Yay for Ibis!

I'm so happy for Ibis! He's been working a lot lately. Lots of overtime (which is good for our income) with the company he's working for now. We're starting our house hunting this week and we've been pre-approved for a home loan. We're so excited that we'll be able to get out of this apartment this year (hopefully!) and that we'll have more room to add some more little ones. :o)

Speaking of little ones, here are some recent pictures of my Marli Jayne

Marli likes to drink milk and water. That's all I ever give her to drink. I choose to not give her juice, but it's fine if she has some at Grandma's house. She has one bottle of milk and one bottle of water in her hands and she didn't want to put either one of them down!

As you can see, she's by the door. In her right hand, she has my car keys. She put on Ibis' hat and grabbed my keys and started waving "bye bye". Too cute!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Fun at the beach with Daddy

Listenin' to some tunes!

More Cakes from My Classes

I've been taking the Advanced Cake Decorating Class with Amy Malone and here are the cakes I've decorated during this class:

This cake was a two-toned cake with oriental poppies (made of royal icing) and a ribbon, zig-zag swag border on the sides. Since Ibis's birthday was the day before I made this cake, I chose to make the cake for him. :o)

This cake was made with a stencil and with airbrushing underneath it. The black outlining is done with black piping gel and if you look closely, you will see paw prints on the sides and a dog bone border.

This cake I made outside of class for a competition at church. It needed to be a car-themed cake, so I made two six inch round cakes and cut them in half for the wheels. There was a little extra of those rounds, so that is what made the pieces for the top of the car, which is sitting on a 9x13 inch sheet cake. My first carved-out cake made at home. Hope it does well in the competition! Who knows?

Silly Mami!

I need to write down some very cute things that Marli does that are just precious and need to get put down somewhere! Yesterday, she grabbed Ibis' ball cap and put it on her head backwards. Then, she grabbed her bee (a talking toy that goes through numbers and sings songs and stuff) and my keys and walked toward the door, ready to leave! So cute.

She is now saying these words: bye bye, uh-oh!, mama, papa, puppy, elfow (elephant), shoe. There are probably more, but I can't think of them right now. She loves peas. I mean, LOVES peas. Can't get enough. She waves bye bye with her palm facing herself as if she were saying goodbye to herself. Very cute. When I grab some Cheerios as a snack for her, she immediately runs over to her little plush box, sits down with it in front of her and waits for me to put her snack inside. She then proceeds to eat her Cheerios and milk.

When Marli is asked to smell a flower, she blows on it as if she was blowing out candles on a cake! Since that's the sound she hears when people sniff, I guess that's how she's figured out how to make the sound.

No more bakery!

Unfortunately, due to the increase in the prices of the ingredients at the bakery, Fernando had to let a few people go. He will be calling me when things turn around though, and he mentioned that he thinks I'm a great decorator and I have a lot of potential. So, it's all good. I'll be taking another one of Amy Malone's classes starting tomorrow, so I'm pumped! :o)

Hallelujah!!!

Ibis got his job back last week. We're so blessed. We are slowly, but surely working our way into a home. The first task is paying off debt. After he lost his job, I felt that it would never happen since we couldn't make double and triple payments anymore. But, now that I'm working at the bakery, singing with SDO next month, running my MK biz and teaching dance classes and he's working again, we have more than enough to get out of that debt ASAP! I'm so excited and looking forward to the day when we can purchase our very own home!

Marli's 16 Month Stats

Can she really be that old already? Wow! I couldn't take her to the doctor, but Ibis did and here are her stats:

23 lbs. (right on track for her height)
2 ft. 8 inches (80th percentile for height! Got a tall one!)

She's growing so much and I am wanting another little one soon! No, we're not trying yet, so don't get too excited! LOL!

Scary GI Joes!!

I have to backtrack a bit to tell you about a funny thing that happened back in December. I never wrote about it, but I was just reminded today and HAD to get it down somewhere! Ibis's grandmother passed away (Alfy's mom) before Christmas, so the whole family went down to Tijuana for the funeral. As most of you know, there is serious trouble in TJ right now with the drug rings and murders and everything. A bit scary. I was very nervous. Well, we were in Coco's big Excursion and as we crossed the border into Mexico, we had to be searched off to the side. Everyone got out, except Marli, because she was strapped into her carseat and it would have been a hassle for such a quick search to get her out for just a minute. The guys searching the car were in full-on battle regalia! They had helmets, guns and bulletproof vests and the whole shebang! Poor little Marli started FREAKING out when they crawled into the car and were checking the upholstery and under the seats all around her. Poor thing thought we left her and were giving her to the GI Joes!!! So, I quickly unbuckled her and got her out of the car to calm her down. Now it's a standing joke that she's afraid of the GI Joes. They scared her so badly! Hey, I'd be scared too if guys with guns slung over their backs and wearing helmets came into my car and I was a little baby. Pretty funny though, at the time. :o)