Happy Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Day!

Today is Valentines Day and I was never really big on this "holiday" but this year has been different. It is Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Day as well. I never knew there was such a thing and never payed attention to CHD Awareness before we knew we were having a baby with one. This time about a year ago, we were just finding out that our baby would be very special. She had only half a heart and would need to have more surgeries in the first three years of her life than most people have in a lifetime. I have made it my goal to share and spread Gracie's story around and to make some really special kids very happy with Cakes From Grace. If you haven't already, please find our page on Facebook, like and share it with your friends. I have a lot of smiles that I want to put on these kids' faces so keep those orders coming!

Here is my Mission and Vision for Cakes From Grace...

Cakes From Grace "Cakes to warm every broken heart - in loving memory of Gracia Lorraine, born with half a heart."

Vision Statement:
To be a leader in taste, customer satisfaction, and artistic design while putting smiles on faces of kids with broken hearts.

Mission Statement:
At Cakes From Grace, we make all our own recipes from scratch with the freshest and purest of ingredients. We use classic and cutting edge techniques to create each individual cake that is truly unique and superior in quality. Our ultimate goal is to be a leader in taste, customer satisfaction, and artistic design. Cakes From Grace also donates cakes to organizations raising awareness about Congenital Heart Defects and to families effected by CHD's. We want to bring a little bit of happiness into their hearts, and put smiles on their faces through each cake we donate.

Quality
Our recipes are made completely from scratch, we use fresh, whole strawberries, bricks of dark chocolate and even that cookie on top of your cupcake is made from scratch, nothing is store bought! Our cakes are always freshly baked and iced and never touch a fridge or a freezer!

Customer Satisfaction
"Describe it - we'll make it!" Here at Cakes From Grace, when it comes to design and flavor, anything is possible. We love coming up with new flavors, so whatever your inspiration is, we will work with you to make it possible.

Value
You'll find that our prices are very generic and you won't find anywhere else that puts as much time and detail into every part of your cake. Since we do make everything little thing that goes on and into your cake from scratch, you should expect only the best from us.

Donating
Part of our Mission is to put smiles on faces of kids born with Congenital Heart Defects through the cakes we donate to CHD organizations such as "Lasting Imprint" and " Parents for Heart." We also discount our prices for any "Heart" family. To find out more on why we support Congenital Heart Defect Awareness and "Heart Families" please read our story at www.cakesfromgrace.com (coming soon.)

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Yes, a website is in the works and Shawn and I are building it from scratch. Mine as well keep the "scratch" thing going, huh? :-)

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Last weekend I did my first event for Lasting Imprint. I donated lots of Cupcakes for their CHD Awareness week bowling event and everyone loved the cupcakes. A couple people even said my cupcakes are "life changing" maybe I should work that into my vision, eh? Parents For Heart also had an event last weekend, although I couldn't be there since we were out of town, I did donate a cake for their fundraiser.

I did want to also mention another event coming up on April 20. A lady contacted me this week that had heard about Cakes From Grace asked if I could be a part of the event.

The parents of another beautiful Grace created this organization after she passed away in the summer of 2009. Her CHD diagnosis was hypoplastic right ventricle with tripcuspid atresia, pulmonary atresia, and aortic transposition. They, like myself, hope that Grace will never be forgotten so this organization was established in her memory.

This will be the 4th Annual Hope in Grace Fun Run/Walk in Blaine, MN. Last year there were over 300 participants and 50 volunteers. They have raised more than $53,000 to support pediatric cardiology research and reward excellence in children’s intensive care nursing.

I wanted to share this with you all because I will not only be donating a whole bunch of my specialty cupcakes to the event but I will also be participating with my family. We would like to have another Team Gracie there and maybe even make t-shirts. I wanted to invite you all to join our team as well. If you feel you are up to the challenge please contact me, it's for a great cause! Beckyahunt@hotmail.com

Here is the site... http://www.hopeingrace.org/

Today I will leave you with a picture of one of my Valentine cakes and a few facts for you all to get a little more Aware. :-) Happy Valentines Day!

1 in 100 children are born with a Congential Heart Defect, and annually 100,000 babies worldwide will sadly not reach their first birthday, all because of CHDs.
Did you know that annually CHD’s take the lives of more little one’s than all the childhood cancers combined?
It’s a pretty taboo subject, and children’s heart defects desperately need more awareness, funding and research.
Also a new bill is being worked on to get passed by a friend of mine for a really important baby screening. If you missed the news last night, check this out...
http://kstp.com/news/stories/S2931035.shtml?cat=1

Happy Half Birthday Gracie Girl!

6 months ago today I was in my recovery room at Abbot Northwestern in a lot of pain but feeling so unbelievably blessed to be a mom. 6 months later I am still a mom, but I'm a mom that longs for my baby girl. Today we would have been celebrating our Gracie Girl's half birthday. She would have had 2 of her open heart surgeries done by now and we would be at home loving her up every day. Instead, I'm mourning and all I want to do is see her pretty blue eyes staring at me, watching me and lighting up the way she always did. I miss her silly scrunched up faces and her cute little nose and beautiful profile. I miss the way she would tell a story just by looking at you and how she loved to hold out her hand to find a finger to hold onto. I miss her soft hair and skin. I miss holding her and watching her fall asleep as I sang to her. I loved watching her take a bottle for the first time when the doctors said she wouldn't and making her occupational therapist cry when she did and then reached out her hand to touch my face.

I never got to dance with her, never got to bake her first cake, never got to take her on a walk or push her on the swings. I never even got to take her home to see her beautiful butterfly room.

All of this is very frustrating and unfair, but mostly it makes me sad. I cry at the little things that remind me of her, when I know no one else understands it. I cry when I see other babies and I can't even walk by the baby section at Target, I have to go around it. Some people have asked me are you going to have more kids? The answer is we would like to have more kids, but unfortunately, that won't be anytime soon since I had to have a C-section. I will continue to have this longing to have a baby around until we do, and even then no child can ever ever replace my Gracie girl. There are days I can't physically eat and days I don't want to get out of bed. But you know what, I do it because I have to, because I need to, because that's what Gracie wants for me, she wants me to be happy and healthy. I'm doing my best baby girl, but it's not easy.

The other day I was baking in the kitchen and I heard this huge crash of something hitting the ground. It was our huge floating shelf above our tv in the living room. It had fallen completely down. In this shelf I had all these little willow tree angels and snow babies that remind me of Gracie, some were given to me this passed Christmas that even look like her. I had picture frames of her on there as well. Most of these angels broke along with some of the frames. I sobbed and sobbed, I was so upset, why did THIS of all things have to fall down?! This among other things has happened and upset me the passed few months but there has always been something or someone that makes it ok and I don't let it get me down. After the shelf event happened a friend on Facebook told me that she was convinced that it was Gracie on the shelves looking at all the Angels. i'm thankful for these kind of people in my life.

So today I will celebrate her half birthday by wearing her best color, bright pink (and thank you to those of you that wore pink for her as well), and sing all her favorite songs, pray for all her friends' mommy's and daddy's, pray for all the kids and babies that struggle with their broken hearts here on earth, and continue to spread awareness about congenital heart defects, but most of all share Gracie's story forever and ever and ever. I hope you all do the same.

Gracia, I know God is celebrating you today, I send you all my love and kisses. I don't know if someone in Heaven has made you a cake, and I'm sorry it won't be as good as Mommy's cakes, but I hope it's pink and purple with lots of butterflies on it just for you!


http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jbHrIYR3GE8