Snow, Chocolate & Surprises

The last week has been one of mixed emotions.  Feelings of immense joy and celebration, combined with feelings of frustration and claustrophobia.  Unless you've been under a rock in the US, you know that New England has experienced an unprecedented amount of snow in the last three weeks.  It's been absolutely, unbelievably insane and I have two boys suffering from severe cabin fever to prove it.

I know one day we'll look back on this and say, "We survived!", but in the meantime we've been doing our best to keep our sanity.  In the last two weeks we've taken the boys to the Boston Children's Museum, the Museum of Science, baked a variety of treats, and celebrated Valentine's Day. 



The family that shovels snow together, goes stark-raving mad together.

On Thursday, we discovered that we are, in fact, having a Baby Girl!  I literally screamed when the ultrasound tech told us.  Like, "I just won a car" scream.  John proceed to smile ear-to-ear for the rest of the day.  I have caught him several times staring off into space.  When I ask him if he's okay, he just responds, "I cannot believe we're having a girl!"



I'm a girl!

S has been adamant that we were having a girl since the beginning.  When you asked him, "Is the baby in Mommy's tummy a boy or a girl?" he, without fail, would always respond "It's a baby girl!"  He would also say that he had a baby in his tummy, so I wasn't inclined to trust his judgment.  When we came home from the appointment I said, "S, you were right!  We're having a baby girl!"  He responded with a simple "I know!" 

L usually responded to the same question with, "Uh, it's a bulldozer!"

 

Creepy open mouth shot.  She kept opening and closing her mouth and waving her hands.

To celebrate our Big News and stave off snow poisoning, I did two things.  First, I baked a very large chocolate cake with a cream cheese frosting filling and chocolate buttercream frosting on the outside. 

I experimented with all new recipes.  The cake was good, but not as moist as I had hoped.  In my defense, I have an incredibly low-grade oven that makes baking tricky.  You can find the cake recipe here.  The cream cheese frosting was fantastic, and that recipe can be found here.  And the chocolate buttercream has to be one of the best I've ever had.  Seriously.  My only regret is that I didn't make a double batch in order to really cover my cake (recipe here). 

The second thing I did, was go shopping.  I had no idea it would be so fun to shop for dresses that I don't have to give to someone else! 

Her Summer 2015 wardrobe is under way!