Much needed Update!

Sorry, life is nuts in May. Anyway, here's what's going on:

David was laid off almost two weeks ago. We thought he had a pretty secure position as the only technician in his company, but apparently they decided that they could do without him. Oh well. He's signed up for unemployment benefits, and has a few options to look into. It is not likely that he will find a job similar to what he was doing, so this will be a definite change in his career. Happily, he was contacted yesterday by a company for which he previously did some independent contracting, and they said they would give him some work until he finds a permanent job. So that is a blessing! Please pray for David.

I'm going to the doctor today. I've had a nasty cough for over three weeks now, and it gets VERY bad at night, to the point of keeping me awake and making my throat really sore in the morning. Hopefully it's nothing minor, I don't have any other symptoms so we will see what the doctor says.

Gracie is such a big girl. She loves to give kisses! She kisses people, dogs, toys, everything, lol. Complete with smooch sound, they are precious. =) She has mastered so many words! She uses Momma, Daddy, Nene, and Dog-Dog every day. She can point to her and your nose, eyes, ears, hair, mouth, chin, knees, toes, feet, fingers, bellybutton, and is working on elbows. Speaking of bellybuttons, oh my goodness, she loves them! She wants to show everyone her bellybutton, and then she wants to see everyone else's, too! She thinks they are so funny! She also loves to say yes and no. Her little "no"s are so cute. It's fun to ask her questions and communicate with her. We had to take her out of her school (Primrose) when David was laid off, so she hasn't had the social interaction with other children that she is used to. David has done a good job keeping her entertained, though, and we will try to get some playdates going with friends of ours. If you want to do a playdate with Gracie, let us know!

We've set up the deck as Gracie's new little playground. She loves to be outside! She has her sandbox, little pool, and now a swing and a water table to play in. Hopefully this will keep her attention away from the potted plants that she destroyed, lol. We're starting to spend time every afternoon out on the deck as a family. A fun, cheap way to spend time together and get some Vitamin D! =)

We celebrated my 24th birthday at the Rangers game last Friday! I've celebrated birthdays at the Ballpark when I was younger, but this was the first time I've ever been to a Rangers home game actually on my birthday! They won the game, and there was a fireworks show afterwards just for me! Just kidding, they have fireworks after the Friday night home games this summer. But it was amazing! A perfect way to celebrate!

I also got my hair highlighted drastically to get rid of all that yucky brown leftover from last fall, and now I am officially very blonde again! =) I love it, I feel so much more like myself as a blonde. Brown can be fun, but I quickly get bored with it, and then am stuck with it for several months as I wait for it to fade out. Pretty sure I'll skip the brown this year!

Saturday Gracie and I went to Ashley's graduation party. Ashley is one of my closest friends, and she has been working so hard in school to get her teaching degree. Well, not only did she get it, but she graduated summa cum laude! She is amazing! What a great influence to her friends and family, to see what hard work can accomplish! She passed her teaching certifications and is ready to go! We are praying that she is offered a full-time position for next school year. And that she and her husband Bennie will finally start making some babies! LOL! Here is a picture of some graduation cap candy pops that I made for the party:

I had to take a few weeks off my bootcamp. I got shin splints the first week, and thought they would get better with new shoes, but they just got worse. I went to the doctor and turns out I have a very slight stress fracture in my left tibia. Yuck. Not bad enough to wear a boot or cast or anything like that, but I was ordered to stop boot camp and any medium or high impact activity. I'm swimming laps in the mornings, trying to get in shape and keep up the program. We'll see what happens.

Okay, well I think that's a good catch-up for now. I'll try to stay on top of this more, it has just been busy busy in the Nichols household! Hopefully the lazy summer days will prevail and I will have more time to keep y'all updated on what's going on with us. Happy June! (Can you believe it's JUNE already?! Goodness...)

David's Birthday and our 2nd Anniversary weekend at the Gaylord Texan

David's mom bought us a hotel room at the Gaylord Texan resort for two nights for David's birthday and our anniversary! We stayed Friday night (8th) and Saturday night (9th). It was a lot of fun! The Gaylord is HUGE! It was decorated to look like Texas, and had a river rinning through it and trees, and it was beautiful! Here are some pictures:

The Mission area of the Gaylord (all under an enormous glass roof!)

Our room! It was on a corner so it was really big.

This was the view from our balcony (Our room faced the indoor atrium)From our balcony, to the left. This is the Riverwalk area of the Gaylord; it looks just like the Riverwalk in San Antonio! (Remember, this is all indoors!)
From our balcony, to the right. That is one entrance to the conference/shopping area of the Gaylord.

Mother's Day 2009

To Laura, Sherrie, Angela, Gran, Grandma Helen, Grandma Mary, and Granny Dorothy,

Thank you for being such wonderful mothers and grandmothers! Your loving and comforting examples are so inspirational to us!


In loving memory of Nana Tommie and Great-Grandmother Georgia,

I think of you both so often. I can't wait to show Gracie pictures and tell her about you as she grows older, so that she may know what very special grandmothers you were.


We love all of you very, very much!

Sara's other eye and Gracie's 16-month check-up

So this morning my right eye starts HURTING. Badly. I immediately remember how bad the iritis got in my left eye a month ago, decide that I don't want to miss another week of work (we can't afford that anyway) so I call Dr. Snook and get an appt. at 1:15. He looks and says I have the beginnings of a corneal ulcer, good for me for catching it so quickly, and to save me some money I can just use the same drops I was using for the iritis and then he gave me a sample of something else to use. Should be perfect in a week. He even put those awesome orange numbing drops in my eye. *sigh* That stuff is addicting, no wonder they won't prescribe it. Out the door 11 minutes later after just my $25 co-pay. Dr. Snook is awesome. (Free ad for him: He rotates between offices in Denton, Lewisville and Plano, accepts virtually every insurance, and he even does glasses and contacts exams! http://www.northdallaseye.com)

Then at 3:00 was Gracie's 15-month well exam and shots. We've had to postpone this a few times due to her always getting sick the week of her appointment. So now at 16.5 months she weighs 24lbs 7ozs (just above average for her age-group) and is 33in tall (in the top 5% of her age group!). Dr. Conger is not concerned at all about her weight because she is SO tall for her age. Everything looks fine, she's on an 18-month level developmentally (teeth, dexterity, habits and vocabulary)! The only thing of concern is the fluid that she has carried on her ears for over 6 months now. Before we go to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist (which will cost us a ton of money because Gracie's insurance has anything to do with her ears on a separate $5750/year deductible), Dr. Conger wants us to add an inhaled steroid (Pulmicort) to her nebulizer and do it twice each day for one month. Back in October, she had us start giving Gracie a nosespray in the mornings to try to ease the pressure in her ears and therefore decrease ear infections, which actually worked. Since the nosespray idea was a success, she believes that by treating her airways and lungs and opening them up more it will further decrease the pressure and hopefully reduce the fluid in her ears, if not get rid of it entirely. So we will try this before we worry about tubes. If the Pulmicort does nothing after a couple of months, we will then go to the specialist. But if there is even a little improvement, we will continue with the Pulmicort until the fluid is gone, and then at that point probably continue the Pulmicort a few times each week to keep it that way. So pray that the Pulmicort works! We are so thankful to have such a great doctor for Gracie who is so willing to work with us and reduce cost by not always jumping into a "quick-fix".

I'm going to try to remember most of the words Gracie is saying now, but there are a LOT of them: Mommy, Daddy, Nanny, dog, ball, poo-poo, hi, bye-bye, that, now, juice, more, no, bubble, bath, and several more. She says sentences: "Hi Mommy (or Daddy or dog)", "Bye-bye poo-poo" (we flush her poops down the toilet and she waves bye to them), and "No juice". She shakes her head no and nods yes in answer to questions (which I love because I can actually have a sort of conversation with her... so cool!). She can point to her belly-button, nose and mouth and gets her ears and eyes mixed up but tries really hard. =) Still sleeping well in her toddler bed, but she hasn't attempted to get out of it in the middle of the night so I don't think she knows that she can. She is officially in all 2T-size clothes now; 18- and 24-months sizes are just not long enough for her. Our big girl!

I make edible cakes, too!

You know I make diaper cakes.... well I am also starting to try new techniques in edible cake baking and decorating, too! I volunteered to make the cake for my friend Brandi's church baby shower. The nursery theme for baby Myer is "Enchanted Forest", with woodland creatures, so I was trying to figure out how to get them onto the cake. I went and bought the wall stickers for the nursery so I would have something to draw from, and then in my online research I discovered the buttercream transfer method. Essentially it involves tracing a design with icing on wax paper, freezing it, and then pressing it into an iced cake. It was hard and took a long time, (since I did five transfer designs) but it was a neat technique to get the exact pictures I wanted onto the cake. If you want more details on how I did this and good recipes for both buttercreams needed, let me know and I will forward them to you.

The shower was a lot of fun, and the cake was great (if I do say so myself =P). If you need a cake for an occasion, let me know and I would love to make it!

Gracie and I had a great time today visiting Great-(great)Grandmother in the hospital, and then hanging out with Gran and the dogs (plus Dash). Enjoy some pictures of Gracie playing around in her very smiley mood and in her pretty Sunday dress! =)

Dash was running laps and Gracie was cheering him on.. so cute!

1st Bluebonnet Picture Attempt

Amber told me about a park in Coppell with a bunch of bluebonnets (thank goodness, because I was about to drive Gracie down to Ennis and that wouldn't be fun!), so we went there today since it was so pretty.

Not a wonderful idea. Gracie was being very clingy, didn't want me to walk two steps away from her to take her picture, and the only way I could get her to look at the camera without crying was to give her some puffs, so then her hand was in her mouth. *sigh* Oh well, here is the best I got today, I'll try again later this week.

What do you think of the green dress and bow? Should I try that again, or just go with a white t-shirt and jean shorts?

Easter!

Happy Easter! Church this morning was great... last Easter was the first time we attended Northview and it was great to see how the church has grown! As usual, Brother Ken gave us a powerful message; today he started a new sermon series on hope. I can't wait for the next few weeks!

Yesterday we went to my Dad's house to visit with him and Angela and Grandma Mary. Gracie had so much fun running around the house and backyard playing with Dash and toys. This afternoon we just spent relaxing at our house and had a nice family Easter dinner. Here are some pictures, with Gracie in her beautiful Easter dress!

Chillin' at Grandad & Grangi's

Today we went to my dad's house to visit with him, Angela and Grandma Mary who was in town for Easter. Gracie has a great time playing with everyone and with Dash. Here are some pictures of our nice, relaxing visit.

Annual Family Pictures

Here they are! Big thanks to Dad for scanning them in for me today. I am so pleased with these! I thought they came out much better than last year's. This year I put us in light blues and dark purples to match Gracie's beautiful dress she got from the Jones' for her birthday. My favorite is, of course, the one of her and I. That is now my new very favorite picture. =)

Update

Alrighty, well I'm moving right along on my new diet/fitness plan. I've been eating really well in the mornings, sticking to low carb, low calorie foods every two hours and drinking lots of water. Then I get off work at 1pm and have a million errands to run and end up not eating again until dinner, at which point I'm so hungry I cave in and eat a burger or something equally not good for me. But I'm still remaining within my calorie limit for each day, so that's good. The next boot camp session doesn't start until May, I think, so until then I am going to go to a couple of classes at the gym, a boot camp conditioning and a mat pilates class. They are both in the evening, so I will have to see how that works. Yesterday I walked for 45 minutes on a treadmill, watching the end of the Ranger game. It was great; time went by so fast I had no idea I'd been going that long! So that was really good. I will jump on the elliptical today, perhaps they'll have the Rangers game on again to make it go by faster!

I'm thinking of getting my hair cut. I'm ready for something different. I'm scared because I've had the same style since high school, pretty much and I'm just used to it and like it. But I really don't want to go very short. I have a "no shorter than my shoulder blades" rule, and I really don't want short bangs. I don't know what style that leaves for my hair, as it's so fine and thin and just sits there but I will try to figure something out. Oh well. Just stay tuned for something new.

Gracie is good. She is saying so many words and is so active right now. She says Hi and buh-bye and juice and boo-boo, and of course bubble. =) She flushes her poo-poos down the toilet and waves bye-bye to them. Building the potty-training foundation. That would be incredible if we could go for awhile without diapers before we have another baby, but we will let her set her own pace with that. She just got over another ear infection. *sigh* Tubes are on the way, I'm sure. Oh well we'll face that when we come to it.

We had our annual family pictures taken a couple of weekends ago and we just got them back, so as soon as I get them scanned in I will post them up here. They are GREAT. =)

I hope everyone has a great Easter holiday!

TODAY is the start of something new!

TODAY is Monday, March 30th, the first day of a new me. I am going to work out at least three times each week. Today I went to bootcamp for the first time, (5:15am-6:15am) and while it was hard, I loved it! I can't wait to go back Wednesday! This week is just Bring a Buddy week, so I am going with my friend Lacey from church to make sure I like it and that it works with my schedule, and then if all is good I will sign up for the next session. It was a lot of fun, again very hard, but I was able to go at my own pace and surprised myself with what I could do! I actually liked getting up that early (I already get up at 5:30 every morning to be at work at 7am), and I'm feeling pretty good about the rest of my day!

I'm also going to eat better. I've done this before, but never with such a motivating workout, so I'm praying that this time I will be diligent. I use www.thedailyplate.com to count my calories. I can only have 848 calories per day, so I have to work hard! The workout burns a lot of them, though, so I can always replace them. But ground rules are: No cokes, no caffeine, no fast food, no sweets (UGH), a lot of protein, a ton of water and as many fruits and vegetables I can eat. So we will see. I'm going to post my daily plate on a separate blog that can be accessed from this one, so that I can be held accountable for what I eat (in other words, yell at me if you see sweet tea or Girl Scout cookies on there!).

Staying in better touch with friends and family. I have been horrible at this for almost two years now, and there are no excuses. I love absolutely all of you and I want to spend time with you and talk to you all as much as I can.

Growing in my faith. I am doing a Max Lucado Bible study right now, and will do the Experiencing God study next. I'm becoming very fascinated with Biblical prophecy, so I've been reading a lot of books on that subject, and am looking forward to a Biblical prophecy speaker coming to our church in April. I'm also reading my Bible from beginning to end, for the first time in a very long time. The more I read, the hungrier I get for more. It is exciting to grow in God!

Budgeting. Yeah, I'm just bad and need to get better. We sat down in February with a calendar and all of our bills and scheduled our spending for the entire month, and it worked out really well. We totally procrastinated in March and now here we are almost in April. So we're going to get on top of this and do it Dave Ramsey's way (I was so sad to miss him speaking in Dallas this past Saturday; we couldn't afford to go). He is awesome and I know we can make it work if we just stick with it!

So those are my new goals and I'm going to be working very hard on them. I know I'll be happier if I can just get it all organized and do it. So please pray for me as I try to focus more on these things.

Oh and we took family pictures on Saturday. We should get them back in a couple of weeks so stay tuned for some really great pictures of the Nichols' family!

My First Year of Diaper Cakes

I can't even remember where I first saw or heard of a diaper cake, but I remember my first thought about them was, "That sounds like such a neat way of wrapping a baby shower gift!" Little did I know it would turn into a wonderful hobby!

I was pretty busy with my three-month-old Gracie, but one year ago, I decided to make my first diaper cake. My childhood friend Aaron and his wife Deanna were excitedly expecting their first baby, a girl named Addison. They had chosen Laura Ashley's Sally the Seahorse theme as Addison's nursery decor, so I thought it would be fun to make a matching diaper cake. Sally the Seahorse had been one of my few finalists when I was choosing Gracie's nursery theme, so I was pretty familiar with the colors. The teal blue and pink gingham fabrics were so beautiful. I bought a box of newborn diapers, a bunch of rubber bands, the matching ribbon I needed, and some extra "sea"-themed accessories I would try to incorporate into the cake. It turned out something like this:

I was really proud of it! I had ribbon in the exact blue and pink to match the theme, and hooked some sea creature teethers into the ribbon at each level. To top it off, I'd found a string of seashells that I swagged across the cake, and made a pink letter "A" with some sea themed buttons that I glued on. They loved it!

My next cake was actually requested by my high school friend Hillary, who was living in California at the time. Her little sister Laura was expecting a little girl named Lexi, and was doing a pink and brown theme.

I really wanted to perfect my layers with this one, but ended up with some sub-layers, creating a very tall cake. This time I did not rubber band each individual diaper. I'd started to, but then had to start over, and realized how much of a pain it was to cut the rubber bands off each diaper. I realized that the recipients of my cakes were going to have to do that themselves, and who wants to work that hard just to get to their gift? So I kept the layers together with big rubber bands and it worked out great! I snipped them after I tied off the ribbons and it resulted in a much cleaner-looking cake. I decided to do all my future cakes this way. That way the recipients can just snip the ribbons and all the diapers will just fall away, revealing the gifts inside!

Next, my biggest cake. Cy and Jaqueline Jones were having a girl, and had chosen a precious purple Mulberry theme. This is a pretty dark picture of the blanket in the bedding set, but I used it to choose my ribbons.

I really wanted to use much wider ribbons this time, as I knew I would be using a LOT of diapers (232 was the final count!). Instead of doing six total tiers (as in, each tier resting directly on top of the one below), I did three sub-tiers, which resulted in a more compact, but very wide (and heavy!) cake.

Since I used wider ribbon on each level, I was able to use coordinating smaller ribbons on top of them. This allowed me to experiment with ribbon charms and really give a tailored look to the cake.

I also accented a few places with a single flower, and used a garland as a cake topper. Overall, they were very pleased with it, and I was just discovering how much I loved this!

Then came Brian and Whitney Goff's shower for their baby girl Ainsley. The Goff's had been given this beautiful Tropical Punch bedding. I was so excited to work with these fun colors!

I found the perfect matching ribbons! This cake I made in four real tiers, and really liked the way it looked. I used flowers as a topper again, and this time I found some fun magnetic letters in a whimsical font that I painted pink with yellow stripes and polka dots and tucked into the ribbons. I usually keep most of the gifts inside the cake, but the yellow and pink washcloths went so great with the overall theme I just had to make a few of them visible on each layer. I still love this theme, as it fits so well with the Goff family's sunny and fun personalities!

My latest cake was for Brandon and Amber Dion's precious Kenadi Nicole, their fourth child and first girl! Amber is just about the very most creative person I know (look at this beautiful scrapbook she made!), so I wanted this cake to be very special, and to match Miss Kenadi's pink, green, and brown birds theme perfectly.

I found ribbon in the colors of the window treatments Amber had used, but I was having a hard time really perfecting the cake in my mind. After much trial and error, I finally just started building and let it come together itself.

Here it is! I did three real layers this time, but I wanted to give the cake an airy feel, so I used cake pillars that I painted brown and covered in brown textured paper to elevate the top tier. The birds were a wooden material and I decoupaged different papers onto them and accented them with ribbons and paper flowers.

I used a wide pink sheer ribbon that I accented with green skinny ribbon to display ribbon charms that say: "Smile", "Adore", "Delight" "Joyful", "Celebrate" and "Happy Day". The Dion's household is so brightened by the addition of their beautiful daughter and sister Kenadi, so I felt these charms very accurately described the occasion.

It took me forever to decide how to top this cake, untiI finally stumbled upon this little wooden birdhouse. I painted it green, and at the last minute covered the roof with the same brown textured paper I'd used on the columns. It gives such a natural feel to the whole look of the cake.

So this was my first year of diaper cake baking! =) I learn something new each and every time, and it is so much fun to use so many different elements in all of the cakes. If you would like me to make one for someone as a gift, please let me know and I will get with you about costs. I only charge for the cost of materials, as I have such a great time putting them together I don't feel right charging someone else for the fun I'm having! I have an etsy shop, http://gracenotedesigns.etsy.com/. I sell these custom-designed diaper cakes, as well as handmade memory boards and magnets and other random things. I will update it frequently so keep checking in!

I'm already looking forward to making my next one, gathering supplies and ideas all the time. Thanks for sharing a look back at my first year of diaper cakes, and look forward to many more to come!