Introducing Owen - our sweet baby!

Well...last blog I wrote was December 11, 2014.  A few hours after clicking "publish", I went into labor and we headed to the hospital to deliver our baby boy!

After 36 hours of labor that ended in a c section, we welcomed Owen William Alford to the world on December 13, 2014 at 4:50am at 9lbs 5 oz and 22" long!  Coolest birthday (12-13-14) for the sweetest baby!  

I'll post more later about that day (2 days...) soon, which included a physician coming in at just the right time, CBS news crashing my hospital room a few hours after birth, and family members excited to meet the newest member!

It's now been just over 11 weeks and we've fallen even more in love with our little one.

Click here to read Owen's birth story!

Some Fun Things Lately - Apple Picking, Ann's Party, Boston Globes, and Toby's New Friend

September was a crazy busy month for me.  I feel like we only had a handful of nights that we weren't off doing something, which made for a lot of fun...but has left me exhausted and fighting a cold!  I've told you about a lot of the fun things we did already, like visit the largest antique fair in the world and go to Saratoga Springs and Cooperstown, NY, but today thought I'd share a few snippits from other awesome things we did last month!

Ann's birthday was a few weeks ago, and our friend Betsy threw her a beautiful dinner party with a bunch of us girls.  It was SUCH a fun night.  I love hanging out with the husbands there, but there's something special about girl time.  Agreed?  We had a great time eating yummy food and hanging out all evening.  Betsy has a beautiful home and is an entertainer extraordinare.  Check out her beautiful fall appetizer display below - she used a large basket and layered wooden boxes to add height, tossed in some pumpkins, and even included some flowers and a cabbage.  I brought dessert: gluten free cupcakes and homemade nutella ice cream.  Happy birthday, dear friend!

Last week I shared my lasagna recipe that I made for a group of our friends after we went apple picking.  What I didn't share with you were any pictures from the first half of the day!

Honey Pot Hill Orchard is easily our favorite place to go apple picking in the Boston area.  It's about 45 minutes west of Boston and seems to have an endless amount of apple trees, hay rides, hedge mazes, farm animals, pumpkins, and yummy cider donuts.  All the makings of a perfect fall day!

The next day we had dinner with our neighbors, Paul and Ali.  We're so lucky to live next door to some of the coolest people.  Dinner was at their house and featured their homemade pesto that they made from their garden.  Seriously good!

After dinner, Ali got one of their guinea pigs (Bolt) out of the cage and we decided to see if Bolt and Toby would get along.  I was terrified Toby would think he was a toy, so we took things slowly.  Toby wasn't sure what Bolt was at first...he rarely sees animals smaller than him (besides squirrels)!  After checking him out from afar (picture number 1), Toby walked across the table and lightly "booped" Bolt on the top of the head.  Then Bolt licked Toby's face and they rubbed faces.  Success!!

We've played (and won) a lot of trivia lately.  Last week our team name was "The Intellectual Q-Tips"  to go with our head gear for the evening.  Poor Ann had to wear a head wrap to cover a 3 day electrode test, so Barb and I wrapped our heads in solidarity.  Laugh if they want....we won.  :)

The final random fun thing I wanted to share is one of the cool art installations happening in Boston right now.  There are 26 globes lining the Tremont Street edge of Boston Common that are part of the "Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet" show that travels the world.  Each globe was designed by a different artist and covers a different green strategy or environment issue.

What fun things did you do in September?

More Fun in NC - Bowling, Birds & Birthdays

Sorry I've been MIA this week - it's been pretty hectic since getting back to Boston!  I thought I'd share a few pictures from some of my other adventures while in NC.

First of all, I can't believe it's taken me this long to post a picture of my car for the week.  If you weren't convinced I have one of the coolest grandma's ever before...this'll win you over.  I drove her Neon Turbo Bug all week...it was so much fun!  It sure did zip around.

Friday morning, I got up pretty early to put in a few hours of work, then we took the dogs for a long walk around the neighborhood.  Afterwards, we decided to go bowling at Clayton's fabulous Rainbow Lanes.  The day before, I'd called to make sure there would be lanes open on a Friday.  The worker on the phone said that we should definitely plan to be out of there by 5:30 because there are NO lanes open on Friday nights due to leagues, and recommended we come around 3:30.  With his description of how popular Fridays were, we were expecting a semi-full house.  Turns out it wasn't that necessary to come early.  It was just us and another duo there - we basically had the place to ourselves!

Poor Mark in his crazy-colored, size 14 bowling shoes.  

Dad, of course, got a 176 on the first game.  (Last time they went bowling he got a 200...crazy, huh?)  The surprise was MY TURKEY!  Yep...I got three strikes in a row in the 9/10th frame of our last game.  Talk about going out with a bang!

Such a fun time.  Mom dubbed our lane "The Lauren Alford Memorial Lane" because of my...err...interesting (incorrect) form.  I have a tendency of letting go of the ball too late, semi-launching it down the lane.  Oops.  Hey...it got me a turkey...whatever works!

Since I was working from home, I spent a lot of time at my parent's kitchen table.  They have a beautiful backyard, which turns into a bird sanctuary in the spring and summer.  Most of the time you can see 12 male cardinals out there!  It was such a nice thing to watch while I worked.  Here are a few shots of the birds:

I also enjoyed hanging out with the pups (if you couldn't tell).  It made me miss MINE a lot, though.

Sunday after church, mom drove me to Travis' parent's house.  He was done with his time at ECU's New Music Festival, so we had Sunday to spend with his family before heading back to Boston.  His birthday was the 27th, so it was a perfect time to celebrate with his family - after all...it was the big 3-0!  His sister, Sarah, and her boyfriend, Michael, came down from Virginia Beach to hang out for the weekend, too.  Such fun!

Jenny made Travis' favorite cake for his birthday, red velvet - YUM.  She also decided 30 years deserved 30 candles.  It looked like his cake was a ball of fire!

After lunch, cake, and a little hanging out, it was time to head to the airport to fly home.

It was a fantastic trip home...one more blog to go to cover the trip coming next week!  Check out the other blogs here:

Raleigh, Sewing, a New Picture, and Old Friends
Fun Lunch Breaks & My First Trip to Hula Girl
ECU's New Music Festival & Revisiting Greenville

Chili Pepper Cake

This weekend I made a cake a for a friend's 34th birthday.  When his wife, Laci, told me we were going to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, I couldn't decide whether to make a chili pepper or sombrero cake.  The thought of making a vegetable out of cake was too exciting to pass up, so a red chili pepper it was!  I thought it would be fun to show the blog world how I did it.

This design took three 9" cakes.  I baked 4 because I wasn't sure 3 would be enough, but it ended up working out perfectly!  It's important to level your cakes (cut the rounded tops off) when you're stacking or carving a cake.  Keep a bowl for "cake scraps" as you go - this is Travis' favorite part.

Next I made a cut-out for the shape of the chili and a "working board" to lay the cake out on.

Place your cut-out on the first layer of cake and cut through.  Ice the top of this layer, then stack on the remaining cake.

At this point, put the cake in the refrigerator for about an hour so it stiffens up enough to carve easily.  If you're doing a cake similar to this at home...make sure you carve slooooowly.  It's much easier to take more cake off than put it back on!  Once you're finished carving the shape, put a thin layer of buttercream on the entire outside and refrigerate for another few hours to let that set.

At this point, Travis and I decided it looked more like a huge talon.  :)  I like to do a second thin layer of frosting on the outside of the cake when I'm covering it with fondant (that way if someone doesn't want to eat the fondant, they can peel it off and still have some frosting).

Then I mixed up some red fondant, rolled it out on the counter, and then covered the chili pepper.  This is also the point when I trimmed the board to the exact shape of the pepper.

After refrigerating for another few hours to let the cake/fondant firm up, I mixed up some green and added the chili's top, using a dowel to secure the stem.

Then the cake spent another short stint in the refrigerator while I prepared the presentation board and made a few little accent foods (a few jalapenos and some garlic).  I decided to use yellow fondant around the chili and think it turned out nicely!

 We ate at a great little Mexican restaurant in Somerville - Jose's.  Deeeeelicious!

Happy birthday Christian!!