Marlee's Pictures and First Steps!

We had my cousin Ginger take some pictures of Marlee. These are some of her 1 year pictures. Showing off some of her teeth:
Big Beautiful Eyes

Sweet Little Angel

This is a lighter version of her scowl that she does quite frequently:

And here is a cute on of her holding on to the side, she is wearing her new red shoes she got for her birthday from Grandma Jackie.

This Tuesday, Feb. 23rd, Marlee took her first steps not holding on to anything! We got it all on camera and she did it a few times so I got it on my phone camera too, Check it Out!!:

She has been so fun lately, she is really understanding everything now. She says more words and definitely knows what she does and doesn't want.

Allie is working on her alphabet and she is doing really good and knowing the sounds. On Thursday she was sounding out some words and it was really exciting, I love to see her learn she is so smart. I think she will be like me and start reading soon, I need to work with her a lot more though. She wants to learn so badly, she just doesn't have a big brother to teach her like I did. But I'm so proud of what she has learned and what a smart little girl she is. She has been telling me lately that she wants to grow up and be a mommy just like me. She wants the people next door to move out so that she can have their house when she grows up. And she told me that she is going to marry her Daddy. I tried to explain to her that when she is old enough to get married Daddy is going to be really old and she won't want to marry him she will want someone her own age. Plus her Daddy is already taken. But she is good to think highly of her Dad, and I hope that she will set her bar that high when she is older.

I've been doing a lot of sewing lately. I moved my sewing room so now I have a better space to work in. I have been watching Quilting Arts and have learned some fun new things. I made some mini quilts of faces, they are really cool and pretty easy. I have been doing some more free motion quilting and I finished a quilt top of hexagons that is really cool. I will show some pictures later of all the stuff I've been making!

Marlee Bday & CAKE!

Marlee's Birthday was on Saturday, January 30th. She is no longer 0! She is 1 year old! It was fun to celebrate even though she didn't really understand it. She just knew she got spoiled, sang to a lot, and stuffed with sugar.
We went to Toys R Us because we had to get a gate for the stairs. She has a new love, of climbing them and then sliding down on her belly. But she has started to be interested in going DOWN from the top but hasn't figured out turning around before she starts. I couldn't even live if she would fall down and break something or even worse. So we got that taken care of. She got a balloon and a crown too! She didn't like the crown on her head but I tried to get her to wear it with a smile but we can see how that turned out:
For her Birthday, I HAD to make an awesome cake, so this is what I did:

I made a white cake and I separated the batter into 5 different bowls.

Then I colored each of the different bowls a different pastel color.

I dropped spoonfuls of each color onto a greased and floured cookie sheet.

And of course I had THIS cutie's help.

I filled the sheet a little too full, so I had to leave it in longer for the middle to cook. The top wasn't burnt, but it had a really brown "skin" on it, so I cut it of after it cooled.

I cut a shape out of the number 1 and did 2 layers with ice cream in between the layers. While it was in the freezer, I made fondant. It is pretty simple. Its a bag and a half of marshmallows and 2 Tbsp. of water. Melt them in a pot on the stove or in a bowl in the microwave stirring a lot. Then I greased the counter with shortening and rubbed shortening all over my hands. I kneaded the marshmallows with an entire bag of powdered sugar, adding water when it got too tough and started ripping.
I had to keep it in the fridge for about an hour so the clumps of powdered sugar would dissolve so that it would roll out smoothly. I rolled out part of it and layed it over the cake, smoothed out the corners, and cut it off at the bottom. The rest of the fondant I dyed purple by kneading 2 drops of food coloring in it. It takes a while to dye all the way but it isn't hard because it is really interesting to watch it while the color mixes in. I put the purple fondant into a fondant press that cuts out flowers and stamps a cute texture on them. Then I just put zig-zags around the bottom with a star tip on a frosting bag. Then I wrote Marlee down the middle, Ta Da!

I wanted to make another cake that would be her very own to destroy. Sooo, this is what I made. I know the writing doesn't look good but the frosting was kind of runny.
Here is the Birthday Girl being sung to with her candles lit:

And here comes the fun, she wasn't to sure at first about touching it.

Then she started digging right in.

It got demolished pretty fast after she tasted it, it was really good so she was eating it all up.

Yummy Yum!

This is how the other cake looked when we cut it, it turned out pretty cool with all the colors in it, and with two layers on it.

Marlee was really excited when she saw presents. She is the best to give presents to because she has such a happy face and such a good reaction. She really enjoys to get presents and see what they are.

Here she is with some of her loot.

Happy Birthday Marlee!!

Height: 29 1/2 inches

Weight: 21# 14 oz.

Says these words: Mama, Dada, Baba, Boo, No, Wow, Hi, Bompah (Grandpa), Nana, Num nums, tickle tickle.

We love you, you are a little angel and such a joy to be around. Thank you for being such a good and happy baby.

Mommy