Bella's Turning One

On May 21, 2012, my precious granddaughter (lovingly referred to as "gbaby", "Bella Boo" or "Boo") made her appearance in this world.  Just as I was amazed how quickly my one-year surgiversary came around...I'm just as amazed that Bella is already a year old!

Since our first son was born, (with the prompting of CME) I have made the boys' birthday cakes.  So my daughter asked me if I'd make the cake for Boo.  She sent me a picture of one she found on Pinterest that she liked and hoped I could come close.  To be honest, I was a bit nervous because 1) It was a tiered cake and 2) It would require fondant!  The thought NEVER occurred to me about being nervous about baking...in a house alone.  This brought on some challenges that I hadn't expected.

First, I made my own marshmallow fondant... marshmallows, powdered sugar, water, vanilla and butter extracts.  If that's not sugar-overload, I'm not sure what is!  Since I always want to be honest here, I must confess that I did lick a spoon.  I wanted to taste it to see if it was nasty like store bought fondant.  It wasn't. (Darn!)

Secondly, though I didn't lick the bowl after the cake batters were poured into the pans, I did think about it.  After the cakes were baked, I found myself wanting to eat the "crumbs" in the bottom of the pan.  (Are you seeing the pattern here?!)  By the time I was icing the cake before adding the fondant, the desire to lick the icing off the knife when I was done was overwhelming!  What's a little lick?

After the cake was done and I was in the process of cleaning up the mess, without thinking thew a piece of the fondant into my mouth.  As I chewed it, I had that "OH MY GOSH!" moment and promptly spit it in the trash.  Want to know what's bad?  I did that a total of 3 times.  Before I knew it, I'd have a piece of fondant in my mouth and then spit it in the trash.  That concerns me!  At Boo's party, I did have a little bit of cake and a small amount of ice cream.  Considering that I wanted to eat it all, I think I did okay by having those few bites and trashing the rest.  But I have to ask myself this:  What has happened the past couple of days?  Why have I craved chocolate?  Why did I even accept that Dilly Bar?  Why, oh why did I wind up with fondant in my mouth...3 times?? What's going on??

Regardless of all those issues, it was a great day for a celebration and Bella seemed to have a good day!  As for me, I've got to evaluate if there is some underlying stress or issue that's causing me to be careless.  I'm not beating myself up over it...I just need to understand it so I don't fall back into the old ways!  God has given me this gift and I need to treasure it!

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"I praise you [God] because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." ~Psalm 139:14