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).

the snow in vermont

We have fallen asleep on the job (actually, I misplaced our little camera, but describing it thusly has allowed me to use the cute picture above). But now, we're back, with more flavor!

So Presidents' Weekend happened a while ago. I figure since the Presidents' Day sales are still being advertised on TV, I felt like it was okay to post our Presidents' Weekend happenings.

It all started with dinner from our favorite CMF missionary, CDR P! It was nice to see him and catch up while he was in town for a very quick trip.

Then we drove to Vermont to join the CGA cadets attending a ski retreat sponsored by OCF. On the way to our final destinations in Barre and Orange, we made some fun stops. First was a pit stop in Putney, the home of Green Mountain Spinnery (they have yarn, they spin yarn, this is an interest of mine, in case you didn't know).

It was a really interesting visit. And I showed a considerable amount of restraint with Papa Seal's wallet.

The shop was really small, but very well stocked.

Then, proceeding north, we stopped at the Farmer's Diner in Quechee.

I figured if it was good enough for Barbara Kingsolver and her family, it was good enough for us.

It was very good. And the philosophy behind the food was something we liked the idea of supporting (go local!).



It was really good, actually.


We also stopped to visit Ben and Jerry, don't they look so familiar?

Because everyone wants ice cream when there is 30 inches of snow on the ground.
The pup really enjoyed his visit to the place of so much ice cream.

But, seriously, if you need to eat ice cream with outerwear on, maybe it's too cold for ice cream... Just a thought for the future.

It was a good trip. And in case you were unaware of this fact, there is a great deal of snow in Vermont during the winter.

As is our standard operating procedure, more pictures can be seen and downloaded from the flickr site.

like politics, sustenance can be local too

I recently finished reading Barbar Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and it has me looking at the food I eat in totally different ways. After Papa Seal and I talked about the book (I summed it up for him, it's not about electrical engineering, financial management, sailing or pedagogy so, therefore, not his thing), we decided that we should try and do our part to (at the very least) support local farmers and do what we can to lessen our impact on the planet and all of that. We aren't going to any extremes or anything, but we wanted to do our part. To that end, we figured going to the farmer's market at the soon-to-open food co-op was a good place to start.

Not only is local sustainabilty good for the local economy and our health, it's fun!

The seal pup was a little overwhelmed by all the people (hey, lots of people want to do their part); but he was very interested in the violinist (live classical music, culture while you shop consciously).

It was surprising to find out what was growing "in season" here in the dead of winter, a truly exciting time to live in New England (no, not so much).

Of course, my favorite thing were the baked goods.

We were all proud of ourselves for being so responsible, and then I went to the big box grocery store and bought some strawberries shipped in from California. They were so pretty and I wanted to make something red to celebrate Valentine's Day. I felt a smidge guilty, until I tasted it. Guilt gone.
Have a Happy Valentine's Day!

a low-fi kind of birthday

It is no secret that I really (really) like birthday celebrations. I will take any and every opportunity to drag out a week long (or 8 day's worth of) celebration out of my own or a friend's birthday; but Papa Seal, he isn't so much into the fun of it all. I once threw him a surprise party to which he responded, "we've done that once, let's not do it again." He liked seeing all of his friends and family but he hates being the center of attention, I get that; but I like celebrating.

A big part of celebration is food. Weight Watchers is going to hate me; but, it's true, at least in my world. Food plays a huge part in celebration. So you can understand my dissappointment when Papa asked for...a boxed cake. Seriously? Do you not know who I am?

Far be it from me to argue. So I made the boxed cake (or, birthday is a box, pick one). But then I made him a "real" cake later in the week, because seriously? Asking for a boxed cake from me on your birthday is just insulting on so many levels.

It's the souped-up-from-scratch version of the boxed cake, American Chocolate Layer Cake. I have become very close friends with Maida Heatter of late, she and Martha Stewart, they are my homegirls (they of course, don't know this; but, between you and me, they are).

Because who doesn't want 4 layers of birthday happiness?

This cake was enjoyed a few days after Kelly's birthday. On his actual birthday I was in Northampton, Massachussetts at Webs again (my own Utopia, of sorts) learning to spin on my new spinning wheel and Kelly was home with the Pup (I know, who's birthday was it, right?).

It was fun.

After my spinning weekend, Kelly went to San Diego for a conference. I thought the timing worked well, he got to see his family for his birthday...sort of (what's a few days when you are dragging out the celebration, right?).

After his return home, Anders decided to really help Papa celebrate right by getting the stomach flu and passing it along to him first and then to me. The last couple of days have been kind of miserable (we didn't even want look or think about food), but we are on the mend (the Patriots losing the Super Bowl didn't help, of course). Chicken soup, anyone?

Mom, tell Papa to get you an external flash, the built-in isn't worth beans.

In case you are curious, the first picture was how Anders felt when he thought he was going to be able to keep Papa's birthday scarf. No, not so much.