six

Julian turned six on January 27th, and because of all of this crazy snowy weather, we finally had his birthday party after many changes of plans. And since it's been over a month since I last posted, and I'm just now putting this stuff up, it's clear that I'm awesome at maintaining a blog. Heh.

It blows my mind that I have a six year old child. When did that happen, and who let me have a kid? I'm somebody's mom? Whaaa? But it turns out that I love being Julian's mom, and he's the coolest boy I could ever imagine. When I was pregnant with him, I used to wonder what my kid would be like, who this person would be. And as hard as I tried, I couldn't for the life of me imagine what he would be like at six years old. I didn't even know he was a he back then. Fast forward six years to the coolest person I've ever known. Julian.

For his birthday party, we had a screening of "Yellow Submarine" in the theatre of the university where Wade works. It was possibly the most awesome birthday party experience ever. Julian sang quite loudly throughout the entire film.

Here he is with Wade, before the party began:



Cheesing with his cake:



I made the yellow submarine and covered the cake with marshmallow fondant. This was my first time ever working with fondant, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, for having no idea what I was actually doing:



The inside of the cake was a gluten-free yellow cake that was dyed six different colors. How can you have a Yellow Submarine party without having your cake look like a total acid trip?



This last picture cracks me up. Julian's at the table with all his lady friends. There were boys at the party too but for some reason, Julian is way comfortable around girls. I'd like to put him in a time machine with me so we could go back in time together and he could give me lessons on not being awkward.

My gigantic 37 weeks pregnant body is wearing an apron that I made. My grandmother gave me a tablecloth a super long time ago that I never used because a) I'm not a tablecloth kind of person, and b) the fabric was kind of crazy looking. So I turned it into an apron. It made me sad to see this awesome vintage tablecloth from my grandmother on a shelf, unused. So now that it's an apron I get to see and use it all the time and think of her. Sweet.

another year over, a new one just begun

Wait a minute. Just waaaaaaait a minute. Christmas is over and it's already a new year? What the what? Did that go by crazy fast for anyone else, or was it just me? I hope it was great for all of you. We're lucky enough that all three of us were home at the same time (well, I never go anywhere). Julian's school had a nice long winter break, and luckily, Wade's school breaks are pretty much on the same schedule, so it's awesome that we can all be home together at once. This was our first Christmas in North Carolina, and it was beautiful and snowy and perfect. Last year we made the long drive to Florida to be with my family, but this year we decided to stay put and enjoy it here in our new home. It was a great holiday spent with good friends, and much eating of cookies, cakes, and other gluten-free baked junk food was done.

This is us on Christmas eve at our friends' house. Julian and I are working on perfecting the Uncle Rico pose.


Christmas morning. I love his face in this one, as he realizes he's just opened a sweater. As if he were somehow cheated out of a cool toy. He's like, "Um. A sweater?" *


I made a new purse over the break. My old one was getting very ratty and it was time to retire. So this is the new one, to start a new year. I wanted to bust it out before Nutella Butterfinger arrives, because I'm pretty sure my crafty days will be limited for a while when she's brand new on the scene. So, here's one side of the bag. I freezer paper stenciled a bird on a branch over the pocket. The little pins are from my friend Maggie, and they all have Beatles quotes on them.


The other side, with "let it be" done with a freezer paper stencil also. I definitely did not freehand this. I chose a font I liked, typed it up in a Word document, and printed it right onto the matte side of the freezer paper to make my stencil. Well, I had to cut it out before it became a stencil. But you know that already.


Lastly, here's my belly at 32 weeks. Doooooood. I have 8 more weeks to go until Nutella is born. This is crazy to me. In some ways, I feel like, "Yay! Only 8 weeks left!" And in others, I'm all, "GUHHHHHH 8 weeks feels like 8 years."

*If you're wondering why Wade is never in any of the pictures, it's because he's kind of blog shy. He's in plenty of our family photos, but prefers to not have his face all over the interwebz. So I haz to respect that.

cookies, ornaments, and hillbillies

Is anyone else kind of freaking out that 2010 is a mere two weeks away? DOOOOOD.

I feel like this month has been so full of ambition for getting Christmas things done, but not really much action. I'm seriously impressed with some of the crafts people are making, and the fact that people have their stuff together enough to send out cards is amazing to me.

Yesterday, Julian and I rolled out the dough for our gluten-free sugar cookies. He used the cutters and cut all the shapes out, and then we baked them. We tried making royal icing, but I was in a hurry to finish before dinner, was working with a 5 year old (which makes baking take 3x as long), and on the phone. Probably not the best combination for successful cookies. Which is why it's no surprise that my batch of royal icing ended up looking disgusting and runny and not working at all. We iced two cookies and then called it a day for baking. The cookies looked like they were made by blind armless people, but they tasted great. No offense to any of you blind armless people, but I'm guessing cookie decorating probably isn't your strong suit.

I made another batch of royal icing a little earlier because Julian is still in school, and decorated the cookies. Seriously, I had no idea how difficult decorating cookies would be. What a huge pain in the butt! And I'm wicked impressed with people who manage to do it well. For my first try, I think they turned out pretty cute. I'm sure with a lot more practice, I could get good at these.




Another fun holiday thing we did was make an ornament. I'd like to start a tradition of making a handmade ornament for our family each year. Since I'm bird obsessed, I chose to do an owl. Julian did al the sewing and gluing, and I think he did a pretty great job. This is the first thing he's ever sewn! I picked felt because it's really easy for a kid to work with. Cutting out the pieces without having edges fray makes it a lot easier.


Oh my gosh, Julian has lost yet another tooth. This makes for a grand total of 3 teeth lost in the span of about a month, and he totally has the toothless hillbilly thing down now.

Also, thanks for all of the input on the Santa issue. It seems that none of you were really traumatized when you learned that Santa is made up, so we're going to stick with our normal Santa routine until he decides he's too big for it.

Santa: Man or Myth?

Behold, the Wilson family Christmas card of 2009:



Sadly, this is it for a card. I was going to have pictures printed and send out cards this year, but I think I've waited way too long to do it in a timely manner. So I'm going to give it a positive spin and say that we're saving trees by not using all that paper. Yeah.

We've been listening to lots of Christmas music at our house lately because Julian is obsessed with it, and I think tomorrow we'll be making sugar cookies. I bought some Wilton meringue powder today so we could make royal icing without using raw egg whites. We also bought a nutcracker because Julian is hardcore obsessed with those too. And pretty much anything pertaining to Christmas. He's asking lots of questions about Santa lately, like how he knows what everyone wants, and how do moms and dads have Santa's cell phone number? I told him that when he was born, they gave us that information at the hospital before we left. It's just something all new parents get.

The more I think about it though, the more I don't know if I like the whole notion of Santa. It's fun and everything, and the idea of him is definitely exciting (and kind of creepy...he sees you when you're sleeping?!). But I feel like kind of a jerk for lying to my kid. Do you remember when you found out that Santa wasn't real? Were you devastated? Because I was. I was 5 years old and in kindergarten, and an older boy on the school bus broke it to me. And I remember thinking, that's just not possible. Of course Santa is real....right? And I feel like by lying to Julian about these fictitious holiday characters (Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy), I'm setting him up for disappointment. Part of me feels like kids need to know how hard their parents work to get their presents. Daily, Julian will rattle off a list of crazy expensive things that he wants Santa to bring him, because why not? Santa is magic and he brings free toys to all good girls and boys. And saying things like, "Whoa, buddy. That's pretty expensive...I don't know if Santa can afford that one this year." makes me sound like such a debbie downer. Julian's logic always trumps that too, because he says, "Santa doesn't pay for toys. The elves build them. So he can bring me everything on my list!" Which leads me to yet another lie of, "Santa has to pay the elves an hourly wage though, because they work very hard. And overall, that ends up costing Santa a lot of cash." Also, how the heck do you explain poor kids who get basically nothing for Christmas? Is Santa just that much of an a-hole that he overlooks poor kids? No fair.

I mean seriously, what the hell? It feels crazy to me. But the other part of me that loves fun and everything Christmas wants to keep him believing in Santa for as long as possible. For him to keep his sense of wonderment about all things magical.

What do you think? Do you think parents should tell their kids that Santa is just pretend and still enjoy the holidays, or do you think we should just feed them this lie because that's what everyone does? I just don't know.

recap

You know what's awesome about being an adult? Starting off Thanksgiving morning with a gluten-free butter cookie, and not getting in trouble for it. These cookies make Milanos taste like sawdust.



Julian, a self portrait:



And last night, at the party of some friends, Julian snuggled by the fire with this little dog, Bobo. I can't wait until we own a home instead of renting, and can get a dog for him.



What else? I bought a domain name for my bakery, and am going to make business cards soon now that my friend, Rex, has designed a sweet logo for me! So excited to get this thing rolling!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We have lots to be thankful for, all the time.

gratitude list

On this eve of Thanksgiving, I feel like rattling off some things I'm thankful for. I like to keep gratitude lists going all the time and remind myself daily just how good I have it, but it seems extra important to voice those things on Thanksgiving. So here is a short list of things I'm thankful for, in no particular order:

my health
finding true love
a beautiful son
this little baby in my belly, who is kicking me extra hard right now
real friends
laughter
music
the right to speak my mind freely, and to believe whatever I want to believe without fear
this wonderful city, Winston-Salem, NC
memories of beautiful days at the ocean
the smell of the cranberry bread baking in my kitchen
a car that gets me from here to there
having a place to sleep at night
strangers who smile as we pass each other
thrift stores
books
growth

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving, and are surrounded by love.

the young and the toothless

It's official, folks. Julian lost his first tooth today (and has also mastered the art of taking pictures with crazy eyes, apparently):

It's been very loose for a while now, and when he jumped in the car today after school, he was eating a snack and telling me how he couldn't really eat it earlier because his tooth was too loose and he didn't want to hurt it with crunchy food. A couple bites into the snack, and the tooth popped right out. So we drove home with his tooth in the cupholder of the car.

I honestly wasn't expecting him to lose it for at least another few days, so I wasn't prepared with a tooth fairy pouch. When we got home, Julian picked out a little scrap of fabric from my collection, and I whipped together a pouch really quickly. He's in bed right now, and the tooth pouch is under his pillow. I heard the tooth fairy brings a little more cash than normal for the very first tooth. Like five bucks, I've heard. Except for rich people, who I've heard get crazy amounts of cash, like fifty dollar bills. How can I get in touch with the rich peoples tooth fairy?

In crafty endeavors, I made another onesie:

Hilarious, no? If you are Australian and deeply offended by this, then...you clearly have an easy life and need to find other things to do with your time.