Category: family

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Exploring with Ed!

Ed and I love to plan our vacations around the United States, with the idea that we want to see our country. The summer before we got married, we drove out west and stopped at as many National Parks as we could. We hiked in the Badlands, climbed boulders around Devil’s Tower, and saw Mount Rushmore. We spent six days and nights exploring different sections of Yellowstone National Park. We drove through the Grand Tetons, and wished we had more time to stop and hike.

Once Lily was born, we decided to explore closer to home. Lily hated traveling, so we didn’t want to drive too far away. We went to Southern Illinois, and it was like discovering a whole new world, right in our own backyard. We hiked in places with mystical names such as Giant City, Ferne Clyffe, and Garden of the Gods. These places lived up to their names in their beauty and awe-inspiring views.

Lily and I are ready to hit the trails in Southern Illinois!
She was about 10 months old at the time.

Garden of the Gods

When I was six months pregnant with Emmy, we ventured into the Smoky Mountains. Please visit The Motherhood Muse blog to read a post I wrote about our experience there. I’m the guest blogger today. (Whoo-hoo!) Here’s some pictures from the Smoky Mountains, and you can see just how pregnant I really was. Which was only six months. (Seriously, I looked like I was ready to deliver Emmy right there in the mountains!)

Ed crossing a stream with Lily on his shoulders AND a backpack.
He’s THE MAN!


Here’s Lily and me, after hiking UP to see a waterfall.
Don’t forget–come visit me over at The Motherhood Muse blog!
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A Tale of Five Birthday Cakes

Yesterday we held our family Birthday Bash for Lily, who turned five last week. I like to bake and decorate a cake for the girls’ birthdays, since I have fond memories of my mom making my birthday cake. (I just use cake mix and store-bought frosting; don’t get too excited!) Lily’s very first cake was a flower cake; the frosting was a little bumpy and uneven, and it definitely didn’t look like a bakery cake. Lily was a very finicky eater when she was one, and she didn’t like her fingers to get messy. She wouldn’t even touch the cake, much less eat it! We tried to put her finger in the frosting, but she wanted NOTHING TO DO WITH CAKE!

For Lily’s second birthday, she wanted a party that was all about doggies. I made a cake with chocolate dog bones on it, and she was quite different about eating cake now that she was two. In fact, she really got “into” helping me decorate her cake.

For Lily’s third birthday, I kept the cake simple. I made her another flower cake, and decorated it with three ladybugs. We sang to her and she blew out the candles on her cake in the family room so that Ed’s mom could join in the fun, since she wasn’t able to walk up the stairs to our dining room. Having her cake on a TV tray didn’t bother Lily one bit!

I finally attempted to make my own frosting for Lily’s fourth birthday. I made an easy lemon glaze, but I was really unhappy with how it looked. Lily wanted a My Little Pony on her cake; more specifically, Minty. I used store bought frosting for the pony, and even though I didn’t like the glaze, at least it tasted yummy! (And I thought I drew a pretty decent pony.)

This year, Lily turned FIVE, and so was very specific about what she wanted on her birthday cake. She wanted a butterfly cake with a picture of Buddy the T-Rex from Dinosaur Train on top, AND she wanted to decorate the cake BY HERSELF. I finally convinced her that a butterfly cake would be great, and we didn’t need to put Buddy on top. I helped fill in the body of the butterfly, and I was going to smooth out the purple wings, but then I realized it was HER cake, and it was beautiful just the way it was.

I think she was pretty happy with her beautiful butterfly birthday cake!