Voyages in Parenthood

Tonight we had some friend over for dinner and we celebrated Leda's birthday. Not the blow-out we had for her first birthday, but a fun time none-the-less. This morning started off with me attempting to make a cake from scratch. I decided a yellow cake with creamy butter frosting. Should be easy enough, right? Brock decided we could "kick it up a notch" by throwing some blackberry sauce into the mix - a little "marbling" if you will. I probably should have told him to back off! ;-) I made the cake, poured it into the pans and Brock mixed in the blackberries. I put the cakes in the oven and turned to clean up and make the icing, but not before I let Leda try a little cake batter off the mixing beater. She moved it around in her mouth for a second or two, thought about it and said, "Yum Mommy, More Cake!" I let her have a few more licks and then back to making the icing. Leda helped by trying to get every last granule of powered sugar out of the bottom o

Leda officially turned TWO today (although she's been acting like a two year old for about six months now!) Today started with a little present opening before breakfast. Mommy and Daddy took Leda shopping a few weeks ago for one of her presents - a table and chairs of her own (Ikea, of course!) but today she got to open her special present from Mommy and Daddy - a Dora doll! The Dora doll comes with two outfits two books and a dog. A dog? Dora doesn't have a dog! Well, the doll comes with one, which doesn't seem to bother Leda - she hasn't been asking where Boots is yet! We also opened our box from Aunt Joan and Uncle Wayne - blocks! Daddy is REALLY excited about the blocks! Leda placated Daddy for a minute or two and went back to Dora! Leda also got a dress from Aunt Judy and Uncle Paul that we let her wear today for her birthday. Well, more like MADE her wear. Leda doesn't often wear dresses because usually I put one on her and she immediately would take it off. T

This morning started with a bang...Leda hitting the asphalt, with her knees. The first of many scraped knees, seeing that it was going to be about 80 degrees today and I dressed her in shorts! So, battered and bleeding, I carried her crying (her, not me) into the bathroom, trying not to laugh (yes, I thought it was a little funny - at least I wasn't completely freaking out!). I pulled out the first aid kit figuring that I was going to get to use a bandaid on something other than my nicked legs after shaving. Of course, I kicked myself for not buying those darned Dora bandaids months ago when I thought they might come in handy sometime soon. I cleaned her up pretty good, put a little antiseptic wash on it, put Bactine on my list of things to pick up today (since the antiseptic wash towelette was the last one in the first aid kit!) and got ready to put the bandaid on. Kids love bandaids, right? Not my kid. I thought the screaming bloody murder was supposed to happen when the boo-boos

This weekend, although not completely over, has been beautiful. Yesterday was a beautiful 76 degree day with not a cloud in the sky. Today is going to be around 80 with not a cloud in the sky. Makes you think about gardening and things like that, so Leda and I are off to the garden center today to begin the process. Nothing exciting yet, just some containers and some herb seeds for the herb garden I plan to attempt this year. Something a little different I figure. We'll see how that one pans out! If I don't kill them from the get-go, we may have some herbs for the kitchen well into next winter! Yesterday I did a little birthday shopping for a little girl who will be turning TWO this week! Can't quite believe she's almost two! I ended up having to get the "big" present off amazon.com due to not being able to find it at Target (WHAT? Unable to find Dora dress-up doll at Target? Home of everything Dora? Unbelievable!). I wanted to get her Little Mermaid but could

The past weekend I was in Boston for training for work. Up at a god-awful hour on Friday morning to catch a 6:30 am flight to Boston sucked. What sucked worse was the thought that I might be stuck in Boston depending on what the freaking weather was going to produce on Sunday. The weekend was a long weekend of training. Friday night the group (about 25 people) did head into town for an AWESOME Italian dinner. But the combination of getting up really early on Friday morning, an evening of good food and a glass or two of wine and having to get up early for an 8am start of training made for me being REALLY tired on Saturday night. A few of us headed out to a steak house for dinner and I was in bed by 8:30 on Saturday night. Sunday was interesting. Training again started at 8am, but breaks consisted of trying to figure out if our 5:30pm flight was gonna actually happen or not! One person (one our our trainers) found out his flight was completely cancelled. About 10:30 or so, we found out o

We had a great, albeit cold and sometimes snowy, Easter weekend. Brock and I took Leda off to Ikea to shop for her birthday present from Mommy and Daddy - a table and chairs! We had a good time walking around and looking at all the stuff, purchasing our table and chairs and then we headed up to the restaurant for lunch. Leda had her milk out of a big girl cup! No sippy cup, no straw, no lid - just a cup with some milk in it! She did pretty darn good! She held it with two hands, didn't spill but a little bit - when she got really excited about what she was doing and shook it up! We headed home for a little nap and then off to the Shiers for the annual Easter Egg hunt and dinner. The kids were more than ready to go hunting eggs that were hidden in Debbie and Jim's yard (the Shier's next door neighbors) and the timing couldn't have been better...the sun was shining and it was SNOWING! So we bundled up the kids and went off to hunt eggs! (and yes, the white flecks you see a

Well, thanks to Colleen over at Delaney Diaries I have been tagged with my first meme (for those of you not so blog and Internet savvy, memes (pronounced like "theme") is described here ) As Colleen points out, this meme was started here . So, without further ado.... Real Moms hide the books they have read WAY TOO MANY TIMES and CAN'T BEAR to read again (Real Dads do it too!)! Real Moms carry diapers/pull-ups in their purses and pull them out when looking for the wallet to pay the nice lady! Real Moms have watched Finding Nemo at least 8 times in the past two weeks (just keep watching, just keep watching). Real Moms forget to take the camera on special occasions at least half the time. Real Moms can't remember a single thing they did five minutes ago. Real Moms put their shoes on when their child goes to find them, bring them to her and demand that she put them on so that we can go outside. Real Moms will take the clothes off the baby doll - no, put the clothes back o

So I am logging onto my computer last night after "Dancing with the Stars" so I can vote for Apolo (yes, I have voted EACH and EVERY week so far! I am a devoted fan! I also feel, as an American, it is my duty to vote ;-) and who but my Mother instant messages me almost immediately asking me if I what I am doing is voting for Apolo -felt very much the same way I felt two weeks ago when Brock caught me voting for the very first time. Of course, I laughed and asked her what SHE was doing, voting for Apolo, too? To my surprise (and, may I add, delight!), she replied yes, she had just spent her 10 votes on Apolo! Now, everyone, go get yourself an abc.com user name and login and remember to vote every Monday night for Apolo Ono! He Must Continue! ___________________________________________________________________________ I have been tagged with my first meme by Colleen about Real Moms. I totally plan to post on this soon (hopefully by the end of the week - I TOTALLY agree with Col