Saturday, February 28, 2009

Mac's Birthday Party Preparations

Well, tomorrow is the big day! It's party time! Here are the invitations I sent out:


I made flowers from gumpaste for the decorations on the cake:



I liked the look of the crumb coat--kind of rough, but good proportions and color!
This cake is probably enough to feed about 50 people, but I wanted to go all out. I'll take some better pictures of the finished cake tomorrow in some good light. I made a separate little cake for Mac to dig in to. I can't wait!

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

New Etsy Items

Hey, there, folks!

I've been a little slow on the uptake with my Etsy store, but I've two new items up! Very funny little Easter shirts--particularly funny because the one I made for Mac is too small for her! Anyway, fun stuff, and there is also a paisley applique up. People seemed to like the tulle ruffle on the Valentine heart, so I'm trying to see if that will hold with other things!

The pictures are hyperlinked to the item in the store...


Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Mac's Birthday!

Today was Mac's 1st birthday! My little baby is one! She has changed so much from the little peanut we brought home from the hospital. Today was supposed to be a big deal, being a first birthday, and all, but things kind of combined against us, and the only thing that was different was that she got a present today! Brad had to be out of town this week, so he wasn't here for the big day, and then yesterday Mac got a stomach bug. That ruled out the cake I had planned for her today. No use putting a sugary-frosting-covered cake in front of her if it's just going to come back up! So, we just gave her a present. Which she didn't like. Here is the byplay:



She takes a peek inside, and her face grows a little concerned.


This is what it was. Very non-scary, but she would. not. go. near. it. Period. She wouldn't even pull it out of the bag. She took one look at it, and crawled to me as fast as she could and scooted behind me. Mommy will save you from the scary Ernie, baby. This was in the package, of course, not to mention the crying that ensued when we took it out and made it giggle and jump.


She liked the singing card Brad got her much better, although she thought it was a book.



A little later in the day she touched it, and then started crying again. We put it away with Leiden's stuffed animals.


I loved this. This was Leiden's contribution to the day. The 'ABBD' was 'Happy Birthday', by the way. What a sweet girl. She worked very hard on it, throwing several tries out before she ran to Mac and said Happy Birthday and tried to show it to her.


For anyone who is interested, I took A TON of pictures today, and if you want to see them, check them out here.
Here are the best of the bunch:



Friday, February 13, 2009

Last Bit of Exciting News

Okay, this one has been a long time coming, but we just wanted to let all of you who read this know...we are going to be staying here in Minnesota! As I'm sure you're aware, Northwest has been merged with Delta, and there was an option for us to go to Atlanta, but Brad found a job here (in Plymouth) that he will start at in a few weeks. Hooray for all our friends, and boo hoo for no more free flying! Now we're going to start remodeling! Bring on those kitchen counters, cupboards, and flooring!

This is the first in a long long line of posts today, so keep on reading!

Scrapbook Pages

What with all the flying I've been doing sans kids, I've gotten a lot of scrapbooking done! Here are the latest of Leiden. I skipped almost an entire year between Leiden's 1st birthday and when I started digital scrapbooking pictures, but save that year, I'm less than a year behind on Leiden!

Here are three more of Mac's baby book pages. We're almost to month 6!


Preschool Art Show and Program

Leiden's preschool had a program last night, complete with art, singing, and refreshments. Leiden was cute, and actually sang! And did the actions!




Here is her little class.



Leiden and Eva, another little girl in her class. They actually kind of look alike!
Leiden with her artwork. (The drawn picture is of her.)

Leiden with her teachers, Ms. Rhonda and Ms. Beverly.

Valentine's at Preschool

Okay, so for about a week or two, I've been wondering if Leiden's preschool class would be exchanging valentines, but expected that some kind of flier or reminder or something would come home if that were the case. The day drew near, and I hadn't heard anything, and debated asking, but didn't want to pester. That'll teach me. I show up with her on Thursday morning, and all the little kids and their parents were handing the teachers their valentines to exchange. Evidently, the much hoped for flier DID come home, but somehow I missed it. So, Leiden got a bunch of valentines, but did not have any to give. How unfortunate. She was thrilled, regardless. Poor Leiden.



Mac and Leiden

This is a post mainly for grandparents! A bunch of the girls. These are the funniest/best, but the whole pack can be found here. (Grandparents, if any of these or any others on that site appeal to you, and you want prints, you can do it right from that site.)






Mexico

Finally, the vaunted Mexico pictures. There are a fat lot of them, so bear with me! This stunning number was found upon arrival in the bathroom in our hotel room. How pretty. The hotel was really nice, by the way.


This was the view from our balcony.




Out wandering the beach. There were a bunch of guys parasailing, and I was totally going to do it, but then we found out they were asking $75 for about 10 minutes in the sky. Nope. Mexico is a place of bargaining, and we tried to talk them down, but they wouldn't budge under $60.




Our hotel from the beach...



We sat by the pool and drank smoothies brought to us by waiters wearing all white.



Sponch. It's what this delicious little number is called. It's a soft graham crackery kind of bottom with marshmallow puffs covered in coconut (similar to a snoball) and a smattering of strawberry jam or some such in the middle. You just get them in convenience stores and they are wonderful.




On day two we went whale watching, which we've always wanted to do, and here it was actually pretty inexpensive. Here I am on the boat.


Nothing spectacular, although it's amazing to think that these enormous creatures are wandering around out there in the water. One actually did jump out like you see in National Geographic, but we weren't ready with the camera, and my spot on the boat actually put me in back of several people. The tails are cool, anyway. We saw a lot of those.






We took a taxi to the city, which was this bizarre blend of filth and beauty. There are these strange statues all over the place, and this lady was selling shrimp on a stick which we saw her pull out of her tote bag. Who knows how long that shrimp was in there!

One cool thing is the sand sculptures along the Maracon, which is the main street through town. The guys build a giant sand mound like a sand castle, and then carve away the excess to make all kinds of things. This was in honor of Valentine's Day.

This is what they use to form the giant mound.

This was actually pretty disgusting. This water was filthy, and I mean you could smell the sewage in it filthy. Yet, here are a bunch of kids and their dogs playing in it.

Pretty sunsets, although it was cloudy for much of our short trip.


Anyway, we took a bajillion more pictures, but a lot of them were us just messing around trying to figure out the new camera. We had a great time, and I only got a little sun on the whale trip. It truly was a fascinating place, but again, scary dirty. I can see how people get sick like crazy going down there, but, we didn't, and now Brad can say he's gotten me south of the border, which I have never been too keen on. (I don't do scary dirty very well.) Most of all, it was nice to be warm!