A day at the zoo!

I recently found out that the zoo was free for everyone last Wednesday and thought it would be fun to go. It was very last minute on my part and I didn't want to go alone, so I asked around to see if anyone wanted to join my crazy last minute idea and my friend down the street that sometimes watches Braxton in the mornings said she would come with me. She has two kids of her own and than she watches two other kids every Monday-Friday while their parents work. We had quite the car load, but lucky for us we were able to all go because of our new van.

We went right after nap time on Wednesday. And let me tell ya, the zoo was packed. My friend said she's never seen it that busy before. I didn't think it was too bad, we still saw everything there even with the loads of people. Thanx Kristina for coming to the zoo with me, it was way fun!

Her kiddos are the two on the left, the two that she watches are the two on the right.

Gorilla bending over to eat.

Braxton looking at the gorilla so intently.

The water where the sea lions swim.

The giraffe in the background.

Loved it, Braxton got to see this animal up close. I have know clue as to what kind of animal it is, haha.
That animal never moved, it just sat there frozen, it could pass as a stuffed animal ;)

 We got to see the tiger up really close too, very cool. Was the kids favorite part I think.

Kristina passing out some animal crackers, thank heavens we brought snacks.
It helped with keeping them in the wagon between the different animals.
 I had my stroller for Braxton.

Date night!

For Christmas, I bought Jackson NBA Jazz tickets for us to go to a game for his birthday. Jackson has never been to an NBA game before so I was excited to take him to his first. Since his birthday is actually on Tuesday and we both have to work that day, I decided that we would do Jackson's birthday cake right before the Jazz game on Saturday. It was fun!

Emily was nice and offered to watch Braxton for us while we went to the game. Come to find out she forgot that her friend's wedding reception was that same night as well so I told her that she could take Braxton with her to the reception. That reception was up north near Ogden and since it was going to be a late night, Emily asked if she could just keep him for the night. It was hard to have him away from us but I knew that Emily would take good care of him. Thanx Emily for taking care of our baby for us!

Daddy feeding Braxton before he left to go to Aunt Lou's (Emily) house.

Emily and her friend Sammie helping light up Jackson's cake.

I decided to make cheesecake since I knew we would have some leftover birthday cake from Braxton's photo shoot.

31 candles!

Almost set off the fire alarm with all the smoke!

Picture taken of us right before Emily left.

Bye bye baby, it was a little hard but I knew he would be okay.

Emily was great on keeping me posted with what went on that night.

At the Jazz game, I took pictures before everyone got there. Not bad seats I think.

Warm up time and seats slowly filling up.

Opening performances showing the starting line up. It was way cool.

This was taken sometime after half time I think, more people are there now.

These were some pictures that Emily took of Braxton that night while we were at the Jazz game.

Thanx again Emily!

Last night, Feb 25 was actually Jackson's birthday and since we already had cake on Saturday Braxton and I just gave daddy a gift. My plan was to get him the movie "Frozen" but it was digital that came out yesterday, not DVD. Darn it, so I looked around and found a trilogy that he really likes. The "Underworld Trilogy's". I gave him the option of keeping it or taking it back for frozen when it came out in a couple of weeks. He stuck with the trilogy and was really excited about it. Happy Birthday Jackson, thanx for being a great father to Braxton, love you!

Making the cake!

I bought the number "one" cake pan a couple weeks back along with a different cake pan that I plan to use on Saturday for his birthday. In my younger years of growing up my mom always made us fun exciting birthday cakes. She put so much work into it and all of us siblings remember how cool and fun they were. So Melanie has been following in her footsteps for the last eight years in making her kiddos awesome birthday cakes as well and so will I. We loved our birthday cakes, something we will never forget! Pictures back than were only printable so I can't share some of the awesome cakes my mom made without a scanner so they just remain in my memory for now. But thank you mom for making our birthdays so fun, only hope to do the same for my kiddos!

Here are the cakes that Melanie made, just to kind of give you an idea of our style of birthday cakes.

Onward to the process.

So I honestly had no idea what I was doing, I was planning on just spraying a ton of pam on the cake pan in high hopes that the cake would just come out. I'm so glad I didn't do that, I talked to my mom just before and she told me to spray the pan but put flour in the pan right after to help make the cake come out of the pan after baking. Thank heaven for mothers! My night could have gone much worse.

So here's the cake after removing from the pan.

Now how to ice it, I knew how I wanted it to look but wasn't sure how to ice it. I wanted the sides to have the star shape icing and the top of it to be smooth with his name on it. So I bought just a normal thing of icing to spread on the top but than had to call my mother for help with the sides. I talked to my sister Melanie and she said she used a ton of crisco to help make the frosting stiff enough to stay where she put it when placing it in her design. My mom heard how much crisco she used and said there was an easier way to do it.  She said to just use some cream cheese and keep adding powdered sugar until it's the "stiffness" that I desired. The cream cheese frosting sounded yummy so I went for that idea instead.

 So I iced the top of it first with the stuff I bought.

Time to make the blue frosting, I was very skeptical on what I was doing and nervous about messing up. I definitely didn't have the time for mistakes, it was already a late night to begin with. After calling my mom several times with questions on how to do it, my mom offered to skype with me on my ipad to help talk me through it. So awesome of her, thank you mom!

After making the blue frosting my mom said I should ice the sides first to help make the stars stick to it better which sure enough helped out alot.

The cake with frosting on the sides and the start of the star shape edges.

The ipad next to the cake with my mom watching me work.
My greatest support as always! :)

Jackson was off in bed sleeping since he had an early day of work that next day.

The finished product! Turned out just the way I pictured it! :) Thanx again mom!
So proud of my first official birthday cake!