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.