The Toothless

To date, Ellie has lost 4 teeth. She is about to loose number five. Tonight, as she wobbled the latest tooth, she exclaimed, "My tooth is like a little diving board."

Indeed it is.

Random Conversation

Him: So, what did you get? (peeks in bag) Peaches? You know you really shouldn't leave these in the bag because they'll get moldy quickly.
Her: Oh yeah? Well, my name's Dave and (unable to think of a comeback, she unravels at the seams and winds up talking like Beaker from The Muppet Show).
Him: You are a spazz.
Her: I'm Dave and I say...say...stuff.
Him: Spazz.

Cool Mom Picks Giveaway

Check us out on Cool Mom Picks and enter to win a Mini-Messenger in Mocha!

Catch: Ya gotta enter by midnight. So go over there and enter now.
Bonus: You get to liberate yourself from your status as pack mule. Oh and you're kid will look totally cool.

It's Here!!!

After much fanfare (well in our house at least), I am happy to say pre-orders of Road to Roubaix are now available. Get em now and get a kickin' cool poster to go along with it.

The Pink Balloon

Ain't No Party Like a...er...Train Party?

We actually don't have as much in the way of pictures as we would have liked. There was this grill thing to which Dave spent most of the time attending. Here's the thing: we underestimated the amount of charcoal needed (we are far from charcoal grilling experts so we followed the directions on the bag) which resulted in all the men at the party looking for dry sticks to get the grill flaming. I think the guys rather enjoyed it. I mean it was all very caveman-like, so you know, it spoke to them. Grunt, meat. Grunt, fire.

Dave has decreed that for our next party, we're hiring someone to cook for us. Anyone recommend a good caterer who does kid's parties?

Conversation on a Tuesday Night

Him: You're eating Pringles? (looks disgusted)
Her: Yeah. (stuffs mouth full of tasty, tasty chips)
Him: Really?
Her: Yes. And if you followed me on Twitter, you'd already know that.

What Happens When You Can't Find the Cake Pans

So if you follow my Twitter feed you'll know that the night before Jonah's birthday party I finally got around to thinking about a cake. That's pretty typical of me. This is a source of immense frustration for my poor dear husband—the fly by the seat of my pants thing. It rather stresses him out that I often wait until the last moment to realize/think of something. Dave is the type that plans ahead. Which is probably why he has bailed me out of more hairy situations than I can count. But I digress....

So I set out to bake my cake. I had found a cute little train topper from the B & O Railroad museum and was going to make a simple little cake (courtesy of Duncan Hines). But apparently I forgot...er...a few minor things. One, I forgot to buy frosting. But no mind, I was sure I had the ingredients to make frosting.

While searching for frosting ingredients, I discovered the food coloring I bought 3 years ago had transformed from gel to some form of igneous rock. But no mind, because we are fine with uncolored frosting. Who needs colored frosting? It's still a party as long as there's cake, right?

But when it came time to pour the batter into something, it was the missing cake pans that REALLY threw a wrench into my well-laid plans . Those cake pans WHICH I KNOW I HAVE TWO OF SOMEWHERE IN THIS HOUSE, went missing. Perhaps they took a holiday and forgot to check their planner which clearly says they were already booked for Saturday night. Maybe they up and moved to someone else's kitchen—someone who is a slight more organized than myself—and neglected to leave a forwarding address.

So forced with the alternative (no cake) I pulled a large bowl out of the cabinet. It was one of those confused I'm a measuring device, now I'm a batter bowl, wait! now I'm a bowl you can bake a cake in and turn it into Barbie's dress type of thing.

So armed with a box of cake mix, a couple sticks of butter, some sugar and a box of dark cocoa powder (oh and I should throw in here some lemon heads and good and plentys left over from movie night) I set out to make a theme cake.

Here's where I should tell you I don't really care for theme cakes. Partly because I can never pull them off and partly because I like things I can't necessarily find in Family Fun. I like Family Fun. I appreciate Family Fun types of cakes. It's just that I'm a classic birthday cake kinda gal. When you have to start out with blueprints and rough cutting to create some elaborate castle or treasure box, you totally lose me. I lack the patience. And the technique. Honestly I can barely handle very simple shapes and even simpler decoration. My eyes start to glaze over when I see anything that involves any sort of construction, fancy piping, or frosting that requires a tool other than a butter knife.

In any event, here is what we ended up with—a slightly melted dark chocolate buttercream frosted mountain with a carved out tunnel. Made the night before. Much like all of my projects in school. At least I haven't changed:

Portraits: Episode one

Here's a portrait I took of Ellie back in the winter. I had just received a new-used camera and was testing it. This was one shot from that first roll. Then the camera broke. And I had it fixed. And then I let it sit because film and processing is expensive compared to free digital, etc. But as you can see, film does have a certain something, doesn't it?

Why no Jonah portrait here? Because he wouldn't sit still, so the shots from this session look like those crazy shakey head guys from Jacob's Ladder. I'd post a link to the shakey head guys, but couldn't find anything I'd want to link with this post of my beautiful girl. If you've seen Jacob's Ladder, you know what I'm talking about.

More portraits soon!

On This Day 32 Years Ago

A child was born. A girl child. A pretty cute (and might I add witty and smart and clever while I'm at it because you know, I have a fairly large ego I need to stroke here) chubby cheeked girl child.

Can I just say that the first thought I had this morning upon waking up to a world in which I'm 32 was...actually my first thought was, egads, perhaps I shouldn't have had that third glass of wine last night followed by gee do my teeth feel smooth after the cleaning I got yesterday at the dentist's. All that scraping, while as painful to my ears as nails on a chalkboard, must have really paid off. Okay so the point here is that my third thought was, oh, my poor, poor dear mother. 'Cause now that I'm a mom myself, I realize just how hard your kids' birthdays are on you. Those seemingly innocuous little celebrations remind you just how fast the years fly right by.

So I thought back to what it must have been like in the mid 70s. A 20 (almost 21 year old) married gal giving birth to her first baby—her husband getting ready to ship off and having to deliver in a naval hospital with the bad service and equally terrible staff.

Okay wait. Back up. Forget about that classic labor and delivery memories stuff for a minute. What about being constantly surrounded by bad hair and terrible clothing in every direction? Gah! Have you seen photos of pregnant women in the 70s? Ack! There was no Liz Lange back in the day. You were lucky to get a brown print with tiny white flowers all over in what I would only describe as a shapeless sack.

This was also the age of breastfeeding being taboo. To the point where you were actually separated from the moms who chose to bottle feed. As if you were somehow too dirty to be around the formula feeders. This was an era when being a mom did not enhance your hottness. The term hot mom* (I would use the term MILF here but you know, my ma might read this and then I'd have to explain what that meant, and then it would just be awkward for both of us) did not exist.

I can't imagine. I don't think I would have made it. I mean, it was the age of Disco for cripes sake!

At 32 I have two kids. By the time my mom was 32 she had 4. FOUR!!! That's like...like, TWICE as many kids as I have. The 70's must have been a crazy, crazy time. That or my mom is a crazy, crazy lady.

Anyway, all of that is to say, Happy Momiversary Ma! Where would I be without you?

*Note to my Mom: just skip over what's written within these parentheses. Really, it's not that interesting anyway. Seriously, I'm sure you have a really great novel to get back to right about now. Or maybe Dad needs help finding the remote again—that or trying to figure out what to eat. Because as we know he would starve without you.