santa claus is coming to town...

...as sung by isaac...

bacon and eggs ornament.

crafted this up for our life groups ornament exchange. it was difficult to part with, but after realizing the joy it brought the recipient, i will be ok...

The daddy Mack'll make you...

thomas the train cake

with the help of my faithful assistant, allison roehrenbeck, i assembled this cake for the 3rd birthday of mr. luke mielke, with whom we will celebrate at fuddruckers tomorrow. he's already been a semi-recipient of a thomas the train cake, but this one is on a much larger scale (and the train itself is cake).

when i pulled the cake out of the fridge for photoing, i was alarmed to see that a small crack had developed in the icing. i'm hoping to pass this off as an earthquake...?

christmas cookies, round 2

last saturday, mandy and her girls came over and we finished baking cutout cookies and then decorated them. isaac decorated one cookie, ate it, and ate two undecorated cookies and called it quits. the girls hung in till the bitter end and decorated a zillion cookies. the last is my favorite.

the girl

well, i've posted it on facebook and twitter and texted or called everyone i know, so it's not really news, but since this blog is also my version of our baby book, i'm going to have to post it here, too. sorry if it's the 40th time you've heard the tale...

yesterday, we went to have our "find out the gender of the baby" ultrasound. it's also the "check and make sure all things are growing properly and your baby is healthy" ultrasound.

the baby is doing great.
and the baby is a girl.

we weren't really expecting a girl. i guess we hoped for two of the same. it's easier. cost efficient. practical. a known. and the pregnancy has been the same so far. and the heart rate was on the slower end of the spectrum. i had boy names picked out. (and then stolen by friends and re-picked out). i had all of isaac's boxes of clothes labeled and ready for reuse.

the ultrasound tech was struggling to get a good view. apparently, the baby was curled up into a tight little ball and i was sure that we were going to go home with no information as to how to plan for baby lidbom 2.0... she nudged and poked and eventually announced that she knew. at this point, i have no idea what i'm looking at on the screen... blobs of gray and black are swirling around. she types on the screen, "IT'S A" and then waits.... i refrain from reaching up and grabbing her by the collar and pulling her to my face and politely informing her that she should not withhold the info any longer and she types "GIRL!!!!!!!".

*silence*

no room sharing. all new clothes. my office/craft/tutoring room has just a few more months of existing. how to potty train without the draw of peeing on trees? thirteen years from now i'll have a teen girl. (remember, i taught high school... just sayin'). is it ok to put girls in robot tee shirts? what if she wants to be a cheerleader.

(i will nix that last one, in case you're wondering).

anyhow, i was in shock. derek too. but, it settled in over the course of the day. and i have five more months to get ready. and since we waited until the last month to prepare for isaac, we're in good shape.

i think isaac will be a good big brother. he's very helpful. well, sometimes. and he's sweet with other babies. he did inform me that he would not be willing to rock, feed or change diapers, but he would be available for playing with the baby. he still likes the name "eliot" for the baby (leslie's baby's name) AND he thinks he has a baby growing in his belly, so i'm pretty sure he doesn't entirely understand.... but he'll get a crash course in a few months. :)

so, that's that.
we're having a girl.

baby boy cupcakes

made these for a yet-to-be-named-baby-boy-on-the-way... with some fondant assistance from allison r. and her degree in art from wake forest. :)

cookie apprentice

isaac and i decided it was time to to a little holiday cooking. he helped make the cookie dough, by reading numbers on the recipe and counting out the ingredients. and by sticking his fingers into sugar and licking them. both were very helpful.

then, we got down to the fun part... cutting out the cookies. it was time for isaac to put all his play doh practice to good use. my only complaint about my young helper was his inability to efficiently use to most dough possible on each rollout. he liked to plop his cookie cutter down in the middle and we only managed a few cookies at a time. that's better than last year, i suppose, when he just ate the dough...

next up... the funnest (i know. that's not a word.) part. frosting the rock hard cardboardy christmas likenesses... hopefully, it goes better than last year...

the new "no thanks"

last night, i had a handful of peanuts and i offered some to isaac.

he casually replied, "i'm good."

eliot's baby gift christmas present

so, when i found out that lesolie (sister) was going to have a brand new baby girl, i had the bright idea to try my hand at quilting. leslie was not gung-ho about all the pink baby girl items on the market, so i searched for some skull pink stuff and a cool pattern to quilt said skull pink fabric into...

too cheap to purchase a pattern, i opted to wing it. within about 15 minutes, i became overwhelmed (frustrated) and gave up for a bit. this was about a year ago.

when i started to think about christmas gifts, i couldn't help but think of the money i'd already sunk into this project and thought i would see if i couldn't resurrect it. so, after a whole very lot of trial and error and internet research and asking around... here's the final product. it's about 3'x4'. i'm fairly pleased. the verdict is still out on whether i'll be quilting again in the near future...

please disregard my terrible (rushed) photography....

another isaac-ism.

yesterday, after a drawn out battle over taking a nap, isaac informed me that i "was on his last nervous".

christmas wishlist.

me: isaac, what do you want for christmas?

isaac: nothing.

me: i thought you said you wanted "hiro" the train?

isaac: i do want hiro the train.

me: for christmas?

isaac: no. for my train set.

conversations with the boy...

isaac has been pretty much cracking me up lately. due to his grasp of the english language and his little independent self, some funny conversations arise...

conversation number 1:
background: isaac is pretty much potty trained. the only time he ever has an accident is when he's in the basement playing with his trains. and it's always #2. a few weeks ago, he was playing away and i heard him come running up the stairs and he announced he was peeing. sometimes, he fails to put his underwear back on, and only puts his pants back on. he heads back down to play with trains... here is where our story begins...

isaac: MOoooooOOO--oOOOOoooOo-OOOOOOMMMMMMMMmmm!!!!!
me: whaaaa-aaaaa---aAAAaaaa---a--T??
isaac: i Poooooo-ooOOOooOo--ooooppppped!
me: get up here RIGHT now!
isaac: i can't. i need you to come carry me!

i get downstairs and realize that he had, in fact, not put underwear back on and did, in fact, go #2. with nothing to catch said #2, it had made it's way down his pant legs and onto the floor and he didn't want to move because it would touch his legs. i can't blame him. i ran down, scooped him up, and started up the stairs, ranting yosemite sam style.

me: i'm really tired of you going potty in your pants in the basement. if you can't come upstairs to use the potty, then maybe you shouldn't play with your trains down here for awhile. no more trains today. you're big enough... you know better... (and so on).
isaac (cuts me off): MOM! quit making that TERRIBLE noise!!

i had to exercise my best restraint to not laugh. i don't think he knows a word for yelling, but that was the closest he could get. a terrible noise.

conversation number 2:
background: i'm on the phone with his doctor's office about flu shots. he's (again) in the potty. and starts screaming...

me: what's wrong?
isaac: my underwear is stuck in my butt!!
lady on the phone: well, no one likes when that happens.

another unknown term identified: the wedgie.

i thought i had another tale to tell, but it escapes me at the moment. feel free to remind me in the comments, if you've heard one lately....

baby kessler's cupcakes

Tarheel Wolfpack monster

Made this two sided monster for baby kessler, whose parents'
collegiate alliances are divided.

Leafy fun

Bedtime conversations.

Isaac is now in a "big boy bed" (our old queen matress on the floor), so we can use the crib for Lidbom baby 2.0. this means we end up spending a lot of time "helping" him unwind.

Last night, I was laying in the dark with him. He was wearing some snowman footie jammies and i was wearing jeans and tshirt. When Isaac realized this was not appropriate bedtime attire, this conversation ensued:

Isaac: do you wanna put on your snow man jammies?

Me: i don't have snow man jammies.

Pause.

Isaac: maybe we can buy you some snow man jammies at the target.

I love that he thinks the target is a magical place where we can buy whatever our heart desires.

charlie brown

cake.... the final frontier.

here are 13 of the 50 cupcakes awaiting pickup for the post-wedding party of mr. and mrs. cliff and sara (parkes) muncy. apparently, this is the star trek voyager logo, not to be confused with the other star trek series. (which i may have done with the title of this post, who knows). anyhow... here's the cupcakes....

and my week of caking is officially closed. :)

the lavender monkey cake.

state fair.

sunday, after church, isaac and i jetted off to raleigh to visit sarahpowers and make a trip to the state fair... here are some shots of our adventures.

sweet motorcycles:

obligatory merry-go-round ride:

airplanes:

first ever ferris wheel ride. (side note: it cost 5 tickets ($5) per person to ride the ferris wheel. for the mathematically challenged, it cost us $15 to ride this ride. boo.):

it's hard to tell, but isaac is enjoying a bit of an elephant ear (fried dough) in this pictures. moments later, he would drop his pants to go to the bathroom. i didn't catch that on camera.

the dragon rollercoaster. isaac has mentioned several times, since the fair, that the dragon rollercoaster scared him.

favorite ride of the evening... i don't know what it's called, but it just goes up and down. all the other kids were screaming and isaac just laughed hysterically.

getting ready to ride with the big kids:


i only took pics of isaac riding rides on my regular camera. will my cellphone, i captured a number of delicious (?) food items and other weird fair type photos...
in case i never get to posting said food items, here's a list of the crap that we ingested:
1. country fried bacon (worst thing i've ever eaten, but sarahpowers referred to it as "alright").
2. italian sausage with peppers and onions.
3. french fries (mostly for isaac).
4. elephant ear with cinnamon sugar and butter.
5. fried snickers bar.

later that night, i would pay dearly for these decisions.