Laine's First Birthday & Baby Boy Kicking

Lots of visitors = no post in awhile. (My parents and Al’s parents were all here for Laine’s first birthday party.)

Our son so far is a little cuddle bug. He moves and kicks but settles quickly. This is a good thing because this pregnancy is going to kill me. I can’t stop eating! Actually, that part is not so bad. The time when I was unable to stop puking was not so great. I am glad that part is over with. His heartbeat during our last appointment was in the 140s. I don’t have a tummy measurement to share (my doc forgot the measuring tape), but my uterus came up to my belly button.

I fear that Laine will have a drinking problem when she gets older. Here she is kissing the kegerator.


She also apparently likes chocolate ice cream.


Laine’s first birthday party went very well. And she had a very good turn out. We went all out. Al smoked some ribs and pork. He then made 5 different BBQ sauces for people to sample. I made pudding cups. (I melted chocolate and made the cups and filled them with banana cream pudding and chocolate fudge pudding. They were topped with cool whip and sprinkles.) I also made petit-four brownies, dipped them in melted chocolate, and then piped some rose buds on them. Then there were the cupcakes I made...

(Big grin.) The sunflowers are Oreo cookies with hand piped petals made of royal icing. The butterflies are made of white chocolate. I melted the chocolate and piped the outline of the wings onto waxed paper. I then dyed some of the chocolate blue and filled in the outline. The daisies are made of a combination of fondant and gum paste. I used a daisy cutter to make them. The centers are halved mini-marshmallows dipped in yellow colored sugar. The monkey candle was from Laine's baby shower cake. All of the cupcakes were covered in green fondant.

Swiffer Service & Other Stuff

Is your Swiffer not up to par? Hate how you have to take time out of your day to move it around on the floor? Well, I have a new service for you! It is called Swiffy Nifty Laine. Yes, that is right ladies and gentleman. She pushes the swiffer rag around for you. She smiles and laughs while doing so. And the best part, you don’t have to do a thing!


Yesterday Laine and I went four-leaf clover hunting in the front yard. Our patch has the genetic mutation that actually makes finding four-leaf clovers easy. We found eight four-leaf clovers and two-five leaf clovers. Here is one of the four-leaf ones before I picked it. (Man, this camera kicks butt.)


Development Updates:
We have been working with Laine to stand up using something as support. Up until this afternoon she has only stood up with our assistance. But here is a picture of her standing and we did not assist her at all! She was motivated by the ice cream cone that I was eating and that she wanted.


Laine knows that the shaped blocks she has go into the holes in the cover. She knows this because I show her often. Now she just has to learn to match the shapes and put them in vertically.