This past week for us...

A few quick pics and stuff for us over the last week....

This is how we're spending a lot of time lately....Melmo. Who? Elmo...no, no..that would be logical. WDP likes to watch "Melmo"...don't ask us why, but he calls the blue otter puppet on Baby Einstein's First Signs "Melmo". He either wants to snuggle with you and watch or he runs around waving his arms and doing the little baby squatting dance all babies do- adorable...... PS Check out the green chair/ cushion- a B-day gift from MK. It's a seat, it's a tunnel, it's anything. We LOVE it...from PB kids

Hey, Katie M....didn't I tell you to tell Rylie to NOT "ESP instant baby message" WDP and tell him how to get out of his carseat.....or whatever it is that babies do to share secrets.... This is how I found William yesterday- rocking the off the shoulders carseat and jonjon look...hmmmmmm how much longer until he crawls out of the crib? My real question is who's going to tell William that the off the shoulders look is only for girls?????

My dear friend Stacy married the sweetest guy Matt this weekend. The wedding was so fun, and this is a horrible picture- sorry. I really wanted you to see the cake. Yeah it was pretty, but it was to-die-for-yummy. Chocolate-y gooey goodness cake with caramel and nuts as the filling. The icing, oh the icing....it was buttercream, marshmallow fluffy yumminess like I'd never had. This was hands down the best cake I've ever had. I'm gaining five pounds just thinking about it now..... Thank you for getting married and inviting me so I could have a slice of this cake...or two, yep I'm not embarrassed, I had two...and looked for a to-go box. They didn't have any...saddness! Best Wishes to Stacy and Matt!!!!!!!!!!!!

This kid loves big fruits and veggies. He will eat a whole cucumber...if it's whole. Cut it up, no thank you.....

A few of my latest sewing projects. A "Go Dawgs" jonjon for WDP for "game day" wear. Next... A Halloween jumper for my highschool buddy Kathryn's little girl....she claimed the pumpkin costume I posted on FB for her new baby so I made this as a bonus :-)- I love the bow in the ghost's "hair" I hope she likes it... And lastly, a brother/sister outfit set for a new FB friend who found me through Twelve's blog- Lucy. Her son Colton needs a feeding tube so it has a top secret flap to hide it when not in use- quite clever if I do say so myself!

This kid LOVES balloons...as in if he sees them he makes a bee-line for the closest one. Publix is awesome for having balloons to satisfy his need. I hope he is always entertained by something so simple as a balloon :-)

Please, give me legos! He loves to sit in the box- who knew the box could be as fun as the toy itself!!! And pile as many legos in there as possible. He also likes you to put them together so he can take them apart...my little engineer :-)

So that's us in a nutshell for the last week or so. I had a great post ready this am and blogger deleted it... so this was the best post I could get.... I hope you are all doing fabulous!!!!!

I promise to be better at this...

Hi, My name is Jennifer and I'm a bad blogger. There. I said it. let's move on :-) Just a bunch of pictures to ease my guilty non-blogging mind....


This is William's new happy face- I love it! He was all smiles at this park until he turned around and walked right into that cool bridge you see in the picture. It is exactly the height of that space between your eyes and nose...fun times were over after that....

WDP is all about finding your belly button (specifically mine because it's an outie) and giving us "five" here he's at a BBQ festival giving Daddy five. I'd like to teach him the fist bump...less germy if you ask me!

Feed myself? OK! I'd love to, but first I will make a huge mess for you. He LOVES Yo Baby...it's not just the yogurt though, it's the containers. We saw it at the store and he wants the "baby"... So now I buy the big yogurt and wash these cups and let him think he's having the expensive YoBaby... Sneaky mommy....

His new fav place in the house is under the bar chairs with a bucket of blocks. It's pretty darn cute until he gets stuck and can't remember how to climb out of the chair....

Chad went to his 20th high school reunion...(wow, that's old I thought. Then I remembered it'd been 15 for me. I'm old too :-) Here's his good friend Kim. It was fun to see people I've heard stories about and realize that all high schools are the same...every school is a Bayside High....

Another friend Robby, affectionately known as "the King" He was the only person I knew at the reunion :-) Don't be fooled by the friendly smile. One of his hobbies/ jobs is keeping up with and transferring gun licenses...like machine gun licenses...yikes! Be nice to the King :-)

Us before the reunion...what you've seen me in that dress before? yes, it was my "summer dress"...hid the remaining baby william weight and was $17.99 at sam's....yeas, like Sam's club. I love it! Look at William's onesie...it's an Elvis jumpsuit...from Graceland. It's awesome, and we've just about outgrown it...do you want it for your new baby? If so, say the word...first person can have it shipped out a.s.a.w.g.o.o.i....(as soon as we grow out of it)

me+the whole box of Cheerios= happiness

Please note the hand it's the "do not move my box" hand or the happy times will be over. Also note the torn box top...William is obsessed with chewing any paper product that could potentially shread and be hard to remove from his mouth....

There. Done. Guilt is gone. I'm not even going to spell check this...just hit post. :-)

My little kitchen "helper"

My biggest weakness is sweets. Here is the yummy icing recipe I've been favoring lately...

4 sticks of butter, softened just a little bit

One of the big bags of powdered sugar...I think it's 2lbs

2tsp real vanilla...not the imitation kind!

one pinch of kosher salt

Start with 3Tablespoons WHOLE milk (very convenient if you have a baby around who drinks whole milk!)... you'll add as much as you need to get the consistency you want

You can half this recipe...just use a smaller pinch of salt. You can also add crushed oreos or butterfingers...yum! I just piped the icing with a big swirl using a big star tip on top of chocolate cupcakes (use the recipe from the back of the Hershey's cocoa powder box- delicious!) Oh they were so yummy. I wish I had a picture of them.... Look back at Stacy's shower, or William's party. For the big swirl I needed all of the icing, for regular cupcakes or a round cake you probably only need half. But it freezes well if you make too much FYI :-) Enjoy and then hit the gym!

My other new thing to make are mini peanut butter cups. Are you ready for the ease of this....

Wilton milk chocolates candy melts(2.49)

Wilton white chocolates candy melts (2.49)

Wilton plastic/ disposable icing bags...pretty cheap, don't try ziplocs...it doesn't work, I tried!

Peanut butter

Candy molds...I used Wilton (they are $1.99)

Put half the bag of chocolate candy melts in a disposable icing bag. Defrost in your microwave for a few minutes...maybe 2...just until they are soft. Cut the bottom off of the icing bag and pipe or squeeze into the molds...fill them 1/3 to 1/2 way. Malt the white chocolate candy melts just like the others, but in a bowl. When they are almost finished add a big spoon of PB and stir until it melts. Pour into an icing bag, snip the top and fill the molds the rest of the way. I tap mine on the counter to make them smooth. Cool on counter or in the fridge if you're impatient. Pop out of the molds and like WDP says, "Ta-da"...yum! If there's chocolate left in the bags you can squeeze it onto parchment paper, let it cool and then reuse it later. There are sooo many fun uses for candy melts! A coworker told me she eats this with a banana- tried it this morning and she's right- quite delicious.... again, hit the gym when finished!

oops...mommy has looked the other way for a minute....I'll show her how much fun I can have when she's making candy....

uh oh i just wanted to pretend like this was a cup

Gardening

We had amazing weather in TN this weekend- 73 was the high on Sunday...It was just a sneak peak of fall, it'll be 94 Thursday, but William LOVED it! He is becoming my little gardening buddy. Straight from the garden to his tummy....

Check out our cantaloupe!!!!

I have scrapped the idea of having him drink milk from a sippie and we are continuing on with the bottle for now. He won't take a bottle forever I have to keep telling myself! He is into juice boxes now...How cute, right?

Check him out trying to feed himself. Just when Chad and I start to think he's so smart he'll bring us back to reality and eat rocks when we take him outside :-)

Did anyone see my FB status Friday night? WDP was so sweet. When I was giving him his bottle before bed he reached under my arm and patted me on the back while he drank his bottle. I tell you, he is the sweetest baby!!!

Back Pack

So it is becoming apparent that William understands us...maybe not everything, but I'm guessing it's a lot. His new thing is to want to go "Bye-Bye"...or take a walk. He used to bring Chad his shoes and the other day he only brought one and so Chad said "Go get the other shoe" and he did.... Then Chad said, "Go get the backpack" and WDP will chant "packpack" as he walks over, picks up the backpack and drags it over to Chad. It's adorable!!!!!! He's also started throwing his hands up like "I don't know" if you ask him something he's clueless about like "What's the square root of 64?" I'll try to get a video of him doing "I don't know" this weekend...but for now it's the march of the "pack pack." Happy Weekend to you!

Ahh, the fair...maybe this is why I haven't posted in a while...well this and the fact school is back in session, sigh..... back to the fair. I thought I would do better, I mean, my stuff's cute, right? Only one lowly red ribbon for my strawberry jam. The last minute entry, the I didn't think that would win, but I'll just throw it in just 'cause. But a ribbon's a ribbon.Even if it is 2nd place..and $8!!!! Oh yeah, did I mention there's a cash prize? And lucky for someone I'm sending it to them! If you ever click on my blog links, click Twelve and then click his daughter's site...or just click here. She's raising money for a well. So sweet! So My $8 is going there...along with my pencil money from school. Oh yeah, that's right. Mrs. Perry is hard core this year. No more freebie pencils or pens. 25 cents a piece and I don't give change, so some pay $1. That's OK with me. It's high school, they should remember to bring a pencil.....

Katie, do you have chickens like this...I think these should be called "rockstar chickens"

Seriously, this got 2nd? I could've at least taken second place! Sorry, I'm being a spoiled sport, but it hurt my feelings to not win!

We closed out the summer o'parties this weekend hosting a Stock the Bar shower for my dear friend Stacy and her swettie pie Matt. It was quite nice and the best part...I decorated with glassware from the labs at school. We did a major rennovation so glassware came out of the woodworks- the old stuff is sooo much cooler that what we have today. But if I do say so myself I feel like the volumetric flasks were a nice touch on the table. She liked them too and that's all that matters, right?

These were by far my best cupcakes ever.... I need to post the icing recipe- de.lic.ious...I mean worth every calorie, yummy...I'll post it soon, promise!

My next post will be all about that sweetie pie baby who has oh, so many new tricks!

So I began cleaning closets this week...not really because I wanted to, but because I had misplaced all of my powerpoints and quizzes and class stuff...smart me decided to ONLY keep an electronic copy (I did find it in my glove box of all places) but back to cleaning, through cleaning I found more things we don't use anymore and decided to put them on ebay and pulled out William's old bouncy seat. He climbed right in and started hanging off the edges :-) Chad and I couldn't help but remember how tiny he had been in it...remember.....

He was soooo tiny!!!

The fair starts this week. I drop off my jam tomorrow. I've already taken my clothes and his little "William" banner. there were a ton of entries. Now I'm nervous. I like to enter when no one else does...then you can win. Kind of like the Weaverville Firecracker 5K- I'll never forget the year I won first place for my age group...as I'm walking up there to get my prize which I was so proud of the guy announced that there were no 2nd or3rd place entries. Oh well! a victory is still a victory for me :-) keep your fingers crossed for the fair!!!! I want the ribbon...and the $6 first prize check :-)

Here are a few other projects I've worked on...the green and white bubble is at the fair, the rest are already in the hands of their new owners. the sewing room is officially closing after I do 2 more projects for at least a month. I can't start school and want to sew all the time....so I'll clean it up and pack it up...at least until September. I can't believe how quickly the summer has gone by. I start on Thursday....soooo sad!