Valentine's Day

I know this is super late, but I want to write about it anyway. Joe and I have never been big Valentine's Day celebrators. I can't remember even ever sending a card or anything. I probably sent something while he was deployed because if you can't NOT send anything when your fiance is at war, but other than that I think not. 

But having a toddler changes all that. There's just so much cute stuff! I made the mistake of wandering the $1 aisle at Target shortly before Valentine's Day and I couldn't help myself. Lily loves to pretend to smell flowers, so I got her some of those big plush ones, some animal crackers as a special treat, and some real flowers to grow in our window. The cards were sent by family. 

We also made some Valentine's cards and sent them to random people we know. Really we were just painting one day and Lily was learning the names of all her different body parts and painting with them, so we of course made hand prints. And I cut out heart shapes. Bam. Instant Valentine. I don't have any pictures, so you'll just have to imagine how great they were. 

This last week we planted her plants! First you add the water...

... then you put the dirt in the pots...

... then you wait for them to grow!

Lily had a TON of fun mixing the dirt and the water. She also liked sprinkling the seeds in the pot, until she tried to eat one. Sigh. 

Random Acts of Cuteness

As you may remember, or more likely not, I lost the cord to my camera. And then I dropped my camera on the ground and broke it. Sad face. Then, my camera magically fixed itself. Happy face! And my mom has a similar camera with a cord that fits. So now I have lots of pictures to share with you. 

Lily found her Halloween costume from last year and has been wearing it around the house a lot. I love it so much. 

One day she actually let me put her hair in pigtails. It was unbearably cute. 

Lily's new favorite place to eat snacks... UNDER her table. 

Lily is going through this phase where everything she does, one of her dolls has to do, too. Or, she has to be the 'big girl' and the doll is the 'baby'. She likes changing her dolls clothes, feeding them, and pushing them around in her stroller. And at breakfast she force feeds them yogurt.

Lily and I both got new robes for Christmas. She insists on putting it on every morning. And sometimes randomly in the middle of the day.

Lily LOVES her Duplo blocks. She can build a tower as tall as she is as long as there is someone there to hold it while she puts each block on top. She has only mastered the small square ones, but boy does this girl like to build. 

Having a kid is way more fun than I thought it would be. Seriously. 

Random Tidbits

I keep a running list about things I want to blog about, and I'm down to a few that aren't post worthy on their own, but if I throw them all together might be good enough. Oh, and I can't find my camera cord, so this is a good filler post.


First, surprisingly baby friendly places around Chicago. We're not afraid to try to take Lily just about anywhere. Fifty percent of the time it's a disaster, but we've discovered a few places along the way that we weren't sure were going to work but did, and in amazing ways: 


1) Yolk, at least the one on Michigan is. I LOVE breakfast food, and they have the best in the city. There is a huge entryway where you can park a stroller, unbundle your child, and then get a table. There are about ten thousand high chairs, so they always have enough. It's kind of loud, in that busy diner sort of way, not a music-thumping club kind of way, so when your kid is loud it's not a big deal. We don't really do the kids menu thing, so I can't write about that, but Lily loves their potatoes and fruit bowls. We go here for breakfast or lunch before heading off to the museums nearby on a fairly regular basis.


2) Goose Island on Clybourn. It's so much more than just a brewpub. Delicious beer, yes. Even more delicious food. For example:
Duck Poutine $15
Slagel Farm duck conft, roasted, shallots, duck demiglace, cheddar curds, pomme frites
Mac’n Cheese $14wild mushrooms, parmesan, bechamel, breadcrumbs, arugula
Pretzels $9Kim & Scott’s Bavarian, Cheddar Jalapeno, stout mustard 
They also have ridiculously good soups and vegetable sides. Not to mention sweet potato fries. And did I mention they have a Sunday brunch? There has been more than one occasion where we were there during inclement weather and just stayed for hours. They put most of the families with small children in the back dining room all together. Lily has fun looking at the other kids, playing peek-a-boo, LOVES to eat some of everything we get from there, and it's just so cozy and pleasant inside. This is probably our favorite place to go after church on Sundays. A little on the pricey side, but soooo good. 


3) The Morton Arboretum. I've written about them before. The Children's Garden, the mazes, the cafeteria, I love it all. You should go. 


Second on my list, oatmeal baths. Lily has developed some 'seasonal eczema' is what the pediatrician called it. Basically her skin is dry and itchy. So we bought some Aveeno oatmeal bath packets. They cost a small fortune! And turn the water this icky grey color. So I decided to make our own oatmeal baths. I bought some old fashioned oats, put them in the food processor until they were pretty fine, then sifted it to get out any large remaining chunks. Last night was the first time we tried the homemade stuff. The water turns a milky color, not grey, and it smells delicious, like oatmeal! It also seemed to work better, she was less itchy over night and less red in the morning. The only hitch is, it seems no matter how much you process it, it doesn't all completely dissolve. Our tub doesn't have a hand held sprayer so I've just been using a small pitcher to rinse Lily's hair from the bath water. I did that this time, and little tiny pieces of oatmeal immediately clung to her hair. I just wasn't thinking. I should have filled the pitcher from the tap, which I then promptly did, except the damage was done. No amount of rinsing was going to get those little itty bitty clumps of outmeal out of her hair. They came out after she was dry, though, so no harm done. I would highly recommend this to anyone. It's literally 1/100th of the cost of the Aveeno stuff, and works better. 


So... this is actually turning out to be a pretty long post with just these two things. Expect another random post in the near future. Have a great weekend!

The Cake is in the Mail!

So the winner of my cake contest was the lovely Sarah in Arizona. So I had to figure out how to send a fully decorated cake in the mail. I have made cakes in jars and shipped those before, so that was the beginning of my plan. After finding out that she wanted a birthday cake for her daughter who likes Tinkerbell, trains, and bees, I came up with a fairy train station theme. Technically, you aren't supposed to reproduced licensed characters, and since it was going through the mail, I cheated a little bit and used some inedible items on this cake. But I think turned out ok. 

I sent it all in pieces, and it was Sarah's job to assemble it all together. Everything is edible except the train, Tinkerbell, and the bees. And the glass jars of course. It was a tasty strawberry cake and I sent along a can of cream cheese frosting for dolloping on top. 

I really liked making this cake, so if anyone else wants a cake by mail, or delivery, lemme know.

Good Job

We're starting to venture into the land of potty-training. Yes Lily's young, but she's also exhibiting some signs that she's ready. So we're taking advantage of her enthusiasm and dipping a toe in the water. That was a horrible analogy to pick, but since I already typed it I guess I'll leave it in. 

While doing some internet research about potty-training, I came across this article 'Five Reasons to Stop Saying Good Job.' I was intrigued because "Good job" comes out of my mouth ALL the time, without really thinking about it. This article has definitely made me think about it. 

It's so easy, so quick, so mindless. But why am I saying it? Did she really do a 'good job' getting her yogurt into her mouth? Truthfully, no. She smeared it all over her face on the way to her mouth. And yet I just said good job because it EVENTUALLY ended up in the right place. Ridiculous. 

So we're trying to ditch the 'Good job' habit. Turns out it's really hard. It's so natural to offer some sort of encouragement when she does something. But it's also weird when you think about it. Why am I judging her ability to eat yogurt? There is no good or bad eating. You just eat. Instead, we're trying to make non-judgement based statements like "You ate your yogurt" or just "You did it." And we're trying not to just make that a new form of praise, because saying "You did it!" after everything seems to be not that different from "Good job!". We want to actually engage her in what she did and why. 

Just some random thoughts and now some cute pictures. Happy Monday!

Resolution Check-in

One month in, and my resolutions are going pretty well, I think. 


1) Exercise for 20 minutes per day. I did ok with this one. I did something for at least 20 minutes on 24 of the 31 days of this month. I have to admit, most days that was walking. But I managed to lose all of the holiday weight, and I'm back at 160ish. This next month I want to keep doing this, but my goal is try to make one of those days each week an honest to goodness run and one using actual weights. 

2) Send one letter per week. Totally rocked this. But it's way harder than I expected. I have plenty of people to write to, but I send so many emails and facebook messages that it's kind of hard to come up with something new to say. I didn't want to take the easy route and just send a pretty card and say something lame like "Just thinking of you!" I also didn't want to cop out and write all about Lily. There is more to my life than my baby, but it turns out that it's hard to write about. But I did it. And I'm excited about next month. 

3) Bake and decorate one thing outside of work per month. See this post. 

4) Stop living "in the moment". I struggled with this, mostly because it is worded poorly. What I really meant is stop comparing myself to other moms. So that's what I'm officially changing it to. I'm not as crafty as B., as earthy as S., and as funny as A. But that's ok. I'm slightly neurotic, a bit crafty, a lot silly, and pretty musical. And that's ok. I'm becoming more comfortable in my own skin, in who I am as a mother, as well as who I'm not. And if the last two weeks are any indication, this acceptance is making everything go better. With a cup of coffee and my planner in hand, Lily and I can have a great time together.


So there it is. Four weeks, and not too shabby. The average length is six weeks, so we'll see if I can beat the average.  

Mrs. Pacman

This is the cake I made for the New Kids on the Blauction at the Law School. It's a charity auction to help fund summer public interest work. I donated a custom cake to the silent auction, and decided to make a display cake for the winner as well. Since it was a 80's themed auction, I thought an 80's themed cake would be appropriate. I really like the little ghost guys. 

The details: Six-inch chocolate cake covered in yellow vanilla butter cream with black icing detail and red sugar sheet bow. Black fondant covered cake board with blue royal icing piping and large sour candy dots. Colored fondant draped over white chocolate rounds for the ghosts. 

This cake was really fun to make. The original plan was to have a Rubik's cube and mixtape as well. The Rubik's cube was a disaster, so I scraped that plan and went with just the Mrs. Pacman. I actually think it's better this way because it would have been too crowded other wise. I am determined to make a Rubik's cube though, so be expecting a post on that not too far away. My other brilliant idea was to have a contest to see if anyone could guess the awesome 80's movie that the mixtape came from. 

I didn't actually make the mixtape cake, but we'll have the contest anyway:

Picture a cassette tape with the words "Cool English Road Tape" on it. The first person to leave a comment/message with the name of the character who made this tape will get a free Valentine's Day cake from me to be enjoyed by you. This contest is open to people everywhere, I have secret cake shipping skills. (Here's a hint: the tape is not shown in the actual movie, but in the deleted scenes.)

Good luck!