18 Months and 25 Weeks

These little piggies are 18 months old.. Well, they're at least as close to 18 months old as they'll ever be since my poor, deprived toddler has no real 18 month birthday thanks to February's utter lack of a 30th.

At 18 months he runs, he jumps, he sits to read, he spins any ball he can find, he kicks, he throws, he climbs, he snuggles, he kisses and hugs, he 'helps', he splashes, he (sort of) listens, and so much more. He has a wonderful repertoire of words he uses that seems to be ever-growing. Things like 'nown' for 'down', ball, apple, mouse, hot, all done, water, juice, milk, banana, and on and on. I haven't kept count of his words or anything, but he babbles all day long and is quite the little mimic :) He also does a mean car sound, and his sandwiches often turn into cars during lunchtime.

18 Months has brought with it new challenges for Mama and Daddy, as we work to guide him to understand things like consequences.. Turns out it's hard to discipline someone who has a very limited vocabulary to communicate with, and it's equally frustrating for him as a lot of his acting out comes from that hindrance.

But mostly, I am loving this age. It is amazing to watch as he enthusiastically explores and discovers, to see the joy in his face when he is entertained or being silly. I love his toothy grin. The curls that still adorn his head make my heart sing, and I'll never get enough of his chubby legs. He is passionate for his books and loves being outside. He is fascinated by water and will never miss an opportunity to splash in a puddle, wherever it may be.

These are good days. Some days I have to remind myself of that frequently, but no one ever said kids were predictable.

Aed's little brother is growing away as well! Yesterday marked 25 weeks, and I had every intention of giving you a picture of my lovely huge belly. But.. you know. Things happen, and the picture never did. We'll get one eventually, but until then you can just imagine me with a ball under my shirt and that will be pretty accurate. :) I am still 'keeping well' and can really only claim to be tired most of the time. Baby #2 is a squirmy little worm and is starting to make it hard to put my shoes on.. Fortunately they just velcro, so I only have to hold my breath for a few seconds :)

I have some fun pictures of a beach visit coming up! We can't WAIT for the warmer weather around these parts! Turns out I'm not the only one that loves visiting the beach :)

Valentine's Day and then some

We'll start with the 'and then some'.

Last Saturday I attended a baby shower for a friend here who has the cutest 7 week old you ever did see. The lovely host asked if I would make some cookies for the shower. Naturally, I said yes and started thinking about what I could do. For whatever reason, I decided that would be a good time to make my first attempt at icing sugar cookies in a fancy-ish way by trying out royal icing on my cookies. Fortunately, I got my icing recipe from a baking blog that I love and it was delicious.. I have heard some not-so-hot things about the real royal icing, but this recipe was perfect.

So away I went! I baked the cookies, drew out some ideas, and made my first attempt!

While my piping skills are not stellar (I seem to have shaky hand syndrome), I think they came out pretty cute! :)


(The baby's name begins with 'P')


This experience made me excited for future sugar cookies! You basically get to draw on the cookie, which gives you all kinds of fun and freedom to come up with new ideas!

I also found a really good recipe for a fruit salad. It was so pretty all layered up.. Unfortunately the bowl was too reflective to really appreciate it.. BUT it was still delicious. I love me some berries.


So in other news, yesterday was Valentine's Day! I spent a lot of the day grocery shopping, cooking, and writing poems for the various members of our household :) We exchanged our homemade cards and then the real fun came with the dinner time spread..


We had heart-shaped pizzas with my favorite salad, and I found strawberry beer for Sheree and Ian. Ian tells me it was actually pretty good :) You can see the lovely flowers I got from my favorite valentine (the ones on the left.. the other ones were a gift from last weekend from someone else) that helped spruce up our table, too!


Then for dessert I made brownies, cut them into hearts and slathered them with cream cheese and strawberries. I had high hopes to cut the strawberries into hearts too, but alas, they were squishy so we just got strawberry chunks.


Still good enough for me!

I know V-day is overrated, and a lot of people don't enjoy it, but we had a special day and I hope you did too! If not, you can come to our house next year :)

A Little Bit of Valentine's Day

So I know it's not really Valentine's Day yet.. And, to be honest, the old V-day has never been a favorite of mine. I mean, I like getting flowers as much as the next girl, but it always seemed a little too unspontaneous to have the commercial world at large hand us a holiday on a red and white platter so we don't forget to tell people we love them. Not to mention the pressure - THE PRESSURE! The silly pressure.. The undue alone-ness of people who aren't in a relationship. Whatever. There are some downsides to the pink holiday.

But. BUT. This year, something got into me. I needed hearts! I needed special things! I needed to acknowledge Valentine's Day more than ever!

Confusing. Yes.

Maybe because I have a toddler? Maybe because it gives me an excuse to bake and do out-of-the-ordinary crafts? I just don't know where this urge has come from.

So anyway, I up and did some V-day stuff.

And Aed helped. :)


(73 points to anyone who can find a snowflake! It was randomly snowing when I took this picture :)

Aed and I worked together coloring on some paper, which mostly turned into making lots of tiny dots and putting the crayons into and then taking them out of the container. Which was very fun, I must say, and most heartbreaking when it had to end. Seriously, there was a melt down of the cutest variety when the crayons were put away.

Then I took our colored papers and cut hearts out of them. Then I cut the heart silhouettes out of the paper as well and hung them in our windows. So we have colorful hearts in all our downstairs windows. And I like it. It's so weird!

I had to make snacks earlier this week for an activity, and what did I do? I sought out a Valentine's Day recipe. More hearts!


Shortbread cookies dipped in and drizzled with chocolate. Hearts and circles, because really, I don't have a cookie cutter and it took a long time to cut out hearts.

Turns out if you want everyone to ooh and ahh, you just have to drizzle! If only they had seen the ridiculous mess I made making them :) Maybe not so impressive.

So I have my hearts, with more to come! We are having a Valentine's Day family dinner on Monday! When will it end? I don't know what I am going to do with myself in March. St Patrick's Day? I think I am turning into an elementary school teacher. What's a girl to do?

A Snotty Nose

I don't even know why I took this picture..

To document the snotty nose?

To capture the amazing eyes of my almost 1.5 year old?

To entertain him when we were bored?

What he wouldn't give to have mama say, 'your turn!' when the camera comes out :)

I don't know. But I found it on my camera and it made my heart melt a little.

Happy Wednesday to you.

Caught red-handed!

Though it is not always necessary, I tend to get nervous when I realize that I haven't heard Aed making any noise in a while. Usually I find him quietly perusing his books or playing with puzzle pieces. However, sometimes I find him being quiet for sneaky reasons. Sneaky reasons like this:


I have to admit, unless he's doing a 'no no' I usually laugh when I find him. How can you not laugh at his sheepish little smile. He knows he was caught :) He loves the cabinet with the fish food (which also contains various party supplies), and after a few days of straws all over the floor, mama found a new container that the Aedster doesn't know how to open yet. Mama can be sneaky too :)