Roy G. Biv

So a few months ago I saw this post about the rainbow cake. I emailed my mother-in-law immediately and told her I had a cake to make for Lisa and Sara's (my sister-in-laws) birthdays and have been excited to make it ever since.

I simplified quite a bit from the original rainbow cake. I used two boxes of white cake mix instead of making the cake from scratch. And then I separated the batter into six bowls, trying to make the amount in each one as even as possible.

Using Wilton's Cake Gel, I added 1/2 tsp of color to each bowl. Honest to goodness this stuff is lethal. If it touches anything it will turn that color...clothing, countertops, kitchen sinks... I took my time with this step and ended up with all the dye ending up in the bowl. I'm pretty proud of this fact. I have a very white kitchen...

Don't you spell Wallah like Viola or something? Because that's what I want to say about the bright colors below. Tada!

I didn't want each layer to bake up too thick, and dividing 2 boxes of batter into six bowls seemed to make the right thickness for each individual cake. I heavily sprayed my cake pan, lined it with waxed paper and then sprayed the pan again. I wasn't going to risk one of these suckers getting stuck in the pan. I had two cakes in the oven at a time for about 20 minutes.

They came out, I let them cool and then mixed up my super easy and delicious lemon icing. It was divine. And runny. And hard to keep on the cake, but it really was good stuff.

from my taste of home cookbook: one 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk, 3/4 cup lemonade concentrate, one 8 oz carton thawed whipped topping. Mix the milk and lemonade and gently fold in the cool whip.
I doubled the recipe, and I used my mixer. Hence the runny frosting. I knew better than to beat the fluff out of the cool whip, and I even thought, "this might not turn out so well" but I was sort of ready to be done at that point and it seemed like a risky shortcut I was willing to take.
I frosted between the layers and used three wooden skewers to hold the cake together when I was all done because this baby liked to slide around and had a serious Tower of Pisa tilt without the skewers.

I frosted the rest of the cake a day later with my friend Amanda and we very much enjoyed watching the drippy frosting melt off the cake as we quickly tried to cover all the color. Thankfully my cake stand has a one inch lip around the bottom. That lip has always bothered me before because it's so hard to frost a normal cake with that ring around the bottom, but today it was an absolute lifesaver. I just let the frosting pool.

Then I threw it in fridge for another few hours to set up and later I hit the road with this beauty to go and track down the birthday girls. Pictures of the cake cutting and the birthday girls are coming later.

(You don't want to know how tempted I was to seatbelted this baby in.)

our first day of school

Rory insisted we take a first day of school picture of me and the baby just before we left for our first night of birthing classes. I thought this was a sweet idea.

We are in a class with six other couples, and we are all having our first baby. It's a really nice group of people with everyone feeling as under prepared for this whole thing as the next person. We have a kick of a teacher who has taught this class for 20 some years, and I am hanging on her every word. There is just so much to absorb and consider.

When we walked to our car tonight I told Rory, "I got the impression in there that this is going to hurt very badly."

I've been getting more and more anxious lately about the birthing part lately and the only mantra that ever comes to my head is, "can't go over it. can't go around it. got to go through it." So, I think we'll go through with it.

layers of rainbow

Check this out. These bright, brilliant bowls of color, my friends, is cake batter. I can't wait to assemble this baby. We've got some birthdays in the family this week and I have been waiting to make this cake for months now. Today I woke up with a skip in my step knowing that the day to make this beauty had finally arrived!

More pictures tomorrow, for sure. Until then, I'd just like to thank Wilton's gel color for being so ridiculously incredible. And I'd like to thank the Lord that I didn't get any of this dye on my countertops or clothing.

case in point: I like color.

the baby room

When Rory and I first started talking about the baby room, I kept envisioning my niece Ruby's room. It is so calm, decorated with white and tans and feels so peaceful. For a long time, I was eager to copy this color pallet for our own simple, calm and soothing baby room.

Then I found a picture of a baby room with powder blue walls and I got excited about adding that color into the mix.

But then I started collecting images from online, gathering together my own crafty things that I'd like to hang in the room and I realized something undeniable. And as I often do when something strikes me as true, I ran into the other room and blurted out to Rory, "I am colorful. I can't help it. I like color, and everything I am picking for this baby room is bright and bold." And Rory confirmed that yes, I am indeed colorful. I mentioned to him that the colors I like are all sort of girly which could be problematic if we have a boy and he said, "yes, but I'm pretty sure the baby won't care one way or the other and as it turns out, the baby's mom is a girl, so I think you can get away with it."

Love that boy.

So, I already posted a picture of the wall hanging from my own baby room 29 years ago, and am really excited to use it in this baby's room. Here's a few other things I have bookmarked and may try to incorporate...

(remember to right click on each link and click 'open in new tab' so you don't have to reopen this webpage every time...)
I really like this white tree decal.
But if we end up going with light, light yellow walls (current game plan) I would love this one.
I love this wall art. And might try my own knock off version.
And plan on creating some sort of clothesline of pictures.
I love this paper butterfly art and can't wait to make my own.
And may make these paper globes to fill up a corner.
I'm hopeful to enlist someone I know to help me make these hanging fabric baskets.

Basically, I am hoping to tie the whole nursery to this favorite quilt of mine and these favorite art projects of mine. Again, I'm colorful. What can I say? My hope is that with white furniture, yellow walls and trying to play up the blue and green, I can get away with a bit of hot pink...