happy birthday, baby

He is no longer a baby, that is for sure.

The Pup celebrated his second birthday and it was 8 days of fun.
The normal celebration of birthday week was extended to 8 days after we realized that Papa Seal had a class to attend on the day of his birthday. An extra day of celebration? No problem!

We did all sorts of fun stuff. There were lots of presents to be sure (because what would a birthday be without presents?!) and there were, of course, parties.

I took a page from my mom's playbook and took party hats and B&J's ice cream cups to his school during snack time on his actual birthday (I was told that the kid's don't actually like cupcakes; since my time is valuable I asked what exactly they do like and purchased accordingly). It was really fun.

Besides being told that my earrings were pretty, one kid told me that I was a "really cool mom" and another said I "made his whole week."

Seriously, if I can get all that from $20 worth of ice cream and party hats, I am more than happy to cater to this activity every week!

It was really fun.

Birthday night was a quiet evening at home until Kelly came home from class. Anders got to open his "big" present.

But I think he liked putting the present together more.

In order to really set the tone for celebration I made a birthday banner with a bunch of felt.

A fun activity that Anders "helped" me with throughout the week (if you call rubbing Play-Doh scissors against felt "helping," but there you are--if you are interested in the details of the banner go here.)

We capped the celebration off last night with a party, it was really great (there were party hats and balloons, lots of both).

It doesn't get any better than party hats, balloons and meatballs, people.

As you can imagine, there are so many pictures of this auspicious event in flickr, you may never want to see a picture of the Pup again...or not...

egg-citing

How were your Easter celebrations? Ours was EGG-citing!

Being too young to grasp the finer concepts of Easter, we focused on eggs. It was great.

The Pup became expert at the fine art of Easter Egg hunting, he had two opportunities. First we went to a hunt on Satruday.

There was also hunting at home on Sunday (with friends).

But I think he had the most fun dyeing eggs.

He was very proud of the great job he did, he has a fine eye for color.

We also took some time on Easter Day to make the Pup's birthday cake.

Mixing things is always the best part.

He was very adamant about having a "banilla" cake with "banilla" frosting. From scratch (of course; because that is what we do...), a classic white cake courtesy of Baking Bites and frosting courtesy of moi, I threw in confectioners sugar, softened butter, vanilla and heavy cream. It's frosting, not rocket science. This was fantastic. Truly tasty (if I do say so myself, and obviously, I do).

We had to do something special, not only for his pre-birthday celebration; but also, because our friends the Peas were coming along for Easter dinner (and hunting, don't forget the Easter Egg hunting).

He and CPea had deep conversations about ham, strawberries, and strategic methods of egg hunting.

Scintillating.

We are now gearing up for our "informal" birthday celebration with all the trimmings. The "do" (happening tomorrow) will mark the official close of the Pup's birthday week (or rather, 8 days of birthday fun).

It'll be great!

Easter pics are in flickr.

the littlest mr.bubble

We are back from vacation. I was sidetracked with some form of plague, but I am on the mend. Just in time for the Pup's birthday week festivities (that's right, birthday week! You know how I love to do up a birthday). The countdown began today. His gift was a bottle of Mr. Bubble. He was very happy about it.

I will get around to going through all the vacation shots soon, there are quite a few to go through. More to follow.


ETA: We recently found out that we will be homebased in Connecticut for one more year. Good times, right?!

two many cooks in the kitchen

We are on vacation at the moment; but, I wanted to post this bit of fun. We recently had a snow day (and by recently I mean last month, but whatever). There was a time that snow days meant catching up on stuff at home (i.e. craftapalooza for me); but, these days it means finding new and creative ways to entertain a toddler who would rather be at school with his friends.

I am not one to go out and play in snow. It's pretty to look at from my window and everything, but I can't get involved in the whole being overly cold and miserable business. The seal pup doesn't much care for the snow either (but he will totally buckle under peer pressure and make snow angels with the best of them), it makes things wet and he is kind of a neat freak. Though he is really fond of his smashing Thomas the Tank Engine snow boots (Kelly hates them, I think they are a little obnoxious too; but what do we know?).

Anyhoo, snow day, home with a toddler, what do you do? Well, I don't know what you would do, but I turned on the food network (Anders and I love the food network) and pulled out some toy trains. These are the things that transpired. The Pup said "ceviche" and asked why the cook wasn't wearing an apron. There was much dialog (as there is likely to be with a toddler) and we concluded that, obviously, he needed his own apron (Anders, not the chef on tv).

And being at home on a snow day, I figured that I didn't have anything better to do than make him one. So I did.

And now he has become my sous chef (he is totally getting a chef jacket at some point, because seriously...he says ceviche!). To say that he is a fan of cooking doesn't even cover it, people. He loves it. And I have to say, it has made cooking even more fun.

If I am cooking in the kitchen, so is the pup.

The only problem I have with the Pup's new passion for cooking is that he doesn't particularly care for the way I organize my cook books.

It goes without saying, there are tons of pictures related to this post in flickr.

Talk to you when we get back from our spring break adventure (which involves no snow, by the way).