The Ultimate Cake Wreck

Last week Aston had a birthday party in the park. It poured with rain beforehand and at one stage we were thinking of canceling. The rain stopped, praise God, and the kids had heaps of fun splashing in puddles! Here is the cake I made.

It looks impressive doesn't it? It's even more impressive when you know it's the second "red and green rocket cake" that I made!

I was very organized and baked the cake on Thursday ready to decorate on Friday afternoon, so far so good. I cut out the template (from my super edition of the Women's Weekly Kids Party Cakes Book), made a big batch of buttercream icing and got out the food colouring.

Not wanting my buttercream to go too runny I had bought proper gel food colouring from a cake decorating supplies store on eBay. I also knew that this type of colouring would have a better chance at turning the icing bright red.

Apparently I was wrong. I added a few drops of food colouring, the icing was pink, so I added some more, still it was not red so I added more and kept on adding more until I used the whole bottle! Even then it was not quite red but I decided it would have to do.

I finished icing the cake and put it in the fridge ready to add the finishing touches after dinner. By this time the kitchen was varying shades of red as were my hands (it's a week later and I still have pink under my nails)! As I was cleaning up I decided to taste some of the left over red icing.

It was terrible! It had a really strong toxic taste to it like it had been mixed with nail polish remover! It turns out food colouring does have a taste to it when used in large concentrations!

I panicked. I cried. I Facebooked and then tried to fix it.

I went to the shop in search of red things, I bought liquid red food colouring, red jelly crystals, desiccated coconut, and hoped some kind of inspiration would strike. (I had a brief moment where i thought about changing the colour of the rocket but my client had been very specific in what colours he wanted).

Initially I tried to scrape the icing off the cake but when I tasted the top layer the evil toxic taste had seeped into it, so I started again.

It was finished by 11pm which is not too bad, working with a warm cake is tricky though as it kept crumbling. I tried to colour the new buttercream with the red food colouring but it turned out a lovely shade of pink so I used the food colouring to dye the coconut and spread that on top.

Aston was very happy with his cake and still doesn't know I made it twice.

 

This Week

It's been one of those weeks. Stuart, Aston and Zachariah have been sick, all with different symptoms so we are not sure if they all had one weird virus or a few different ones. As a result I 'worked' from home on my 2 work days and while I did get some work done I felt mostly unproductive and guilty.

To add to our already disrupted and unwell week, Aston gave us a fright by waking in the early hours of Wednesday morning with an allergic reaction. Not anaphylactic, praise God, but still quite scary (complicated by the fact that we had no antihistamines in the house). I watched him sleep with his epipen by my side just in case.

Here is what is face looked like once the sun came up and after we'd applied steroid cream. It was worse in the night and his lips were swollen. We think it may have been a reaction to eggplant. As you can see he was still in good spirits.

Today everyone seems to be recovering so hopefully next week will see a return to normality (whatever that is)!

 

 

Brothers at 6 months!

August 2009: Aston 6 months old, 8.8kg, 63cm

 

February 2012: Zachariah 6 months old, 7.9kg, 66cm

The New Church

Over the last few months Aston has been fascinated by the story of Barneys. It started when he heard me mention to a neighbour that the church had burnt down. 

 

He watched the latest video update of the progress of the new building and was inspired to compose his own song about 'The New Church'

 

 

 

Roommates

It's 630pm and my two little boys are fast asleep. In the same room! 

In the last month or so we decided to take advantage of the various sleep disruptions over the holidays and move Zachariah into Aston's room. I didn't think they would go to sleep so easily though.

They shared a room at Nana's over Christmas and didn't bother each other too much. I think Zach enjoyed the extra room in the portacot, he's been a bit unsettled and harder to put to sleep in his bassinet since we got home. Tonight I wrapped him, put him the portacot in his new room and he went to sleep all by himself.

Aston has been a nightmare lately, he's dropped his daytime sleep but gets so tired and cranky in the afternoon. Today he had an early bath and dinner and was in bed by 545! Hopefully he won't wake up too early in the morning and both boys sleep well through the night.

Washing Baskets

Me: 1978

Aston: 2009

Zachariah: 2011

Christmas House of Ginger

One of our Advent activities is to make a gingerbread house, or 'ginger' as Aston calls it (I think he is just too lazy to finish the phrase).

I had a moment of wondering if I could bake my own gingerbread but decided it was too much work and bought a kit from Coles with everything included. Unfortunately the lollies which look nice and colourful don't taste very nice. 

I shall put more photos on Facebook for those of you who want to see it from all angles! 

Advent 2011

Last year we followed the countdown to Jesus' birthday with our new advent calendar. This year it's out again, the plan is to read a portion of the Christmas story from the bible and do a Christmasy activity each day. To fit with my disorganization and in an effort to stay flexible I've made a list of activities to chose from each day.  

So far we've just managed to add pieces to our felt nativity scene to build a stable.

Stay tuned for more advent fun!

Kayler's Birthday Cake

This week I got to exercise my cake making muscles and make a cake for Aston's "best friend" Kayler.

Kayler loves all kinds of vehicles so I decided to go with a digger theme. Stu came up with the idea of creating a number 2 made out of 'dirt'.

This is how I made it:

Bake the cake (Aston 'helped')

Plant some grass

Make some dirt

Create a number 2

Add Bob, a digger and other essential elements

The Birthday Boy (in black) and his cake

Uploaded - 26\11\11

Testing

Trying out a new blogging app

Breastfeeding

Before I became pregnant with Aston I hadn't thought much about breastfeeding, I assumed it was something that came naturally to most women and although I was aware that not everybody did it I didn't really know the reasons why.

Breastfeeding however is not always easy and it can take quite a while for both mum and bub to learn what they're doing. Sometimes they can't breastfeed at all.

Aston loved to breastfeed and other than sore nipples at the very beginning we had it mostly under control quite quickly, he loved it so much he developed a sleep association with feeding that made life miserable for all of us. You can read about that here. (NB. This was a problem for us, for others this kind of sleep association may be a more positive thing.)

I think I was expecting Zachariah to be like his brother, in fact I was a bit worried that as he got older Zach too might develop a similar sleep association. At the moment there is no chance of that.

Most of our feeding sessions are quite stressful and often accompanied with much crying. Poor Zach just can not get comfortable. I need to use two hands, one to support him and the other to support my breast otherwise he won't stay latched on. As well as this, my milk was coming out too fast and causing him to choke and gulp and upset his tummy, after a few weeks it settled down and now I think he struggles to cope with how hard he has to work to get his dinner.

After watching a feed the early childhood nurse said "it's not very relaxing or comfortable for either of you is it?" It was comforting to have someone else acknowledge how I felt. She suggested swapping sides every time he got upset which does help. After the first day of doing that Zachariah was a lot more settled during the day and did lots more poos which made me worry that I'd been under feeding him for eight weeks!

I also spoke to an Australian Breastfeeding Association counsellor who encouraged me to stay calm during feeds despite the screaming, to remember that it's Zach's problem not mine and if I am calm he will feel calm(ish) too. Sometimes this is easier said than done.

It is frustrating to not have an easy answer but we are soldiering on. It's not all bad, sometimes we do have a decent breastfeeding session with minimal crying and just this morning Zach stopped sucking and looked up at me with a very cheeky smile! :-)

A possible alternative to breastfeeding?

Fireman Love

Aston has had a "baby in my tummy" ever since we told him I was pregnant with Zachariah, I thought when Zach was born that Aston's baby would be born too. It seems however that Aston's baby was younger than Zach as he was born today.

He has been named "Fireman Love", I have no idea why although I'm pretty sure it has something to do with Fireman Sam, and has gone everywhere with us today. We gave Aston this doll for Christmas and until now he has been called "Baby".

Here is Aston with Fireman Love in a carrier




And here he is giving Fireman Love some milk

Two Boys

My two boys are so very different, I know I shouldn't be surprised but I'm amazed at how we can tell the differences in their personality at such a young age.

Aston was a very laid back baby, he would cry when he needed something and had moments of unsettledness but he definitely wasn't a 'screamer'. Zachariah is not a 'screamer' either but he does make a lot of noise when he wants something.

Zachariah is still working out how to breastfeed, he's getting a lot of milk but we're still learning what to do. By this time I'm pretty sure Aston and I had worked things out. Aston loved to feed too- he had milk every 2 hours or so and would take it every time it was offered. Zach eats every 3-4 hours and does not comfort feed, if I offer him a feed when he's not hungry he will cry!

Aston did not move very much at this age, Zachariah is always trying to move, he pushes himself up to stand when you hold him on your lap. He even tries to crawl during tummy time!

They look very different, Aston had a very round chubby face at this age and blue eyes, Zach is slimmer and has dark eyes- I think they are turning brown.

They have some similarities too, they both love being in the bath. They both have (Aston had at this age) a longish sleep period of 4-6 hours in the evening and lots of cat naps for the rest of the day.

I'm really enjoying seeing both my boys grow and learn and I'm looking forward to seeing them continue to grow up together.

Zachariah George Spires

Born 7.47pm on 19th August 2011, 4.020kg, 52cm long.

He is long and skinny and has a very round perfectly formed head. He even has a little tooth peeping out from under his gum!

At the moment he has two main states of being, asleep and dopey or screaming for food. Occasionally he is happy to sit and look around but very very rarely.

He loves to suck, I was determined to wait for a few weeks before giving him a dummy but neither of us would get any sleep without it!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Waiting for Baby

Today I am 40 weeks and 6 days pregnant, that's theoretically 6 days overdue. This shouldn't surprise me as Aston was 9 days late but it is starting to get a bit tiresome.

I know the baby will come when he's ready and I know that technically full term is anywhere from 37 to 42 weeks. However I'm well and truly ready to have this baby!

This afternoon I have my "postdates" appointment at the hospital where we will probably be booked for an induction. I'm not terribly keen to be induced especially if it means being confined to a bed strapped to monitors. I'm also not terribly keen to have a 2 week overdue baby who weighs almost 5kg!

I've been praying for baby to come and praying for patience and I know that in 2 weeks time all this worry and stress will be irrelevant but I just want to get on with it and have a baby!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Aston's Birth (Part Two)

As mentioned in Part One I've tried not to include too much information but this is the nitty gritty bit so apologies if you're not into this kind of thing...

We were put into one of the birthing rooms and left to it, I’d decided beforehand to do as much as possible without pain relief and the midwife seemed pleased with that. In fact, the whole time I felt like she and I were on the “same page” which was really nice and I hope that happens again.

I don’t remember much about the next few hours, I felt bored but also couldn’t concentrate on reading or watching any of the movies we’d hired from iTunes. The contractions became stronger and more frequent. At one point I freaked out because I felt like I needed to go to the toilet and remembered my sister telling me that she had that same feeling but she didn’t need to go, she needed to push a baby out. The midwife told me that was a good sign but I wasn’t quite ready yet. After that I spent some time in the shower and moved onto the bath.

The bath was amazing, it was somehow relaxing even while being in intense pain, I was a bit out of it by then, I kept dozing off but was somehow still aware of what was going on around me. I’m not sure how we got there but soon it was time to push and I was back in the real world and thinking clearly again (well kind of clearly). At one point the midwife told me “3 more pushes and we’ll have a baby!”

Not quite…

I was pushing but Aston was being stubborn and kept creeping back up the birth canal. I got out of the bath in the hope that changing positions would help. After about an hour and a half of pushing, they decided to give me oxytocin to try and increase the intensity of the contractions. It worked! I felt like I needed to push non-stop but Aston was still happy to stay where he was. I was becoming more and more tired and frustrated. Everyone kept telling me what a good job I was doing and I remember thinking “If I’m doing such a good job, why isn’t it working!”

After 3 hours of pushing, it was decided Aston (and I) needed a bit more help and we would proceed with a ventouse delivery (aka vacuum extraction). At this point the whole mood of the room changed.

Up until now it had mostly been Stuart the midwife and I on our own with the lights dimmed, we’d been visited by a few other midwives at different points and the obstetrician on call as well but on the whole it had been pretty private and quiet.

Now there were about 10 people in the room, midwives, pediatricians, the obstetric registrar and her supervisor. The lights had all been turned on, equipment had been wheeled in, it was busy!

They gave me a local anesthetic as I’d had no other pain relief and before I knew it Aston was born, I didn’t even realize his head was out until someone told me. They put him on my chest but he was still unresponsive so they whisked him away to be examined by the pediatrician.

The next few minutes were the most emotionally taxing for me, lying naked and exposed while being stitched up and seeing my baby at the other end of the room surrounded by strangers. Having stitches was also quite traumatic, I’m not quite sure how to explain it but it took me a long time to come to terms with the physical damage.

Aston 1 day old

However, all was well with Aston, soon he was having his first breastfeed and we were trying to decide if we would actually name him after a car!

Aston's Birth (Part One)

Over the last few weeks I’ve spent a lot of time preparing for our new baby, however, I haven’t done much to prepare for the actual being in hospital and giving birth part of the process.  I feel as though no matter how much you prepare, you are never really going to know how it will all turn out, I’ve done it before, theoretically I should know how to do it again but it will probably be completely different anyway so I shouldn’t think too much about it… I’m not sure any of that makes sense to me either.

As part of getting ready to give birth again I thought it might be helpful to write Aston’s birth story, I don’t think I’ve included too much information but I know some of you might find it a bit awkward to read so feel free to skip these posts.

In the week or so before Aston’s official due date (11^th March 2009) I was pretty laid back and calm, I was enjoying being pregnant, I wasn’t too uncomfortable, I was happy for him to decide when he wanted to arrive. His due date came and went and my relaxed, laid back attitude started to disappear. I was still keen for Aston to choose his own birthday but I also wished he would hurry up and do it! 

At my 41 week appointment at the clinic (that’s one week after the due date), the obstetrician declared that if I ended up being 10 days overdue I would need to be induced. She booked me in for the induction and performed a “stretch and sweep” (stretching the cervix and sweeping the membranes with her fingers) without asking, something I was a bit cranky about. 

The stretch and sweep must have worked though as the next day I had a couple of signs that perhaps labour may be happening soon.  

The night before my induction appointment I woke up a few times with stomach cramps, they went away when I moved around and each time I was able to go back to sleep so I didn’t think much about them. At 5am I woke again and this time found it hard to go back to sleep, I thought the pains may be real contractions but they weren’t as painful or overwhelming as I thought they would be so I wasn’t sure. I decided to get up and have a shower as we were due to be at the hospital at 7am. It was 20^th March 2009.

While in the shower the contractions continued, they were occurring fairly frequently so when I got out I decided to time them, they were 4-5 minutes apart. 

At the hospital I told the midwife who was going to break my waters in order to induce me that I thought I might be in labour, however I didn’t think the contractions I was having were painful or strong enough to be real, they were just very frequent. She told me that I didn’t look like I was in labour. She hooked me up to a machine that monitored the baby’s heartbeat and my contractions, when she saw the readings she changed her mind and told me they were real contractions, I was also 3cm dilated so the induction was called off.

To be continued...

Bec's Prayer Letter - Special Blog Edition

Dear Blog Readers :-)
 
I'm sending this in my second week of leave from Credo, as predicted I didn't quite get everything done before I finished work including sending this update! I'm currently 35 and a half weeks pregnant and enjoying the break at home, although I feel like there is still a lot to do before baby arrives.

Credo News
My Credo colleagues are currently in the swing of Mid Year Evangelism (MYE), there are teams leading HSC study camps, kids clubs, ministering to International Students and even a mission trip to Taiwan! Please pray for them, that God would be glorified.

Credo is also gearing up for our biennial mission in August "More" www.more.org.au baby is due around this time so I will be watching mission activities from a distance via email and the website.


Spires News
We are enjoying a bit of a break at the moment, Stuart is on uni holidays and it's been really nice to relax as a family. Baby Number 2 is due in 4 and a half weeks and we still have a few bits and pieces to organise before then, including finding a name!

Please be praying that all would go smoothly, that we all adjust well to being a family of four and that baby ends up with a name!

Thanks for your continued prayer and support - stay tuned for news of Baby Number 2!

Love From

Rebecca, Stuart and Aston

Crafty

On Wednesday I took my neices to a Craft Workshop at Gleebooks in Dulwich Hill. The workshop was run by Kelly Doust who wrote "The Crafty Kid" and "The Crafty Minx".

Aston was supposed to come too but he was too sick. After Chloe and Meg had finished creating their craft, (Meg decorated a singlet for her new baby cousin and Chloe created some fabric art to hang on the wall). They wanted to choose some fabric to give to Aston, one of the pieces they chose had a picture of a camera on it.




Aston likes to pretend to take photos so I thought I would attempt to be crafty and create a fabric/pillow camera for him to play with.

First I cut out the camera shape with a piece of backing fabric the same size and pinned them together inside out.




Then I sewed the two pieces together. I had a lot of trouble with the sewing machine - not sure if the problem is me or it- but I got there in the end.



Next I cut up some old PJ's from the rag bag into strips for the stuffing.



Then we stuffed our pillow




And here is the finished product!



Say 'cheese'