Ghostly Cupcakes!

I saw these simple and darling cupcakes at Hoosier Homemade the other day (okay a few weeks ago, so I'm just getting around to all things Halloween!) and I knew I wanted to let Sweetpea try her hand at them. Our icing was a bit soft to stand up like I wanted them too, but they are still cute, don't you think? We had to use yellow for the eyes, because "yellowismyfavoritecolor!" and she thought this ghost just had to have a nose too! :)

These "cupcakes" are actually sweet potato muffins, which I shared at Amy's Finer Things a while back. They are a great healthy muffin, and with a little frosting they taste sweet enough that my husband eats them (that is saying a lot, trust me!).

Now Sweetpea likes these muffins without icing, but just in case you wondered if she liked these little ghosts -after she finished eating this one tonight she said, "mommy, I look silly! Take my picture..." And so I did!

Joy

Sweetpea is on cloud 9, giving a big hug to one of her favorite Sesame Street characters, Zoe!

Hello from Paradise

Love those {baby} legs

She Loves the Camera

And I do believe it loves her back...

I was playing around with my new camera and trying to get a profile shot for some gifts I'm working on. She just kept coming toward me, reaching out for the lens! Who knew that the most challenging part of this project (for both girls, no less!) would be capturing them from the side? It sure has been fun trying, though...

This post is part of Wordful Wednesday, and since I wasn't too wordy today, Wordless Wednesday as well!

If you give a baby a present...

What will she play with?

Happy Days

Fast approaching eight months old, I managed to catch Sugar Plum in a {rare} still moment. Happy and giggling most of the time, she has two teeth, and has started pulling to a stand and cruising. (Said cruising resulted in that bruise I'm not sure that you can see on her forehead...) So far we are both adjusting very well to cloth diapers - not full time yet because half of our stash hasn't arrived in the mail. She loves playing with toys, and most of the time Sweetpea is happy to share and play with her little sister. They adore each other, trading smiles and turning my heart to mush.

Still Twins? You decide...

We had all the family together for Sweetpea's third birthday this past weekend. (I know, three, seriously, how did that happen?!? More on the party later, I still have to post Sugar Plum's 6 month photo too) My grandma asked me to bring this little birdbath toy to get some pictures of Sugar Plum that were similar to ones we had of Sweetpea at the same age. That lady is brilliant, I tell ya.

So what do you think - do they still look a lot alike, or is it just me? :) And which one carries an extra two pounds on her small frame? (and where is she hiding it?!)

I mirrored this picture so they would both be sitting the same direction, you're not seeing things...

Who are you lookin' at?

Finding my Bliss

I had an absolutely wonderful time at Blissdom. I will be sharing more throughout the coming weeks. Huge thanks to Beth at RoleMommy.com for helping make my trip a reality! You can read about some of my thoughts and adventures at RoleMommy this week - I'm going to be without internet access for much of this week, but I'll try and update the links as they go live.

My head hitting the pillow is like a gong unto my children's ears

Sweetpea is flirting with the idea of giving up her last nap. She's in that stage where she really still needs it, but doesn't necessarily WANT it - playing is just too much fun. On the days she does nap, I have this pipe dream that I'll get to catch a few winks myself. Every once in awhile I actually get sucked into thinking it's all going to work out...only to hear someone crying as soon as my head hits the pillow.

Luckily, when that happens, I have at least one of these adorable girls to play with:

I've been known to remind them that they are lucky they're cute.

Overall the sleep at night is going pretty well, so once I catch up from the holiday drain things should be good to go. I'm determined that 2010 is the year I'll get my groove back...since for a variety of reasons I spent much of 2009 not feeling like myself.

Among other things, I'm going to spend time this week reflecting on my goals for 2009 and sketching out new goals for 2010. Do you have your goals/resolutions all set up by new year's eve, or are you more like me, getting to it at the start of the fresh shiny new year? In the next few posts I'll talk more about what I'm hoping and planning for this year. What are you working on? I'd love to hear all about it! :)

Congrats to Brooke for winning the Robeez giveaway! Stay tuned, I'm way behind but I have several great giveaways in the near future.

Babywearing - A sweet ride

EmDee and I finally peeked out of the dark ages and decided to get Blackberries instead of the antique phones we had been carrying around. I was wearing Sugar Plum around doing some organizing and decided to try out the camera on my new phone. I've mentioned before that I have a real shortage of babywearing photos, and as with almost all of the ones I DO have, these are self portraits. The quality isn't great, but it's certainly not bad for inside. In one of them there is enough detail to tell I need to clean the mirror...{blushing}

What are you doing back there, Mommy?!

Oh, now I see. Who is that adorable baby over there?

Hey hot stuff, how YOU doin'?

Halloween revisit

A big thanks to my friend Heidi for loaning us this adorable flower costume for Sugar Plum - so cute and most importantly warm. We had a cold front move through the night before beggars night, but at least it was dry.

Whatcha lookin' at? Who put me in this? Why is everyone staring?! It must be the way I'm workin' these petals...

Sweetpea with her friend, J. Not the best picture of Sweetpea (she has her eyes closed) but the best I could get with them so excited about trick or treating that they couldn't hold still. When Sweetpea saw this picture, she said, "Sweetpea has her eyes closed - Sweetpea, open your eyes!"

Checking out the loot once we arrived home...

Sweetpea had a hard time deciding between Princess Sweetpea and Super Sweetpea for Halloween this year. She wore this princess costume to her party at daycare, so she got to be both! She loves putting this on and dancing around to Dancing with the stars.

Speaking of Dancing with the Stars, (did you like that random segue? Ha!) what did you think about the judges going with Aaron after the dance off? I don't usually talk about this kind of thing, but I was so disappointed to see the judges go with Aaron after the fans spoke so resoundingly for Mark! Both contestants managed flawless dances in the dance off, so why not go with the fans choice at that point? What do you think?

1 month old, almost 1 month late!

As my little big girl closes in on 2 months {{gasp}} I realized I never posted this 1 month photo of her with the bear I chose to document her growth. And always aiming to please, she threw in the first hint of a smile! Those that know me IRL are probably tired of hearing me say I'm amazed at how Sugar Plum can look so big and so little at the same time. This sleeper she's wearing is one of my favorites gifts that Sweetpea received when she was born (thanks, Julie!) and Sweetpea was able to wear it for at least 2 months...this was the last time I tried to stuff Sugar Plum into it, as her little legs were barely able to extend at this point. Yesterday at her 8 week checkup she was just shy of 12 pounds, more than 2lbs above where her big sister was at this early stage! I can't believe it's been nearly a month since I took this photo...does anyone else spend there days wondering how their babies got so big and seriously how it got to be nearly Thanksgiving when we just celebrated New Years?!

The great pumpkin(s)

We made our first pumpkin patch trip of the season last week! There are several great pumpkin patches in our area, and we love them all. This one is the closest, so we usually end up visiting multiple times. Each year we've taken Sweetpea here for pictures. I love comparing the photos from each year to see how much she's grown, and I'm excited to start doing the same with Sugar Plum.
Sweetpea had fun wandering around looking at all the pumpkins. She wanted to take all of them home, but on this trip we were just buying gourds for our front windows. In addition to a sea of pumpkins, there are lots of fun displays to pose with!






For more Wordful Wednesday fun, stop over and see Angie at 7 clown circus.

Growing is hard work

How can she look so little and so big at the same time? Does what I just said make sense to anyone but me? ;)

Sugar Plum spent almost all day Monday sleeping...at first I thought I was going to be in for a really long night, but she even slept reasonably well overnight. Tuesday she used all that rest to stay up almost all day. What did she want to do all day? Eat - and I mean all.day.long. This girl is a serious milk connoisseur as it is, but when she hits a growth spurt, let me tell you, she can take it to a whole other level. What a fabulous excuse to put my feet up, snuggle into the couch with her and just soak in that baby love...in between playing in her kitchen and her new "store" (a huge cardboard box that quickly became her favorite toy) Sweetpea would climb up on the couch, put her head on my shoulder and pat Sugar Plum on the back while she was nursing. Can someone please tell me how to bottle this up so I can savor it over and over again?! Too bad we had someone here fixing our leaky well and someone else here not hooking up our new cable internet *sigh* It was a long, crazy day, but one that was filled with many sweet special moments along the way.

Happy Happy Day Cake

Do you need a reason to make cake? I am a big believer of cake for no reason, but if I had to come up with one, I guess it would be because I had several of the box cake mixes in the pantry and thought it was about time to use one.

Sweetpea was more than happy to sit on the counter and help me mix everything together (when she is helping we mix by hand) and pour the batter into our baking dishes. While the cake was baking she suggested (multiple times!) that we put sprinkles on the cake. She loved shaking the container to get just the right distribution of sprinkles across the cake. Then she insisted on candles - why not? Just for good measure, she thought we should sing happy birthday to everyone in the family...while none of us was having a birthday, it certainly made for a happy day and a funny memory!

A month of Sundays

Can it really be a month already?

Who needs dessert...

when you have sweetness like this!


I could just sit back and soak it up all day...

My "twin" babies

I keep saying that the reason I've been calling Sugar Plum by Sweetpea's name is because they look so much alike...so much so that even Sweetpea couldn't tell which newborn photo was of her and which was her sister! Being the sucker for comparative photos that I am, I thought it would be fun to share. Can you tell who is who in the photos below?

Summer Bounty

It's too bad EmDee's camera phone cut off the top of this tomato - it was almost as big as Sweetpea's head! :) On either side of her are the wonderful berries we've been picking each night - strawberries, raspberries and blackberries! The raspberries and strawberries are coming in quantities small enough that they get gobbled up each night. The blackberries are a bit more prolific, so what we can't eat within a day or two get frozen in a single layer in freezer bags for future use - our favorites are blackberry pie or cobbler, blackberry sauce (great on ice cream or yogurt), blackberry ice cream, freezer jam and blackberry lemon bars.

What do you like to do best with your berries? Do you process them immediately or save them in the freezer for later?