Ahoy Maties!!

It has been quite a while since I have been on here. I usually only have time to check my mail, look at a few websites and hop off. Anything that requires typing is difficult to impossible until late at night.

Lets see. What have we been up to the last few months? I personally have packed up my classroom for the summer and sent the kids home for their parents to worry about for 10 weeks. The group I had this year was rough. One of the roughest (not physically, but mentally) I have had in my 13 year career. I have been working on my cake decorating skills and staying home with Ian. It has been wonderful having him home and well the last 3 weeks. No colds, no hand, mouth, and foot, no ear infections, nothing. And it has been great.

As for the little man, he is into everything! There is nothing, NOTHING he will not get into. He has now started climbing everything. If he can get a toe-hold on it, he will climb it. There is nothing that makes him happier than to get something close enough to the living room table or the couch and be able to stand on it to hoist himself up. Today, he discovered he could take all the toys out of his little red wagon, get into it and almost reach the house phone. This feat, when eventually accomplished, will make him the happiest kid on the block. Talking on the telephone is something I cannot do for long periods of time without him wanting to get his sticky hands on it. We started taking a music class on Tuesdays with our friends Kacey and her little guy Harris. It is a class for infants to 3 year olds. They are able to run around, sing, dance, or just ignore things as they wish. The great thing is that they get exposure to instruments and different music with different rhythms.

Okay, on to the good stuff. Pictures and video!



Asleep on Gran

Yummy, pineapples!

Just hanging out


On the way to Olivia's birthday party

Fun at the park!

Sliding down the slide

Wow! How close can I get?

We were hiding out in the basement during one of our many tornado warnings this year.

This was on the playground at my school. We were there for a faculty/student fundraiser event.

In the house we bought him for his birthday


A shameless plug for me :)
Here are some pictures of my cakes and cupcakes from the past two months.
This is my first try at fondant icing.

This was my final cake of course 3. The bottom tier looks lopsided because it shifted in the car on the way to class.

These are my baby shower cupcakes. This was the first set I made. They went over so well at work I was asked to make some for a coworker's shower.

This cake was a version of the above cake. However, it is not covered in fondant. It is pink buttercream. The roses are not royal icing roses. They are also buttercream.

This is my latest cake. It was for Juliet's birthday party. I now have a huge respect for character cakes. This one was difficult. Getting the "picture" right was the most difficult part. I love to draw and thought it would be a breeze. I can always erase pencil sketching. I can't erase icing, especially purple icing.

Well, Its Been a Year

Ian turned one March 20th! We had his party last weekend, March 22nd. I should have put out this entry sooner, but its been a long week. Besides, today is the day a year ago, that Ian was officially "due."

My mom came into town with Shelby and Jake. They were able to stay the weekend with us. Most, if not all of our local friends and immediate family were able to come. Ian was such a little trooper. He usually needs two naps a day, but he was able to make it all day with only his morning nap. At first when everyone started to arrive he became a little overwhelmed. Mark and his friend Gary took him outside for a little fresh air breather, and he was perfectly okay for the remainder of the party. Party time was 2pm to 4pm, which worked out great. Everyone pretty much started heading out a little after 4. I cooked or prepared everything served. Nothing was store bought except the chips and fruit. I even made his cakes. This floored my mother considering I am her non-cooking child.




The week before we had his one year portraits made. We were surprised that they were able to get so many shots because he was all over the place. Here are just a few. When Blogger decides to stop being flakey, I will add a few of the others.



Here are his latest YouTube videos!

He Walks!!!

Ian is now walking! About a week ago, Mark and I were in the living room with Ian. Mark and Ian were doing the kid dancing thing with some Comcast OnDemand Karaoke. Mark lets go of Ian's hands and he takes 3 steps to me. He then turns back and takes three steps back to Mark. We knew then that it would only be a matter of time. Needless to say, Monday afternoon, we are playing in the living room and Ian decides he wants to walk to me. I am so excited and that gets him so excited that he can't get his balance back to repeat it. We then go back to playing and a few minutes later he decides to do it again. We then repeat it when Mark gets home from work. All week we come home and practice. His teachers at daycare say he hasn't been walking but he is standing on his own without holding on to anything.



Just some further updates, Tuesday, February 19th, Ian will have tubes put in both ears. He has had 5 double ear infections since August. The ENT decided that we have been on too many antibiotics for a child his age. He says we have done all we can do. The surgery will take place at an outpatient office at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta very early Tuesday morning.

Back in January we had 2 very significant snowfalls within one week. Here are a few pictures we took. There aren't many because Ian was sick, with ear infections - of course, and we didn't want to keep him out for more than a few minutes.









Here, I caught father and son napping on the couch.

What you do not see is the crocheted afghan we were playing with that caused all the static.

Mommy and son


In other news, I completed the first course of Wilton's Cake Decorating classes. I have now started Course 2, which is all about flowers and basket weaving.
Here are pictures of my cakes.

My first cake - Not the prettiest thing and didn't taste very good either. We were taught to make the Wilton buttercream icing, which has no butter in it. I was not very pleased with the taste so I started playing around with the ingredients to make a better buttercream for the second cake. My first 3 cakes were a basic yellow cake from the box. I am not yet ready to start cakes from scratch. That will come later.

Number 2 - My leveling skills needed some work. A much better buttercream, with butter in it.

Number 3 - Getting better.

Number 4 - This picture does not do it justice. This one was a devil's food cake iced with chocolate buttercream and a chocolate ganache between the layers. It was yummy!

Number 5- My first birthday cake. This was a butter receipe cake from the box with a white chocolate ganache for the filling.

Number 6 - This was our final project for the final class session for Course 1.

Just a quick video

This was taken in our basement yesterday. He was walking with the push and ride that Grandma gave him over Thanksgiving.

Its Been Long Enough

There is a lot to catch up on at this point. Now that the holidays are over and life is returning to what we know now as "normal," it is now time to bring everyone back up to speed.

Ian is now 9 1/2 months old, weighs 24 lbs, and is all over the place. He isn't walking yet. However, he is cruising, a term generally describing babies holding on to furniture, walls, chairs, people, etc. to get around. He is starting to eat table food. He loves pasta and anything crunchy. He can also climb the stairs, which I am hoping we can get a youtube video of very soon. For the last few months he has red, chapped areas on his face. The doctor says it is from all the drooling he does during the day. It goes away if the temperature gets near 70 for any significant amount of time.

In order, here are his firsts:

Halloween - For his first Halloween, he and Mark dressed as pirates. Catherine and Juliet came over and we all went Trick-or-Treating. Ian enjoyed just being out and about. No candy for him, though.


Thanksgiving - We took a trip to Savannah for Thanksgiving. It was really nice seeing Grandma and Aunt Sandi. Ian absolutely loves Uncle Chris. Ian got to meet cousin Clay and Aunt Lisa. He also enjoyed eating some of Grandma's dressing.

Just chillin

A photo op before going to cousin Addison's first birthday party

In Savannah, with Shelby

Thanksgiving with Mommy and Daddy

Sitting with Sandi at Grandma's

Christmas - With this being his first Christmas, I was having internal conflict. I wanted to wake up on Christmas Day in our new house with our new baby. However, I also wanted to see my family in Savannah. The compromise was to go to Savannah Sunday morning, exchange gifts with Mama, Sandi, Chris, and the kids Sunday afternoon, have Christmas Eve dinner at Aunt Lisa's, and then drive home that night after dinner. As crazy as it sounds, it worked out really well. Because we were driving at night, Ian slept most of the way home, and traffic was wonderful. We slept in our beds Christmas Eve night, and spent Christmas Day with Gran.

Christmas Pictures

With Santa

Me and my Rocking Horse from Grandma

Crawlin around Christmas Day

Forget the gift, I want the paper!

A sleepy New Year's baby

Now, Ian is back in daycare, and Mark and I are back at work. Ian will be moved from the infant room to the beginner room on the 21st, and I am going to take a cake decorating class starting next week.

I am sure that the next big event that we will post about will be walking. He is already getting brave and using his walking toys with one hand. Twice now he has gotten extra super-duper brave and let go with both hands. It won't be long now.