Thursday, August 20, 2009

Part 2:The Blogging Continues...

As stated in my last post, this one is all about my little man!(well..pretty much).

Last week Gage turned the big 3! He got off pretty easy, he got to play, relax, get presents(LOTS of them) and eat cake. Me on the other hand got the poopie end of that lollipop.(sorry, I've been watching Dodgeball..). For about 2-3 weeks before the actual day of the party I scrambled to get decorations, cake ingredients/decorations/pans, gift bags, stuff for gift bags...and I realized I spent WAY too much money..but that's besides the point. So far, every birthday Gage has had, has had a theme. His first birthday was The Backyardigans, his second was Cars and this year was Little Einstein's. Now each year, once a theme is decided I comb through stores and online for decorations, wrapping paper and whatnot to match the theme. I have noticed a theme so far with this. EVERY year, no matter what the theme is..no where has anything for that theme. Until the following year that is, then they have it all over the place. I couldn't find The Backyardigans stuff ANYWHERE when I wanted it and now..it is in all the party supply stores. The same goes for Cars and now you cant turn around in a store without seeing Cars decorations. I figured this would happen so I started looking online for this year. I knew I could get somethings at the Disney website..of course I printed tons of things and then never used them. So I totally wasted my mother's ink(sorry..). I had such a hard time finding things this year, more than I could have thought. I finally found a site that sold what I wanted and it wasn't the cheapest, but cheaper than anywhere else. So I got a little of this and that, then figured I could improvise the rest. I ordered a few things and they were expected to be in on the 4th, which was perfect since the party was on the 9th. I get the box when expected but I opened it to make sure everything was there. Of course..it was missing stuff! I would have been ok if it was just missing a thing of cups, I could deal with that. Oh no, we were missing the banner, table cloths, cups and blowers! I think the pick and pack person doing my order must have been drunk or something to miss that much stuff...not to mention, some of the more important items! To top it all off, the number on the invoice was not a valid number. I spend the rest of the day searching for people to yell at, lol. I ended up calling the corporate office and telling them I wanted the rest of my order rushed to me or they can take it all back. Yes, this was am empty promise on my part, because I knew I couldn't get the stuff anywhere else...but it worked!

Now, me being how I am thought it was an awesome idea to make Gage a cake that looked like Rocket. Big mistake. Oh but that wasn't enough, I had to make butter cream frosting..from scratch. Bigger mistake. I've made butter cream before, but it is a pain in the butt if you don't have a nice mixer. Which I don't, I have a little hand mixer..some day I will have my Kitchen Aid Artisan mixer..some day..sigh...When I do get one, it is cookies, cakes and pastries for everyone! Anyway.two days before Gage's party comes around and I realize I better get cracking on this cake. I also have to make the sign that says "Happy Birthday", stuff the gift bags, wrap presents, make the frosting, make the cake, carve the cake..and on and on. I also had a wedding to go to the day before the party(those were the pictures from the previous post). So Friday night I get all the presents wrapped(I over bought..big surprise there huh?), got the sign made and the gift bags all set. I must say, I was pretty proud of the gift bags..I think they were cute. I personalized each one and tried to split everything evenly.


The sign I made for him..cheaper than getting one made for me!


The gift table(well, part of it) and gift bags..

Oh..by the way.. none of these photos are edited..I got lazy :)

Alright so now about this whole cake mess. To make a long story short, I went all over trying to find the correct pans for this cake but couldn't find them anywhere. So I spent more than I would like to mention on a football shaped pan so I could get the proper shape for part of Rocket. Now..I got all the cakes made and it was time to carve. I was NOT looking forward to this part. I spent the better part of a day making this cake. I let the cakes cool so I could carve them easier, then it was so hot in the house that once I made the butter cream I had to keep letting it cool in the fridge so it wouldn't melt. So I got the cake all carved, frosted and set after staying up until 2am! The next day my forearm hurt like a mother from everything. I don;t think its as good as it could have been, but I think Gage liked it. Next year, I'm doing a sheet cake! I didn't even want to eat it, but from what I was told it came out pretty good.



Full view of cake..again, not edited so its a little dark.



Close up of Rocket.

Towards the end, I got a little messy with decorating. My hand hurt too much for me to care about it, especially at 2 am.

All in all it was a successful party. We had a lot of people show up, Gage got some awesome presents. The next day we went to my mothers(where the party was held) and he ran to the back door looking for his party again. It was cute. We had a few other things happen to...



Gage was excited to see his party.



Jack was a little flirt, of course



Kasey actually got to snag Rocket away from Gage(this rarely happens)



Gage got excited to get Rocket back



and Hayden gave Jack driving lessons.


Thanks to everyone that came to celebrate with Gage and thank you all for the wonderful presents!

The next day, Gage's actual birthday I was determined to take Gage out all day. We rarely get to do this with his therapy. So I figured we would go feed the ducks at the hospital, maybe go play at the park, go out to eat and just play all day. We did pretty good for the most part. Gage LOVED feeding the ducks, me..no so much. I'm not one for ducks that growl at you or come so close that you think they will bite you. Oh and if you are noticing..yes, Gage does have the same outfit on..I washed it. I just wanted him to wear his birthday boy shirt again, lol. Here are some pictures from that little adventure(again, not edited).



Headed to the pond...



Checking out the crazy ducks with his Mee Mee.



See how close they got! It took bread from my hand!



Throwing bread to the crazy ducks.



Taking his revenge! Chasing the seagulls!



Playing Peek-a-boo with Mee Mee.



Ok..so I did edit one picture...this kid loves trees!



By the end of the day, this is what happened.

Alright, I know I said before I would have wedding things in this post...but I am not even close to being done editing those..so next time, maybe.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Pictures, Pictures Everywhere!

This is going to be short and sweet, hopefully..but I doubt it. I have a lot to update so I might just have to do this in a 3 parter(yes, I know that isn't really a word). I think for this on I will just update on some stuff that happened a little bit ago. Rachel's pregnancy pictures and a recent wedding I was at. The next blog I will finally put things from Gage's birthday and then another wedding from this past weekend.

Ok..here we go!

So about a month ago an old friend from high school came up for her baby shower. I made the trek down to Crown Point(gotta love GPS!) with Gage(sometimes I thought GPS meant "Gage Please Stop") and went to the shower. I had already told Rachel(Did I already say it was Rachel's shower..well, it was) that part of her gift was that I would do pregnancy photos for her. I figured it was win/win. She got pictures, I got some practice and of course an easy gift. On second thought, maybe it was more win/really win, lol. I also gave her two other homemade gifts that I was nervous to give her, because I wasn't sure about how they came out. I'm no Martha Stewart you know! The day after her shower I met with her in town to do her pictures. Here are just a few that I have finally edited(I've mostly done belly shots so far). I do need to finish the rest and I will before her little guy is one, I swear!



The lovely little couple



Isn't she cute?






This bottom one is one of my favorites. I barely edited this one, just a little adjustment on the color. I got pretty luck with the lighting. :)



Ok, THIS one is my favorite so far.


Another thing I did around the time of Gage's birthday was go to a wedding. I wasn't the photographer, but at my mother's request I brought my camera along. I didn't have the best vantage point for pictures and I wasn't about to run around taking pictures at a wedding that was not mine to take. I thought that would be rude(plus I was pretty tired and it was soo hot out), so I sat in my seat and got what I could from where I was. I wasn't really into taking much that day, but I think I got a few "doable" pictures. Mainly, it was some stuff to play around with and get ideas for the wedding that I just did with Danielle and for the wedding that is coming up in two weeks.





This last one is my favorite :)

Of course there are some more, but I'm too lazy to upload any others. Plus, I DID say this would be short, didn't I? :) Don't mind the color on all of these pictures, I swear uploading them makes them look so different.

Anyway, I guess that's it for now. Off I go to the store with my mother and Gage. Stay tuned next time for part 2...Gage's birthday.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

I suppose I'm over due..

Not overdue as far as the baby..I still have a very long way to go. I mean over due as far as a new blog. I sort of got in a blog rut and didn't feel like doing much of anything. I figured I might as well do it now, so when I put stuff up about Gage's birthday party(this Sunday) I wont have to have a long blog.

So..things are pretty much the same here. Gage is doing awesome with his therapy. He has just started saying so many new things and trying to say so much more. He is intimidating things all day and trying to say anything and everything. It's nuts to think of where he started and where he is now. We knew EI was helping, but didn't realize how much until he started just running with what he is learning. I'd love to say it was all me being home with him, lol but it totally wasn't. Krystal and Tony are a huge part of that, if they didn't drill in that language in him almost every day, who knows where he would be. It helps that now he is willing to do therapy too, it took a long time to get him to accept new people and new demands. He's stubborn, like his daddy.

Gage is going to be 3 years old. How crazy is that?? We're planning a Little Einstein's party for him on Sunday. It should be interesting, hopefully the weather holds out. I have a bunch of cleaning to do to get ready for people. I mean, most of the people that are coming to the party have already seen the house, but still...I need to tidy up a bit. I've been slacking...a lot. I'm getting pretty ambitious and making his cake to look like rocket from the show. I'm going to have to do a lot of cake carving and am making butter cream from scratch. Why you ask? Oh, because I just have 100 hours in a day and need the stress of making the perfect rocket cake. Yes, it does need to be perfect, because if it's not..I will do it over again. I'm just that anal with things like that. I'll post pictures once the party comes and goes.

Here is the new, improved list of Gage's new words/signs(new stuff is in bold):

So as of right now Gage with say:

No, Yeeeeah(yeah), Rake, Niiii(night), Baaawl(ball), hi, by-eeee(bye), Caynedee(candy), Paine(Plane), Hoo Hoo(woo hoo)..Bahbumbowlbee(bumblebee), Dahdahdee(daddy), Mamomby(mommy), Mama, Mahmeembee(Meme..(my mother)), Waaah(want), Dow(down), Baybabee(baby), lahshoe(love you), Tea(tree), Eeeff(leaf), Ky(sky), Peas(please), Nutty(Tony), Nana(Briana), Eeoh(leo..from Little Einsteins), Aayie(Annie from L.E. too), Nincy(Quincy..again, L. E.), Oohne(June..once again, L.E.), Eee(eat),and again..some random other things mixed in there that I am sure I am forgetting....

Gage can sign:
More, all done, down, eat, want, drink, candy, thank you, please, rocket, help, swing..again, some others on occasion..he is also now doing water, sit and blowing kisses, waving hi and bye..Flip(his own made up sign for it)

As you can see, his speech is taking off..it seems everyday he comes out with a new word.

Pregnancy #2 is going pretty good. I'm still tired, but not like I was. I'm stuffed like a flippin' teddy bear though. It's awful, I get sick almost every morning because I am so stuffed up. I went to the doctors the other day for an appt./sonogram and was told that I can take decongestants. Hopefully that will help with the nausea from being so stuffed up. I was also told that I am further along that originally thought. I knew for some reason I would get a new due date. I had 3 with Gage, so now I have had 3 with this one. It started out as February 14th, then the 9th and now the 6th. I went in there being 12 weeks 5 days pregnant and leaving as 13 weeks 3 days pregnant. So..maybe next time I will be 20 weeks 5 days pregnant. One can only hope, right? lol. I was told though, that I would deliver earlier than my due date because I'm going to have another c-section. So chances are that I will actually have this one in January, which is fine by me..that's less time being uncomfortable. I just want to know what it is...I'm getting irritated not knowing.

Well, I guess that's about all my news. So exciting right? I'll post pictures from this coming weekend at some point..I still have other photos I need to finish editing. I swear I will edit them soon(sorry Rachel..)!