It's the thought that counts right?!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! And Happy Birthday Andy. He's 28 today! Yahoo. Makes me feel younger! Anyway, we are having dinner guests tonight and I thought I would make him a cake I have never made before- Boston Creme Pie- since he likes the donuts so much. Seemed easy enough as I skimmed through the recipe... skimmed, I remind you. Holy smokes! Like 40 ingredients, 5 hours and a whole slew of swears I now have a lop-sided semi-oozing cake cooling in the fridge that may or may not taste better than it looks. Totally reminded me of the book "Julie and Julia" where a disgruntled government worker decides to "add meaning to her life" by going through Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" book in one year, and nearly loses her mind while doing so... I can assure you that no extra meaning was added to my life while I was struggling to make the homemade custard filling while 19 month old Bright tugged at my legs and demanded to help, or be picked up, or get into mischief in another room, all while I was praying that my egg yolks would not scramble while adding hot milk to them. Another shining moment was folding the egg whites into the batter and then folding the flour into it as well. Folding is such a joke. Can anyone actually ever get the flour to not lump up while doing this, or actually mix in correctly? Not me. I have always loved baking breads and cookies. I think I now know that cakes are not my bag!
Here are some pictures from 2 days ago when I was making pizza crust. Bright really wanted to help so I gave him some really old TVP to scoop and measure and pour. He was in heaven! What a powdery mess though!

He did it!

Bright successfully tinkled in the potty last night! Yahoo!

Let's hope that there is continued success and interest on his part.

Seen and Done

We have been busy here. Colds going around. First me, then Andy and now Bright. Playdate continued as planned, flu shot postponed (perhaps permanently...), last minute playdate canceled due to cold, grape picking session 1 a sucess, grape picking session 2 postponed due to rain, grape picking session 3 a tremendous success. we have frozen batches and batches of concords in various forms- goo for grape pie, skins for grape bread, grape bread itself- now sadly eaten and gone, pulp boiled and strained for making grapple sauce... Phew! Our first session got us 13 pounds in 15 minutes, the second time around we got 16 pounds. Grand total spent for those two trips- $9.

Today we watched a fabulous movie- Once. Check it out if you love music. The soundtrack is great- just burned it and now listening to it again while I type this. Emusic.com has an offer of 35 free songs with a 1 week trial.

We have been surfin' Netflix and really enjoying some of our finds lately. I am hooked on the Riches and Andy loves The Wire. We are working our way through those right now. Checked out the debates as they have been on- on one of the random cable stations that still comes in on the tv in the bedroom- neither one of them really answers any of the questions. Too bad we can't have an a la carte ticket.
First batch of grapes picked- 13 pounds for 4 dollars.

Andy washing and rinsing the grapes.


Showing Bright the baby snail that was attached to a grape.


Bright eating his fave- Organic wild blueberries-frozen. What a mess every time....

Bright shaving for the first time. I thought we would be able to put it off until he was at least 5...

Bright playing with the brussel sprout stalk from the Farmers' Market today.


Wearing Andy's jacket before he left for work.


Bright's new desk- hand me down from great neighbors who are moving away. :(



Bright seems to rarely be without his construction helmet these days- or Truction helmet as he calls it. A good thing given all the spills he takes ramming around now.

10 things I love about my boy

Instead of losing perspective from another tough day, I have decided to list the things I love so much about my guy. Here they are in no particular order.

1. Bright loves music- particularly Weezer's Red Album. He asks for it by name. He has been exposed to all kinds, except country, and seems to rock out to all of them. Must have had something to do with the Ratatat show we took him to when I was just about ready to give birth.

2. Bright has a great vocabulary. He doesn't just spit out words he has heard, but uses them appropriately. He uses words like visor to describe one hat vs another, he calls my dirty tissues gnarly, he knows a leopard from other big cats, knows the names of construction equipment, etc. The best is when he is just about to fall asleep and he says something random like "Pilchard", the cat from Bob the Builder, or "pinto" from the beans he ate at dinner. He takes it all in and it swirls around inside his little head, only to bring it back out when you least expect it.

3. He is our red-headed veggie boy, as Jaimie likes to call him. Thank goodness that a boy raised in a vegetarian household likes veggies. His two favorite foods are broccoli and tofu. They were some of his first words after daddy. He ate brussel sprouts with me yesterday at lunch, nodded his head and said good when I asked him if he liked them.

4. He never gets sick. He has had one or two junior sized colds, 1 ear infection, roseola, and maybe pink eye but we stopped giving him the drops three days after starting them because he stopped looking pink the day after we got them. I don't think his scratched cornea counts as a sickness. Just stupidity on our part.

5. He loves, loves, loves the people he loves. He talks about grammy and grampy all the time. He remembers everything he does with them. He remembered that Shay went on a canoe ride when she was here, all on his own without prompts. He talks about Monty jumping on the screen door and Tibby being naughty because she eats the plants. He sobs when daddy goes to "workies" and knows he has a job and will be home at lunch time. He has a strong attachment to Uncle Matt, and not just because of Margo :)

6. He likes to say "Sugar" and give you a big sloppy kiss and hug, out of the blue. I don't know who taught him to say "sugar", maybe Kyle? Whoever it was, thank you. It is really sweet.

7. He loves the things his daddy loves. GI Joe guys, vehicles of all kinds, outdoor moon hunts, wrestling, playing ball, working in the garden.

8. He is smart as whip and this is a source of frustration at times for him when he wants something done just a certain way and cannot communicate it properly to us, or his little body can't make it happen on his own. He knows what he wants, watches others do it first and then gets it on his own.

9. He has his daddy's nose and my curls.

10. He loves to have his teeth flossed. Who knew a baby would be into that? He saw me do it one day and asked what it was and we tried it. He calls it "mint" because of the mint flavor. He'll randomly ask for it during the day. Once a day is all he gets and he never bites when I do it.

and a bonus-He's all mine, all day.