#AirheadsCraft

I am a product tester with Smiley 360. I receive free products in exchange for my honest opinions. I recently got a box of Airheads with the challenge to use them in a food craft. Well, I've been using them in food crafts for a LONG time...so here are some of the one I have used in the past. Also, some that we played with today.

Leaves on my apple cupcakes are made from a green Airhead.

Details on my Brazillian Flag Cupcakes are made from Airheads.

The heart on our Companion Cube cake is a Cherry Airhead.

Our Cupcake Garden was only 
made possible by Airheads.  

 

 

 Thanksgiving Turkey made with Airheads and Airheads Bites

 Candy Cane from Airheads? Yes, Please.

 

Kids loved making their names with the Airheads rolled out flat and cookie cutters!

Optimus Prime would be incomplete without Airheads.

 
 

  Thanks Smiley360 for the fun challenge. I've really liked this challenge and cannot wait to use Airheads in another food craft. If you are interested in free samples from Smiley360 visit http://h5.sml360.com/-/1gms8

If you are interested in more of my cupcakes please or food creations please visit facebook.com/kurthcakes. 

Rainbow Cupcakes

I recently became a product tester with Smiley360. One of our products to test is using Airheads and other like products to do a food craft. I used these AirHead Xtreams to make some cute cupcakes. BUT...I forgot to take pictures...so I thought someone else maybe did. I was surprised to see how many people also did the EXACT same thing.

I used my favorite white cake recipe (found here) and a standard American Buttercream recipe (found here). Then cut a strip of the rainbow Extreme and stuck it in the piped clouds.

SUPER SIMPLE! My 2- and 5-year-olds did most of it.

Iowa City, Here We Come!

We spent all of August packing our belongings into boxes and preparing to move ourselves across the country. I started saving boxes at school in May, but that's about when everyone else started saving them, too. We had to call around town to different stores to find boxes. The best boxes actually came from the liquor store. Taney felt really weird about going in to get them, and even weirder when people from the ward showed up and inquired about the boxes. He joked, "Well, It's been a long stressful week, we needed something to take the edge off."

Moving to Iowa was the right thing for us to do. I know Heavenly Father made it easy for us, or I would not have done it. My friend, Greg Jorgenson, from high school offered to haul our stuff across country in his semi truck for a nominal fee. It was cheaper than renting a U-haul without the gas and mileage. So, of coarse we took him up on that offer.

A week later my in-laws called and said they would come to Vegas, help us clean and pack and then drive our cars to Iowa while we fly. WOW! Not having to drive across the country with a 2 year old = AWESOME!

So we packed up the semi, with a little help from our friends. And we deep cleaned the apartment, with a little help from our ward. And we checked out of Montego Bay Apartments. We had Max go with the Howells while we packed and cleaned to keep him out of the way. We brought him back to the empty apartment. His walked in, looked around, and with shrugged shoulders and outstretched hands said, "Where's couch?" We tried to explain that all our things were on Greg's truck and we would see then at our new house in a week. He didn't really get it, but for several days he said, "Couch, Greg Truck."

Taney, Max and I flew to Peoria and spend a few days with Taney's sisters. We could not move in to the new place until the 1st...and Greg was also moving another family to Iowa on the first and their stuff had to come out of the truck before ours did. We had to wait until the 2nd. We came to Iowa City on the first and got the keys to our place, but then stayed with Alex and Sheena for the night.

Alex was able to convince the elders from his ward to come help us move. Luckily it was RIGHT before a district conference...so there were about 8 elders here helping. There was also a couple of guys from our ward, Taney's uncle Larry, Papa Kurth and the Girls. It went very quickly. I stayed in the apartment and moved boxes to the correct room so they could just move them in and stack them anywhere. It was a pretty good system. I don't know how people move with an Elder's Quorum.

It took us a few days, but we mostly have things unpacked. I tried to do Max's room first so he could have some kind of normalcy. HE struggled with the move. For several days, a week and a half, maybe, he asked to go home. But after many explanations I think he finally understands that this is our new home. He calls it the "new house." It warms my heart a little when we pull into the parking lot and he gets excited and says, "We're home, we're home, we're home." the same way he did at the old place, in Vegas.

Although things are mostly unpacked not everything has a place yet. It's starting to drive me crazy, but I have bought several organizational tools to help with that. We bought another book case for our bedroom, and some drying racks for our laundry (it does kind of suck not having laundry in our apartment anymore.).

I was surprised at how much more home-like it looked once I got pictures on the wall in the living room and all the books on the shelf. As soon as it's done I'll put up some pictures.

Max at 9 months

Maxwell is now 9 months old. How did that happen? No seriously. It feels like yesterday he was lying on my chest, unable to lift his head and sleep longer than a couple of hours.

He is very mobile the last few weeks. He crawls all over the apartment like a champion. He couldn't figure out crawling for a long time. He did the army crawl/scoot for a couple of weeks before he figured out the full crawl. He is also very good at cruising around on the edges of furniture. He has even figured out how to get from standing to crawling position without falling and hitting his head. Which is good, because I am fairly sure he had a concussion last week. He was crawling around at the church as I was cleaning up after a fundraiser. He made his way to a trash can and tried to stand up. He pulled it down on top of himself and hit his head on that hard floor.

Maxwell Rao Kurth

On Friday, August 6, 2010 at 7:18 pm a miracle happened; His name is Maxwell Rao Kurth. He entered the world weighing 8 lb. 10 oz. and 20 in. long.

Max was due to be her on August 2nd. That day came and went and no Max. Luckily I had an appointment with Dr. Juarez on the 5th. At the appointment he told us that there were two options: 1). Wait another week, wait and see if he comes on his own or 2.) induce labor.

I said, "Do I get to choose? If it's my choice I'd like to induce." I didn't want to wait for Max to decide he was ready. I WAS READY. School was over so I didn't have to worry about my class or substitute plans. I wanted to meet my son! I wanted him to be here while my mom was in town. I didn't want to run the risk of him coming really late and my mom being gone by the time he got here. So Dr. Juarez called the hospital and set up an appointment for me to go in and be induced.

We went out on a date that night because we figured it would be the last time we would have alone time together for a long time.

On Friday morning at 8:00 we went to St. Rose Dominica Hospital -Sienna Campus. We were taken to the room where we would spend the rest of the day. I changed into my gown and they put an IV in my hand which administered Pitocin (a hormone used to induce labor) and fluids to keep me hydrated. I laid in bed and waited. They had monitors hooked up to me to monitor the baby's heart and my heart. As well as monitors detecting contractions length and frequency. Taney seemed to enjoy watching the monitors that showed when I was having contractions.

We spent the day reading together, napping, watching TV...and waiting. We were both anxious and excited to meet our son.

At about noon our nurse came in and told me she was going to break my water. I was excited at the though, in my mind water breaking was the real beginning of the process. She broke my water at 12:15. It was one of the weirdest feelings ever. I had no idea that it would be that much liquid. She told me that anesthesiologist would be right in. He ended up having to go into an emergency C-section so he didn't come to give me the epidural until about 12:45. It was the longest half hour of my life.

Before she broke my water I was having contractions, but the weren't really painful, they weren't even really uncomfortable. But that half hour between when she broke my water and when the epidural came was pretty uncomfortable. I was pretty happy to see The Epidural Man.

Within a few minutes I was beginning to feel less and less of my lower body. It wasn't long before I couldn't feel my legs at all. The nurse came back in about an hour later to have me roll over on one side. I was shocked that I couldn't even roll over on my own. My legs were so heavy.

I napped and watched TV for another few hours. I watched the contractions getting closer and closer on the machine, but I couldn't really feel them. They watched me closely and we all waited for the little man to make his entrance.

At about 6:35 the nurse came back in and told me we wee going to practice pushing. She explained to Taney what she needed him to do and she explained to us what was going to happen. We practiced pushing and during the next few contractions we started to push. They called Dr. Juarez and he got there about five minutes to seven. I started pushing right away and pushed through every contraction.

I couldn't see anything that was happening, so I gauged what was going on by the look on Taney's face. Earlier in the day the nurse had told me they would probably have to do an episiotomy, so I was prepared for that, but apparently Taney missed that conversation. So he was not prepared for what he saw when Dr. Juarez made the incision. Seeing the look on his face freaked me out a little bit. When Max started crowning his face looked a little pale. He was not expecting his head to be so soft.

When Taney's face turned from pale and scared to pink and smiling I knew it was almost over. He saw the face, and head. He had me stop pushing while the doctor was cleaning him out when he decided that he had enough and he was ready to be out. He stuck his arm out and wiggled until he was free.

They took him out and placed him right on my chest. I stared at him and rubbed his little legs as I thought. "That's my baby."

I was grateful I only had to push for 25-30 minutes. The doctor went to hand the scissors to Taney so that he cold cut the umbilical cord. He wasn't really interested. The he offered the scissors to me. I didn't want to do it either, so he cut it and they took the baby over to the other table to be cleaned up and checked out.

Taney went over to be with the baby while the doctor and I finished with everything else. I am sad I didn't get to see it, but Taney tells me that as the nurse was checking him out he showed her that all his boy parts worked by peeing all over.

I knew it wold be more after the baby came out, I just wasn't prepared for hat much more, and I wasn't prepared for how gross it would be. Dr. Juarez was taking care of the afterbirth and such when all of the sudden the placenta squirted all over. He was covered, from neck to knees in blood and grossness.

Once he was all cleaned, checked out and dressed they brought him back to me. I just couldn't stop looking at him and thinking about how beautiful he was.

After the nurses had everything cleaned up they all left the room and let us have some time alone as a new family.

I loved to watch Taney hold him. He's going to be such a great dad.

After Taney got a chance to hold and bond with his son I took back and tried to breastfeed him. I really had no idea what I was doing, but got the hang of it later.

After about an hour our nurse came back and told us that they would be moving us into a room upstairs.

I had to stand up to change my gown, go to the restroom and move to a wheelchair. But there was a problem. I still couldn't feel my legs. I had most of the feeling back in my right leg, but when I tried to stand on my left leg I almost ended up on the floor. So she brought in this "thing" to transport me to the bathroom. It wrapped around me and had these arms that held me butt while I eld on to bicycle type handles in the front. It was all on wheels so I stood on it and she wheeled me into the bathroom. As it turned out my butt was still kind of numb because I couldn't tell if I was sitting on the toilet or not. It was so awkward to have someone standing there, basically teaching me how to pee with the stitches.

We packed up all our stuff, and the baby and we wheeled to the elevators and upstairs. There we met our new nurse and settled into the room where we would spend the remainder of our stay. By this time it was about 10 o'clock and I was exhausted, but wanted to stay awake to see my mom when she got there. Her plane was landing at about 11 o'clock. Taney had planned on going to go get her, but Kari called and offered to pick her up so he cold stay and bond with me and the baby.

He started his bonding time by changing the first diaper. He did it without prompting and without complaint. He's such a good daddy and husband.

After what felt like forever Mom, Kari and Jessica came in. I was so excited to see my mom, and she was so excited to see her grandson.

She held him and had a hard time letting go.

But eventually she let Kari and Jess hold him. After they all three had their fill of Maxwell they went home. I gave mom the keys to my car and my apartment. Kari and Jess took mom back to our apartment and then they went home. I'm glad we have such good friends who act as our family when we're away from family.

It was about 11 o'clock and I finally got some sleep. But shortly after mom left the nurse came back in and had to check my vitals. Then she took Max out to give him a bath. By midnight I was finally asleep. When I woke up Max was asleep next to me in the plastic crib thing. He was beautiful. I went back to sleep until about 4 o'clock when a lab tech came in to take my blood. I tried to go back to sleep after that, but every time Max whimpered I woke up. So I sat and cuddled with him for a long while. I didn't realize it, but I I had been holding him, just looking at him, for several hours. I got up and changed a diaper and got back in bed with him.

We hung out all day. Dr. Juarez came in and gave me the OK to go home 24 hours after delivery. Mom came back and brought me deli sliced ham and crackers. I'd been craving ham because I couldn't have lunch meat while I was pregnant unless it was heated throughly. So I was delighted to eat the ham and crackers. Mom and I just hung out and cuddled with Max. We saw the pediatrician, Dr. Fernandez, in the afternoon and she gave us clearance to go home at 24 hours if we wanted to. Part of me wanted to stay, but the other part of me had cabin fever and needed to get out of that sterile environment.

So at about 7:30 the nurse came in with discharge instructions and papers. She explained everything to me. She took Max out to get his first shot and then we were able to go home.

The first night at home was scary. Mas was cranky because of the shot and he wasn't sleeping AT ALL. He wanted to be held all the time. Taney and I were a little stressed and really tired because we were silly and didn't really sleep in the hospital. We were up almost all night. I knew we'd be tired but I didn't realize how tired. Being up every 2 hours to feed him was overwhelming. I was really glad my mom was there to give us a break. Thanks Mom!

Journal

I'm going to attempt to keep a journal of our life for my son. Since I don't have a good record of keeping an ACTUAL journal I'm going to use this blog to keep records. Wish me luck.

Ultrasounds: The Good, The Bad, and The Messy

Today was my first ultrasound. It was one of the most exciting days of my life thus far.

But it had a serious down side too. They require that you come with a bladder full. So they required me to drink 24 oz. of fluid an hour before my appointment and not pee until after the ultrasound. So, 9:45 I urinated. 10:00 I began drinking water. I drank approximately 30 oz. of water in 20 minutes. I left for the Dr.'s office at 10:50 and arrived at 11:05. I thought I was going to wet myself going over the speed bumps in the parking lot. Unfortunately the ultrasound tech was running behind schedule. My 11:15 appointment didn't begin until 11:30. I told the tech that I didn't know if I'd be able to make it through without wetting myself. She told me she only needed 2 pictures with a full bladder, then I could empty my bladder and we could see pictures of the baby.

I went to sit on the table and seriously thought I was going to lose it. She quickly snapped the 2 pictures she needed then gave me a towel to whip the goopy stuff off my tummy and sent me to the bathroom. I didn't get any of it off, and didn't even zip up my pants. I ran out the door to the bathrooms, AND THEY WERE FULL. At this point I was thinking, "just give me a trash can. I can't hold it any longer." Luckily one of the doors opened just then. HALLELUJAH! And there was much rejoicing!

I went back into the ultra tech room and she gooped up my tummy with that stuff and we looked at Jellybean for 20 minutes. When I first saw that little head I cried. She spent the first 15 minutes taking pictures of his organs, and taking measurements to see how he was growing. The first 15 minutes Jellybean kept legs crossed, and wouldn't turn so we cold see the sex. Then all of the sudden Jellybean did some somersaults and the ultrasound tech said, "Ok, those are boy parts" and she pointed at the screen. I was a little shocked. "Are you sure? I thought for sure it was a girl." She giggled, and he moved, full on crotch shot, "those are definitely boy parts." I thought for sure it was a girl, but I am so happy to have a boy.

I hurried to go see Taney as soon as I got the pictures. He was really excited. I had lunch with him before I had to go back to the Dr. office for my regular OB appointment.

They changed my due date. They don't know if it's because he's developing slower than he should, or if we conceived later than we thought. But we thought I was at 18 weeks 5 days, and the ultrasound had him measured at 17 weeks 1 day. Almost 2 weeks earlier than we thought. So my new due date is August 2. Other than that he is healthy. Amniotic fluids look good, blood flow through the 3 vessel umbilical cord, heart beat is at 143, which is great. All fingers and toes are accounted for. The ultrasound tech also commented on how big his ears looked (not really news I wanted to hear, but at least he's healthy.)

I couldn't stop smiling all day! Seeing the little guy move on the ultrasound made it all seem more real that before.

To celebrate I went thrift shopping with some friends and bought some more boys clothes and baby toys. I'm glad to be surrounded by friends who are like family.