cake decorating

A few months ago I mentioned to Mike that I wanted to learn how to decorate cakes and cupcakes. I like baking but I want to be able to at least decorate my kids cakes myself. So for Christmas Mike bought me tickets to a beginners cake decorating class. We had two tickets so we made a date night out of it. I love Christmas presents when you can't break it or outgrow it or lose it. Its a skill that can benefit you for as long as you practice it and use it.

We had a lot of fun at the class. It was just us and one other girl so our teacher was able to really focus on us. We spent the first hour practicing and learned lots of tips to make decorating easier and less messy. After we practiced on a piece of cardboard and wax paper, we each got 9 cupcakes to do different designs on. The practice board was something I had never thought of. You just cover card board with wax paper and practice your design and then scrape it right back into your bowl...no wasted frosting! It was harder than I expected but I think for it being my first time I did a pretty good job. We did a little piping and worked with fondant a bit too.

 A few of our favorites. Mikes are the green and yellow cupcakes and the pink fondant roses. Mine are the pink and green.

 I love the elephant the most. It was so much fun to do. I also really loved the bouquet of roses.

I hope that I can take a few more classes so I can keep learning more! The cupcakes were delicious too! Thank you for a great Christmas present!

A Year in Review: 2015!

I saw this done on a friends blog and I love the idea so I decided to do it! It was so much fun to go back and remember the year! 2015 was a big year for our family and doing this makes me so excited for 2016!

January

• Daniel had his first trip to the park! He loved the swings! It was so much fun to see him laughing away. He didn't really like the slide though. We had been in Charleston for Christmas and New Years and it was really nice to be back home together. Just me and my little boy again, staying busy while daddy is away at school.
• Mike started his final year of chiropractic school!!!
• We went back down to Charleston at the end of January for Mike to run in the Charleston Marathon. He ran the half marathon in 1 hr 41 minutes.

February

• Spartanburg got snow in February! We had a couple of snow days with daddy because school was closed. So we got to go outside and play in the snow and have fun with our friends Bri and Craig.  
• Mike ran another half marathon this month. It was super cold. It was below freezing for most of the race and it was way too cold for Daniel and I to be outside watching so we watched daddy finish the race from inside of a CVS. 
• We bought a new car! Our accent was just too small and we got a great deal at Hyundai to upgrade to the next size up. So we traded our grey accent and got a pretty blue elantra. 

March

•  We celebrated our 5 year anniversary!!! We were planning a big trip together at the beginning of April so we just had a small celebration together. We had baked ziti for dinner and the three of us went to Cold Stone for ice cream :)
• Daniel started pulling himself up on everything this month. He was getting really brave trying to walk around the apartment. 

April

•  Mike and I both ran races this month. Mike ran a half marathon and I ran a 5K. This race was in the pouring rain which gave me motivation to finish. This was my second 5K and I did it in 32 minutes 37 seconds!! Mike finished his race in 1 hr 34 minutes- his fastest half marathon he's ever done! We were both very happy and proud of each other! After the race we got cinnamon rolls as a reward haha
• Daniel had his first Easter! It was so much fun to see him find his basket and his books. He loved the Easter eggs. We didn't put anything in the eggs this year because he was still under one year old but he didn't seem to mind. We filled his ball pit with eggs and he threw them all over the apartment. 
• Mike and I left Daniel for 5 days and went on our 5 year anniversary trip to Jacksonville Florida and Orlando. It was an amazing trip! We had sunny weather the whole time and had fun going to the zoo, Downtown Disney, St. Augustine, the beach and the temple. It was super relaxing and so nice to spend time just the two of us. It was a great trip and one I definitely want to repeat but with more time to spend at Disney.

May

• I turned 25!!
• My baby Daniel turned 1!!! 
• Daniel got his first hair cut. It took a year but his hair finally got too long and so we took him to see a friend of ours for his hair cut. He sat so still and looked so grown up sitting in the chair all my himself. It was so sad to see my baby getting a hair cut. He didn't look like such a baby anymore. 
• I had my first mothers day with Daniel. I was pregnant the year before but this year Daniel and I went to a special Mother's Day breakfast at Chick fil a on Saturday. Its a tradition that I would love to continue with all of our children. We had breakfast and also decorated flower pots together. 
• I ran another 5K. This time I ran in the woods. It was much more of a cross country 5K and I really didn't like it. I didn't have a bad time and it was nice to run in the sunshine for once but I definitely would have preferred roads. 
• We went down to Charleston for Daniels birthday because my little brother Josh graduated from high school on Dan's birthday. It was fun to have a dual celebration for both of them.

June

• We had Daniel's birthday party at the beginning of June. My parents came up to Spartanburg for it and we also got to celebrate with a lot of our friends who all love Daniel so much!
• We got our family pictures back finally that we had taken and we love them!!! Daniel was so good during the photo shoot and we were able to get a lot of really nice pictures. 
• We stopped giving Daniel a bottle this month! We had been transitioning him slowly to no more formula but around the second week of June we ran out of formula and Dan did so well without it. He didn't cry for his bottle at all. We are so blessed to have a boy who is such a great eater!
• Mike went on a trip to Las Vegas at the end of June to interview for a possible job after he graduated. So it was just me and Dan for a few days. It was hard to be without Mike (it was my first time alone) but we stayed busy.
• Mike and I went on a trip to Charlotte to see Taylor Swift! This was a late Christmas present for me and it was totally worth the wait!! It was my first concert and I loved every second of it! We had so much fun singing and dancing to every song. I'm sure people thought we were teenagers haha

July

•  My parents came up to see us for the 4th of July again this year. We opted for a quiet night in so we didn't have to take Daniel out super late. We did sparklers at the apartment and had yummy food. 
• Mike and I started taking golf lessons from Randall, one of Mike's classmates. We took Dan and he just sat and played with the golf balls while we tried to play. I'm not the best at it but it is pretty fun to do. 
• We've been spending lots of time at the pool because its been hot and Daniel loves the water. 

September

•  In August Mike and I started doing fertility shots to have another baby. On September 11 we did the IUI to hopefully get pregnant with our second baby.
• At the end of September went on our East Coast trip with my brother and Mike's brother and sister. It was awesome and we had so much fun visiting so many cities on the coast. Maine was the most beautiful place we went and New York was the most fun. 

October

• We found out on October 1st that we were pregnant!! We took a blood pregnancy test and after a couple weeks we shared the news with our friends and family. 
• We got to celebrate Halloween with my mom and we got to go trick or treating twice. We had a truck or treat at church and also a small one at Sherman. We dressed up as Jurassic World characters so Mike was Owen, I was Claire and Daniel was our little dinosaur!
• Mike and I ran races again on Halloween. For Mike it was another half marathon and I ran my first 10K. It was a rough race for both of us but we finished strong and I'm proud of us for setting the goal and finishing it!

November

• We went down to Charleston to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. It was our last trip to Charleston before we moved to Las Vegas. It was fun but sad at the same time to know we won't be there next year. It's always so much fun to see Daniel with his grandparents and his uncle Josh.
• Mike was very busy during October and November trying to finish up school and I was also very busy packing up our apartment for the move. November especially was a crazy month of packing and trying to figure out what we could live without for a while and what we couldn't. It didn't help that I was sick for the first trimester of this pregnancy so some days I just got nothing done. 

December

• Mike graduated from chiropractic school!!! His graduation happened on the same weekend that we were moving from South Carolina to Las Vegas. It was so much fun to celebrate with friends the weekend before and then to celebrate with our families on the day he graduated. I am so proud of him!
• We moved to Las Vegas! We spent 4 days driving cross country and let me tell you, it was not fun. Daniel was a trooper though and did so much better than I expected and honestly probably better than I did. We're settling into life here but we've adjusted to the time change at least pretty quickly. 
• Daniel officially started going to nursery! He could've gone at the end of November but with traveling for Thanksgiving and moving we waited until our first Sunday in Vegas. He has loved going every week and we're loving it too.
• Mike ran his last half marathon of the year. The Paris Mountain race and it was horrible. The course was absolutely awful. The only good part was that when he came home we had his graduation party so all he had to do was sit and eat cake :)
• We announced baby #2 to the world!
• We celebrated Christmas and New Years! We had a wonderful holiday season and are very blessed. 

 *I know August is missing but other than doing lots of fertility stuff, August was pretty boring and I didn't take many pictures.

2015 was a wonderful year of fun and change for our little family. I'm excited and nervous for the changes that 2016 will bring including becoming a family of 4!

New Years 2016

We had a pretty quiet New Years Eve this year. To be honest I don't get too excited over New Years. I feel like it is such a personal thing to set goals that I just don't get into the whole partying thing. We started our night going to a missionary home coming. It was nice to go out and they had live music because the priest quorum in the ward has a band so dancing and listening to music was fun. Daniel was completely captivated by the music and wouldn't take his eyes off the band. Its the first time I've seen him in a room he could run around in but he would not go anywhere by himself.

We went home around 8 and put Daniel to bed because by 7:45 he wasn't even walking straight anymore. Once he was in bed we watched movies and Mike and his mom played Nertz. I had suggested we make use of the fire pit outside and roast marshmallows for smores. If I had known it was going to be 36 degrees I never would have suggested such a thing :) We did go out and do it though and they were delicious!

Mike and his mom getting warm by the fire

 We went back in close to midnight and cleaned up for bed. Then we counted down and toasted to the New Year with yummy martinelli's. I honestly don't know how I made it to midnight but I crashed and was in bed almost immediately after we drank our apple cider.

Happy New Year!

R5

A few months ago on our east coast trip my sister in law Stacey played the R5 album for me. I thought they were pretty good. A month or so later she texted to say they were coming to Vegas in December and she was getting tickets and asked if I would like to go with her. I told her I'd love to and was very excited. The concert was on January 1st. The theater was beautiful and we had awesome seats! The only downside was that I didn't feel well during the beginning of the concert so I missed that and I felt too nauseous to get up and dance during the show :( The music was great though!

Date Night!

One of the many benefits of living in Vegas is having grandparents close by to babysit Daniel. Since Mike and I got a gift card to go out to eat and for Cold Stone for Christmas, Mike's parents watched Daniel and we got to go on a date! It was so nice to go out by ourselves! I needed it a lot!! It was so relaxing. We went to dinner at Carrabba's which was so yummy! Then we went down to the strip and explored the Venetian and Palazzo casino's. The Palazzo was so fancy! While we were shopping though the alarms went off saying an incident was under investigation...that was a little scary. We also saw the gondola ride they have to take you between the two casinos and after we went to Cold Stone for ice cream which was delicious! It was a great evening :)

At dinner :)

The High Roller...takes 30 minutes to go around once