Spring Babies

Chelsea has decided to be coworker extraordinaire (not surprised) and commissioned me to make this preppy fresh diaper cake for what promises to be the best dressed baby boy in DC!

In other news I got my first order from a stranger on Etsy! Woot! Maybe I can just build cakes (points for the movie reference on that one) full time? Probably not.

Magic in the Middle

Everyone loves a surprise inside. That was the theme for this Winter's edition of the Winsor Weekend (the WWW for short). Luring us by telling us she had recently renovated her kitchen to include TWO ovens (as well as literally 10x my counter space), we headed deep into suburbia to visit Meg in her West Hartford home/palace.

First things first, Dr.Rossin arrived with her stethoscope to see if she could hear Baby G's (yes, there is a new baby-to-be G!) heartbeat....There's magic in her middle! (stretch, sorry)
We then made ourselves at home and set up shop for an afternoon of baking and reminiscing. We whipped up some Magic in the Middle cookies which were the pretty much a cookie version of a peanut butter cup. Its a much easier recipe than the sophisticated result may suggest, so I recommend you test it out.
Completely chocolate and unassuming on the outside, but a delish peanut butter surprise when you bite in!
Thanks for the Magical weekend Meg, we'll be back!

Bonjour Baby Batiste!

So I've been in SF since Friday. Apologies for the Internat outage, and even more apologies if you happen to live in SF and I haven't seen you. I've been working, wedding showering and hanging out with a special little man who I realize has not yet made his Internat debut. So at the ripe age of 5 weeks, here he is:

As you know my middle name is babysnatcher, so naturally the birth of Baby Batiste, Dyani and Brice's little bi-lingual bebe, has made me batty (in the best way possible). I visited him last month when he was 6 days old; which I now realize was probably pretty inappropriate at the time since only family had visited, sorry Deej. He slept through approximately 99% of my first visit, a boy after my own heart. This time though, he was a whole new little man.

Since I consider all teammates sisters, I have already assumed the role of Tante Natalie and am gunning to be his favorite aunt by the time he can say "Oui!" Which, I may add, is probably going to be sooner rather than later since he is the product of an MD, DDS and PHD from Harvard. Anyway, I spent Friday afternoon strapped into the baby bijorn (watch out Deej, I could make a run for it with him) and bouncing around the house singing and dancing. Pretty much a typical afternoon for me anyway...aside from the 10lb nugget.

Clearly I insisted on seeing him again this visit, so Jess volunteered to host Baby's first dinner party, where I spent the evening bouncing Batiste with one hand and sipping low sodiYUM cioppino with the other. Heaven.

My Child-Idols

Most likely you (and 6 Million others) have already seen Jessica's daily affirmations (below). If you haven't watch this immediately. Even if you have, its always a good way to re-orient yourself with a fabulous attitude. When it first became popular a couple months back I had more than one friend send it to me wondering whether I was blonde as a child? I was not. But thanks for the compliment.

Yesterday one of my coworkers sent me the below video of a very young feminist with a strong stance on women in the workplace. I'd love to see how she feels in 20 years, once she's been in the workforce for a while...

Natty Cakes?

I'm thinking of opening an etsy shop and I need a name by which to call these diaper cake creations....suggestions?

Here's the latest: an all-organic diaper masterpiece (wrapped in burp cloths) for coworker, Amanda.

Here's a catalog of all the ones I've made to help you brainstorm creative names :) leave suggestions below!

Baby G's Shower/Homecoming

So, yes, it's been a while. But 2 months, 6 cross-country trips, 3 weddings, hundreds of miles run and god knows how many cookies baked, later, I'm baaaaaack. So let's just get on with it and start with the present, cool? Alright, good. Hopefully I'll have time to post some of the highlights from the hiatus, but I can't be bothered at the moment.

So I just returned from my latest cross-country trip: Stanford 5 year reunion. My my my, how time flies. Truth is, I've gone to homecoming every year since I graduated (see last years' post), so it wasn't all that different to be back on the Farm. The big difference this year over the others, was that, in addition to my 20+ friends who are in the die-hard homecoming-every-year-til-I-die group, there were also hundreds of our classmates on campus, many of whom I had not laid eyes on since '05. This made for a couple of fun conversations, and a healthy dose of awkward stop-and-chats or walk-by waves. The class seems to have matured partially-- many blinging fingers, some new facial hair and love handles, and a couple of pregnant bellies...One of which was our dearest Dyani Jones Gaudillière!

Dyani, who was married away in a fairy tale wedding back in April, is officially 6 months pregnant with a boy...and for the record this was a planned honeymoon baby :). As soon as we heard the news, the team nicknamed him Baby G (for Gaudilliere) or Napoleon (he is french after all). In any case, before hitting the tailgates, we threw a little Baby Shower in the Pi Phi Lounge for the hottest mama. Though it was our first team shower, we blew it out of the water (if I do say so myself).

Everyone brought their favorite children's book to start a collection for Baby G, and some even brought it in English AND French, a lovely touch for what promises to be a bi-lingual baby. Ashlee crafted up some amazing banners ("Bonjour Bebe G") and baby bottles with custom labels which doubled as our champagne flutes.

Dyani wearing Ashlee's "This is what a MILF looks like" party hat...

We decorated onesies, ate mini cupcakes, and showered the mama in gifts including a carseat (you cant leave home without it) and of course, I made the ultimate Stanny baby cake.

This baby has some crazy aunties :)

Boston Baby

Finished up my 4th baby cake this week. This one is for a family friend, who's popping out a Beantown boy any day now. Since its a toss up whether he'll arrive before or after Opening Day, I thought it only appropriate that we prepare the mini-fan for the season ahead!

Baby Cakes

A couple weeks back I finally got around to creating a baby cake for my coworker Stuart's girl. I tried to incorporate as much of Stuart as possible-- his recent move to NYC from London and his love for ping pong. I bought the British onesie on Etsy and found the mini ping pong set at Paper Source. Horray!


Another coworker, Carrie-Beth, enlisted me to help make a diaper cake for a friends' shower. We went with a yellow theme as they are waiting to be surprised about what kind of baby they are having. So we hid out in a goog conference room and created this cake. I thought it turned out just ducky ;)

Pre-Thanksgiving Craft-a-thon

I came back to Boston this weekend since Ms. Goldman(Foung) had decided to make a pilgrimage (pun intended) to the east coast for the pre-holiday week. Jess, Kit, Kat and I decided to spend all Sunday doing crafts. First order of business was to make a diaper cake for Kit's cousin:
Might just be the cutest one yet.

I was about ready to start on hand turkeys when Jess introduced me to creating Indian vests out of paper bags...apparently, this is a common Thanksgiving craft in west coast (or should I say vest coast?) Jess created a lovely outfit for herself, as well as the baby. Hopefully Kit's cousin will pop her out by then.
I know, totally looks like leather, right? Recycled, gravy-absorbent and recyclable...the ultimate Thanksgiving garmet.

Baby Cake Take 2

Now that we had the shower for Jenny's baby (recipient of funsies), I can post this surprise baby cake that I shipped to her in SF. This one was a little more informed than my first experiment/creation for Baby Oscar. I knew what colors Jenny liked-- neutrals, brown, purple and green, and that she loved elephants. So I ordered the ribbons online (houseofribbons.com has a crazy collection of grosgrain varieties for cheap!), the elephant blanket on Babies R Us and bought the little cake-topper lab and burp cloths at a local shop in Chelsea Market.

The structure of this cake looks just like Oscar's (all diapers) but this time I just covered the layers with the blanket and burp cloths and secured them with corsage pins (prettier than regular pins) and hidden safety pins under the ribbons. I also used plenty of rubber bands and double stick tape throughout so the cake arrived in SF safe and sound.
Already wondering who the next lucky mom is....

Funsies

There must be something in the water at Goog-- every time I go to the micro-kitchen there is yet another pregnant woman, joyfully popping M&Ms or cereal to her hearts' delight and talking about not being able to see her toes anymore.... LUCKY. I wish I had an excuse for visiting the microkitchen hourly (and not being able to see my toes?) Anyway, I'm def sticking with Goog till I get pregnant, if for nothing else but to take full advantage of all benefits: 3 months maternity leave, waiters-on-wheels credits for your first month at home, limitless candy within reach, and of course the mac-and-cheese bar at Hemispheres cafe on the 8th floor.

In any case, my team is no exception. Stuart just had baby Rosalie and my coworker, Jenny in SF appears to be getting bigger by the day (and it's not just the Video Conference camera that adds the pounds). Yesterday we got a shipment of white Onesies and some paint markers to decorate and ship back to the SF office for her baby shower. Cute idea but paint markers pretty much bleed and make everything look like the baby decorated it themselves. Instead, I took some Onesies home and used ribbon and button scraps (yes, I just have this stuff lying around my house), and a hotel sewing kit to turn these Onesies into little Funsies! Clearly these baby related projects have not helped my already borderline disturbing obsession with little humans.
It was SEW fun, I'm thinking about getting a machine.