my best graphic design....

...was this, for a t-shirt...

i was looking for something else in all of my pictures and came across this. so i posted it.

we love the moon!!!

isaac loves to find the moon.
and point it out to us repeatedly from the moment that he finds it until we get in the house. he gets especially excited when it's out during the daytime. bonus moon time.

he likes to play games with the moon. he'll move to a new location so that it's blocked by a tree or a house and ask, "where'd the moon go?". we, of course, play along and say, "huh? i don't know?" and he sprints back into proper moon viewing position and exclaims, "it's right there, mom. see it? the moon? it's right there!"...

my favorite thing that he does, though, is explain to us his version of what the moon is doing...
when he doesn't see the moon, he tells us that it's "sleeping".
and last night, there were a lot of little clouds and they would occasionally float past the moon, but never fully obstruct it. when it was partially covered, he kept telling me that the moon was "broken".

Impromptu bath

Came in from picking veggies from the garden to this scene.
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thursday caking.

somehow, i managed to get two "orders" for cakes on a thursday, which is a little weird. most cakes are for weekend parties. but, whatever. two thursday cake making adventures on the docket...

one cake was for baby ellie, who has the softest butter skin and turned one yesterday. here's some shots of that cake:


the second cake (actually cupcakes, i've been lying all along) was for emerson, who loves dogs, goes by "hadji" and turns five tomorrow. (the tie dye are for emer's mom, who is a wannabe hippie).

Thomas the train...

...fun for all ages!
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Zoo Trip

on tuesday, jake, isaac, carlye and myself ventured out to the lovely north carolina zoo. i have been there a few times before. it was isaac's first time. he still seemed a little underwhelmed with actually getting to see real live animals. we got a season pass, nonetheless, so he'd better start to like it better...

checking out the chimps. thankfully, they were acting "appropriately".

jake, giving isaac a better view:

it wasn't looking like we were going to see any elephants. then this guy popped up out of the mud:

the boy didn't have a nap and was quite bipolar. he mostly wanted to walk, but finally succumbed to the stroller:

the big hit of the day was the sea lion and seal exhibit. or the "big fish" exhibit, as isaac insisted.

jake and isaac in the fake cave. i guess crawling into small spaces is still fun at eleven.

we stopped at the kid zone or kid stop or some such recreational area. carlye showed off her impeccable balance.

and isaac posed (with the cold face) on the giant preying mantis (?)...

it was a super fun day. jake was a bit disappointed that we didn't make it to the wolves, but was easily appeased with an $8 stuffed wolf from the gift shop.

there's a ton more pictures in my picasa album. and since we have a membership, you can surely expect to see more to come.

jake's cake

after watching me make a massive number of cupcakes in the last two weeks, jake decided he wanted to try his hand at a little decorating. i was rather looking forward to my week without cakes, but i figured he'd have fun. and the kitchen was spotless, so why wouldn't we slather frosting all over everything?

first, read the directions:
getting started under the watchful eye of the pro:
mix it. stir it.
the actual decorating part:
the finished product:
(he made the cake for himself, to commemorate his departure this weekend).

half naked....and not the "ok" half.

upon arrival to pastor clay's 50th birthday on saturday, i was very thankful to find a toddler playground neighboring the shelter we would be celebrating under. we were able to hang out with grownups and just occasionally glance over and make sure there was no blood or broken bones.

later in the party (after several failed attempts to use the public restrooms), we looked over to find isaac disrobing his lower half. he had had a little accident and was trying to get his wet clothes off. i'm not very traumatized by this behavior and i even find it pretty funny. but, i was with like 150 people and only knew a handful of them, so i quickly scooped him up and carted him to privacy.

so, all that to say, i'm now in the elite club of mom's with boys who have revealed themselves in public places. i think it's a bigger club than you might think.

write it down!

isaac is getting super fun these days. his vocabulary is exploding and he's turning into a little comedian. sometimes intentional, sometimes not. anyhoooo, whenever i'm recounting his adventures to others, i'm often met with the same phrase, "make sure you're writing this all down, you'll forget it!"...

so, since this blog has pretty much served as my baby book, i'll be posting some of the funny stuff here. not for you, but for me. so, sorry frankie, you'll have to suffer through it...

surprise 50th birthday cupcake tower

yesterday, i loaded up 14 boxes of cupcakes, a tower, one cake, lots of decorations and backup frosting and headed to durham to assemble this cake tower for my old (former) pastor's surprise 50th birthday party.

i was thankful that, despite the poor suspension in my dear old isuzu rodeo, the cupcakes made it with only some slight damage. it wouldn't really have mattered, since the sun and heat would prove to be their ultimate nemesis. it was a long day and i'm glad to have this all in my rear view mirror. i think i'm due for another cake hiatus. at least for a week or so....

eat free chikin.

jake, isaac and myself will be dressing up as cows today and heading to chick fil a for some free food today. it's cow appreciation day!

learn all about it at cowappreciationday.com.

rapper's delight roller babies.

i love this for so many reasons.
thanks, derek.

mohawk farmer

isaac has been very helpful in the garden this year.
he is pretty good about waiting for us to show him which veggie to pick, except when it comes to tomatoes. apparently, they are too alluring for him. he just picks with reckless abandon. doesn't really matter i suppose, since we always have zillions more than we need...

4th cupcakes.

made these for the two parties we had on the fourth of july.
it was mostly just an excuse to test out my new daisy cutter.
and i didn't even get to do that, since jake and his pal from church did all the cutting.
here they are, nonetheless....

batavia trip - volume 6 - miscellaneous

couldn't leave out these shots:

isaac having his first (very artificially colored) push pop. thanks "new gramma":

jake reading to isaac :)...

jake and isaac feeding the fish:

and, i'll let you guess what is taking place in this shot:

batavia trip - volume 5 - utica trip

from batavia, i did something that i always intend to do, but haven't done since 2004*... i made a trip out to my old college town of utica to visit some old friends. how i had missed all my old favorite stops: the varick, franco's pizza, the utica marsh, the scenic view of industry long gone from the arterial, black jeans and black leather coats... :)

anyhoooo... i actually only made two stops. to visit chrisclarke and mandy allison. and sadly, i only took pics whilst with chrisclarke. we went out to her "buddy shack" and rode the party boat and jet skis and played in the sand. jake even took a turn on the jet ski, as you'll see in the last pic. and that's chrisclarke with him. :)

batavia trip - volume 4 - austin park with the redbands varlands

on a couple of occasions, we visited the new and improved austin park and visited with my old pal from high school, julie redband varland. :)
she's got two little varlands herself, so it's fun to have playdates in batavia.

isaac mostly liked the swing and jake did a great job obliging him:

here's a lovely shot of the varland clan:

batavia trip - volume 3 - the mohawk

leslie cut isaac's hair and derek found out about it on facebook. :)

batavia trip - volume 2 - stafford parade

for those not in the batavia new york "know"... after the st. joe's carnival (see previous post), comes the stafford carnival. since we were all carnivalled out, we only went to the carnival kickoff event -- the parade. it was pretty rough... lots and lots and lots of firetrucks. and lots and lots of space between them. we left early. here's some pictures.

isaac and debbie waiting for the candy tossers:

an obnoxious bigger girl taking candy that has clearly landed on isaac's parade property (he didn't quite understand what to do about the candy raining down from the heavens):

checking out a big tractor:

checking out a tootsie roll:

sitting with mom:

just watching:

watching with "new gramma":

posing for a photo with our $8 thomas balloon that lasted until the following morning when it met it's demise after a nasty confrontation with a ceiling fan:

(note: to be fair, grampa terry gave isaac a whopping $2 to buy a balloon at the parade, so i only had to pony up $6 for the thomas balloon.)