Hanging in there!

I realized the other day that I'm already bigger than I ever was when I was pregnant with Daren, and that I need to buy some bigger clothes or I'm going to start cycling through my clean clothes very quickly! So today Kurtis took me to Walmart to find some new maternity dresses. He pulled up to the entrance so I could get out and find a scooter cart, but to my dismay there were none! It's not that I can't walk, but I do get pretty tired after only a few minutes when I'm up on my feet, even with walking slowly. After Kurtis came in and looked around some more for a scooter cart with no luck, he told me to start heading to the maternity section and he'd be right back. When we met again, Kurtis was carrying a fold up chair and an ottoman! I love my smart husband, he always comes up with clever solutions. Needless to say, it was nice to be able to sit, even though I couldn't move around as easily.

It took a little help to find the "maternity" section at our Walmart. The lady who showed us directed us to a single arm on a rack. (Does that make sense? Picture a rack with four arms, just one of those had a few maternity shirts and pants lol.) Kurtis ventured around the rest of the women's section and tried to find some non-maternity dresses that could work, but the only ones that might have had empire waists that landed right in the middle of my belly. I then asked Kurtis if he could find any maxi skirts (and described what they are since he wasn't sure). A couple minutes later, he returned with what almost fit the description of a maxi skirt; it was a single layer of stretchy fabric that folded over at the top--but it was only about a foot long, lol! He said, "we could get two and you can use one for each thigh!", which totally wasn't offensive to me because this skirt was seriously tiny! We laughed so hard.

30 Weeks

1:30 AM Halloween morning, I woke up with intense, sharp unrelenting pain throughout my entire abdomen. When it was apparent there was no relief, Kurtis packed up some things, and drove Daren and I to the hospital. A half hour later, I was admitted to Labor and Delivery at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo. They immediately gave me an IV with medication that would suppress the contractions, and tried to get me as comfortable as possible. It was a long night. With all the commotion, Daren and Kurtis didn't go back to sleep until about 6 AM, and by 9 AM, a dear friend of ours graciously took Daren for us. By this time, my contractions had become much more bearable and the pain meds really seemed to be helping. Though, my stay at the hospital wasn't over.

10:30 AM, a perinatologist took a look at the baby through an ultrasound and discovered a few new things (for those who don't already know about the baby's heart condition, read more HERE). First, she noticed that baby has developed hydrops, which means he has abnormally accumulated fluid in his body; in this case, the extra fluid is around his heart and abdominal cavity, which is making his heart work harder to pump blood and could cause heart failure if the condition persists. The perinatologist also noticed that both my ovaries had become seriously enlarged, to about the size of softballs (they diagnosed this condition as Luteoma, which is apparently very rare and has no known treatment), though thankfully it's not cancerous, and should subside after the pregnancy. Then, she also found that I have an excessive amount of amniotic fluid (which explains why my belly has become so incredibly large). These three conditions all seem to be connected though; the doctors suspect that the enlarged ovaries could have contributed to the additional amniotic fluid and the fluid in baby's body. The amount of amniotic fluid is also what seems to have caused me to go into labor. So as much as we thought the heart condition was bad by itself, we soon realized it was becoming increasingly worse and there was nothing we could do about it.

At around 12 PM, we called a good friend of ours who was at work close by and asked if he would come help Kurtis give baby and I a blessing. He came right away and together, they communicated a beautiful blessing to me from the Lord. I wish I would have written down some things right after, but I just remember feeling stronger and filled with comfort. Not a certain feeling about whether our baby would be able to stay with us or not, but a feeling that gave me assurance that no matter what happened, everything would be ok. I also felt an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for the Priesthood, and for the Lord who has made a way for us to receive His grace through it. It's simply amazing, that amid all the negative happenings and worsening of the baby's condition, I could feel peace.

Since they were still worried about the baby coming prematurely, after the ultrasound and blessing they lifeflighted me to the University of Utah Medical Center in Salt Lake. This was so the fetal cardiologist and other specialists could hopefully shed some more light on how all these newly found complications are going to be handled, and in case the baby did decide to come, they would be ready. After we got to the University, they did another ultrasound and the cardiologist took a closer look at the heart condition with the hydrops. He told us the hydrops is causing extra strain on his heart, so he's worried that even another 6 weeks might be too much for his heart to handle and could fail before he makes it to full term. The opposite problem though, is they don't want to take him early or else his heart and lungs may not be developed fully enough to undergo surgery.

So at this point, the doctors don't really know what to do. There is no treatment for hyrdops, so we just have to pray that it will begin to go away on its own. Other than that, all we can do is wait, and hope.

*  *  *

I stayed another day at the University until they were sure I was stable enough to go home. While there, they were also concerned because I developed a fever for a few hours on Thursday night and my pulse was quite high the entire time I was there (100-130 bpm). I was also still having some regular contractions, though I couldn't really feel them (thanks to pain meds), and by Halloween night I was dilated 3 cm. Then with rest and medications that helped the contractions subside some more, I was able to be discharged the following afternoon. Sadly though, I was given strict instruction to stay off my feet as much as possible, no lifting, basically just sit and rest. So, Daren is being taken care of by my mom up in Boise, so I can get the rest I need and Kurtis can continue working while we wait and stay prepared for anything to happen.

So that was our exciting weekend! No Halloween celebrations for us; unless you count being scared by the possibility of the baby coming, then yes, it was quite the Halloween! Even though this pregnancy has become exponentially harder with each week since the beginning of this final trimester, I'm so very grateful that we know why now.  Of course I wish that all these additional complications hadn't come up, but if it weren't for modern technology and knowledge, we probably would have lost our baby this weekend. According to the doctors, there's still a fair chance that he won't make it (and they could be wrong), but I'm just so grateful for another day with him. Never mind the pain and the incessant discomfort, never mind that I am very physically limited for the rest of this pregnancy... I still have my family, I'm healthy, living, breathing and can feel at peace with whatever is in store for us, because of the Lord's Plan of Salvation. I'm also incredibly comforted by the amount of support we've received from friends and family, every single message, offering and gesture has been much needed and appreciated. We love each of you so much, and thank you for your wonderful service and prayers in our behalf. With your support and the Lord's grace, we know we'll be able to endure this somehow.

Big Boy Bed

Funny how a lot can change in just a couple weeks--like my fear of transitioning Daren from a crib to a bed! Yup, we did it! I was talking to Kurtis about when we should switch him, and together we decided it would be a good idea to make the switch now so he can really get used to the bed before the baby comes and "steals" the crib away from him. We ventured to Walmart and bought a toddler bed frame/mattress set for $100, but then we really got thinking about whether a toddler bed was really worth it or not (I mean, have you seen our kid?! He's tall and would grow out of a toddler bed super quick!). So I checked online and found a used twin bunk bed WITH two mattress for $175! (Yes, the mattresses were also used, gross I know, and I wouldn't normally do that, but I bought a high quality encasement (at a sweet deal btw) that completely covers and protects the mattress from bedbugs and dust mites.) So we returned the toddler bed and went for this awesome bunk bed!

The bed frame was pretty beat up, so we decided to sand it all down and re-finish it--and I'm so glad we did! We didn't do a super thorough job, but it does look MUCH better! So after the supplies/tool rental cost for the belt sander, the bed (that now looks new) cost us a total of $215, woo hoo!

Isn't that white pine sooo pretty?! I almost didn't want to cover it up with the stain, but the stain turned out really nice too. Sadly, I didn't get a full picture of the bed before we broke it down and started working on it, for before and after pictures, but I'm glad I at least got some shots of unfinished pieces side by side with the sanded/finished pieces.

We were so excited to get the bed all finished so Daren could try it out, since he was already loving the mattress before we even put the frame together. The mattress was just laid out in the living room while we were working on the frame, so he would lay on it at times during the day while watching his favorite show ("Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood"). By the time we finally got it all put together, he was actually a little scared of staying in the bed and preferred his crib for the first couple of nights, but by the third night we made him stay in the bed and he adjusted fine. It's so funny to me how this little stinker will find a way to get in or out of most everything, but he hasn't ever tried very hard to get out of his crib or his bed. (Thank goodness!)

 (Since we won't be needing to use the top half of the bunk bed for a while, we just put it in storage for now.) Oh and that adorable jungle bedding set?! Got it at a second hand store (same place where we got the bed) for $20! It came with a pillow sham, pillow case, fitted sheet, flat sheet, comforter, AND a super cute lamp that matches, I love it! The set didn't even seem used at all, the white part of the fabric on the sheets look WHITE, no stains whatsoever, and before I washed them they smelled like maybe they had been used only a couple times. SCORE!! As you can see, Daren is quite excited too! :) He doesn't really use the comforter, because he loves to sleep with his red/blue fire truck blankie (plus his monkey (named Monty) and his sippy). He's even got a spot for his sippy now, on the bed post (as shown in the top left picture above). So particular, just like his daddy...well, mommy too, haha. :)

I can hardly believe my baby is in a big boy bed already, he's getting so big so fast!! Ah, I love him so much. I honestly believe that having children is the purest kind of joy we can experience in this life. So grateful!

Smarty Pants

During the past week since I last posted about Daren's milestones, I've been noticing more things he's learning that amaze me or are just interesting/hilarious. I've also realized some things that he's been doing for a while that I forgot to include in the last post.

18 months:

• Is very helpful with cleaning up after himself (when he feels like it); such as when he spills food or makes messes with toys
• Started becoming interested in the potty, but really just wants to play with the flusher

19 months:

• Can zip zippers
• Can understand most questions we ask and respond appropriately to them
• Started mimicking our actions more, particularly our eating habits at breakfast. He now eats a bowl of cereal every morning with a little milk and a spoon, and drinks the remaining milk when the cereal is gone. Or if I'm eating oatmeal, he'll want some too and will eat an entire 1/2 cup serving by himself!
• Became very interested in using the vacuum and mop to help mommy clean the house, I love my little helper!

20 months:

• Actually says "please" instead of just signing it. He's been able do the sign for "please" since he was about 14 months old and just started vocalizing it the other day.
• His first color word was "red", and just started saying "blue", "green" and "yellow" (not perfectly, but it does sound similar)!
• Figured out how to move furniture to climb up to other things he wants to get to, such as in the kitchen
• Poses/smiles for the camera whenever I whip it out, instead of trying to grab it
• Covers his mouth when he (or anyone else) sneezes

This isn't much of a "milestone", but a first for the both of us that needed recording. A couple weeks ago, Daren threw up for the first time (you know, other than baby spit up). This happened Saturday morning during General Conference because he was so thirsty that morning and had downed a ton of milk (at least 14 oz within 10 minutes). Luckily almost all of it got on the red shaggy area rug we had in the kitchen and I had been contemplating whether or not to trash it anyway--solved that problem! It was sad seeing my baby throw up though, and I'm glad I took it so well and was able to comfort him rather than wanting to throw up myself. That has always been a fear of mine as a mother--to deal with my kid's throw up, but it wasn't bad and I wasn't that grossed out, whew! It definitely helped that I could just throw away the rug though, instead of having to clean up/deodorize carpet.

I know there are some things I'm still forgetting, but that's going to have to do for now and I'll keep recording more as I remember them!

Baby Boy - 27 weeks

So far, this pregnancy has been treating me well! I did have morning sickness until about 4 weeks ago, which was longer than last time, but it still wasn't too bad. With Daren, my morning sickness ceased at ~13 weeks, so when I was 18 weeks and still feeling the effects of it, I was convinced we were having a girl! You know "mother's intuition"? Well, I don't think I have it, since I thought both of my boys were going to be girls. Maybe it's just that I'm not tuning into my intuition and paying more attention to my wishful thinking? I don't know why I want a girl so much, girls can be a pain, haha! Of course boys can be too, but in different ways that I think I can handle better, which is probably why I've been graced with boys thus far. If I could have just one girl though, that would be fun. Whatever happens though--bottom line is: I love my KIDS!! I haven't met most of them yet, but whichever gender they are, no matter how sick they make me while I'm pregnant, and no matter how crazy they can be, I will always be so grateful and happy to have them!



This time around, I've definitely been having cravings, but not for weird things. Usually it's Mexican food, Italian food, desserts or Wendy's (my favorite fast food restaurant--where else can you get a delicious breaded chicken sandwich for a $1?!). To cut down on eating out with these strong cravings, I've improvised with homemade meals, such as chicken Alfredo made with cauliflower (see the recipe HERE), homemade "Olive Garden" breadsticks (see recipe HERE) and buying breaded chicken patties/making my own buns from scratch (see recipe HERE). Healthy and thrifty!

  Baby is the size of an eggplant!

Putting on layers of fat, baby now
weighs in around 1.5 to 2.5 pounds
and measures about 13.6 to 14.8 inches.

Now as I'm posting this, I'm actually at 28 weeks! Crazy! I guess this means that I'm officially in the third trimester, which is awesome and nerve racking at the same time. I'm not nervous to give birth, since this is obviously not my first time in this kind of rodeo, but I'm nervous that the baby might come early like Daren did (at 38 weeks). One problem with him coming early is I'm delivering at the University of Utah Hospital, which is 55 miles away! (This is because the best heart surgeons in the nation reside there, and will be ready to provide him with the immediate care he'll need. --Which is such a blessing too, thank goodness it's not any farther away!) Not to mention, it could be worse for him to be born early in his condition, so I'm going to be doing everything I can to keep this kid contained! That includes keeping Daren off my back--literally. Yesterday, Daren and I went on a walk and he walked by himself most of the way, but wanted me to carry him on the way home. So I did, and it wasn't long before I felt a huge strain in my side, as if a portion of tissue was tearing, and I immediately put him down. And so I vow from this day forward to never carry Daren again during this pregnancy (sorry buddy).

Other than that, this pregnancy has been fairly smooth sailing, besides finding out about the baby's heart condition. If you haven't heard, our baby has Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, which is basically when the left ventricle is too small to function. Thanks to modern technology and recent advances in treating this issue, our doctors have confirmed the diagnosis and are taking the necessary precautions to welcome our baby into the world with the best care possible. At one week old, baby boy will have his first open heart surgery where the surgeons will build a new aorta for him (as you can see in the picture, the aorta (the red tube coming up from the left ventricle) is also smaller than normal, so not enough blood can pass through it). Eventually, after two more surgeries (all performed before he's 4 years old), the heart will be made to almost fully and properly function without the left ventricle. We don't know what his life expectancy will be, as this procedure is only about 20 years old, but there is great hope for him to have a full and happy life.

For more information on his condition and how it will be treated, click HERE.

Baby's profile back when he was 20 weeks,
so cute and perfect!

This won't be much of an update, since we pretty much found out about everything we could at once and have already shared that information. At the last ultrasound I had three weeks ago, nothing had changed, which is great! So I will continue to go in and get ultrasounds once a month and the baby will have two more echocardiograms before he's born, to keep track of his condition and ensure he's developing properly. Isn't modern technology amazing?! As far as we can tell, he's otherwise perfectly healthy and well, and we'll keep praying that he might be able to stay that way.

It is hard already knowing that my sweet baby is going to experience this incredible trial as soon as he enters this world, but we are so grateful that we'll have the privilege to give him the love and support he'll need in his life. It's also hard not knowing what's going to happen to him, and how everything is going to work out, but we are learning to let our fears and unknowns be swallowed up by the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I'm so full of gratitude for the Plan of Salvation and the sealing power of the Priesthood, because I know that our lives as a family will continue after we pass from this world, as we keep our promises with the Lord to follow His will. His will is the path to true joy and fulfillment, because He is omnipotent and he loves us completely. I am certain that the struggles our family, especially our baby, will have to endure in this trial will bring us closer together and closer to God, and it will all be invariably worth it.

We could not thank you enough for all your love, prayers and support. Through the Lord and each of you, we have been able to find great strength and hope. May the Lord bless you as He has us. We love you!

Let's talk about Daren

If you couldn't guess, I'm soo horrible at consistently logging entries on this blog, as well as in my personal journal. My other amazing mama friends who have been keeping up to date on their blogs have helped inspire me though, so I'm getting back on the horse and hoping that I don't fall off again! :) For now, I'm going to aim to do a post every Sunday, so if you're not seeing updates from me at least once a week, I give you permission to remind me and tell me that I'm being a slacker (yep, I'm totally serious about this)!

Well, it's officially Fall and I'm so excited that it's October already! It came fast, but I'm ok with that since this is Kurtis' and my birthday month, and there's now less than 3 months until we meet our baby boy! Which reminds me, I haven't explained baby's heart condition on here yet...but I'll save that for a separate post as that could get lengthy. Plus, right now, I need to show Daren some love and talk about him this time!

That face! He melts me.

With the excitement of and yet careful attention to his brother's development, I sometimes wonder if Daren is already being pushed out of the spotlight and I'm not focusing on him enough. It's been a while since I've recorded Daren's milestones, which I've felt quite guilty about lately. I've been rationalizing it away, thinking, "I don't have a record of my own milestones and it doesn't make a difference to me" and "Every one of our children is going to be about the same when they reach various milestones, they each happen and we'll enjoy them in the moment" or, "I'll totally remember when he started doing this." Then I worry about all the other stuff I need to do as a homemaker/mother/wife (I won't even attempt to list everything). We've all thought and heard it time and time again, it's all so hard to balance! But that's life, and we do the best we can. So while all these concerns may be valid, I still can't rest easy knowing I'm not doing anything besides simply taking photos and relying on the dates on them as my "records"--though they do help significantly. Anyway, without further ado...

Daren is 20 months old!

Yep, that's marker--don't worry, they're washable
and came right off, woo hoo! That was a happy
mama moment to let my boy make a mess and
not have to worry about it. :)

Can you believe it?! I hardly can. My baby is already 20 months, WHAAT?! As you can see, he's turned into quite the troublemaker--though what kid at this age isn't? Nevertheless, I do think he is about 20% more crazy than other kids his age. If you think I'm biased then you probably haven't been around to witness what I'm talking about in person! Though I will admit, I have seen/heard of crazier kids so I'm grateful that he's not that bad.

Well, probably the biggest milestones lately have been related to Daren's communication skills. He still jabbers a lot, but he now says things like: "yeah" (which he says in response to almost any question we ask him), "no", "where did I go?" (while hiding or playing peekaboo), "I don't know", "thank you" (which sounds more like "dan-da"), "baby" (followed by kisses on my belly), "hi", "bye bye", "dog", "light", and "wow/whoa". He's learning his body parts right now, and can say, "eye" and "nose", but simply points to everything else he knows, which are his ears, hair, mouth and belly. Other things he communicates without actually saying the words, things like, "please" and "milk", which he does the sign language for instead, or he'll just point and grunt at things to let us know what he wants. His pediatrician was actually worried that he wasn't saying more words, and had me get in contact with our local school district to get him evaluated for speech therapy. After the evaluator observed Daren, she said he was the cutest and smartest kid she had observed in months! He does understand a lot and gets his points across somehow, whether vocally or by gestures (...or screaming lol). We're so happy that he's developing as he should and it's exciting to be with him every day as he continues to show us how smart he is.

My favorite things he's learning now are animals/animal sounds. He loves learning about them so much that he'll just play the Fisher Price animals app on the iPod for a good half hour at least throughout the day. It's so much fun practicing animal sounds with him, he's become very good at mimicking. He knows the sounds for cow, bear, pig (yes, he even snorts and it's the cutest thing EVER), duck, horse, sheep, elephant, monkey and lion. I'll have to record him making the noises and post it STAT, because it is way too stinking cute! 

Daren is also really getting into singing (surprised?), whether he's mimicking or humming his own tune. What amazes me the most about this new talent is he's pretty good at matching pitch! In the car when we listen to the radio, he'll sing the "ohhh"s in "Royals" by Lorde, and the "ho hey"s in "Ho Hey" by The Lumineers and is usually right on. He loves dancing too, which is one of our favorite pastimes to do together. That kid has got serious rhythm, I'm not kidding, he'll be dancing and clapping almost perfectly in time to a song and then if the beat stops (like if a drum stops keeping the beat or something), he'll stop dancing and get a little frustrated because he just loves the beat! We have no doubt he's going to be very musical throughout his life. 

Daren the Explorer, and climbing all by himself!

And then there's my not-so-favorite milestones, like climbing. Oh can this boy climb--and he is LOVING it, much to my dismay! BUT he still hasn't even attempted to climb out of his crib yet, weird huh? Ok, not weird, how about GLORIOUS!?! The climbing can be nice sometimes though, especially now that I'm not as capable of picking him up since he's 26 lbs and I'm 27 weeks pregnant! Half the time he still wants me to hold him though, or else he just goes limp when I try holding his hand to have him walk alongside me. Luckily (for him) my hips are still sit-able, so I technically can carry him and do at times, but I probably shouldn't even be doing that anyway.

So those are the great and exciting things Daren has been up to lately. I will do my best at keeping the blog updated (and appreciate your help in keeping me on my toes), so until next time!

Re-cap on 2013 so far

So here comes a new month! Really, it's already AUGUST?! Where has this year gone? Luckily, I have been good at taking photos of all our adventures so far this year, it's been a great 1st half of the year!

January: Boondocks Fun Center with my bros

February: Visiting Boise to meet our newest nephew

February: Daren turned 1!

March: Visiting family and friends in Rexburg

March: Me completing my accounting certificate--I'm now an Accounting Services Professional! :)

March-April: Lots of fun walks and trips to the park/spash pad

April: Fun and random family outings

April: Visiting Boise for Carter's baby blessing, Austin's birthday and Jorden's baptism

April: I got pregnant! (17 weeks now, pictured on right--more on that to come!)

May: Daren's first haircut

May: Exploring Discovery Gateway Museum in Salt Lake City

June: Daren's first swimming lessons

June: Springville Art Days Festival

June: Taylorsville Dayzz Festival

July: Visiting California for Grandpa Pedersen's 90th birthday and other adventures

Fun adventures will continue throughout the rest of this year, such as: our 4 year anniversary/babymoon getaway, finding out the gender of baby #2, and going to a MUSE concert, to name a few coming up this/next month. What a year it's been already, we're loving all the things we get to do with our little guy (loving this age)!

Announcing Baby #2!

We are SO excited to announce that we are anticipating another special spirit to join our family this January 2014! I'm currently 16 weeks along and so anxious to find out the gender in just a few short weeks. Baby is due to meet the world on January 4th, and we're hoping they aren't early like Daren was or else we could have a Christmas baby! (Um, no thanks...but if we must we must.)

We waited this long to tell everyone because we just visited family in California and wanted to tell them in person. We didn't have to do much to announce it once we met up with Kurtis' parents at the airport; as we were walking towards them, Teresa saw me first. As we got closer, she looked down at my belly, up, down and up at me again, with a very astonished look on her face. It was priceless!! Almost everyone else we saw followed suit. My belly started popping out and became quite apparent (not to mention much harder to hide) about a week or two before we left for California, so it was obvious by the time we were there. Most would just look at me once and ask, "are you pregnant?" just to make sure, or "how far along are you?" Lucky for me (but mostly for them), I get a very round bump with my babies that sticks straight out, so it hardly ever looks like I'm just plain fat, haha.

While we were in CA, our awesome cousin Tara was gracious enough to snap some fun announcement pictures for us in her studio. Here are some of my favorites (which are pretty much all of them):

Thank you SO MUCH Tara!!

We're so happy and grateful, and hope that we will meet our newest addition in about 5 more months! Morning sickness is still going strong, and that apparently indicates that everything is great and there is a very small chance of miscarriage. So if that's really true, bring on the morning sickness! (Haha, well...you know, it's ok if it goes away soon too.) :) Updates will be coming up every couple weeks, so stay tuned!

Our "Hungry Little Caterpillar" is not so little anymore!

Now that all the craziness of February has finally settled down, here's a re-cap on Daren's birthday party! Now before I go on, I want to apologize if you didn't get invited, we sent out as little invites as possible to save on money, plus we hardly had room for the people we did invite!


Speaking of saving money, pulling this theme off with little to spend was hard! We didn't have any extra money to budget for this party, so my goal was to stay within our normal monthly budget. I had picked the "Very Hungry Caterpillar" theme, and later realized, Mr. Carle wasn't kidding when he called him a "Very Hungry Caterpillar"! As I started to freak out about the cost of this oversight, I thought, we seriously don't even have room (or sanity) for more toys...why not just have our guests bring food instead?! Then they don't even have to think about which present to buy and spend less money on one simple food item, GENIUS!!  Thus, a huge portion of the party's success is thanks to our wonderful friends, who graciously agreed to a potluck of all the "Very Hungry Caterpillar" foods. It was AWESOME!!

Having the potluck was such a relief, mentally and financially! I was able to focus on the invitations, cleaning the house, supplies, cake and decorations (which I accidentally ended up not doing much of haha). It doesn't sound like much, but I spent a lot of time just on those things, and now looking back, I'm not sure why! Though this was my time ever planning/hosting a party completely by myself, so I learned a lot through this!

The thing I did spend most of my time and attention on was the cake. I really wanted to do a caterpillar shaped cake, so I bought a sphere pan thinking I'd do six half spheres for the head and body, but that sounded like way too much cake. So I looked through pinterest for a looong time until I came across this genius idea of using a bundt pan as the body, and then I used a half sphere for the head. It turned out so cool! I was giddy the whole time I was making it. I wish I had taken pictures of the bundt before I frosted it with the base frosting, but basically it's one bundt cake cut in half (for the top of the curve), then the other half was cut in half again, and turned out.

I had never made/worked with fondant, so I did TONS of research. I spent time watching/reading tutorials and looking at a bunch of different recipes that were (a) not too complicated (since, you know, I was a fondant making virgin), (b) tasty, and (c) had few and common ingredients so I could spend the least amount of money possible. Taste was a biggie for me, and it was hard to pick a recipe since I didn't have the money to make trial runs, so I had to go off of their reviews. I ended up using THIS All Recipes one, though THIS was very informative, I went with All Recipes since it was much less complicated. I'm so glad I did, because although it wasn't very healthy, I thought it turned out DANG good!

If you didn't know (like I didn't), you have to frost the cake first in order for the fondant to stick to it. I decided it would cost just as much or more to make my own cream cheese frosting (no one said it had to be cream cheese, but for me, that is THE frosting to use in almost any case), so I just bought some of good 'ol Betty Crocker's. Thankfully, the fondant was super easy to make! I'm so glad I took the time to read about it beforehand because it made it that much easier to work with too, because working with it was the super tricky part! I think it would have been easier if I hadn't kneaded/rolled it so much, because it started to fall apart toward the end. But with lots of patience and time, I finally smoothed out all the cracks (one of the finicky ones is in the top right picture above) and most of the bumps thanks to my handy-dandy fondant smoother. It also turned out thicker in some parts, which I stopped caring about when the fondant decided to start falling apart in my hands. Oh, and those weird looking dents on the left were made because I cut a small piece out of the cake body when I was arranging the pieces, but put it back in when I realized it wasn't necessary, oops! I think it added a cool kind of texture though, and I tried to compliment it by rubbing more food coloring into all the fondant once it was laid, so it would look more like the watercolor effect that Eric Carle used. I knew beforehand that it could be very time consuming to make my own cake this way, and although I underestimated that, it was totally worth it! Overall, I had a ton of fun re-creating the Very Hungry Caterpillar, isn't he cute?


After all the planning and tactfully spending, we successfully came in under budget last month! That is a huge feat for us since Kurtis makes barely enough for all our normal bills and food. Here's the breakdown of how I did it (I bought everything at Walmart, unless otherwise noted):

Yellow cake mix, shortening, eggs, food coloring: $0 (already had these)

Betty Crocker funfetti cake mix: $1.08

Betty Crocker whipped cream cheese frosting: $1.58

12 oz. of Yoplait Strawberry yogurt (mixed in with the yellow cake mix to make a strawberry cake): $1

2 lbs. Powdered sugar: $1.18

Fondant smoother: $4

(Cake cost: $8.84)

2 gallons of Breyer's ice cream: $6

Mini ice cream cones: $1.48

Water bottles: $2.97

4 flavors of drink mix for water bottles: $7.52

#1 Candle: $0.97

Paper plates $2.91

Plastic cutlery: $2.91

White plastic table cloth: $1

Streamers: $0.97

Balloons: $1.50

Customizable polka dot banner: $8.49 (Partyland)

Giant confetti circles for the table: $2.49 (Partyland)

Butterfly crazy straws: $2.49 (Partyland)

Invitation design: $8 (Etsy.com)

Invitation printing cost (Qty: 25): $17.13

4 stamps (all other invites were hand delivered): $1.64

GRAND TOTAL: $77.31!

We didn't even really need the banner and the drink mixes; we ran out of time to assemble the banner and put it up (though I will laminate the letters and re-use it for years to come), and not very many people used the drink mixes anyway. I didn't do much with party favors either, I just handed out the crazy straws and Very Hungry Caterpillar coloring pages that I printed off for free HERE. After all was said and done, I was a little bummed that I didn't do more decorations, but I don't think they really mattered anyway. Plus, as you can see, I probably shouldn't have even put this decoration up --->
without putting more effort into it...definitely not my best work, but hey, at least I had some kind of decoration! We also had balloons, which were the really fun long ones that you can shape into animals, now that was a $1.50 well spent!

As for the actual party -- total WIN in my book! I did invite a lot of people (probably more than I should have for our quaint little apartment), so it was a little crowded for a bit, but it didn't bother me. I had a blast having so many of our beloved friends there just hanging out, talking and having fun! My favorite part was seeing Daren's reaction to his smash cake (the caterpillar's head)! Surprisingly enough, he was a little more interested in his tasty apple slice...

Here's the video of us singing "Happy Birthday"!

(Sorry it's so choppy, I blame the camera...)

And here are some more pics from the big event...

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY DAREN!!

We love our little man soo much!

I still want to take his 1 year old portraits, but he hasn't cooperated, and we haven't had the time to do it yet. So those should be coming soon *I hope*!

P.S. THANK YOU to all our family and friends who were able to come celebrate with us! I'm in the process of writing thank you cards, but we just can't thank you guys enough! :)