New Library!

Zachariah loves the library. He likes to read, but he really likes to run through all the bookshelves trying to convince me he is lost. The library that we frequent has recently changed locations. The old library's "kid section" consisted of two buckets of books supposedly for toddlers. *insert eye roll here* But the new and improved library came with a new and improved children's section! It really isn't a section as much as it is a room. A nice, big, spacious room.



Seriously, this is probably the closest thing to heaven for Zachariah at this stage in his life. I mean, check out the running space in between the shelves!




When Zachariah is not using the library as a running track, we usually do the whole "library thing". You know, reading. But Zachariah doesn't just sit down in a chair and read. That would be to logical. Instead, he sits on every single surface in that room, and for every new seat he usually gets a new book. It is actually pretty hilarious to watch.




Now that the library is in a new building, Z takes a break from reading to walk up and down the steps in the reading corner. He does this for approximately 5 minutes and then flops down on the super cool red piece of furniture. (I am still trying to figure out a way to sneak that out of the library and into my car. So far I have got nothing.)




Then after the stepping and the flopping we go back to reading in different locations all across the room. And playing on the computer.

Then we start the cycle all over again. And again. And again.




Its makes for a crazy outing and I have to make sure to take my patience with me, but I love that the library makes him so happy. :)

Sneak Peak

First, I want to thank everyone for the responses to the Chinese Lunar Calendar post! From what I read recently it is accurate about 50% of the time, and judging from your responses that is just about correct. Due to my curiosity on the internet being able to predict the gender of your child, I am going to look for more gender predicting things and I may ask you to do this again. If you missed it, click here and tell me if its accurate for you! :)


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Now, I know we still have a couple weeks before Halloween, but we got Z's costume earlier this week and I just had to show you part of it. It is actually the only part of the costume he will put on right now, but we have a little while to get him adjusted to the rest. :)




The hat is a hit. He stood in front of the mirror for about 5 min. saying "arrrr!".

I love this kid.

I will share more costume pictures when it gets a bit closer to Halloween! :)

My Thoughts

- I want to eat organic meat. But financially that is so not even on the radar. So I will just dream about it. And one day I will write a post about how we are all dying due to the non organic things we put into our bodies.:)

- I want/need to research vaccines again. I said I would be ok with Zachariah getting the MMR when he turned two, but now he is two and I am still not ok with it. Even though I have no problem going with my motherly instinct, I am a sucker for research and I would like to be able to back up my decision when asked.

- I want to research circumcision. Not like I can change anything about Zachariah's little buddy, but I read something today and it makes me want to learn more about why people are against it.

- My son needs to go to sleep. He has been in his crib for 2 hours and has not stopped talking to himself. I seriously may go crazy if he doesn't take a nap today. We are going to my in-laws for dinner, so putting him down early is not really an option. Why does he choose today to not take a nap??

- I need to have more interesting blog posts. I have several cooking posts that I have not put up, but I have a hatred towards my horribly lit kitchen and the editing it will take to make the pictures look halfway decent. Needless to say, that has been put on the back burner.

- Zachariah's Halloween costume came in today. I am SO excited. He is going to be the cutest little pirate to sail the seven seas!

- There are two reasons I am excited about fall. One would be the cooler weather. The other would the baking. I have so many different recipes involving pumpkin that I cannot wait to try! Cookies, muffins, cupcakes, bars... oh boy. I am drooling just thinking about it.

- I want to improve my photography, as usual, but I am not making time for it. I need to get out there and take pictures. I need practice. I desperately want to make money doing this one day and the only way that is going to happen is if I get out there and practice. So watch out. I may be harassing some of you to let me photograph your child or family. :)


Not like you asked, but those are a few thoughts that have been jumping around in my noggin as of late.

What about you? What has been on your mind?

Chinese Lunar Calendar

A while back I saw a Chinese Lunar Calendar on a blog and I was intrigued. Apparently this thing can predict what gender your kid will be according to the age of the woman and month she conceived.

I have heard rave reviews about this accurately predicting the gender, but for Zachariah and it said he was a girl. Which is obviously wrong. So I want to know how accurate for your kids. And if you don't have kids, find out from your mom her age and the month you were conceived. That is if you want to know. I will not hold it against you if you would rather not to go there.


Here is the info...

To find the gender prediction, find the mother's age at conception (across the top of the table) and then the month in which conception occurred. Follow the column and row to the intersecting point. The color of the box tells you what the prediction is. Blue = Boy and Pink = Girl

Woman's Age at Conception
Month of Conception	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

Woman's Age at Conception
Month of Conception	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41	42	43	44	45
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

Ok, now spill the beans! Accurate or not?

Hurry Santa!

This cookbook is at the TOP of my Christmas list.


Seriously folks. I cannot wait for this to be in my hands. I stalk this woman's blog religiously and I drool over her cooking. Ree has a fabulous way of making me WANT to cook. I have tried several of her recipes and they have turned out wonderfully.

She is going on a book tour and she is coming to Atlanta in December. I am considering going. Any other PW fans want to tag along if I do? :)

Guitar

Zachariah loves instruments. And I am not kidding. It is almost an obsession. He loves anything that makes music, but his top three favorites are the guitar, drums and piano. He has previously acquired a keyboard and a tambourine, and received a drum, maracas, recorder and guitar for his birthday. So it is safe to say that we have several jam sessions during the week.




And he is apparently VERY serious about his jam sessions.


And on a side note... if that picture didn't make you laugh out loud then there is no hope for you ever finding your sense of humor. Ever. I mean, that is just freaking hilarious!


Anyways. Moving on.



During this particular jam session, Zachariah became extremely lazy.





Or he may have been a little annoyed at me for taking pictures. That happens a lot around here.




Yeah. He definitely did not want to be photographed. He is punishing me by pretending he has no interest in the guitar whatsoever. "Oh look, a book. Let me casually read this in hopes that Mom will leave me alone."

And just when he thinks it is safe...




BAM! I take another picture.





Dang it. He is mad at me again. *sigh* Fine. I will leave him alone.

For now...

Muahahaha!

Oh Fudge.

I made my first ever batch of fudge this weekend. Peanut butter fudge to be exact. It was/is heavenly!! It was super easy and oh so yummy, so I thought I would share the recipe with you guys. It is Bakerella's recipe, so you know its going to be good! :)

Peanut Butter Fudge

3 cups sugar
3/4 cup margarine
2/3 cup evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla
6 oz package semi sweet chocolate pieces
7 oz. jar Marshmallow Creme (I like Kraft)
1/2 cup peanut butter

1. Combine 1 1/2 cups sugar, 6 tablespoons margarine and 1/3 cup evaporated milk in a medium pot.
2. Bring to full rolling boil, stirring constantly.
3. Reduce heat to medium and continue boiling for 4 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent scorching.
4. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate pieces until melted.
5. Add 1 cup (1/2 jar) marshmallow creme and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until well blended.
6. Pour into greased 13 X 9 pan.

Repeat with remaining ingredients substituting peanut butter for the chocolate. Spread the peanut butter mixture over the chocolate.

Cool at room temperature and cut into squares.

Just in case you needed a visual... here is my chocolate layer of the fudge. It looks very runny, and that had me worried. But it turned out just fine. Just try to avoid having to many craters in there.



And here is the peanut butter layer on top of the chocolate layer!

Whatever you do, do NOT put them in the fridge until you have already cut them into bars. It is ridiculously difficult to cut these suckers after they have been refrigerated. I needed a pick axe or something. Sheesh.

And here they are! Next time I may use a different baking dish to try and get some thicker pieces, but I am going to have to play around with that. Overall I was very pleased with my fudge making experience. If you give this recipe a try, let me know how it turns out! :)

Toot Toot Chugga Chugga Big Red Car

For his birthday, Zachariah got a bag full of different goodies from my friends Marie and Hayley (Who he affectionately calls Hay-Hay and Arie. Talk about adorable). Everything in that bag was a hit, but there was a certain car and train that won his heart.







Thanks Hay-Hay and Arie! Zachariah loves his car and train! :)



And on a slightly different note. One day, when I have the money and the time, that kitchen floor is going to be replaced. *shudder*

Nice Weather = Bike Riding

Well, at least for Zachariah. I don't own a bike. Though I would looooove to go bike riding while the weather is so wonderful. But that is definitely not what I wanted to blog about, so I will move it along here.

Mimi and Poppie gave Zachariah his first bike for his birthday this year. It would be an understatement to say that he loves it, but I don't really know what else to say, so I will say it anyway.

He LOVES this bike and plays with it every time he steps foot outside. Here are some pictures of the boy and his bike.






Seriously folks. Sometimes it is just too much to bare when I realize that I have the cutest kid in the entire world. :)

Eight Silly Monkeys

Yesterday Zachariah was sitting nicely in his play room reading a book. He looked at me and said "Mom, it has been weeks since you have blogged about one of my favorite books. Everyone out there is wanting more book suggestions. So why don't you get your lazy butt up, grab the camera and start snapping some pictures."

Then I whined and complained about how his t-shirt does not match his pajama bottoms and how I cant possibly put pictures up on my blog with him looking all mismatched like that. Then he proceeded to harp on me about blogging his stupid book. I got tired of arguing with my two year old, so here we are.

Besides the fact that I am a big fat liar and none of that actually happened, I am blogging about his book anyway. Because I needed a post for today and my creative juices are on a sabbatical. They left about 24 years ago and I see no signs of return. So this is what you are stuck with.

Ok. I will now stop the ridiculous ramblings. Forgive me.



Zachariah's book of choice is entitled Eight Silly Monkeys. It is super cute. One of Zachariah's favorite thing about this book is the fact that the monkey faces pop off the page. Now that I think about it, this may be the only reason he likes the book. Hmmm. Ah well.



The book pretty much goes along with the song "10 silly monkey's jumping on the bed". Except it changes it up every page. On one page it will say jumping, on another it might say spinning, eating, or another action. You get the idea.



See, here they are swinging! I just think they are the cutest little things.



Zachariah's favorite part is the very end. He LOVES the fact that they are jumping on the couch. It is one of his favorite things to do, so I think he feels a kindred spirit with the monkeys.



While reading the book Zachariah "counts" the monkey faces. And by counts I mean points to several and says "three" over and over. It is absolutely adorable.




All that to say... this book gets two thumbs up from Zachariah! :)

I'm Baaaack

For those of you who are wondering, I am back from my trip to Biloxi Ms. I had a great trip and it was so nice being able to see Wesley!! As usual, I took way to many pictures... so it is going to take me a few days to get a post up about my trip.

In the mean time, I am going to show you one picture of my brother. Just so you can all see what he looks like. You know, in case you forgot. It has been a while. :)



Doesn't he look so grown up? I guess the military will do that to you though.

More pictures coming later! Hope everyone has a great Tuesday.

Climbing

Lets just say that I am fortunate that this little monkey has waited this long to start his climbing adventures. And that his Daddy gets to deal with it this weekend. (Hee hee) :)








He is so excited when he climbs a new object. It is just plain adorable. And annoying, but I am trying to focus on the adorable part of it right now. :)


And yes, you do see a thousand dirty dishes on my counter. I am not sure why, but my maid forgot to come by that week. I am going to fire her the next chance I get, don't you worry!

Biloxi Bound

Guess what? I am leaving today to go see my brother! I am so pumped. I haven't seen him since he left for boot camp. Now he is in Biloxi and we will get to his the casino's together. :) You wanna know the crazy part about this trip though? I am leaving Daniel and Zachariah here.

Yep. You read correctly. I am leaving my son for three whole days. This is big folks. Real big. The longest I have ever been away away from him has totaled up to four hours. In two years I have only spent up to four hours away from Zachariah. And most of the times I leave him its only for two hours.

Typing this out I realize how crazy that is. But in my defense, its not like I don't trust anyone to keep him. The grandparents keep him once a week. At least! I just don't make time or plan to be gone for longer than two to four hours. Pitiful huh?

Well all that is going to change this weekend, because Mom is outta here! And as I said, I am pumped. Zachariah's temper tantrums have made it so easy to decide to do this. :)

I will be documenting the whole trip, so don't you worry. There will be tons of pictures to come once I am home!



Despite his two year old tantrums, I sure am going to miss this little booger.

Tu-Tle Outfit

Lets just face it. You are not going to see any more birthday party pictures on the blog. You will just have to mosey on over to my facebook page next week and check them out. For some reason I cannot stay on task to save my life. I apologize. But have no fear! I have a cute little story to start off your Thursday morning. :)


Preface: My parents (Nana and Pops) bought Zachariah a cute little outfit on their 25th anniversary cruise this year. Every single time we open his closet he pulls out this outfit and looks for a turtle. Let me go ahead and tell you that there is NO turtle to be found anywhere on this outfit. I have searched this thing over quite a few times. So either he is imagining a turtle or he thinks a turtle should be on there somewhere. I am not sure which it is.


Yesterday I told Zachariah that he could pick out what he wanted to wear for the day. Anything in the closet was fair game. Upon hearing th enews, he ran over to the closet and as soon as my hand was on the doorknob he yelled "Tu-tle! Tu-tle!". Then he proceeded to move every piece of clothing to the side until he found the "tu-tle" outfit. And then he admired himself in the mirror. For at least five minutes.


Look at his face. Do you see him ooo-ing and ahhh-ing at himself?



And then he has to turn to the side. He doesn't miss an inch when he is checking himself out. This kid cracks me right up.



He is so proud that he picked out and is wearing his "tu-tle" outfit. I am just a little worried that he will now pick it as his outfit for the rest of the week! :)

Bla

So I lied. I know I said that my next post would have more pictures of the birthday festivities, but I have been feeling like poo here recently. There is something about having a stuffy nose and head that just makes sitting at the computer less appealing.

But have no fear. I bought some ZICAM yesterday and it seems to be helping. As with most sinus issues, mornings and evenings are the worst parts of the day. Luckily Zachariah has found ways entertain himself in the mornings. As long as I park it in the playroom, he just plays around me. Its actually quite humorous to watch.


Here is where I have set up camp for the past few days. This is the only wall not clogged with toys or tables and chairs. So I just lay here and let Z bring the toys to me. Then around 11:00 my head has cleared enough to sit up and play with my poor kid. Though you can bet that housework is pretty much out of the question while I am like this. Oh darn. :)

Anyway. All that to say that I will be up and running again soon! Hope everyone has a more productive day that I will!

The Cake Eating

You have already seen the wonder that was the birthday cake, so now its time for me to show you the eating of the cake!


Zachariah was not to sure what to think of everyone singing "Happy Birthday" to him. It kind of weirded him out a bit. But then this weekend when everyone sang to my grandmother for her birthday, he acted like it was for him!


Silly boy.



And here he is blowing out his candles... or at least an attempt at it. The cake was still a mile away from him. I guess this was his test run?





Here is the first big bite of his scrumptious Blues Clues cake! I love the closed eyes. He must have been savoring every bite of that cake.





And because I can't get enough of cake eating pictures...

Oh, what? You want to see more???

Fine. But only because you asked so nicely.


And that concludes the cake eating portion of his birthday! Pictures of the rest of the party will be showing up on the next blog post. :)

The Countdown Begins

I would like to start off this post by saying how much I love my son. He is the cutest, funniest kid I have ever met. He constantly makes us laugh with his silliness and he amazes us with his smarts. I love him lots and I tell him and show him that every day.

That being said, after a full week of Zachariah being two I have finally come to the conclusion that I absolutely HATE having a two year old.

My sweet, loving child has turned into a mean hateful monster. Seriously, its like having Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in this house. One second he is happy and giggling playing nicely with me. The next second he is hitting me, screaming at the top of his lungs and flinging himself all over the room. Then a minute later he is back to being a happy camper acting like nothing has happened.

While I have only suffered a week of this horrific behavior, it honestly feels like months. It is really taking a toll on my patience and sanity. I am tempted to throw him a birthday party this weekend to try to trick him into thinking he is not two anymore. Either that or find a boot camp for two year olds. I can't decide which would be more effective.

I have one week down and fifty one to go. This is going to be a long year folks. And believe you me, I will be whining and complaining about it on this blog the whole entire time. :)

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go escort my son off of the table. Ahem.

The Cake

I have been a horrible blogger this week, and I apologize. I shot someones senior pictures this past weekend, so I am trying to get those pictures ready and to the family ASAP.

I have pictures from Zachariah's birthday party that I am dying to put up... but until I get time to edit those, I am going to show you his cake. Now why am I going to dedicate a whole post to a measly birthday cake? The answer is quite simple really. It's because this cake was the CUTEST cake in the whole entire world!

Ok, maybe not the cutest in the whole entire world. But it came close. I was super de-duper pleased with how it turned out.



It took me two days to make this sucker. I dedicated a whole day for making the all the different colored icing, then the second day was baking the cake and decorating. After the decorating was done I went to the store and found these adorable Blues Room characters and just plopped them on the cake! It was so easy to do! I will try and post a tutorial in the next day or two.


Except I wont. Because none of that actually happened. I did order the cake two days ahead of time though. That counts for something, right?

No? Didn't think so. Ah well. Can't blame a girl for tryin'.



Despite the fact that I did not even lift a finger in the cake making process, didn't it turn out cute?!? I was super please with it. Seriously, I did a little jump for joy when I laid eyes on this baby.




And check out Blue! Tell me that is not the most adorable Blue you have ever seen. Yeah. That's what I thought.

And you know what makes Blue even cuter?


The fact that it's a finger puppet. Yep. That is just pretty darn cool if you ask me.


As if you couldn't tell by the pictures and babblings, I was very excited about this cake. And Zachariah was too! He is STILL talking about it. Every single day this week he has come up to me and said "HAPPY, HAPPY!" and then say "cake!", "Booo" (for Blue), and then pretend like he is blowing out his candles.


That right there is just about the only thing that is cuter than the Blues Clues cake. :)