Party Prep Day: The Cake

Tomorrow, Everett will be having his first "friend" birthday party and I am now in full-out mom freak-out mode.  We just started the first cake in the oven and are waiting on Brian to bring home some more eggs to make the rest.  Oh yes, this cake shall be awesome.  Because all though I may have an anxiety attack by tomorrow afternoon, his past two cakes have been cool and this one is not allowed to be an exception.
Recap:
1st birthday - Goodnight Moon (my first real attempt at decorating a cake) and smash cake

2nd birthday - Thomas (didn't start early enough and ran out of time.  I would have liked a coal car too.  Rough edges, visible powdered sugar.....blah.)

And these were just for family parties.  This time, there will be friends.  And their parents.  Yes, I know that this is really all about me and impressing MY friends, and I'm ok with that.  Because the side effect is that Everett gets a fun cake that he loves (he adored that Thomas cake).
So on the docket for this year is Wonder Pets.  The plan is a dark chocolate 8" round cake with chocolate frosting and fondant, topped with 6" round (only one layer I'm thinking) of funfetti cake, covered in fondant, all topped off with a flyboat.  I have a sour cream pound cake in a small loaf pan baking as we speak I type that I need to make into a flyboat and I will then put the plastic characters and flag on it (bought the dang flyboat toy just so I could do this cake.  Ok, and he'll love the toy too.).  I could have just put the whole plastic toy on top, but how uncool is that?

Besides the cake, I still need to get his outfit ready (I'm thinking an iron-transfer logo on a shirt plus a cape.), find a punchbowl, figure out the games (Brian's job), make a tin can phone (think I'll lay that one on him too), and make the last minute run for ice cream, milk, spoons, mini donuts (see those wheels?), celery, and beer for the parents, and not totally freak out.

Oh, and I have a daycare baby until 4:30.  And a consultant/fundraiser party thing tonight.  Yeahhhh.... Here we go!

Taking time to enjoy babyhood

After a busy day of taking care of kiddos (duh) and scrambling to get a bunch of recipes proofread for a cookbook fundraiser today, I took a moment to look at a picture of each boy.  (They've been in bed for over an hour now.)  I really examined each picture and absorbed the cuteness that is these boys.  Callum's gorgeous eyes and sweet, darling smile.  Everett's smiling eyes and mouth and mischievous glint.  I love them so much and I wish I would take the time to realize it every moment of the day instead of staring at pictures after they're asleep.  Goal for tomorrow: take a few minutes to snuggle and love on each boy.

Dinner

Blogging + Me = fail

Right.  So you know how I said I would blog more often this month.  Evidently, I lied.  Nothing has really been going on.  It's been daycare, cleaning, shopping, playing with babies.  The boys and I had a day off on Friday so we had a marathon shopping day in Duluth with three other moms and their 6 children.  Yeah, 4 moms and 8 kids in Duluth for, oh, 9.5 hours (not including driving)?  Nuts.  Got some good christmas stuff though and made a glorious target run.  Not glorious because the boys were good (because they weren't), but because it was Target.  How I miss Target.  AND, apparently Target is just about the ONLY store that you can buy sizes 12 months and 3T in the same design.  Matching sweaters for the holidays?  Check.  I failed on the matching pjs front, but at least Cally got some cute ones.  Everett refused every pair I showed him.
Anyway.  DST ended and that royally bites.  Now it's dark by dinner time, Everett's waking up about an hour and a half too early and it's 3:30 PM and I'm still drinking coffee.
Callum's reached new crawling speeds that will boggle your mind.  And he knows when he has something he shouldn't.  You say his name and he drops it (usually out of his mouth) and speed crawls away as fast as his crawl-hop-crawl maneuver will let him.  He also likes to pop a toy in his mouth and crawl around with it.  Everett calls him puppy when he does that.  These kids are pretty awesome.

National Blogging Month and Flu Shots

Some people will be blogging every day during the month of November.  I promise you that will not be happening here.  Not with Everett having TWO birthday parties (which I am completely unprepared for!), Thanksgiving, daycare babies, Christmas present making, etc......yeah.  Will not happen.  But I'll make a conscious effort to blog a bit more frequently than once/week or so.
The boys and I got our flu shots this morning.  I was overjoyed at the experience.  There is no sarcasm in that, I'm dead serious.  First, they asked if Everett should get the nasal spray or shot.  After discussing it with them, I determined that the only benefit of the spray is that he doesn't get poked and then there's the factor that it's a live virus... So I said, "poke him!"  Then I mentioned the downside of the shot being the thimerosal and the nurse (?, np?) said, "Oh, we have preservative free shots.  We give them to anyone under 3.  Do you want one too?"  Umm....heck yes!  I asked if there was any extra cost for the preservative-free version and she assured me there was not.
So then.  I was going to go first and Everett said, "NO!  I go first!"  Ok then.  So he climbed up on the chair, we picked an arm, I held his arm steady, and the nurse gave him the shot.  Didn't. even. flinch.  Not a peep.  Got his bandaid and stepped to the side for brother's turn.  We exposed Cally's giant thigh for the nurse, popped a nuk in his mouth and when he got the shot, his eyes got big and he whined a bit, but that was it.  Then Everett picked out stickers for each of them (Wonder Pets for him and Olivia for brother), and it was my turn.  I got poked and said, "Ouch!"  Yeah, I'm a wuss.  Good thing I went last.  Then we got donuts.  The end.