The First Beautiful Day of the Year!

My Nephew at Fratellos
Originally uploaded by Gina-Rae

More Yellow Party Pics

Here are the rest of the birthday pictures!!

Hulk Smash Hands were a hit. "You're making me angry..."

Yellow Birthday Party

As my nephew's birthday was approaching he was telling everyone that he was going to have a yellow party. I love a simple theme!

I had decided a long time ago to make these cupcakes for his birthday instead of a cake. They were fun to make and everybody thought the cookies tasted delicious!! I even used whole wheat flour. I had also ordered these adorable cupcake liners, however they did not arrive in time (I ordered them too late).

I ordered the Nigella Lawson Cookie Cutters, they include the entire alphabet, the numbers 0-9, and stars, hearts and circle shapes. They were the perfect size!

Considering my elementary decorating skills, I was quite pleased with how they turned out.

I undertook another fairly ambitious project. Tapping a watermelon! We were going to fill it with lemonade! My sister scooped out the inside like a pumpkin. There was enough watermelon pulp to fill two large bowls! I made watermelon sorbet with the leftovers.

Unfortunately we did not have a drill bit to make the whole. My dad decided to use a knife, and that is where this project turned from functional lemonade holding vessel to really odd centerpiece! I am determined that this would work. The hole needs to make a tight seal over the faucet fixture so it will not leak...next time!

Pictures of the party to come!!

In Motion

I have such a difficult time getting photos of my nephew. He is always on the go, always very busy. The camera that I use has a delay after I push the button, I end up taking so many photos of him turning around, or the back of his head. When we went for a nature walk a little while back I tried to use this problem to my advantage. This a fun series of photos.






There, that's better!

Happy Birthday Mommy

Photo courtesy of Lisa Chet

Happy Birthday Little Sister!

Happy Birthday Nina! You have definitely gotten cuter with age!!

Safe and Sound

Yes, I'm definitely back in Wisconsin. This sign was posted at the entrance of Fleet Farm.


When I arrived there was a lot of snow on the ground. The weather has started to warm up and the snow is melting. It was quite foggy yesterday. This is the view down the street. You can even start to see the grass!


Would you look at that... my dad wears suspenders! He probably got them at Fleet Farm.

3 Cheers for Apple Juice!

Zane was able to drink apple juice today. The doctor said if it went well that he would be able to have food tomorrow. Nina told me that he drank a lot of juice really fast. Then he got a stomach ache, then Nina could actually see his belly rumbling (ew), and then he felt better! What a success! He was on fire today, he wanted to play, and go to the park, and play, and did I mention go to the park? My grandparents came to visit, as well as my cousin and her little girl. My family would like to thank everyone for their prayers, phone calls, visits, and support. It means so much to all of us.

I will post today's pictures tomorrow morning.


Update: Here are the photos...













The quality of this photo isn't great, but he is just so gosh darn cute with a clown nose!!

On Wisconsin

We went to Wisconsin for my Grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary!! 60 years, can you believe it? It's always nice to go home and see everyone. I got a lot of pictures of the nephew, but not anyone else. Please see previous post regarding not taking enough photos. He's three now, and I suppose at that age they do not know how to smile naturally on demand. Check out some of the photos with his huge smile and squished up nose.





Here is a natural one, we took him to the Children's Museum and he was very interested in everything that was going on.



He loves, loves, loves fire trucks!


This is perhaps my favorite picture! He is not doing the forced smiling, he's mimicking the giant mouth!


"Cheese"


These last three photos are from the dinner we had to celebrate my Grandparent's anniversary. So handsome.


Lookin' good sister!


Look at that stained glass window...it's a car!!