Babies, Bloodshot Eyes & Buttercream Frosting

Babies are popping out all over the place lately! Some friends of ours just had twin baby boys last night and one of my friends and co-workers is due in a couple of weeks. Today we threw her an office baby shower and I was in charge of wrapping the presents and taking care of the cake. Oh........the cake.

I found a picture on Pinterest about 2 months ago of an ADORABLE cake and so I got a quote for it.

I didn't like the quote. I thought it was ridiculously expensive so I decided I was going to teach myself how to use fondant and make it myself. Oh what a decision. In anticipation for this grandious cake, I have been going to Michaels and Hobby Lobby frequently armed with one 40% off coupon a day (since they have silly rules and you have to play their games like that) to purchase all my new tools I would need to work with fondant and build a tiered cake.
Yesterday was THE day. Unfortunately yesterday was also one of the busiest days at my work also. I was on my feet walking for about 5 hours straight yesterday and I was dog-tired when I got off work. I was running off adrenaline though and started to back immediately when I got home. I made 8 different layers (4-8" rounds and 4-10" rounds).

 

There were cake layers all over my kitchen. Mitch and I left at that point to go have dinner with his parents. I was in no mood to cook and I honestly had no room in the kitchen to do it.... plus I just desperately needed to sit and take a break off my feet. When we got back I went at it full force and made my frosting from scratch. An EXCELLENT receipe that got rave reviews from everyone at my office that I got here.

 

After that I started the layering process:

Then the moment of truth. The first time I've ever actually worked with fondant. I would have taken more photos of the actual working of the fondant but it was quite a workout in itself and I was just in the mood to finish. The fondant originally was white and I had to work the color in. It took like 20 minutes of kneading and rolling to get it all even. They need to put a warning on fondant tubs that says your arms should be in a physically fit state before even attempting to work with it. Heavens....what a workout.

And now the final product!!!

That whale is a bathtub spout cover off the mom-to-be's registry. It worked PERFECT as a cake topper!
So this total overall "can't be THAT difficult" project took me 8 hours!!!!!! Oh my gosh, I was NOT anticipating that. My poor husband felt bad for me around hour 6 and offered to help me cut the decorative lines and rolls the balls on the bottom of the layers. He even did the letters for me! It seriously would have taken me an additional 2 hours if I had to do all of by myself. He was such a big help last night. So, around 12:30 a.m. this haggard couple finally stumbled into bed with bloodshot eyes and a ridiculously sore body. I felt like my whole lower half was swollen and stiff from being on my feet all day.

Here are the gifts I wrapped for the shower. I LOVE making big bows.

I wish I had taken a picture of my eyes this morning to finish this post off. Literally.....no white to be found on my eyeballs. All the white parts were completely red. Needless to say it was a coffee morning. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to fall asleep at my desk.

Fa "bow" lous!

I LOVE making uber cute bows. I love to give gifts and spend special time making each of those gifts as adorable as possible. As a side note, I NEVER use bags for gifts. I always wrap them in boxes and paper. It's more fun that way.

Lately I've been making bows like crazy. There are so many baby showers, bridal showers, birthdays, weddings, etc going on that our family room is  full of presents right now. Here are some of my latest bows:

I would love to wrap gifts for people and makes bows! I wonder if there is a need for that in the job market.......

Hhhaapppy Birfday Cinderelly!

I just really like to imitate Gus saying that. Don't know who Gus is? You seriously need to sit yourself down with the original Disney's Cinderella movie. Anywho.....yesterday was my birthday! Mitch gave me my birthday gift a day early so I could wear them on my birthday.

Aren't they gorgeous?!

At work, my office celebrated my birthday with a yummy ice cream cake and a $50 gift card to Macy's.....look's like I can put that with my other one and finish out our China set! Yay!

Then, I received these beautiful flowers from my hubby! He remembered that I loved peonies! I was so sad when I found out there was absolutely no way to get them for my bouquet for our July wedding. Sad day. Thats okay though. I was impressed that he remembered I loved them though. They are not your cookie cutter looking flower. They are awkward and fluffy in my opinion and thats why I love them!

This past weekend, we went up to Merced (first time since Christmas!) to visit with my family and celebrate my birthday with them. It was such a relaxing, do-nothing weekend. I went to Hobby Lobby and dragged my family with me so I could buy all the necessities for a fun upcoming project and utilize 40% coupons for everything. I'm sure my dad and Mitch were absolutely thrilled going up to pay for girly project things. More on that project next month. Overall, very fun, relaxing birthday!

Jetsetter

I guess it's somewhat true that you should be careful what you wish for. I recently posted that I had the travel itch. Shortly after that, I booked a trip to North Carolina to see one of my best friends Kathryn! While I was there, I got a text from my boss that I would be leaving to Chicago for a business trip in only 5 days! Therefore, I came home late on a Sunday night from North Carolina and left mid-day that Wednesday to Chicago. I left there late Friday to come home. I unfortunately was not able to stay there longer to actually see the sights and I was pretty much in meetings a significant part of the time I was there. Here's a recap of my trip!



On my way to North Carolina, I had a layover in Atlanta, Georgia. the sun had just rose and the clouds were absolutely beautiful!



This is Kathryn's adorable son, Luke. Kathryn and I took him and his sister, Grace to the park while we were there. He's pretty much the funniest kid ever.



He kept going down the slide and his hair was SO full of static.

  

These are some of the houses in the neighborhood of the park we went to. I LOVED all their houses over there. Most are made with brick and according to Kathryn for what we would pay for an 1,100 sqft house here in Los Angeles, we could buy a 6 bedroom mansion in North Carolina..... sad day.

 

While we were there, we did some crafting. It made me seriously wish I had a fabulous sewing machine like Kathryn does.





This is Grace. I couldn't get her to smile, but thats okay. She is adorable. I recently starting following the blog of Ashley from  The Christian Wife Life. She is from North Carolina and has talked about Cheerwine soda several times, so of course I had to try it while I was there. It was good, but still doesn't compare to my Dr. Pepper.



I also tried CiCi's Pizza for the first time! Mitch and I always see commercials for these at home, but we have no idea where they are. Well Kathryn's husband, Drew, happens to LOVE CiCi's Pizza so it didn't take much convincing to have dinner there one night while I was there.



This is right before we went to church. Cheesy smile from one, no smile from the other... haha



Me and Kathryn!

 And now......on to Chicago!

The view from my hotel room in downtown Chicago.

There was such beautiful architecture in the downtown area. I wish I could have stayed longer to actually do some signseeing.

For whatever reason this was this huge statue of Marilyn Monroe in the middle of downtown.

The National Association of REALTORS building! I have heard and talked about this place for almost 11 years and it was so cool to actually see it and be in it!

Needless to say it has been quite the last two weeks! It is so nice to be home and to know that I am staying home. I missed my hubby!

Annual Dessert Party

For those of you just DYING to see what my dessert table looked like at our party.....here it is:

During this Christmas season, don't forget about those less fortunate than yourself. Here's hoping you have a Merry Christmas!

Christmas Decor in the Maertens Household

Christmas is my FAVORITE time of year! It makes me so happy! I love to give gifts! I love to wrap gifts! I love to bake! Are you understanding all my excitement with my many exclamation points???

So Mitch and I have an annual dessert party with our friends and close family. We unfortunately had to skip it last year because our house and our lives were way too chaotic because of just getting married/settling in/not having a floor/not having an oven that baked evenly....you know...the usual. So this year, I'm happy to say that we were able to start the tradition back up again! I was a baking fool and didn't take any pictures, but my dad at least took one of the dessert table. Unfortunatly he hasn't emailed it to me yet, so you will have to wait until the next post for that one.

Let's move onto home decor. I really love decorating and I ESPECIALLY love decorating for Christmas....because I kind of love the holiday...if you didn't catch onto that yet. So, here is the Maertens household Christmas decor:

Our newest furniture addition to our house. I am finally able to display our china and have it easily accessible so we can use it! I kept decorating simple on this. On one doorknob, I must a pearl letter "M" ornament and on the other doorknob I used some white ribbon to hang a berry wreath. And then you have my "Dr. Seuss" trees on the floor next to it. I call them that because they are curved.

I always LOVE to share when I get a good deal on something....it's a downfall of mine. So I had been holding out for the Willow Tree Nativity collection. I fell in love with it, but I just couldn't afford it because it was almost $300 for the entire set. I had decided that I was just going to have to save up and buy it piece by piece. The reason I loved that particular set was because they are faceless and simple. I feel like so many nativity scenes out there today are glitzed out and I feel that that is no a correct representation of that night when Jesus was born. Anywho....long story, I know, Mitch and I went to Kohl's on Black Friday and I fould this almost identical faceless set for.............get ready for it..........only $28!!!!!!! What a deal!!!!

My brand new lovely mantle made by my husband.

Entryway table. That tall manzanita tree was actually a centerpiece at our wedding. I kept the hanging jewels on it and added tiny little glass ornaments. That framed printout came from Pinterest. The silver ball things in the glass jar on the right came from Hobby Lobby. The little sparkle balls around the manzanita piece came from Pottery Barn. I unfortunately DID NOT get a good deal on these. They were WAY too expensive, but I loved them so I splurged a bit.

These beautiful sparkly snowflake ornaments came from my new fav home decor place on Myrtle Avenue in Monrovia, Charlie's House.

 

My sister got me this little metal tree from Target and the sparkly star things came from Pottery Barn.

This tree is one of my favorite decor pieces. It is the sparkliest tree ever. I randomly came across it at Marshall's one day and although it was a little pricey, I totally feel like it was worth it because it's beautiful. I wasn't sure what to cover the base with or what to put around it so for now there is a papertowel underneath it so it doesn't scratch our table.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little tour of our decorated home!

AAR Annual Installation Party

Every year my office has a fancy cocktail party for the installing of our coming years Board of Directors and leadership team. Our party was last Friday and we had a photobooth there for the first time! These are our pics from that. This is the event that Mitch and I met at 5 years ago, so it is kind of a fun tradition for us to attend every year!