Feeling crabby

In March, 2009 I posted about some of Spencer's crab themed clothes. 14 months is a long time to remember something as inane as crab clothes. You can refresh your memory here

Just to recap. This is Spencer in March 2008. 6 months old.

March 2009. 18 months old. I decided that 2 years of crab clothes in a row was the start of a tradition. A tradition I didn't want to break. I started looking for something crabish for this summer. I found some adorable stuff at Carter's and Gymboree, but only in infant sizes. What to do, what to do.

Today we went to Wal Mart and bought this shirt for $3.50. We went to Joanne's Fabric and bought this adorable iron on crab patch for $3.00.One quick date with the iron, and.....Crab shirt. Summer 2010. This next picture has nothing to do with crustaceans. Spencer and I went to visit Amy and Baby Jacob on Friday. He was 1 month and 1 day old.

All together now......awwwww!

Funny stories and other stuff

Funny story #1

We took Ginger for her nightly walk last night. It was like a cat convention out there. We spotted at least 6 kitties in the first 15 minutes. Spencer gets very, very, very excited when he sees a cat. He screams, he giggles and then he states "I do like cats", just in case we forgot in the last 2 minutes. We were nearing our house when Spencer lets out a blood curdling, "CAT!". Michael goes, "Oh, yeah. Another cat." I say, "where? I don't see a cat." Michael points out the cat in between two bushes by a driveway. My response is "you mean that small Mexican pot?"

Yeah. I totally see the resemblance. Separated at birth.

Funny Story #2

We're taking Ginger for her nightly walk tonight. We're getting close to this one house and I'm like, "what? did a whole flock of flamingos move onto that lawn?"

This is what we see Some of the flamingos are wearing "40" necklaces.
This sign is posted in the front yard. My #1 questions is, do you get to keep the flamingos or are they just rented? What does one do with 10-12 pink, plastic lawn flamingos? (And yes, I did go back in the car after the walk to take these pictures. I'm a dedicated blogger)Funny story #3

It's actually not funny at all. It's sad. For me at least. I tried to put this outfit on Spencer today (this picture is a year old). He's only gained like 2 pounds since last May and can still fit into most of his 24 months clothes. He looked really cute in it. Then he told me to take it off because it was for a baby and he is a big boy.
Other stuff #1

I just wanted to mention this because I'm feeling happy about it right now. Spencer and I went to the mall today. Remember when I didn't get my Old Navy cardigans because I am unfortunately not size extra small? Well, I'm over that now because I found these cardigans at NY and Company. I bought white and black. I do plan on wearing them while standing in front of a wind blowing machine while clutching my elbow and with a sultry look on my face.

Sorry Spencer

Last May I did a Flashback Friday about my 8th grade and High School Graduations. I was very upset at the time because I couldn't find my 8th grade graduation photo album.

(You can refresh your memory about the whole awful episode here) I blamed 20 month old Spencer and publicly accused him of throwing it in the trash.

So, funny story. About a month ago Michael and I were looking for our extra cell phone charger. We couldn't find it. So we tried finding the USB cable to connect the phone to the computer (did you know you can charge a cell phone that way?). We ended up in the garage. I opened a random box and there, right on top, was my 8th grade graduation album.

I'm sorry Spencer. I'm sorry that I publicly accused you of throwing my album away. I'm sorry that I assumed that because you threw your shoes and toys away that you might also throw my precious memories away. I'm sorry that I painted you in a bad light in a public forum. I'm sorry that I believed, for a whole year, that I would never get my pictures back and I would always resent you just a little bit for it. Mommy was wrong.

Now!

On to the 8th grade graduation flashback.

May 20, 1993. 17 years have passed since this day. If my mom wasn't reading this I would use a certain word that may or may not rhyme with duck.

Chelsea, Karen, Me, Kim and Stephanie. Did I mention last year that I carried the time capsule? Maybe now would be a good time to remind you that I went to a Catholic school and our graduation was in a church. We dug this up in 1997. Everything inside was wet and stinky.
The priest on my right married me and Michael at this very altar 8.5 years later.

Me and MeganThe tradition was that the 7th graders hosted a graduation dance for the 8th graders. The theme was always a big secret. Our theme was Paris. Complete with a Paris at night wall, and the Eiffel Tower. I'm so glad I don't have to resent Spencer a teeny tiny bit for the rest of my life for throwing my pictures away. I'm sure there will be many, many things that he will do that are worse than that. Ha!

My baking disaster (gasp!) and other weekend happenings

Saturday morning I woke up and decided we needed to go swimming. We headed to a local city pool. A heated local city pool. A heated, local city pool with a lazy river, a water vortex pool, a diving pool, lap lanes, water slides, toddler slides, and a jungle gym in the middle of the zero depth pool. Since we don't employ a full time photographer (which I've always maintained would be well worth the expense) we took no pictures. I've never figured out how to swim and take pictures at the same time.

These are some pictures of the pool(s) complements of google image

This is Spencer napping today. Could he be any hotter buried under those pillows? He refuses to keep a light blanket or sheet on him but he'll sleep under several huge pillows. I don't get it.

After Spencer napped he helped me make the jumbo birthday cupcakes. MMMMM. Batter.

Unfortunately the jumbo muffin tin was a jumbo disaster. The cakes are just too big and heavy. It would have worked if I had the muffin liners. They would have been contained within the paper. Without the liners, though, they just fell apart under their own weight.

There was no way I could carve a hole into the middle in order to fill it, so I just put the mousse filling on the top. This was the best looking one. The rest weren't even upright. One of the problems, beside the lack of liner, was that these cupcakes were ultra moist. That's not a problem in the eating department, but it is a problem in the not crumbling into a huge mess on the plate department.

Spencer was very proud that he helped to make Grandma's cupcakes.

He helped blow out the candle too.

Oh, and big news. Spencer is FINALLY (finally, finally, finally) saying his own name. For a long time he called himself Baby, then he moved on to Big Boy. Now it's Pencer. I knew when I named him that the s-blend ("sp") was going to be hard. What's funny is that he has the vocalic r (er) down pat.

Some Friday afternoon thoughts

I've been actively looking for a new job for next school year. I sent out resumes in February, had some interviews in March and spent April trying to decide which job I wanted. I am so fortunate to be a speech language pathologist and don't have to worry about unemployment. I have 4 offers to choose from. Yesterday I visited the school that is my #1 choice. I don't want to say too much about it. I feel like I might jinx something. These are the important points: more money for fewer hours, they are quite interested in me, I am quite interested in them.

Wouldn't it be cute if the school looked like this? It doesn't.

I lost a lot of weight over the last year just by not eating like a pig. It also helped that I was no longer being used as Spencer's bed and sitting/laying down for a huge chunk of the day. I've now made the hard choice to start exercising. I hate exercise. Loathe it.

I've done this DVD the past 2 days. I feel good about it. I did this DVD once. It wasn't as hard as the Jillian Michaels one. Michael's mom and dad are going to be here this weekend. Michael's mom's b-day is next week. I will be making these cupcakes (Chocolate Mocha Mousse Filled) in the jumbo muffin cups. One of these bad boys will undo like 9 days of the exercise DVDs. I have 8 days of work left in this school year. 6 of those days are 1/2 days. Just thought I'd share.

Happy Weekend!

Hiding

Title #1 of this post is "Hiding". Title #2 is "Mothering Fail". We'll get to that in a minute.

Spencer wanted to nap in our bed today. I just wanted him to nap and didn't really care where he did it. I said yes. I heard him on the monitor for at least 45 minutes before he fell asleep. After an hour I snuck in to check on him.

This is our bed. Do you see Spencer?

No?

Let's take a closer look. Do you see Spencer?No?

Let's peak around and under the pile of pillows. That's my boy. How safe of him to sleep on the crack of the bed, under 4 pillows.On to the mothering fail.

Spencer pointed out that his nails were "pretty long". I agreed. I got the clippers and we sat down to trim his nails. I kind of, sort of clipped a little bit of skin on his pinkie. It didn't even bleed, but boy did he wail.

Daddy got a band-aid. We have a strict "no band-aid unless you're bleeding" policy in this house, but I was willing to break it since I caused this trauma.

This is how Spencer held his hand during story time. I pointed out that I didn't break his pinkie and he could, in fact, move his fingers. He said "oh sorry guys" while making his sad face. I like how he's calling his parents "guys" now. Inspecting the damage. Still with the claw hand during bedtime rocking.

I'll stick another $50 into the "Spencer's future therapy" jar. We don't actually have such a jar. It's strictly metaphorical. (That's totally not an example of the true meaning of metaphorical, but I don't know what word to use in this situation and it makes me sound smart.)

Muffins and cupcakes

We're talking muffins. Banana Nut. Blueberry. Lemon Poppyseed.

We're talking cupcakes. Yellow with chocolate frosting. Red Velvet with cream cheese frosting. Strawberry with strawberry frosting.

You've got your mini. Always cute. Good for baby showers.

You've got your standard. Average. Normal. Think Sunday morning breakfast and birthday parties. And now, my friends, you have your jumbo.My mom and I were at a party store last night. She was looking for napkins. I wandered into the baking aisle, aka, my Disneyland. They had this bad boy. I mean, look at the size of that cup. Can you imagine a coconut cupcake coming out of that thing?So, here's the list of things waiting to be baked in my house:

Ginormous cupcakes

Mini tarts

Whoopie pies

I need massive quantities of butter and vanilla. Stat.

Mother's Day

Alternate title: Ask, and you shall receive. We'll get to that in a minute.

Happy Mother's Day! I hope all you mommies out there had as great a day as I did. Let me start from the beginning, which was actually several days ago. My mom was here last week. On Thursday evening we decided to go to the mall. Michael had come home from work early in the day and spent the whole afternoon vomiting (I know- YUCK!). We wanted to get out of the house to give him some peace and quiet.

So, Spencer, Gramme and I headed to the mall. While we were there my mom offered to buy me my much desired dishes as my Mother's Day present. How awesome is that? She bought me the 4-piece set in graphite and the 4-piece set in raspberry (mustard will have to wait until the next holiday). Could my mom be any more generous? I didn't realize this Mother's Day stuff worked in the opposite direction too- mother to daughter. After the mall shopping my mom took us to dinner at Olive Garden. I have such a wonderful mom.

Michael ended up missing work on Friday too. When we went to the mall on Saturday to have our pictures taken he told me he had nothing for me since he had been planning on shopping after work on Friday. He offered to buy the Whoopie Pie cookbook. Barnes and Noble didn't have it in stock. He offered to buy me a couple of the cardigans at Old Navy. We went. They had small and extra small left (I am neither size).

Flash forward to today. We went outside to take our Mother's Day pictures. The sun was too sunny (imagine that!) so we decided to try again later.

In the meantime we went for my Mother's Day breakfast at.......Dunkin Donuts! What can I say? It's what I really wanted. Large coconut iced coffee and a vanilla buttercream donut- sounds like a great day to me.The sun was a little less sunny after breakfast so we took more pictures.Then walked to the lakes to feed the fat ducks. These are the largest ducks in the nieghborhood.

This is the only white duck in the neighborhood. He made a special appearance for my special day.
This afternoon we met up with Kara and Mike for an early dinner before they drove back to Reno. They were here for a memorial service this weekend.

How great does Kara look? Can you even tell she's 31 weeks pregnant?
Isn't the backdrop awesome? It's totally painted. We were not dining by the water.

There's the cute little pregnant belly (and Mike). Kaitlin Ann will be here in July!

Spencer waited patiently while we took a variety of pictures.

So, before we went to dinner we stopped at Borders and finally, finally got my Whoopie Pie cookbook. Borders is oh so conveniently located next to Bed, Bath and Beyond. My Mother's Day gift from Michael and Spencer also included a set of 6 mini tart pans. I'm thinking key lime tarts are on the agenda. Or chocolate caramel tarts. Or maybe mini quiche lorraine.

These are the graphite dishes. The raspberry are being shipped.

And a little gift to myself. Lemon vanilla lotion and body spray. I'm a big advocate of buying gifts for yourself for special events like birthdays, Christmas and Thursday.