Something for me

So I can honestly say that in the 7 years that we've been married, we've lived in Prescott, I've working full time for WF, and now with 2 almost 3 kids- I've done little to nothing for myself. Hobbies, education, just recreation in general have all kind of fallen by the wayside. I've known it's important for personal balance and enjoying life and having a creative outlet, etc etc. But I know that all of you can understand the list of excuses that can get in the way- being busy, tired, wanting to spend more time with family, needing to spend the time cleaning, catching up on laundry, etc etc etc.

Ryan has always encouraged me to pursue hobbies/passions- especially photography which is what I was going to school for and really enjoyed when we were first married. But I get frustrated with how much my skills and knowledge have regressed and it's just not as enjoyable anymore- basically because I feel like I should be better than I am.

In the last year though I've had a different interest, but done nothing about it. It's something that I have no prior experience with and no pre-existing skills with- but would love to master. My wonderful husband has been pushing me to go for it, I've put it off due to list of above excuses. But finally at the beginning of December (pretty much the worst time due to the above list) I took a Wilton Level 1 cake decorating class at JoAnns. It was 4 classes in 2 weeks- Tuesday and Friday nights from 6-8.

Ryan was super supportive and even a little pushy about me taking this class and even helped me with the "homework." The homework involved baking 2 different 2-tiered 9 inch round cakes and a batch of cupcakes. I also had to make 2 different kinds of buttercream frosting- going through about 9 pounds of powered sugar in 2 weeks- yuck! I'm not even a fan of frosting, it's just too much sugar for me!

As insanely tiring as it was to do this while 8.5 months pregnant, right before Christmas, and 2 nights a week after a full day of work- I LOVED it, as much as I thought I would. I can't wait to take the next level classes, but am going to wait a couple of months with the new babino coming very soon.

Here are some pictures of what I was doing:


There's a reason that this is such a tight shot- I have a VERY funny story about this first cake, but I'll have to save it for another time!

This was my 2nd cake (I don't have pictures of my cupcakes)..


Then Hailey's birthday was 2 weeks later...

The perfectionist in me has to say that I did this cake really late at night and then RIGHT before her party was about to start- so there's a lot that I would try to do better if I had more time.

While I was doing this class, I've been borrowing all of my mom's cake decorating supplies. She used to do cake decorating as well when I was really little and even did a few wedding cakes for people at church. So she had most everything that I needed. For Christmas though, my husband decided to continue being supportive of this interest of mine and bought me a 101 Piece Wilton Cake Decorating caddy and toolkit that has everything I need! The kit also has a decorating how-to and idea book and I've already used more powdered sugar to whip up some frosting and tried teaching myself more techniques.

I really need some reasons to decorate a cake and someone to give it too! I just can't eat anymore cake for a long time after having so much cake around in the last month- so if you have need for a cake, let me know, I'd love to have the opportunity to practice!