Standoff

It started with a simple walk down the dirt road at our cabin. Our destination: rock throwing in the stream.

My mom with my 8-month-old nephew, Colin, along with myself, Lydia and Lydia’s doll set out for a breath of fresh mountain air last weekend.

At one point my mom put Colin on her shoulders for a ride and Lydia followed suit, putting her doll on her shoulders and walking with grandma.

How I WISH I’d had my camera to capture this adorable moment.

After getting sufficiently splashed by the rocks in the water we headed back when out of nowhere Lydia suddenly lost the ability to walk.

Don’t be alarmed. She still HAD the ability to walk, but her 2-year-old mind determined now was the time for mom to heft her 30-pound body down the road.

Knowing she was fully capable of walking herself, I encouraged her to keep up and kept waking ahead a few paces before turning around to see she hadn’t budged.

Feet planted firmly on the ground, she proceeded to whine for me to carry her back to the cabin.

My mom, a few paces ahead of me, looked on with a smile and said, “you’ve got a battle on your hands.”

If I was too tired to carry her, I was certainly too tired for a standoff with my 2-year-old, but I don’t always get to choose when these battles occur. I only get to choose how I will respond.

Sometimes I give in.

But this time I decided to be strong.

I turned and called out in a friendly, encouraging way for her to come and join me on the path. She stood still, whining louder.

I turned and walked a little further, imagining she wouldn’t want to be left behind. Slowly, I glanced over my shoulder.

She still hadn’t budged.

I turned to face her. If this is a face off, I wanted to look her in the eye. I told her "mommy is waiting for you to come down here." I threw in whatever pieces of information I thought she’d be interested in regarding the rest of our afternoon at the cabin — lunch, a chance to see grandpa, a chance to swing in the hammock. Bribery, I suppose, but I had no other arsenal.

She stomped her feet and continued to cry, but in the process, she moved slightly forward.

This might have been unintentional. Still, it gave me hope.

With my mom looking on a few yards down the road I stood my ground and waited a little more. Finally, with what I can only imagine was a monumental effort on her part, Lydia lifted one foot in front of the other and stumbled her way to join me, whimpering the whole time.

As she did I raised my arms in mock celebration, declaring myself the winner.

My mom just laughed. I’m sure she was thinking of the many similar battles of wills that are undoubtedly yet to come.

The man I love

The man of my dreams turned 29 yesterday!

Happy birthday honey!!!

We celebrated twice -- once with my family at our cabin last weekend and once with his family on his actual birthday. Good meals at both events, delicious cake and generous presents.

My mom made a split cake for Derek and my sister-in-law whose birthday is next week.

Relaxing with Lydia and Colin

At our house on his actual birthday.

He is amazing and totally deserves every minute of attention he received and modestly shrugged off.

Imperfection

This year for Derek's birthday we are having two cakes:

The dismal failure...















... and the actual cake.


First, let's focus on how great my Apple logo cake turned out -- made out of love by me for my adorable, amazing, caring, hard working, funny, loving, albeit increasingly computer nerdy husband who will celebrate his 29th birthday tomorrow.
I love you honey!!!

Now for the failure cake.
Really, it was all originally one cake. The destroyed portion was, at one point, the bottom layer of a two-layer Apple Mac cake that -- had it turned out the way I envisioned -- Steve Jobs himself would have been proud to eat.

I blame several things.

First, a lack of time to allow the cake to adequately freeze prior to icing.

Second, the requisite white color of the current Apple logo and my decision to use red velvet cake, which Derek enjoys.
White icing leaves too little room for error and inevitable cake crumb transfer.

After doing the "dirty frost" layer first (thank you "Cake Boss," I believe) and starting on the finishing layer of icing it was clear there was no way to avoid SERIOUS crumb transfer.
I'm talking huge chunks of cake and icing that was now looking more and more pink.

The problem seemed to be stemming from the bottom layer mostly so, after taking many deep breaths to avoid tossing the entire thing in the trash can, and eating gobs of cream cheese frosting off my fingers to calm my nerves (I'm totally sick now) I decided on one last attempt to save the cake.

I needed to separate the layers.

Has such an attempt been made before? I don't know but let me assure you it is a difficult process, considering the two layers of moist, delicate red velvet cake were now fused together by sticky, creamy frosting. However, I rationalized that it could hardly make matters any worse, so with the aid of two metal spatulas and a knife I peeled the top layer away and plopped it onto a new pan.

Success!

A little more icing and I was home free. Happy birthday my love! And happy night for me.

Look who is two!

{Aug. 6, 2011}

Happy birthday Lydia!

We had a wonderful time celebrating Lydia's second birthday with a family party at the cabin.

I can't believe this little angel is already two! She is at yet another adorable/hilarious/challenging stage and we are loving it.

The party
Guests included both sets of grandparents along with great-grandma Noma, Uncle Brian & Aunt Leslie, Uncle Heber and of course Mom, Dad and Lydia.
Despite a major snag in getting my in-laws to the location of our cabin, eventually all the guests arrived for a dinner of barbecue pork, corn on the cob, watermelon, chips, cake and ice cream. We had a great time visiting. The main topic of conversation: adorable Lydia :)


The cake
Growing up my mom always did a fun cake for our birthdays, so how can I do any less for my kids? This year, since there was not really a party theme, I decided to have the cabin itself being the cake theme. It turned out pretty well and tasted delicious :)





Gifts galore
Suffice it to say, this is one spoiled little girl. Everyone was so generous with their gifts. We have been having a ball at our house with all the new things.

(She can't quite reach the pedals but she loves scooting around the driveway "exploring" with Ariel.)

This was my gift idea (a toy broom and mop) and Derek scoffed at the idea. However, he's had to admit I was right because Lydia has thoroughly enjoyed cleaning everywhere we go. The cabin -- and the great outdoors -- have never been so thoroughly swept and mopped before.

This was delivered to our house the following Monday. I'm so glad it is small enough to fit inside until we get a break from triple digit heat.


But it works great as a water slide when we do take it outside.

We've got a little mommy on our hands. She loves to take care of her babies!

My little baby

Here's a little about Lydia at this stage:
29 pounds (81 percentile)
35 inches (84 percentile)
** I'm not sure how accurate these numbers are. She absolutely shrieked and fought through the entire doctor's visit. They did their best to keep her still during weighing and measuring. It was an exhausting visit with lots of tears. But we survived.

* Some of my favorite of her words: "Bo bo" (elbow), "mere" (come here, accompanied by her gesturing with her hand), "mar" (more. Also accompanied by holding up one finger, as in 'one more' only it never means just one), "sit" (kind of sounds like another "s" word).

* Speaking more and more every day. She puts two words together like "big truck" or "Daddy work," "what do?" (doing), "Mommy home" or "I go" (I want to go). Most of her words are still probably not entirely understandable to the outside world but we know what she is saying and she definitely knows what is being said to her.

* Still a great eater (as evident by her height and weight). So far we've not hit a picky stage... knock on wood.

* Loves to play pretend. Whether it is tea party, babies, cleaning, cooking, she wants to mimic real life. She has taken to wanting to change the diaper of her stuffed animals too. She revels in being in charge of things and wants to direct people where to sit and when to come follow her.

* So loving. She is the first one to show concern for a crying child in nursery or anywhere in public. She often will run up to Derek and I with her arms wide open saying "hu" (hug) or smacking her lips for a kiss.

She took a liking to some old hats from my late Grandpa Petty. She kept wanting to wear them and at first I was hesitant, not wanting anything to happen to something of his. In the end though, I know he would have loved to see his great-granddaughter playing with something of his.