Saturday, December 19, 2009

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

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...

Friday, December 11, 2009

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...?

Thursday, December 10, 2009

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.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

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. :)

Friday, December 4, 2009

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...

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

the new "no thanks"

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

he casually replied, "i'm good."