Triple A and P-Formerly Known as K&C

Wow, I cant believe it has been so long.
Things are good and busy. Leni is 5 months and growing. She is 16 pounds (66th percent) and in the 90th percent for height at 26.5 inches. Anika is 3 (turned 3 at the end of March) and she is 30 pounds which is around 40th percentile and her height is petite, around 20th. I cant remember Anika's exactly. Anika has always been petite. Both girls are lots of fun. Leni is the HAPPIEST baby. I know I said that about Anika, but Leni takes the cake and everyone who has known both kids say that too. They say Anika was easy, but she was more serious. Leni smiles at air! haha. Anika was a lot more physical, but Leni is getting wiggly more now. She rolls around everywhere and likes to do these things that look like sit ups/crunches. It is pretty funny and cute. She sits alone, but not for long periods of times like A was at this age, but she will spend almost an HOUR in the jumperoo or a high chair just playing with toys or jumping in the jumperoo. That is a LONG time. She will just hang out the whole time I make dinner or do stuff, whereas Anika at 3 is all up in my business and distracts me more than the baby while trying to get tasks done. haha. SHE LIKES TO BE INVOLOVED IN EVERYTHING. Generally, she is a great help and her stories and comments keep me laughing for days.
I really want Leni to stay a baby! haha. We can enjoy watching Anika grow and learn, but its so nice to just have a happy smiley baby around all the time. She just brings so much peace and happiness if that makes sense. She is still exclusively breast fed when I am around and she drinks breast milk out of bottles while I am at work. She reaches for food and rubs it on her lips, but doesn't try to eat it, so we will just wait until she is ready.

Ok, I keep trying to add some photos and blogger is not working.

I really only came on here to tell you that I joined Instagram. I am posting there more often, but I am being selective with who I let follow me :) haha. But, if you are a blog reader and miss my posts (I don't think I will be getting any better about blogging in the near future) so, comment or email me and tell me your IG name and I will find you :)
Damn, I want to include photos of the kids, but it wont let me. I give up.

Can you believe my little lady is 3!?!
Look at us here 3 years and a month ago waiting for her to join our family. Piri didn't know what the eff was about to go down.

Here she is the day she was born. FULL OF SPUNK and life from the second she came out. I don't know if you all recall, but she rolled the day she was born back to belly, more out of fury, but she did it and has been on a roll ever since. She was also a super happy baby.

Family of 3 going home.

I made the shirt that Piri wore when I was pregnant with Anika. And then Anika wore it about a year ago when I was pregnant with Lennox.

Anika on her First Birthday.

Anika the week of her 2nd Birthday.

And, her 3rd. We did a scavenger hunt for her gifts on her birthday. It was last Friday, so a work day. AND, of course she slept in that day out of ALL days, so the hunt was a little rushed. This dress was one of her gifts (I picked it up at a 2nd hand store because she only wants to wear dresses these days. She has a million cute pant outfits, but she wants to wear dresses and tights. Every. Day).

I made her French toast with my 3 cookie cutter. I also made Piri a dog bone cake because I just found out that her estimated birthday is the same as Anika's!! I saw it on her vet record when she went in last week for a small procedure. I thought that was so neat. We rescued Piri 5 years ago, so we never knew her real birthday, but I love how her estimated birthday is the same as Anika's.

I was in my gym clothes because we go to the gym before work on Fridays. Piri has the cone thing for a couple week to keep her from licking her wound (its on her butt).

Look at this beauty of a cake! HA.

Thursday and Friday night I worked on Anika's food and cake for her party on Saturday. I also made 3 shaped cookies for her sitter party on Thursday.

Anika got a kids cookbook for Christmas from my aunt and Anika saw these cupcakes in the book and said she wanted a cake like that for her birthday. I started looking up ways to do a cake. I know my mom did one for me many years ago. I found a mold at Michaels, but people said I could use a pyrex bowl. I cooked a cake in a pyrex bowl a month ago to experiment and it worked, sot that was that.
I didn't realize I would need more layers, so I also used some 8 inch round pans to make the bottom and then the bowl part for the top. ANika picked out a doll at the store a while go that I had.

The 2 8 inch cakes were not enough, so I whipped up some more cake batter and made 2 bigger circles using pie pans. SO, I had 2 vanilla pie pan sized circles. The 2 8 inch cake circles and then the bowl round part. I made circles through all and layered them on top of each other and stuck the doll in.

Then, I tried to frost it.

WELL, that wasn't working out too well. just look.

I posted it on FB and my aunt called and told me to use the star/flower cake tip and just do a ton of the star things all over it. I knew what I had to do, but I was out of confectionary sugar and butter! And, it was 10 pm, so I had to wait until the next morning to get more supplies. Andrew also tried to help fix it. My aunt said she used angel food cake in the past. Lots of people gave me ideas to fix it.

But, before I fixed it, the next morning I called ANika into the kitchen to see it. I had no idea how she would react to it, but....the video shows you :)

ITS DEEEEE-LICIOUS.

So, I guess my first layer is called a "crumb coat" so I wasn't so off I guess. ha

I made these apps- melon, prosciutto, and blueberries.

My mom came over Saturday morning to help me fix the cake because we had a lot of other stuff to do for the party. She had my 2 nieces with her and I went upstairs and saw this. My 5 year old niece said Anika was taking a nap. I was like ,really? ANd, then Anika sat up and said they were playing "Mommy and Daughter" ha.

I ended up buying a doughnut to put on the very top (under the doll's skirt). In the video I had leftover cake pieces cut out around the top, but the doughnut worked great.

SO, here is the cake after my mom smoothed it out. The frosting was colored with water I cooked beets in. I always use that instead of food dyes. You can not taste the beets at all. I also used blueberry juice to dye the frosting on the "3" cookies and cupcakes.

Doll cake riding to the party! ha. Andrew actually bumped his arm on it. bad boy.

We had the party at the place Anika takes gymnastics.

The party was 3-4:30, so I didn't need to serve a whole meal, but I did snacks/apps.

I actually had my own table cloths (freshly ironed even), but we couldn't get into the place until 2:50! and, my guests started arriving while I was setting up. I snapped these pics quickly and just said forget the other cloths. Everyone was in the gym part anyway.

That is Andrew.
I have a lot of pics of all the gym stuff, but I don't want to post any of the other kids, so I am just posting a few here.

One of my friends who has a daughter A's age.

the parents

She loved it.
The kids played in the gym part for an hour and then we did cake and ice cream/snacks and gifts for half hour. The last part was pretty rushed for me, but seemed to work for others, and that is what the place allows. The kids did not want to stop playing though.

We had 17 kids and about 25 adults.