Magic Christmas Cake

How to create a Magic Christmas Cake in 3 simple steps

Step One: Bake and frost a white cake

Step Two: Sprinkle Magic Christmas Sugar over cake

Step Three: Cut into cake and prepare for gasps of surprise! ;)

Step Four: Serve and Devour

This cake turned out even better than I could have hoped for! This was the first time I had ever made a layer cake AND the Swiss meringue buttercream frosting to go with it. I had read about a rainbow layer cake that looked just amazing and decided to adapt it for Christmas! I used gel food coloring to get the bold colors for each layer which was also a first. To add a little bit of extra Christmas magic, we told Christian and Caiden that it was a plain white cake, but that if magic Christmas sprinkles were added, the cake would transform into a Christmas cake! It was fun to see their reactions when we cut into the first slice. :) And the buttercream was very yummy too - it tasted just like the frosting you would get on a bakery cake! I probably won't attempt a cake like this again for awhile, but it was well worth the effort. And I am looking forward to using this frosting again for future cake and cupcake recipes!

Christmas in Seattle

I have to say that Christmas this year was one of the best for our young little family. Early in the year, we made the decision to forgo holiday travel to the midwest for a number of reasons. It was a tough choice to make, but I can see it was the right one. While I missed hanging out with our families and participating in various holiday traditions, I truly enjoyed spending Christmas at "home" this year.

A couple days prior to Christmas, I posted on Facebook that it felt strange to still be in Seattle by choice. My friend Anne posted a comment that totally helped reshape my perspective. She pointed out that while Chicago may be home for B and me, Seattle is home for our little family. I had never thought of it that way before, and this newfound perspective had an incredibly positive impact on how I came to view our choice to stay put this year. And now that I reflect further upon it, I realize that both our boys have had the joy of spending their very first Christmas in their own home. 2010 by choice and 2008 thanks to the crazy snow that delayed our travel back to Chicago.

One of my favorite candid moments - Daddy & Daughter

The other thing that made Christmas so great this year was spending it with my sister Tara and her family. It has been several years since we've been with them for Christmas, and it has been a few years since they've been able to celebrate Christmas with any family at all due to geographical challenges. I just love being able to spend so much time with them and making up some of that lost time from over the last few years! Between having the Beckers here at the house with us and utilizing Skype to talk to the rest of the family, the impact of being physically separated was significantly lessened.

I've made a list of some of the things I enjoyed about staying put this year:

• Air Travel: I did NOT miss the travel hassle one bit! That is such a time suck and huge source of stress. It was a welcome relief to not have to worry about it.
• It was a lot of fun to watch our tree get more and more stuffed with presents as Christmas day got closer and closer.
• We received packages nearly every day this month. It was a lot of fun keeping track of the packages and adding the gifts under the tree!
• I loved being on our own schedule this year. It was fun planning meals, baking desserts and rolling out of bed in our own home.
• Our Christmas Eve church service was beautiful. I wasn't sure what to expect from a UU service, and I was very pleasantly surprised! We sang lots of hymns and carols, enjoyed the choir, had readings from the Gospel and a thought provoking message from the minister. One of my favorite parts was the candle lighting and how we got to stand in one huge circle around the sanctuary while singing Silent Night in German and English. Caiden was very well behaved and Ezra didn't make a peep during the whole service. He just watched all the action going on around him.
• Even with all the hustle and bustle of keeping things running, I was so relaxed this year. I don't think I'd fully realized how stressed out travel in years past had made me.
• We crossed another parental milestone in staying up into the wee hours on Christmas Eve to assemble Caiden's kitchen gift set from Santa while watching A Christmas Story on TBS.
• It was great not having to try and figure out what gifts to open up where and then stressing over how to pack them up to get them pack home.

So what did we do with our time here? Well B had Thursday thru Sunday off and that alone was a nice break. :) Tara and family arrived Thursday afternoon and we enjoyed some chicken stir fry for dinner. On Christmas Eve, Tara and I spent lots of time in the kitchen working on fudge and the Magic Christmas Cake. I made a roast chicken for dinner that night with rice stuffing and corn for side dishes. Lucky for us, the boys' nap schedules lined up well and we were able to take them to church with us for the Christmas Eve service. Tara joined us for church which made the evening extra special! After church we enjoyed the cake and sent the wee ones to bed. Next it was time to watch a showing of A Christmas Story while working on Caiden's little kitchen. A little after midnight we all crawled into bed to wait for Santa to make his visit. :)

Christmas morning came quick and we enjoyed a good couple of hours worth of present opening. Caiden had an absolute blast opening all of his gifts and we had to routinely distract him into opening the next thing because he would often want to immediately play with or read whatever it was that he opened. Some of his favorite gifts included his gardening set (complete with lawnmower, leaf blower, edger and chainsaw), a Waste Management garbage truck, mini-garbage cans to go with said truck, Mr. Potato Head, his kitchen, and garbage truck books. Ezra wasn't quite sure what to make of all the action and only managed to stay awake for about half of the present opening session. He does love all of his new toys and tethers and clothes tho! Santa spoiled me pretty good and got me lots of great new kitchen gear among other fun toys. Who would have ever guessed I would love getting stuff for the kitchen so much?! And B got lots more camping gear and stuff for emergency preparedness. I'd say Santa was wonderful to all of us this year!

Brian figuring out he is opening the Farscape boxed DVD set

Lisa getting ready to open her next gift

Caiden practicing safety by wearing his goggles and gloves while gardening

 After we made a big mess of the living room, we moved over to the dining table to feast on waffles and cheesy egg casserole. The food disappeared fast, so I guess that meant we were all good and hungry! Shortly after that, we started making all our Skype calls to the family. It was so much fun talking to everyone and hearing all about how their Christmas day was going.

Finally, we reconvened at the table to enjoy Christmas dinner. We dined on a London Broil crock pot dish, mashed potatoes, salad and crescent rolls. For dessert we had cheese balls and graham crackers that Tara made. Everything was super yummy, and I think we were all pretty stuffed! We finally finished out the evening watching Christian's new copy of Despicable Me. "WHAAAAAAT?!" ;)

All in all, it was a very very Merry Christmas. I hope you had just as fine a Christmas as we did!! (And you can view the rest of the photo madness here.)

Ezra bonding with Sophie the Giraffe

Caiden with his new kitchen

Christian's Christmas Eve Gift

Christina and Pendle

The whole Becker clan expressing their excitement over NCIS Season 3

The opening of the garbage truck

Ezra and Aunt Tara opening his new teethers

Merry Christmas!!

Ezra: 4 Months

*I wrote a majority of this entry on the 22nd, but didn't get the pictures loaded in time to get it posted on the same day.*

My "little" guy is four months old already! And yes, I must use the term "little" lightly. We just got back from his 4 month check up, and this baby is one big boy! The doctor even momentarily forgot that he was 4 months old and not 6 months when she was getting ready to examine him. :) He is practically off the charts. Both his height and weight are 90-95th percentiles! And his head measures in the 75th. Here are his latest stats:

Weight: 16 lbs, 13oz (up 2 lb, 12.5 oz since his last appt)
Height: 27 in - he grew 3 inches in two months!
Head: 17 in

Ezra has excellent muscle strength when pulled to a sitting position and is doing a great job holding his head up. His doctor said she never would have guessed he doesn't get a lot of tummy time (I can't keep him on his belly for long due to his propensity for barfing). The only giveaway was his slightly flat back of the head. He was an absolute angel during the entire visit and was quite the little flirt.

 He is still a pretty good sleeper by most standards (I still have to remind myself that we were ultra spoiled with Caiden). His bedtime has gotten earlier - he goes down between 8 and 10pm (the fluctuation depends on when he started his day and how long his naps were). He generally has 2 long naps (2-3 hours) and one short nap in the late afternoon/early evening.  Every once in awhile he throws me for a loop and takes a short nap in the morning. He still has night wakings for feedings and some nights are better than others. Most of the time he wakes up only once (last night was great - bedtime at 9:30 and he slept straight thru until 5am, nursed and slept for another 3 hours), but the hard nights are when he is up 2 or 3 times. His doctor suggested that we move up his bedtime to between 6 and 8pm. Her prediction is that this will help eliminate the multiple night wakings. That is also pretty much in line with the recommendation from the Healthy Sleep Habits book. So we just need to figure out how we are going to manage this shift. I so wish I wrote down how we did this for Caiden!

Highlights for this month include:

• My absolute favorite thing is still his smile! He is just the cutest little grinner! He loves to smile at us and at Caiden, and it is so easy to bring a smile out of him. It is a rare day when he is in a grumpy mood. 
• He is also so content to just watch what is going on around him. He has no problem spending time hanging out in his swing or papasan or on the floor just watching what is going on.
• We got him a Bumbo seat so that he can see a little bit more of the world around him. However, his trunk muscles aren't quite strong enough yet, so he still spits up quite a bit while in his seat. I just love how he looks sitting up in there. Most of the time he is chewing on his hands while he observes all the hustle and bustle going on.
  
  
  
  
  
• He had another string of rolling over 2 nights ago, but once again hasn't done it since. Oh well, he'll get the hang of it soon enough!
• He is becoming quite the little inchworm! Put him down on his playmat or the quilt and with in 15 min, he is 180 degrees from where he started!
• He still loves to chew on his fingers. And my fingers. And daddy's fingers. It is the cutest thing! Some nights I hear him start to grunt and strain in his sleep. Turns out he is often just working a hand up out of his wrap to slurp on. I am dying to get a picture of him sucking on his fingers in his sleep, but I need to figure out how to do it without waking him up!
• He is talking a lot more now. No real distinct sounds yet, but he sure does love to exercise his vocal cords! Most of his conversation is punctuated by grins and other cute facial expressions. He's also been working on blowing raspberries.
• He is very ticklish. I can tickle his feet, thighs, back, arms, armpits, elbows and the back of his neck. Most of the time this elicits squeals of laughter. So much fun!!
• He loves getting kisses all over his face. And those cheeks are just perfect for loving on!
• He isn't the biggest fan of his car seat. I don't think it is uncomfortable for him, but he gets pretty bored if the seat isn't moving. At the rate he is growing, it won't be long before he graduates to the big boy car seat anyway.
• He is already very comfortable in 6 month size clothes. It's funny how pants seem to fit him differently than they did for Caiden. He definitely has a chubbier tummy and legs.
• He still gets all his milk from Momma! In a couple more months we'll start branching out into solids.
• He is actively reaching for toys, mom or dad's fingers and other things. It is fun to watch him stare up at the toys on his activity mat and grab for them and pull them down to his mouth.

I know there has got to be more that I wanted to capture here, but I just can't think of anymore right now. I have got to start making notes as the month progresses.

Anywho, I can't believe Ezra's first Christmas is just a couple days away! I am excited to celebrate with him and Caiden even though Ezra probably won't understand half of what is going on. :P

Photo logs for Ezra and Caiden.

 

Happy Holidays!

On our way home from Snowflake Lane on Sunday night, Caiden got us started singing Jingle Bells. What made it particularly fun and amusing was that he would start us off by singing "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way!" Then he would declare: "Daddy - your turn!" and then after B sang a line or two, "Mommy - your turn!" I would do my part and then he would start us all over again!This had B and me laughing all the way home! A couple days later, I got him to sing on camera for your enjoyment. :)

Caiden Sings "Jingle Bells"

Big Brother/Little Brother

It's been said that one of the reasons teens turn into such terrors is because it helps you become ready for their flight from the nest. But what is the reasoning behind toddlers transforming from such sweet little babies into holy terrors complete with enough mood swings to make the worst case bi-polar look normal? Caiden often goes from smiles to tears to giggles in a matter of seconds. Some days he is an absolute angel. Other days (like today) he goes to nap in place of a visit to the store because of his uncontrollable and all too frequent meltdowns despite my best efforts to help him through whatever it is that is upsetting him. *sigh*

Ok, complaining over. My real reason for writing about Caiden today is to showcase just what a wonderful big brother and all around good kid he really is. :) We're lucky. We really really are. He is a good helper. He loves to read his books either with Mom or Dad or just on his own. He will play on his own for hours. He makes us laugh. He gives awesome hugs. I love that he asks me "How are you doing this morning, Mama?" or he'll tell the cashier at the store to "Have a nice day!" He puts a smile on my face countless times throughout the day.

Yesterday there was a particular moment I want to capture here and share with you. Ezra is the proud new owner of a Bumbo seat we picked up off Craigslist. He loves to watch what is going on around him, especially when Caiden is around. As I have often lamented, Ezra is quite the little spitter. We don't go anywhere without a burp cloth or two at hand! Well, yesterday morning, Ezra was hanging out in his chair while Caiden was playing and I was eating breakfast. Caiden noticed he had spit up a little. He walks over to Ezra and squats down to his level. He then picks up Ezra's burp cloth and very gently dabs at his mouth and chin to clean him up. As he finishes he says "There you go, Ezra. All clean!" in a high pitched singsong voice much like we use when we talk to Ezra. He then proceeded to pick up Ezra's rattle and made sure he could hold on to it. Meanwhile, Ezra has just the biggest face-splitting ear to ear grin on his face from all the attention he is getting from his big brother. All of this was done without any prompting from me. Instead, I got to watch them interact with each other and my heart just swelled with love and joy at the scene I was witnessing. I made sure to tell Caiden right away how proud of him I was for his gentle and loving treatment of Ezra. Moments like these make me so excited and eager to watch them grow up together. They also fill me with hope that those two will be close compadres their whole lives.

Double Take

Like father, like son. :)

B - a couple weeks old

 Ezra - 3 months old

Time to Trim!

As per our usual Thanksgiving weekend tradition, we went out to the local tree farm and cut down our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. :) Caiden helped picked out a good one this year.

B and Christian helped get the tree started by getting the lights installed on Friday night. Then on Saturday afternoon, Caiden and I put up all the ornaments. He did a really good job of handling the ornaments very carefully and hung up about 1/3 of the ornaments all by himself! He was quite proud of himself as was I for the great job he did. :) All the remains is getting some candy canes to hang up!

 

Christmas Cheer

Getting the boys ready for Christmas! :)