Family Fun Fair Day

We took little bug for his first trip to the Mid-State Fair. As most know who attend this ruckus yearly romp, the Mid-State Fair is not for the faint of heart. It's a lotta people (who are colorful to say the least), a lotta food (most of which is deep fried....deep fried nutter butter anyone?), a lotta lights, a lotta noise, and a lotta livestock. While we're not annual attenders, we have been known to partake in our fair share of fried delights and take a few strolls through the sheep pins. This year we decided to tag along with our friends the Broyles and the Browns to attend Kids' Day. It was a lot of fun. Little bug had a great time...well as good a time as any two monther could. He enjoyed most of the fair from the comfortable views of his car seat. While he didn't say much, you could tell he was soaking in all the cultural delights of the fair as the kid barely blinked all day. Sleep finally overtook him as we made our way through the nosiest part of the fair--the rides. As roller coasters whizzed overhead and children screamed from all directions, little bug fell into a peaceful little slumber. go figure.

Anyway, our big day at the Mid-State Fair resulted in the funnest family photo ever...and let's be honest, this ain't no Sears family portrait..these are Mid-State Fair faces for sure.

Apparently, My Son is Not Advanced

On Monday Hayvn turns 2 months old, so this past week we had our 2 month appointment with good ol' Dr Bravo. We love Dr Bravo. All in all the appointment went really well. Our little bug is up to 9lbs, 4 oz (that's almost 4 pounds in 8 weeks!). Dr. Bravo thinks he's doing perfect, but even more important, Dr. Bravo thinks he's the cutest little guy ever (at least this is what he says and I believe him). We got some shots, which, while they were hard for bug were also pretty hard on mamma. Probably not good for us both to cry, but I didn't want the little one to cry alone.

Anyway, once again another doctor appointment finds us being scored. Only 2 months old and Hayvn's already being judged against his peers. Well, little bug, while gaining perfect weight (over an ounce a day!), was told that he falls in the 10th percentile for weight. This bascially means that 90% of other 2 monthers are bigger than him. humph. he also falls in the 5th percentile for the size of his head and 25th percentile for his height. These are not impressvie numbers apparently.

Lucky for me, my son was born a preemie. Normally, being the woman that I am, I would be worried over figures such as these. I would be wondering what I'm doing wrong that's making my son so small. But, since having him early in a "need to get him out now" kind of experience, I've really had to let go of expectations. He's a unique one, my son. And he does stuff on his own terms. As I said before, my son is not advanced. BUT he is healthy, happy and, to quote Dr Bravo, the cutest thing ever. As he starts to smile more and more, i fall more in love with my little perfect man. He's teaching me to put down the baby book with all its 'milestone' garbage and let my Hayvn be Hayvn--sans the pressure to be some amazing baby who does everything early. He'll let me know when he's ready to giggle, hold his head up and sleep longer than 2 hours at a time. And I'm alright with this.

oh, but if one more stranger tells me how tiny my baby is, I'm going to punch them in the throat.





Our son falling in the love with the outdoors

I heart Chef Jeremy

My uber talented husband never really takes the time to boast about himself, which, i know, is a good thing. but sometimes I like to boast for him, cause I think he's really talented--certainly more so than he gets credit for. and I think he's talented in a way that most people don't truly understand. he can do things with fondant, royal icing, butter cream and gum paste that really amazes me. and these are not artistic mediums that most people are familiar with...certainly not anyone else i know. and while it's certainly easy to see and admire beauty in many artistic forms, i, sadly, don't think that people truly understand the work that goes into creating art out of food. basically, I don't think that my husband gets enough credit for creating the things that he creates. so, I'm gonna take the opportunity, while he's hard at work at the bakery creating yet another girl's dream-come-true wedding cake, to brag about him a little and show off some of his creations that I find really, really cool. after all, I fell in love with him not even knowing that this little gem of a talent even existed! I thought he was just a sweet boy with a great ear for music who could do a mean impersonation of Chris Farley. who knew he'd come with all that AND a pretty sweet piping hand?


This spider/skull he drew out of chocolate! can you draw with chocolate???


This is a princess pillow cake...doesn't it look real?


These are my favorite. They are individual cakes made to look like baby building blocks. aren't they the cutest?


again, the man can do cool stuff with chocolate!


This cake is just cool. it's a to-go coffee cup with fondant sugar cubes. amazing.

There are a lot more cakes that I could pull out--these aren't even the ones my husband would call his best--but I wanted to pull out a few unique ones that I feel demonstrate how awesome I think he is...but I may be biased...

father of invention

so, do you think there's a market out there for wine bottle cork pacifiers? if so, we may have to take out a patent on the idea... have to give credit to little bug, though. if he didn't have such a hard time keeping the ol' paci in jeremy never would have come up with the idea of giving him a better handle via the cork!