "Birthday Suit." Then I sewed a little bow tie with Velcro on the back and stuck it on.

I have been wanting to make a tiered cake for a while. Mostly because I just wanted to see if I could do it. So, I decided Jackson's birthday would be the perfect time. My cake does look like a Charlie Brown cake. I am well aware of that. I am almost embarrassed to put up a picture of it, but we all have to start somewhere right? I did it, it may be leaning sideways, but I did it. The cake itself tasted yummy though so don't judge it by its looks.

 Here is Jackson's little smash cake. I put some white star sprinkles on it to give it a little decoration.

The smash cake part was so much fun, even though it was a pain to clean up. He somehow flung frosting all over the kitchen. But he sure did look cute!

Here is our family picture. Jackson was trying to touch me with his frosting fingers and he succeeded.
I had blue frosting all over the side of my shirt.

 Here is Jackson getting cleaned up by dad in the kitchen sink.

Yes, he's trying to grab my camera lens cap with his frosting fingers.

Jackson also officially started walking on his actual birthday. He is a rock star!



I used a recipe from Baking Vintage. I knew I wanted a white cake with cream cheese frosting and when I came across this buttermilk recipe, I thought I would try it. Don't let "folding in the egg whites" instruction scare you. It was really simple.

Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
3 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 egg whites

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350˚F. Line two 8-inch cake pans with parchment paper, then grease with unsalted butter.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. In a medium bowl, whisk together cake flour, baking soda, salt and cream of tartar to remove any lumps. In a liquid measuring cup, combine buttermilk and vanilla. With the mixture on a low speed, alternate adding the flour mixture with the buttermilk. Beat the batter until smooth.

In a clean separate mixing bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Working swiftly, fold the stiff egg whites into the cake bake in three additions. Pour into the buttered cake pans.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the middle of the cakes comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pans for one hour, remove from pan and allow to cool fully before frosting with the icing of your choice.

Makes 2 8-inch round cakes

With a double batch I made,

two-8inch cakes,
two 6-inch cakes and
two-4 inch cakes

One of the 6-inch cakes I didn't use and one of the 4-inch cakes I used to make Jackson's smash cake with.

I used a cream cheese frosting recipe from Dessert Now, Dinner Later

Ingredients:
 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:
Place cream cheese in a mixing bowl, beat until smooth.
Gradually add the butter 2 tbsp at a time and continue beating until smooth and well blended
Add powdered sugar and vanilla. Using a hand mixer, mix until combined.

My Birthday

The past couple of months I have been getting scuba diving certified. It has been really fun, for the  most part.... Tyrone has been scuba diving for a while and he has been wanting me to get into it but I was a little bit afraid. I am a pretty fearless person. I want to ride the craziest, fastest roller coasters and go sky diving but I don't want to breathe underwater. Maybe it was the water part that scared me the most. I don't know. But, since we live in the perfect place right now, I finally decided to do it. I went to the two classroom sessions and the five pool sessions as well as the four open water dives that are required to get certified. On the first open water dive I felt a little bit nauseous out in the water but when we went down to the bottom I felt better and it ended up being fun. The second open water dive, I was nauseous before we even went to the bottom. I puked before we even went down. Then, once I got to the bottom, I felt really sick again so I had to go to the top where I continued to puke the entire swim into shore. It was awful. I was underwater for maybe 5 minutes. For the last dive I was prepared with the Dramamine. I took it the night before, the  morning of, and in between the two dives we did. It was a blast.

For my birthday Tyrone and I bought all the gear I needed to go scuba diving. We bought some off Craigslist and some stuff from friends. My husband joked about wrapping it but I said that was silly. When I woke up on my birthday Tyrone had created a scuba woman in our living room with a birthday card on it. It was really cute. I loved the scuba woman. I had to enjoy her before the baby woke up though because once he woke up he was crawling all over everything.

To celebrate my birthday we went to Benihana for dinner. It was so delicious. I forgot how amazing that place is. Not only was the food to die for but the entertainment was awesome.

Jackson was a little piglet and he ate almost an entire plate of noodles. He also learned how to drink out of a straw for the first time. Wahoo! I love the little things. 

We did forget his pacifier though and by the end of the night he was quite cranky. The chef scared one of the teenage girls sitting at our table with a rubber chicken and she jumped while the rest of the table laughed. Jackson on the other hand started screaming on the top of his lungs. Luckily he calmed down pretty quick. He was just so exhausted and I think the noise of everyone laughing startled him.

Then, the next night Tyrone and I went out scuba diving. We went out to the same place I got certified. It was so fun. We saw some sheep crab that reminded us of Jackson. Tyrone stuck his go-pro in the crabs face and the crab would move forward and bump into the camera. Then he would back up and proceed to bump into the camera again. He did this a handful of times and I just kept thinking about Jackson. It was the perfect date night. We followed our scuba dive with a Papa Johns Pizza. I love the garlic butter sauce. Tyrone always complains that I don't share. But, it was my birthday.

Banana Cream Dessert Shooters

I was trying to figure out a fun simple dessert to make for Valentine's day. I was thinking about doing a cake or a pie but there is no way that my husband and I could eat it by ourselves. So, I was looking on Pinterest, where everyone goes to get ideas, right? I came across a chocolate dessert shooter, but I didn't have any of the ingredients. As I was looking in my cupboard I found that I had a banana cream pudding box and I went from there to create my own simple dessert shooter.

Makes 8 servings

Ingredients:
1 box banana cream pudding and pie filling
milk- for pudding mix
vanilla wafers
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream or defrosted cool whip

You will want to make this dessert in some sort of see through cup. I didn't have any small glass cups so I went to Smart and Final and I bought a bag of plastic wine glasses. I think they made the dessert look really fancy. 

Directions:
Follow the instructions on the box to make the pudding. Let it set.

Take a a handful of vanilla wafers and place them in a plastic zip lock bag. I like to double up the bag in case the first one tears.

Get all of the air out of the bags and then use a rolling pin to create vanilla wafer crumbs. If you are using heavy whipping cream, pour about 1/2 cup into a large bowl. Beat on high until the whipping cream becomes stiff.

Then, you are ready to layer. First, place pudding into the cup, then vanilla wafer crumbs, then whipping cream, then vanilla wafer crumbs, pudding, and whipping cream. After the first time it becomes simple. To top it off place a vanilla wafer on top.Easy enough right? It was the perfect single serve dessert to top off our Valentine's day.

The day after Valentine's day my little family drove to the sand dunes to meet up with my parents. Since this dessert made 8, I took the other 6 with me to give to my parents and friends that were going to be there. They loved them.

We also had a blast enjoying the sand dunes! Jackson has now officially been introduced. He loved the sound of the cars starting their engines. He's got a pretty cool grandpa.

What better place to finish off Valentine's weekend than the place where Tyrone first told me he loved me? It only seems fitting.

My Valentine's

If you are wondering, yes. I am wearing a Harry Potter shirt. I am not ashamed.

Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving this year was awesome! In June I was getting ready for this new baby of ours and I thought that we should pick a date for his baby blessing in church so that our family could mark their calendars. We decided to bless him on December 1st which would only be a few days after Thanksgiving. With that in mind, we decided to host Thanksgiving here in Huntington Beach. I was not sure how it was going to turn out at all. I've only cooked a turkey once before in college but that's pretty much it.

Thanksgiving morning I put the turkey in the oven roaster and started getting things ready.
I rubbed the outside of the turkey with olive oil and then I seasoned it with an Italian herb seasoning, fresh grated garlic, and salt and pepper. I chopped up half an onion, two carrots, and a celery stick and placed them inside the bird with Italian seasoning as well to keep the moisture in. Then, I cooked it in the roaster oven at 350 degrees for about 4.5 hours.

Mr. Tyrone carving the turkey

To make Thanksgiving fun for the kids I made a turkey vegetable tray and a turkey caramel apple dip. I got the idea for the vegetable tray from Eating with food allergies. Everyone loved it. They were also pretty simple too. Tyrone had to help me with the turkey face on the vegetable tray though. He's much better at artistic stuff than I am.

On the table I used wide wrapping paper that I had found at the dollar store. I had bought brown craft paper at the dollar store a while back but when I went to pick some up they didn't have anymore so I went with the most Thanksgiving looking wrapping paper they had. This was basically the only one that didn't have any sort of Christmas print on it. It worked fine. Then I bought a big roll of ribbon at Sam's Club to tie bows around the back of the chairs. Again, all they had was Christmas ribbon so I went with the most Thanksgiving looking one.

For the table settings I bought napkins at Bed Bath and Beyond. Then, I made some "Give Thanks" burlap napkin rings. I'm not really that good at crafts like this but they ended up turning out really nice. I had a hard time finding the charms to go on the napkin rings like the tutorial shows but I think that just the ribbon looked nice. I got the tutorial from two it yourself.
 
On each plate I placed a small treat bag filled with "acorns." I used a Hershey's kiss, a small nutter butter and a mini chocolate chip held together by peanut butter. I put 6 in each bag. My father in law loved them. He took all the ones that were left on the table and hid them in the bushes. This is not a joke. I'm glad they were a hit.

Overall I think it turned out great! The weather was gorgeous and it was so much fun to have everyone here in Huntington Beach. Our one bedroom apartment was quite squishy at times but no one complained and I think it was nice to have everyone so close. It's going to be hard to say goodbye to this little place. There are a lot of memories here.

The whole family!

Goodbye Huntington Beach

We are moving!! It still feels unreal but we signed the lease today. I guess it's official. In just a few weeks we will no longer be Huntington Beach residents. We are so excited for the adventures that lie ahead but we are sad for the friends that we will be leaving behind.We are only going to be a few hours away though so it's not the end of the world.

Jacks loves the sun. He's going to be natural beach bum I already know it.

In June Tyrone got a promotion that we were so excited about since I was already five months pregnant. It was definitely a blessing. He has worked really hard and he deserved it. Then, in September he got offered another promotion to be a district manager down in San Diego. It took us both by surprise but we decided to take it. Tyrone started November 1st and he has been commuting every day. I don't know how he does it. It usually takes him about 3 hours to get home after he's done with work. I can't even imagine. But, it's working and we only have about another week left of it and then we can move down there.

I love that we can go to the beach in November here in So Cal

I am so excited about our new place. For those of you who don't know we live in a one bedroom one bath apartment. It's about 550 square feet. Boy is it cozy! We've lived here for just over three years now. The landlord here is amazing and we live just a short three blocks to the beach. You get what you pay for right? We are pretty squished in this little place but we managed to make room for a new baby in here so I can't complain too much. Instead of a baby's room we have a baby's wall.

Tyrone painted our little guy a surf board. It was just a foam board but after he finished painting it, he decided we should get it glassed and get some fins put on it so we could ride it. It turned out awesome! Let's just say other than this picture the board doesn't really hang on the wall like it was meant to. It goes out into the water a lot. Tyrone is just breaking it in until Jacks can ride it.

We took Jacks to the beach when he was just 5 days old

In our new place we have two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Wahoo!! We also have a dishwasher and a washer and dryer in the unit. I had never lived without a dishwasher until I got married. Dishes are by far my least favorite chore. I will do laundry all day, but dishes are just messy and stinky and they are never done! I'm excited about the washer and dryer too. We live in an upstairs apartment right now and I don't really enjoy carrying my laundry up and down the stairs to do it. I also dislike having to go and get quarters. It seems like every time I go to do the laundry I'm out of quarters. Especially now that I have a little guy I feel like I am doing laundry all the time.

Our new place is now 8 blocks from the beach. It is going to be rough to get used to but I'm sure we can manage. I'm glad that his new position is still here in Southern California so that we can continue to live the beach bum life. It is going to be hard to move away from here someday. Maybe we never will, who knows.

As far as my job goes, I went into work today and told them that I won't be coming back because we are moving. I am looking to transfer down to the San Diego area though so that I can teach fitness classes down there. We will see what happens. It would be nice to at least teach once a week to get out of the house and to keep me in shape. I am just 6 pounds over my pre-baby weight. Not too bad eh? What I weighed right before I had the baby was my weight in college. Pretty crazy. It feels good to be active again.

If anyone knows of fun things to do or places to check out in San Diego, let me know. I am excited for this new adventure and I am looking forward to exploring a new city.