A Contraption Party for Wilder's 5th Birthday!

I can't believe my baby is 5! I know we parents say that at every age, but it always feels like a shock to see them turn a year older, maybe because their aging feels so slow in the everyday and then suddenly, years have passed. I am not a fan of the whole process, but I am a fan of celebrating them on their special day. Wilder very specifically asked for a contraption birthday, which was surprisingly not as common of a birthday theme, so we got creative with marble runs and marble mazes and car races with some of the activities. Then of course his papa made him a huge, crazy contraption which actually spit out prize balls full of starburst candies. I actually think we'll probably try to have low key birthdays from now on, because we won't ever be able to top the coolness of that contraption.
Wilder, you are so special. I don't know what we would have done without you, but life wouldn't be as sweet, as meaningful, as wonderful without you. Thank you for filling our lives with your special spirit. We love you we love you we love you.

evienne's 2nd birthday tea party

for evienne's second birthday we ended up having a simple family tea party, which turned out to be the best thing, and i think we might have enjoyed it the most of any party we've ever had. or at least i did, and in no small part i credit it to the cake that i made — mimi thorisson's salted butter chocolate cake from her french country cooking cookbook. i made a few adjustments, most notably substituting gluten-free flour, leaving out a third of the called-for sugar and frosting it with a buttercream frosting. it was perfection. or near enough to leave me in raptures about it, anyways. i always feel that the important part of celebrations is the cake, and i was thrilled to finally produce a cake that lived up to my expectations. i'm not sure why, but most birthday cakes I've made have only been ho hum and not worth duplicating. this cake, though, made all my dreams come true.

tea parties are some of my absolute favorite favorite favorite things in the whole world, and right now the book that evienne most frequently requests is little bear's friend, in which there is a tea party. so of course, i started having dreams of a tea party for evienne's birthday and then trying to make the logistics of a tea party for a two-year-old and her equally small friends work with my vision for it which was getting complicated. so when we originally planned to have friends over, i scrapped the idea of a tea party and just knew there would be cake. at the last minute, basically the day of, when i realized it was just going to be us, i decided to throw together a tea party for her. it was super simple and contained all her favorite things: cake, berries, cheese, crackers, popcorn, cashews and drinking/eating from adult-sized dishes, flowers, and a hat (flower crown) to wear. and the birthday song, which she also regularly requests i sing, usually directed towards everyone in her acquaintance, no matter that they are not actually there to hear it. we forgot her balloons and did nothing except eat and eat some more and open a present for her dolly, named lucy after the doll in the little bear's friend book. she blew out candles (with some help) and ate her cake and was so happy, dancing in her chair. it could not have been more perfect, and even though i am sad to think of my little girl growing up so fast, i was so happy to see her so happy and to celebrate her wonderful birth. this is so sappy, but everything about this celebration made me so happy. probably because this little girl makes me so happy.

happy birthday evienne! i love you.

taking tuesdays off

when your to-do list seems never ending...
when your baby has started waking up twice at night again...
when your wrists are mysteriously sore...
when you're cloth diapering for the first time and you're not entirely sure you know what you're doing...
when you're happy as all get out and also bored and also wondering how three people can create so much laundry...

when you've got fresh blueberries in the fridge...

and it's tuesday...

you take the day off and make blueberry coffee cake. and decide to make a habit of it. because this cake just made my day.







and you guys, this blueberry coffee cake really is the best blueberry coffee cake you will ever have. i baked mine 15 minutes longer by accident and it was none the worse that i could tell. also, i used about 1/3 cup more powdered sugar than called for in the recipe because my glaze wasn't turning out all white like the photo in cup of jo. it was delicious. go make it immediately.

happy tuesday!

happy fourth!

well, wouldn't you know that the fourth of july would fall on a rainy thursday? there should be a law against that. the city of decatur was so ticked off they postponed the fourth of july till september. seems like a drastic solution. my much more awesome idea is to give everyone friday off too! but sadly, no one asked me...

all i wanted to do for the fourth of july was find a good hot dog and maybe get a patriotic popsicle. only, you can't eat popsicles in the rain, and then i made the really great decision to go to some questionable hot dog place called Skip's near decatur, rather than following the reviews for best hotdogs in atlanta. and thus, our hot dogs were...well, sad and puny. and most definitely not real chicago dogs like they were advertised. but! we had hotdogs! and some good conversation until loverboy got bored after five minutes and wanted to go! do! stuff! okay, okay, maybe it was ten minutes. i tell ya. men and their always wanting to do stuff. can't a body just relax in a dirty, uncomfortable, fast food booth with a cheap hot dog in hand every once and again?

after a naptime and some coffee and some serenading of the baby, we went over to the grandparents house for some wings and patriotic cake (much better than a popsicle now i think about it) with loverboy's virginia relatives down for the weekend.

i think wilder really enjoyed meeting his uncle andrew. maybe uncle andrew can teach him a thing or two about being bald. ;D

i'll have that right there.

sad little hot dog.

but really, can a hot dog be gourmet?

patriotic cake! patriotic marshmallows = regular rice krispy treats.