A Kitchen and a School Bus Cake

So, first off, my flowers.....they kicked the bucket 2 weeks ago (shortly after this post) when the temperature plummeted quickly. They went from glorious to gross in about 6 hours. Oh well, they made it way longer than I'd ever thought.


In more important news, my little man is turning 2 years old later this week. Our gift to him is his own little kitchen and a bunch of play food. We gave it to him over the weekend and he LOVES IT!!! You know it's a sign of the times when a little kid kitchen comes with "stainless steel" appliances and a cell phone with a designated holder on the counter top.

Walter and X assembled the kitchen. I got to put on the sticker decals!



Isn't this cute! X was putting a turkey in the microwave.


And as if there are not enough little things floating around this house we've now added 101 pieces of play food to keep track of. Oh yeah! So far X's favorites are the "bagels" and the "celery".

We're not doing a b-day party, but we did have our parents over for dinner and cake this weekend. Since X is really into school buses lately, I got the bright idea to make him a school bus cake for his birthday. I found some examples online. It took me awhile (and a trip back to the grocery store for more frosting and food coloring!) but I'm really pleased with how it turned out. X seemed to enjoy it, but I'm sure he would have taken anything since he doesn't even understand what a birthday is!

I started off with 3 13x9 cakes.


Then I stacked them and cut them to the shapes I needed. (Disregard my swollen pregnant self...there are no good camera angles these days!)


Then 2 layers of icing. One thinned out "pour over" layer to smooth the cuts, and one traditional icing layer. It kinda looked like a big hunk of cheese at this point.
But once it was decorated it came pretty close to looking like a school bus! Complete with mini chocolate donuts for the wheels and gumdrops for the lights.





After cake we tried to get a few pictures but X wasn't really having it (unless he was held down and tickled like in this one)



Birthday post with milestones to come later this week! Happy early Birthday little man!!!

Wordless Wednesday - Tea Party

Straight From the Tree Farm

Normally we get our Christmas tree from the same Knights of Columbus lot each year. But, this year we decided to go to a tree farm and cut our own. Walter and I had never been to a tree farm and figured X was old enough to enjoy the experience as well. We headed out yesterday on our 45 minute drive for some family fun. Someone decided they needed a little snooze to prepare (while holding no less than 2 puppies!)


Once we arrived we suited up X in his warm weather gear and we were off to find our tree!




By far X's favorite part of the outing was playing Peek-A-Boo behind all the Christmas trees.


When we finally found our tree we asked some strangers to take our picture with it. This was the best one they took!
Then it was time to cut 'er down and put it in the sled!
Xavier decided to give Daddy a hug for encouragement as he was cutting the tree.
My little cutie in his hat!

And while everyone else was wearing a coat, all I needed was my sweater and a scarf due to the good old baby heat I have goin on!

Here's Baby D at 37 weeks.
Then it was time to return to the front of the farm with our tree to get some cookies!

Like pretty much everything we do, there was a little set back when we got home with the tree. We discovered our beloved tree stand (said tongue in cheek because Walter has hated our tree stand for years) was broken. So after a quick trip to Home Depot for a new stand we were ready to decorate. The evening was slipping away so we decided to divide and conquer. I decorated the tree and Walter made us all some dinner.
X had no interest in decorating the tree though because everyone knows that playing on the step stool is much more fun!

So here's our completed tree. The pictures don't do it justice. It's really cute! I love how it looks at night all lit up but unfortunately my pic came out blurry.


The tree was the last of our decorations to go up except for the stocking for Baby D (which I'm planning on making tomorrow!) Now I've just got to finish my cards and shopping!

Santa -- A Repeat Performance

Remember back to how well our visit with Santa went last year??

So, this year was pretty much a repeat performance. I took X to the Parents as Teachers holiday event again to see Santa and participate in some fun activities. He actually did pretty well with the activities, but HATED the Santa part. Walter was out of town for work so I was flyin solo for this one. It felt like there were a zillion people there so pardon some blurriness in a few of the pics. It's hard to be almost 37 weeks pregnant, keep up with a very busy toddler in a crowd full of little kids, AND get good pictures. Yes, I was there despite the fact that there are no pictures of me. I didn't think to ask someone to take a pic of me and X.

We started out in the pretend kitchen area where X made some cookies.






Our next stop was Santa. I thought that if we got this in right at the beginning maybe things would go well. Not so much. X stole some spatulas from the kitchen area and then proceeded to scream when I put him on Santa's lap. Santa even made the comment "oh, I see you let him bring a weapon." Oops!



The second he got off Santa's lap X was totally FINE. He even walked right over to this cute little chair and let me take a few pics (but wouldn't give up the spatulas!)



Then we went to shovel some snow. It was hard to pull him away from this.


And of course we hit up the stacking box station. They have this at almost every PAT event and it's always a hit.

Next stop was the obstacle course where you were given a gingerbread "cookie" (the piece of paper in his hand) and had to make it through all the stations to deliver the cookie to grandma's house. Very creative!

After the obstacle course we headed over to the craft stations. X made himself a Frosty the snowman face. He liked putting on the black stickers for the mouth (although he decided to create his own shape for the mouth) and LOVED playing with the glue stick. X didn't quite understand what it was, but he was very content to rub it all over the face...so I just let him!





Our final stop was the Gingerbread houses where you were supposed to decorate them with the Velcro candies. Instead X wanted to see if he could stand behind the houses and push them over.
But then he got the hang of it and did a little decorating.
And he even cleaned up the stray candies and put them back into the buckets.

We had fun. Well, except for the Santa part. But you can't have everything!

Generations Unknown

My grandpa passed away in Feb 2007. X wasn't born until Dec 2007. They didn't get to meet. I show X pictures of my grandpa and he can recognize him in a photo and say his name. But, it's not the same. Several months before my grandpa passed away he was clearing out his house and I got these 2 small wooden steps that he had made a very long time ago. I had no idea what to do with them, but for some reason I just liked them and wanted to have them.

So recently I decided to paint one of the steps to match X's room and write his name on it. I love it. It's simple, but means so much to me. It's a link to generations unknown. When I see X playing around on it it makes me smile. I have told X who made this step and now when he plays on it he says "PaPa" (which is what we called my gpa) over and over. My grandpa would have absolutely adored him! At least this is a small way that I can remind X who his great grandfather was.