Busy Weekend

Saturday was a big day for the Riggs kids.  In the morning Jim and Brennan went to their bi-weekly Lowe's workshop, in the early afternoon we had Brennan's birthday party, and at dinnertime we went to a potluck and Eggstravaganza with our church.

I don't have any photos of Brennan hammering nails with Daddy at Lowe's because I am never invited to this exclusive boys' event, but I do have a few pics of Brennan's bowling party.  There were 17 kids there, and everyone seemed to have a really great time.

I made Brennan's bowling shirt to match his invitations and favors.  I thought everything came out really cute.

Our annual egg hunt with our church was almost canceled due to rain, but we just pushed the time back, grabbed some rubber boots, and ended up having a lot of fun.

Cora was a pro at grabbing eggs.  She just kept shaking the eggs and saying, "There's candy in there!  There's candy in there!"

Brennan didn't get quite as many eggs as Cora, but that's because he wanted to get as many blue eggs as he could find.  (Blue is his favorite color.)  I told my neighbor Leslie about this, and she said, "That's so Brennan."  :-)

It was hard enough to get pictures of two kiddos hunting for eggs this year, but soon I am going to have to figure out how to get shots of three!  Just crazy.

This week is Brennan's actual birthday, and I'm also helping to throw a baby shower for my sweet friend, Kelly.  As soon as we get through the weekend, I'll be ready for baby boy to make his appearance.  He currently has his head on some kind of nerve that runs down my back and into my right leg, and I'm ready to reclaim my body.  15 days and counting...

Baby Shower / Dinner Party

I believe that God gives us different friends at different seasons in life for different reasons.  Some friends help you to laugh at yourself, others walk a few steps ahead of you in marriage or parenting, and still others are great shopping buddies.  In my experience, it is rare to find a friend who knows you intimately, cares deeply about your feelings, your family, and your dreams, and is there for you to celebrate victories, grieve losses, and bring meals when you're sick.  These friends anticipate your needs, work hard to make you smile, and call to check up on you when they sense something is off.  Usually they share your world view and values and help to encourage you to seek God daily.  These friends are priceless treasures.

This past Saturday night, some of my treasured friends helped to throw me a baby shower / celebration.  It was a night I won't ever forget.  It was an intimate dinner party for about ten people (mostly my church community group), and the point was not to shower the baby with gifts as much as to celebrate our new little blessing and pray for him and our family.  It was one of those events that could have been just be dinner and gifts, but it was so much more.

My dear friends Hope and Kylie worked really hard to make the night special, meaningful, and memorable for me.  Hope used photocopies of my nursery fabrics and some of my childhood photos to make an awesome decoration for the kitchen island (the nursery is yellow, gray, black and white).  She also planned a craft that was really fun.  We used photocopied fabrics from my nursery to make scrabble tile necklaces with scripture references on the back.  Later, the scripture on the back of each necklace was prayed over the baby by the person who had chosen it.

When I told Hope, "You didn't have to do all of this!  I'm just honored that people would gather to celebrate our baby!" her response was, "I know, but this seems to be your love language and how you love others best, so we wanted to make you feel loved, too."  So, so thoughtful.

My favorite part of the night besides praying for the baby was when Hope showed this video, which was a surprise to me:

What a keepsake!  The video so perfectly captures my kids at this stage in their lives as they prepare for their baby brother, and I am so thankful that I will always have this to show to our youngest and to remind me of how excited Brennan and Cora were to love on him.

The food on Saturday was amazingly good, and my friend Emily made a divine strawberry cake (one of my favorites!) that was possibly the most delicious cake I've ever had in my life.  I could have eaten half of it by myself.  (For real.)

I got lots of great diapers, wipes, pacifiers, and pajamas for the baby, and I am so thankful for how much money this will save us in the upcoming months!  My most meaningful gift was from Hope.  It was three of the scripture verses we prayed for the baby, written out on vellum and framed with some of my nursery fabric behind it.  It is beautiful on many levels, and it will look perfect in the baby's room.

I am incredibly grateful for the friends God has given me at each stage in my life.  It is good to know that our kids will have other adults to look up to and learn from, and Jim and I will have lots of emotional support and extra hands when we need them.  I am so blessed.  Each day we are a step closer to being ready to meet this little guy!

Cora's Rainbow Cake

When I decided on a rainbow theme for Cora's birthday party, I knew I would have to make a rainbow cake.  I had seen several variations on the internet, and they just begged me to try them!

This cake above appears to have been made from six separate layers of cake.  Although it is beautiful, I do not have the patience to bake and cool six separate layers.  Plus, I could just see one of my layers being too thick or unbalanced, and it would throw off the whole effect.  Too much work and too much pressure.  Instead, I opted for this type of cake:

This cake, featured on Omnomicon, is a diet, Weight Watchers-worthy cake.  Since I was making this cake for my two-year-old's birthday party, I did not think it needed to be a diet cake.  For that reason, here is what I did:

I bought two boxes of white cake mix.  (I got white cake that used egg whites only so it would really take to the color better.)  I made each box according to the instructions, and then I separated all of the batter into a total of six bowls.

I used gel food coloring (it has a stronger color, in my opinion) and dyed each bowl a color of the rainbow.

Then, I started pouring the batter into a greased pan, starting with red.  I used about 2/3 of the red and then a little less than that of the orange, and so on.  This is because each time a color gets added on top, it spreads out the color beneath it, and if I had used the same amount of every color, the bottom colors would have been sparse and the top colors dominant.

You can see that by the time I got to purple, I didn't have to use much.  I probably only used 1/3 of the batter, whereas I had used most of the red.

Next, I did a reverse of the colors by making a new pan with purple first, then blue, then green, etc., ending with red.  

Because I hadn't measured exactly, one cake ended up being much bigger than the other.  When they baked up, it was even more evident:

This made layering the cakes a little tricky, but it worked out okay.  I just flipped the smaller one upside down.  

The final product looked like this:

You can see by looking at it that the bottom layer was much smaller than the top layer.  If I'm honest, I'll tell you that it really bothered me.  (Yes, I know I have issues.)  I wish I had either measured more accurately to have two layers end up the same size.  

Actually, I wish I had done would I would suggest you do:  Just make one layer out of one box of cake!  The slices were massive and didn't really need to be.  However, if you do decide to only do one layer, remember when dividing your batter between your bowls that your bottom color will need much more batter than your top color.  So, if you do red first, you'll need significantly more red than purple.

If you do decide to do two giant layers, at least put lots of frosting between them.  My cake didn't have enough at all.  I should have used two full containers of frosting on the cake, but I tried to squeeze by with one and then ended up using part of another to finish the outside.  Don't do that.

So there you go.  Rainbow cakes are fun and totally worth the effect - especially when you first cut into it and see your guest's eyes!  :-)

Now, on a separate but related topic: Rainbow decorations.  I tried very hard to keep my decor extremly simple for this party.  I tend to go a little overboard sometimes (see here), and I really wanted this to be a fun, relaxing party.  For that reason, I only made the balloon wreath I showed you before...

... and some colorful balloons, hung from the ceiling, along with a flower banner:

A red tablecloth with Skittles scattered on it and the kids' rainbow lollipops rounded out the decorations.  It was simple, but effective.  

In a similar vein, the only food I served was the rainbow cake, and, although I had considered more of a menu, I think the simplicity just added to the perfection of the morning.

I can't wait to see what kind of party Cora will want next year!  :-)

Cora's Color Party

Last Saturday was Cora's second birthday party.  We invited her three little best friends, who all happen to be boys, and we celebrated with a color party.  My original plan had been to do a "rainbow party" which is still what it was, but I decided to avoid that term after doing an internet search!  Plus, "color party" seemed less girly and she was, after all, the only girl there.  :-)

We started out the party by making colored rice pictures.  I dyed rice different colors (it's just dry rice plus food coloring, pre-mixed with a few teaspoons of rubbing alcohol, shaken in a bag and dried in the sun) and let the kids drop it on their glue, like glitter.

When the extra rice was all dumped into a big container, the kids played in the rice bin with cups, spoons, and containers.

I have ended up keeping the rice bin in the garage, and Cora and I have played with it a few times since Saturday.  

After we were done with the rice, we tried our hand at finger painting!

When we could finally drag ourselves inside (it was a gorgeous morning!), we let the kids play with rainbow stackers (that they got to keep) while we got ready for cake!

The outside of the cake was nothing impressive, but the inside was much more exciting!

I've had several people ask me how to make this cake, and even though you can find some recipes on the internet, I'll share what I did (and what I learned!), in a separate post.  Stay tuned.

After cake, we opened presents.  Among other things, Cora got her first princess dress.  She loves it!  (Isn't it hilarious that she is playing with train tracks in her princess dress?)

We ended the morning with a few photos of the kids enjoying their rainbow lollipops.  

I was going to show a few pictures of the decorations, but there really isn't much to show.  I'll show the two things I did do when I write my cake post.

Cora's real birthday is the day after tomorrow.  It's a whole week of birthday fun around here!  :-)