Life Updates with The Mama Llama

Hey, all. I've been in a bit of a blogging slump (I haven't personally and intentionally written anything new for this blog for TWO AND A HALF MONTHS. I have had a few guest posts and stuff, but for someone who has been posting almost weekly for the past year that's pretty big.)

Since my last blog post, written by my darling friend Morgan, the United States experienced a total solar eclipse, earthquakes in Idaho, riots in the streets of Charlottesville, Montana caught on fire, and Hurricane Harvey, which caused catastrophic flooding in the great state of Texas. There was also Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Maria, Hurricane Katia, and Hurricane Jose, an earthquake in Mexico, not to mention all of the other atrocities happening worldwide, man-made and nature-made.

I'm pretty sure none of that happened due to me not writing on this blog, but I better not chance it again (sorry to make light of such terrible situations, but my dear friend once told me that sometimes levity can help during hard times so I thought I'd take the risk).

During these past few weeks  months of taking a blogging break, my mom came to visit (and she ended up in the hospital. No worries-she's good now), we went to Seaworld with my mom's cousin, and braved the hurricane--we were okay, we didn't lose power, water, and our apartment didn't flood. We had many friends and family members praying for us and are so grateful to all of you.

The 'Paca Individual Updates:

We celebrated my sweet Tina's 3rd birthday with pizza, a mermaid cake (she really wanted it to be a shark eating a mermaid but I talked her down from that ledge), and swimming with friends. Tina doesn't quite understand that once you turn three you're three for a whole year. She keeps insisting that she's not three anymore. She's also been saying prayers for her "birthday stuff, Ariel stuff, and birthday cake." She started a preschool co-op (which makes me a super-part-time preschool teacher. So far, "ba-da-ba-ba-ba... I'm LOVIN' it! It's been really fun to use my college degree for something besides what I do at home"). After a year with struggling through potty training, we're still struggling. You thought I was going to say we're done. Nope. We're not. Sorry to disappoint.

It's been fun to spend one-on-one time with Lil Spits during the time Tina's at preschool because I'm not her favorite parent. It's been good to be able to connect with her and do things that I think she'd like to do. She is such a little smarty. Her vocab is great for only being 19 months old and she's so adventurous. She also knows that she's cute and hilarious so she really hams it up during dinner and when friends are over. She's trying to get me to potty train her, but I'm not having it. Potty training is the worst. However, our kids are not. They're kind of the best when they're not stressing me out.

We also found out we are having our third baby girl at the end of January/early February! This will mean by the time she's born, we will have a 3 1/2 year old, a 2 year old, and a newborn. We're crazy, but we're crazy blessed, too. We're grateful for the love and support we've felt from friends and family.

This was taken at Seaworld, so it only seemed fitting I'd tell people I was feeling like a whale when I announced our pregnancy. I know, I'm hilarious.

Spouse Unit has been doing flood cleanup on the weekends. He just finished his first residency rotation at a prosthetic clinic and has been doing testing for the past two days. He starts his second rotation on Monday at the same clinic, but he will be doing orthotics. Baby J will be born during his third rotation, and after that he'll only have 3 more rotations, and "boom, baby!" we will be out of school forever! Time flies when you're stressed out and having fun.

I've been growing a baby and making cakes. I got to experiment with marshmallow fondant for Tina's Ariel cake, and it tastes 150% better than yucky old regular fondant. I also had the privilege of making two cakes for my sweet neighbor and her family. Her daughter turned one and they wanted a few birthday cakes. It was a lot of fun to try out new flavors and a few new styles.

Vanilla smash cake with homemade mango jam filling and cream cheese frosting for darling Harper's first birthday. This little gal is a total trooper! She has spina bifida but doesn't let anything slow her down. She's meeting all the milestones and keeps a smile on her face while she does it! I am so blessed to be friends with her mom and dad.

Chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and marshmallow fondant, sans hungry shark.

Chocolate cake with homemade raspberry jam filling, cream cheese frosting, and fresh raspberries on top (obviously). I could have spent forever frosting this cake, but I had to stop sometime. It was so fun to make!

I'm hoping to have a few new blog posts up over the next few weeks, including info on the annual Mama Llama Halloween costume contest. Blogging sure is fun but it's not my main focus right now, so please be patient and don't hold your breath! Thanks for all of you who stuck through to the end of reading this. 5 points to the House of your choice. Bonus points to those of you who got my references. There's three in this post.

Hope you're all doing well! Thanks again for all the love you've been sending our family's way over the past little while. We love you back.

Melissa