19 Years and Counting

 Today my daughter is 19!  I celebrated by making her a rose covered zebra cake.   Makes perfect sense right?  Ha.  There is a tutorial on how to do the roses on i am baker's website. It's a very easy pattern, and also very forgiving, which made it even easier.  

 I think it came out beautifully (though it would have been better if I had used a much bigger star tip).  My daughter thought it was awesome though, so that's what matters most to me ;)

  The inside of the cake was supposed to look like zebra stripes. 

 It's a pretty cool effect anyway, which I found the idea for on Pinterest.  Everyone thought it was cool anyway.  It's basically a marble cake, but you pour a little of one flavor into the pan, then pour a little of the next flavor right in the center of the first batter, then continue adding alternating batter flavors, each time pouring directly into the center of the last one added.  It was fun.  I think it would have worked better if my white cake batter hadn't been considerably thicker than my dark chocolate batter.  I'll definitely try this again sometime.  It was a lot of fun.

 My daughter only had a couple of presents to unwrap - one from Papa and Bugga (grandma), and one small one from us.  She sells Premier Designs jewelry, so we got her a manequin to us during the shows, as well as several display boards and mirrors for her sale table.  I wanted her to have them for all her holiday shows, so she got them early.

 So I let her unwrap one that was intended for Christmas - a gift for her and her brother (the seven year old, not the three year old holding the cup in the picture below.)  When I saw these CARS themed cocoa cups and hot cocoa mix, I couldn't resist.  She has a major crush on Mater ;)

 She had a lot of help celebrating her birthday.  Since the last birthday was for our now three year old, he was pretty sure this was his birthday too.

 See?  He thought the cake and candles were for him, and everyone was singing for him.  She doesn't mind sharing :)  She's always telling him he is her favorite.

 It was a pretty fun birthday!

I do have to add a little baby update in here.  When we were at his normal 5 month checkup on the 13th, we found out that he isn't gaining as much weight as we had hoped, and his skin rash has still been really bothering him.  So we had some blood tests done to see if he might be allergic to something in my diet.  Turns out he is.  He is definitely allergic to eggs and dairy, and had somewhat higher levels indicating a problem with nuts - not nearly as bad as the eggs and dairy, but still there.  I've never had a child allergic to anything, so this is new territory for me.  So until I'm done nursing, I'm off eggs, dairy and nuts. 

 It's a small price to pay though.  He's well worth it!  And if it helps him get over this terrible rash, and not be so itchy, then it's definitely worth the inconvenience.  I had to include this picture too.  He's trying to pick things up now and uses his hands more.  He's a pretty quiet, complacent baby, and doesn't try to do a whole lot, so this is a big deal for him.  Sure do love this little guy!!