The Cake Smash

I've heard of other people referring to a baby's first taste of cake at his or her first birthday as a Cake Smash. This is due to the fact that many of them end up with cake and icing all over the place: on their face, in their clothes, in their hair...

If anyone had been expecting this at June's first birthday, they must have left pretty disappointed.

I don't really have a better way of describing her plan of attack on the cupcake other than "be dainty."

I truly think she was just confused to have such a big piece of food in front of her since we normally cut everything up into such small pieces.

She spent the first few minutes just trying to pick fingerfuls of icing off the top, which, let's face it, is what most of us want to do anyway.

She didn't dive head first into the cake but she did appear to love that icing.

As a matter of fact, she only ate the cake after I tore off a smaller piece for her to eat!

So even though we didn't have to wipe icing out of her hair, I was glad that we (or I should say Remi on my camera phone) managed to capture these shots.

June's Birthday

We celebrated June's birthday on Saturday with family and our friends, the Stonemans, who are also considered family. We ordered in BBQ food (!!) but I decided to make some strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

I really felt like June had a good time and was surrounded by people who loved her.

Kai took it upon himself to entertain the younger kids. At one point Smith was chasing Kai and June was following along behind them, only managing to get a few steps in before having to turn around because the boys had whizzed past her once more.

She got some wonderful clothes, toys, books and stuffed animals. In addition to some smaller items, we got a new fun light fixture and book shelf for her room. I know, they sound like pretty practical gifts, but I think there will be plenty of time for fun gifts in the future! Besides, her favorite thing to do is pull books down off the shelves and page through them!



It all went very well, June was happy, we were happy, and our baby was one.
Pictures of her cupcake eating soon to come!

First Friday

So very many pictures and things to blog about from this weekend, but I will attempt to exercise some self-control and proceed chronologically instead of erupt in a EASTER/CUPCAKE/BIRTHDAYEGG, TUTU explosion.

So…Friday night. Judy and Fred offered to stay home and babysit June so Michael and I could go on a date. We didn’t end up leaving until after June was asleep and frankly it’s a miracle that we went out and did anything at all. A combination of allergies, tiredness and comfy sweatpants made staying home look appealing,but we rallied and decided to go out.

We went to First Friday, which is an event that takes place in downtown Phoenix in the hipster district. All of these little houses that have been converted into coffee shops or cafes or art galleries open their doors, vendors come and set up tents and booths, artists try to sell their wares from street corners. We saw organized bands and also lone guitarists. We saw Tarot card readers sitting in the grass and a group of four women who had brought their portable pole to do athletic pole dancing. There was a booth where you could try to win a bunny and after proclaiming the game impossible to win, we later saw a girl carrying a basket with a prize bunny inside.

Michael and I need to get some art on our walls and we’d love to go the local art route. However, we learned that First Fridays, though considered a haven for local art, might not be our best avenue. You see, our home style doesn’t really fit with the most affordable or abundant choices at First Fridays: black skulls, blood-dripping-from-eyeball, robot head on a baby’s body. So while I commend them for their talent and dedication, we didn’t make any purchases. Though there was one unintentionally hilarious painting of Barack Obama that made him look like a vampire.

The funny thing is that, after reading that last paragraph, you might think that it’d be hard to fit in there. I didn’t really feel that way at all. Yes, there was an abundance of the emo hipsters, but they mostly congregated behind their booths and were just genuinely interested in trying to sell their stuff. There were also families pushing their babies around in strollers. There were tons of young teens running around being teenagers (I hope that’s considered descriptive) showing me all about the styles that are in these days. There were also what appeared to be middle-aged tourists in capris and fanny packs who were so adorable in their stark contrast to the hipsters.

Afterward, we went out for drinks before heading home for the night. It was really great to have some time to focus on just us two.

Baby Nerd is Nerdy

I Blinked and June is One

Somehow over night, this...

...turned into this...

Happy first birthday to my beautiful, smart, sweet and funny baby girl. I hope that no matter how many of these birthdays come and go, you'll always be my Baby June. I love you little one.

The Garden Tub: A Year Later

A year ago today I woke up in a bad mood. It was another Monday morning, the start of a new work week, and I was headed back to the office instead of holding a new baby in my arms. I was 10 months pregnant and 8 days overdue. I dreaded the comments I’d receive back at the office, I dreaded the discomfort of sitting at my desk all day, but I didn’t want to take off any work before the baby came so I could use it all after she arrived.

I took a shower. I brushed my teeth. I stood in front of the mirror next to my husband, admiring my huge belly and wishing today would be the day. And then my water broke.

I gasped and stepped back off of the bath mat onto the bathroom tile.

“Is it your water? IS IT YOUR WATER?” Michael shouted.

“Yes!”

“I’ll get the bad towels!”

I stepped into the garden tub while he ran for the ‘bad towels.’ I stood there and knew that my baby was coming. I couldn't stop smiling. Pretty soon my funny husband was steam mopping the bathroom (this will likely be one of my favorite memories of this day) while I laid down on the bed and marveled.

This morning, a year later, I woke up to the sound of baby babbles through the monitor next to my bed. It was a couple of minutes before my alarm clock was set to go off. I crept into her room and found her laying leisurely against the bars of her crib. When she saw me, she hurried to stand up in her crib to get a morning hug. I carried her into my bed to nurse, then brought her into the shower with me.

This morning she puttered around that same bathroom where it all began, holding a little bottle of lotion and walking back and forth. She likes to hold onto the edge of the empty garden tub and throw things into it. This morning I looked at that tub and couldn't stop smiling.

Meine Bruder

When I was in junior high, my brother's high school soccer coach approached my parents about a German exchange student named Jens. (Pronunciation is like "Yence.") He was staying with a different family but things weren't working out and he needed a new place to stay. I'm pretty sure we had a family meeting about it and eventually decided to invite him to live with us.

I really feel like all of us hit the Exchange Student Situation Jackpot here. While he didn't get what I'm sure all foreign exchange students wanted (a high rise in New York or a beach-front billionaire family in Los Angeles), he moved into our family home near Seattle. He became very close friends with JP, our dog Einstein took a particular liking to him, and we took him on family vacations to Las Vegas. We were the lucky ones too. Even though he annoyed me sometimes (don't all older brothers?) by telling me the endings of movies, he fit into our family. He was respectful and kind and followed the house rules. He was a great soccer player and even participated in the home movies my brother and his friends would produce.

After he went back to Germany, he learned to sail and joined the German military and otherwise became a very accomplished individual. He got married and had a baby one month before June was born, an adorable boy named Linus.

This past Sunday Jens was in Phoenix! He is currently stationed in Florida for training and he flew to Phoenix on a training exercise. My brother coordinated a lunch between all us kids (my parents weren't in town) and our kids.

I suggested we eat at Haus Murphy's, a local joint in Glendale that was featured on the Food Network and has authentic German food. To be even more authentic, we each had a beer to go with it.

I still can't believe that it's been over ten years since he lived in our extra bedroom on 140th Way, and that we each now have children. It was so nice to catch up and laugh like old times.

He said he'll pick the restaurant next time we visit Germany. :)

Chandler BBQ Festival

If you know nothing else about me, you must know that I love some BBQ.

So our family discussion of what we were doing this weekend went something like the following:

"Chandler is having their BBQ festival this weekend."

No more needed to be said. We were going.

So we packed up the Bug and our appetites and headed for old town Chandler.

The problem with a place like this is that there are just SO.MANY.VENDORS that you want to try them all. They solved this issue by having each stall provide a sample that you could buy for $2 or $3. Because of this, we got to try the food from 5 or 6 different places.

It was a big weekend: June got her first exposure to BBQ.

At one point we sat on the grass and enjoyed our food and let June walk around on the grass. She kept walking over to a dog at the next group over so eventually we introduced ourselves.

Can I just get a close-up on that face for a minute?

She kills me. But apparently we wear her out so I guess we're even?