Frosting Sandwich!

Endless January got you down? Here's my prescription: One (or four) Frosting Sandwich(es) ! So easy! So sugary! So delicious! So bad for you!
Yep, it's just what it looks like. Take a graham cracker, break it in half. Spread frosting (leftover from some much more exciting baked good) on one half, cover it with the other half. Enjoy blissfully.

At least, enjoy it for a few minutes until the crushing guilt sets in. :((((((((( I seem to suffer from an unending cycle of guilts: Eater's Remorse, Buyer's Remorse, Imperfectionist's Remorse, repeat. And I've decided to take action and break the Eater's Remorse, even if it means leaning a little more heavily on the Buyer's Remorse. (We'll worry about that last one some other time.) Here's what I mean:

If I don't publicly state a goal, it gets conveniently forgotten. So this is going to count as my public forum. And it's not a goal so much as a bribe. If I lose 5 to 10 pounds by the end of March, I will get to buy a new dress to wear to Brooke's cousin's wedding in Baltimore. 5 lbs.=$50 for said dress. 10 lbs.=$100. It's significant that it will be a dress; I will have weaned Jude (FINALLY, HOORAY) and so I will actually get to wear non-breastfeeding-friendly clothing for the first time in a year. Here are some of the lovelies I'm thinking about, all of them from modcloth:


<----The Deuce Coupe Darling Dress.
Too hausfrau-ish for a wedding?

The About the Artist Dress.------>
Too funeral-ish for a wedding?

The Soda Fountain Dress in Grape! Just right! If only my size weren't sold out. Boohoo.

I'm definitely still in the market. Have you seen any desirable dresses lately? What do you think of these ones? This will be the first (FIRST) non-Mormon wedding I've ever been to, and I'm not totally sure about the dress code. Am I way off?

Household Happenings

It's cold here. We've been spending lots of time at home and, after the excitement of The Holidays, that's ok by me. One of Isobel's new favorite hobbies is removing the cushions from the couch. It's an incredibly effective method of instantly making our house look disheveled!



A couple of days ago we made cupcakes (From a box. Well, the frosting wasn't from a box. It was from a canister.) and Isobel went hog-wild with the sprinkles. She had been asking to make cupcakes for a while, but I think really she just wanted to wear her pretty new apron and cover something yummy with sprinkles. The little jar of sprinkles lasted for about three cupcakes and those were her cupcakes. I'm happier eating plain old cream cheese frosting anyway, but there's no denying that her sprinkliest one is the definitely the prettiest.



Today our big activity will be the library downtown, and these kids are dressed for something much fancier and more tropical. I just can't resist putting them in their adorable matching retro Aloha-wear made by Aunt Nicole.
I have a cute anecdote to share! Back in December we checked out Pocahontas from the library and watched it for a "Special Movie Night" (Special Movie Nights, complete with "salty popcorn," are one of the most exciting things that ever happen in Isobel's little world). She liked the movie ok, and I had fun watching it; it had probably been 15 years since I'd last seen Pocahontas.
The next day Isobel walked around the house beating on things and singing "SAVAGES, SAVAGES, BARELY EVEN HUMAN!" The song that stuck with Isobel most from the movie was Savages. Not one of the pretty songs about love and nature, oh no. She loves the one about war and hatred. *facepalm*
Then, when we were in Colorado, my Mom heard her singing "Cabbages, Cabbages, barely even human!" And then, when we were picking Brooke up at the airport in Raleigh and meeting him at the Baggage Claim, it became "Baggages, baggages, barely even human!" Haha! She is some kind of creative genius.

And, the moment you've all been waiting for. A video of Jude:

С Новым Годом!

Our camera was among the approximately 1,000 important things I failed to pack for our trip to Colorado. So these babies were taken with my mom's little coolpix, which is kind of a fun little camera even if the quality isn't quite what I'm used to. Oh well, any photographic evidence is better than none? Here is Isobel enjoying sledding for the very first time!

And here are the chil'ren in all their Christmas Eve finery!

And here's my adorablest, newest little niece, Amélie!

Other highlights included me running a 5K in single-digit weather on New Year's Day, and Brooke and Spencer rocking out.

And lastly, never fear! I bring good tidings of Jude being cute and angry!

Farewell to Fall and Happy Hanukkah!

Don't let that photo fool you; I took it a couple of weeks ago, before it suddenly got COLD here in North Carolina. Jude has gotten pretty good at smiling for the camera. Isobel... not so much.
We went to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving, where my talented and energetic sister-in-law, Nicole, made pilgrimwear for the children. Check out her post about it here. There's a really fantastic photo of Jude. And don't be fooled by the way she (generously) acts like I helped with the project. I watched. And I probably asked Isobel to hold still for the photos. So I guess that counts as helping.
I didn't have to ask Johanna and Caroline to hold still because they are wonderful models! Aren't those bonnets cute?























Here's a fun game: compare the babies. While we were in Carlisle, I tried to recreate a photo taken by a FAR superior photographer, Mike Dirle, when Isobel was about 10 months old. Jude is 9 months. Do they look alike?























Last week Isobel brought home a menorah that she painted at school. So I bought some candles, and we've been lighting it every night. I've really enjoyed learning about Hanukkah through Isobel. It is such a beautiful, joyful holiday. Here's Isobel with the menorah. We had only one candle lit (plus the shamash) since it was the first night.
And behold! Jude is moving around on his own, slowly. I took this video a few days ago, and he's actually gotten a bit faster since then. He's such a little sugarpie.

Mixin' it up.

Why can't every day be dress-up-as-Catholic-clergy day?

Jude loves him his monster hat and raises his fist in 'Baby Power!" That's what he wore to church on Halloween. Yep, we like to mix it up. Sock monkey makes no apologies.
Isobel wore her lion costume, which you can check out here if you missed it. She was too busy running around in a sugar-induced frenzy to have her picture taken on Halloween, so here's a photo of her at the fantastic Children's Museum in Raleigh.

PUMPKIN

I love everything about Fall, but pumpkins are sort of the physical embodiment of that love. Here is what I did last night:

Yup, I made that there Glitter Pumpkin, and it is the most perfectest sparkly thing since Edward Cullen. Plus it was an easy enough project that it would be pretty difficult to screw up, even for a person such as myself. (Thank you Martha or whichever of her underlings came up with this idea!)
In other pumpkin-related news, we went to a pumpkin patch last week, the same one we went to last year. The light was perfect and we were all feeling festive, so I took lots of pictures.

On Saturday we went to the North Carolina State Fair, which was, to be honest, kind of a bust. It was hot, crowded, expensive (Brooke paid $8 for a BBQ plate that tasted terrible), and Isobel and Jude weren't old enough to enjoy much anyway. But we did see cows, goats, some amusing T-shirts for sale, and some incredible pumpkins:













I've been eating lots of pumpkin-y sweets. LOTS. And because I can't not share something that brings me so much joy, I made a google document full of recipes. I haven't tried all of them, but the ones I haven't tried yet come from friends who are very reliable sources. So here it is, the pièce de résistance:

PUMPKIN EXTRAVAGANZA

You'll note the absence of a pumpkin pie recipe. Here's the shocking thing: I don't particularly like pumpkin pie. I know, it's strange, given my passion for pumpkin. I think it's the custard-y texture that bothers me. Another glaring omission: I don't have a recipe for Pumpkin Cheesecake! Anyone have one to share?
**Edit: Master Baker Amy shared a Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe, so I've added that and fixed the blank page 6 problem. Enjoy!**

In closing, I think this is beautiful:

(Don't laugh. I lived in Nebraska for 7 years as a kid, so corn has sentimental value.)

In which Isobel is fêted.

That's right, folks, wee Isobel has completed her third year of life. Can you believe it? It's strange to me that she is no longer an infant, no longer a toddler, but a preschooler now. Luckily, she's the size of your average 18-month-old, so I can still scoop her up and pretend she's my little tiny baby. A lot of older children have the same urge. She gets picked up a lot, and then she says, indignantly, "Hey! I'm not a baby!"
Come to think of it, I can understand how she feels. I've always been fairly tall, but as a tween I was extremely scrawny. I had a few friends who were bigger who liked to exert their physical strength by putting me in frequent headlocks, throwing me over their shoulders, etc. Isn't that weird? I mean, these are girls we're talking about, not big tough jock boys. Maybe the way they treated me was an extension of their frustration with their own changing bodies. Anyway, it was humiliating at the time, but kinda funny in hindsight.
Moving on, here are a few photos from Isobel's birthday party: the cake, the tiger (face paint by Grandma), the friends.

It was a good time! Isobel has a great group of friends who all play together really well, and they didn't make me sorry for not planning any games. We did have a piñata (at Isobel's request) and some fantastic food, provided by Brooke's dad.

In other news, we had my friend Wendy here visiting for a week. Highlights included sushi and the North Carolina Art Museum. Regardez!

(Isobel liked rice at the sushi joint, but she wasn't particularly impressed with the museum.)

And, just to balance out this Isobel-heavy post, here is a photo of Jude's party face on during Isobel's birthday snacktime shindig at school:
Speaking of babies, I HAVE A NEW NIECE!! Her name is Amélie, and she is beautiful. Photos will be posted here sometimes soon.
One more thing that you probably already know, thanks to my shameless self-promotion on facebook and gmail: I'm now a reviewer for The Blue Bookcase! I love this book blog. So far I've reviewed Tender at the Bone and shared my Top 10 Literary Crushes, but you should really just read the whole blog because all of the writers are cool and smart.

T.T.F.N.