35 weeks

Autumn is here now. Making it all the more real to me each day that our little bean will soon greet us! This is truly my favorite season, so I am happy to get to have another little one during this time. Cool mornings, pumpkin picking, apple cider, pumpkin donuts, hayrides, and burning candles are some of the many wonderful things we enjoyed this weekend to celebrate the season. I'm trying to soak up these activities with Liam and focus on him, since soon, it will be a divided focus. Still wondering how that will look, how Liam will react and what day to day life will mean with two little ones.

Applesauce + Raspberry Picking

If there's one thing Liam has done since he was born, it has been to go raspberry picking!!! See here and here . Even though raspberries are now not his favorite thing to eat, he still tried a few and picked a few and found other ways to amuse himself at the patch. Another tradition Liam loves is making applesauce with my family. Mostly because he gets to splash around in apples, take bites and turn the applesauce crank. I love these little experiences I get to share with him year after year. He remembers them and talks about them all throughout the year. We look forward to taking his little brother with us on our next adventures in the orchard.

Alaskan Cruise Cake

This was a cake for a co-workers birthday! She was headed off on an Alaskan cruise, shortly after this party. Jason and I would love to see Alaska one day. It's definitely on our travel bucket list.

 I had a lot of fun with this cake, from the tiny cruise ship details to the icebergs and little penguin hanging out. So much fun!! I also recently got a stamp set, that I've set aside specifically for fondant, so I had fun imprinting the message with stamps for a change.

 Happy birthday Louise!

33 weeks

This babe is growing quickly now. I feel it's strong movements at the most inconvenient of times lately. Say, when I'm piping on icing details for a cake or desperately trying to fall asleep, but it just reminds me I have a strong baby boy growing steadily and nothing makes a Mama's heart feel better and reassured than that!

It has been a busy couple of weeks, moving back into our house, cleaning, washing baby clothes, taking stock of what we have and still need for the baby and the house, celebrating a birthday and a wedding.

 Our floors are hopefully going in this week and we have some meetings with contractors to finish up the details of our house. Liam is desperately looking forward to bringing his toys downstairs again and I am as well. Right now our dining and living room sit empty and we miss having a downstairs ( besides the kitchen and laundry room) that function like livable spaces.

We just got a second, more family friendly car, for Jason, ( bye, bye old truck) to drive to work everyday. A Honda, Element that will be more reliable, with way better gas mileage and have room for trips to Lowes but still fit two car seats. Not exactly something we wanted to take on this summer, but a necessary must for our life right now.

We are enjoying the little tastes of fall. We stopped for some pumpkin donuts recently and I've been knitting baby things ( and hopefully some for Liam too)

I'm still working some banquets and taking cake orders for the foreseeable future. That's life right now at 33 weeks.

At the beach 2015

 We woke Liam up early Sunday morning to surprise him with a day at the beach. We'd been promising all summer, that when we moved back home, we would go to the beach. This kid loves sand. In fact, at playgroup you can usually find him in the sandbox, regardless of who's around playing or not. It's his happy spot.

So imagine his delight when he realized he had an unlimited sandbox for the day. This was his first time at the beach. Each year, we mean to go, but something always comes up. We haven't been since I was pregnant with Liam.

He loved the ocean too. It was fun to watch him get acquainted with the ocean, waves and tides. We took a few dips in the "pool" as Liam called it, but most of the day was spent playing in the sand. We stopped for a picnic lunch and to get custard on the boardwalk. And to really make the day special, we stopped in Philly on the way home so I could get a lobster roll. A pregnancy/ summer dream come true. It was really a lovely relaxing family day, that was well deserved for everyone, considering the grueling, bumpy summer it's been for Jason and the long time we spent away from him and our home.

Galaxy+ Constellations Cake

This was one crazy fun cake to do. Swirls of white, purple, dark and light blue buttercream, and flaked shimmery sprinkles did an excellent job of making it look like the milky way. I added some constellations, incorporating the birthday girls name and age and a few planets.

Happy weekend all! Take a moment to look up at the awesome summer sky tonight!

Corn Party

 Liam loves Nana and Pop's garden. In fact he would rather pick lima beans than ride bike. He gets so excited when he sees either of them in the garden, he goes running for his boots. The corn came in last week, so Liam finally got to experience a day of picking, husking, brushing, cooking, soaking and cutting off the corn to freeze for the winter. This was something I grew up doing every summer, so it was nice to share it with him. Although I will admit with the addition of a corn de-silker machine, it does take hours of the "fun" away. Hours I use to spend with my Grandparents brushing and listening to their childhood stories. Liam, however, diligently feed the machine with corn, when he wasn't busy trying to figure out how the thing worked. He even helped brush some of the extra hairs off, but his favorite task of the day was eating it fresh cut off the cob! Mine too!

29 weeks

 11 more weeks! Give or take, you know. Sometimes I really wish for about 11+ more weeks just to feel settled and get everything done we hope to accomplish. Then I start to ache more, toss and turn at night more and grow bigger, making me thankful for the pretty easy pregnancy thus far and realize I am right where I should be.

We did move the crib out of Liam's room and into ours this weekend. That felt like something! Liam has a big bed now and that's one thing off the the to-do list. We've had some pretty significant set backs with renovating that have felt discouraging, but we keep looking forward, because we are racing the baby clock and have come to terms that certain things will not be finished in time. But this wall behind me is pretty exciting. It's our dining room wall! It's primed, white and beautiful! We had a new window installed this week that is a little bigger than our old one and having it white, means it's gloriously light in there now. Anyone of you who has been in our dinning room knows how dark and dingy it felt with the exposed ceiling and dark torn wallpaper everywhere. So, that is pretty awesome!

For right now we spend our weeks apart while Jason works on the house and about 24 hours of the  weekend being a family again. Not ideal, but things are getting there. So for now I wait, binge watch netflix shows, eat chocolate and hang out with Liam while it's just the two of us.

Strawberry Shortcake Wedding Cake

 I recently had the pleasure of doing this simple, rustic strawberry shortcake cutting cake for the wedding of a sweet couple I know. They had a strawberry shortcake bar for their guests at the reception ( what an awesome idea) so for their cake we went with the same flavors, so they could get a taste. The cake was vanilla pound with a fresh strawberry filling and vanilla buttercream. Decorated with some burlap and fresh flowers to go with their beach themed decor. So happy for you Amanda and Tyler! Your day looked beautiful. Head over to Moody Photographers for more photos of this lovely wedding!