Clothes Make the Man, I mean, Boy

Creed is wearing 5T clothes these days, which makes me very sad; not because he's growing up, but because he'll soon be moving from toddler sizes to boys' sizes and the cuteness factor seems to plummet at this divide.  Candice warned me a few years ago that once I had to start shopping for Creed in the boys' department it would get much harder to find cute things, and she was right.  

I've mentioned before that I like to shop ahead and stockpile clothes the next size up because I hate paying full-price for anything, and I hate being stuck choosing from whatever is available at the moment because Creed has to have longer pants or the next size up in shorts right away.  

I've been looking for some tees for Creed that meet the balance between being cool enough for Creed's tastes (he's very opinionated about these things) and still maintaining enough happy boyish charm for me (he is only four afterall).  Here are a few of my favorites at the moment.  They are all a little spendy, but if you can catch them onsale, I'm finding these more expensive brands last longer and are still in good enough condition to pass down to Ollie so they are worth it to me.

 Kickball Legend on sale now at JCrew (Creed barely knows what kickball is, but this shirt makes me laugh.  I would totally wear this shirt if they made it in my size)

 Cycle on sale at the Gap

 Creed just spotted this one from Tea Collection over my shoulder and is begging me to buy it because for reasons that I cannot explain, he loves Crabs.

 This Gorilla tee is probably my favorite from Tea Collection at the moment.

 Creed really loves Rock and roll lately so I think he would appreciate this one from MinBoden.

and this one from MiniBoden might be something my yellow-lovin boy needs.

Creed's Bee Birthday Party

For months, Creed's been telling people he was having a bee birthday party.  He loves the Bee Movie (the only kids DVD at my parents house so it has been watch too many times).  He regularly pretends to be a bee so I guess a bee party was a given.  I had some great ideas for other parties and tried to convince him, but he was certain about what he wanted.  I was not so certain of what we would do for a bee party so I kept suggesting other things.  Finally he said, "I know, I really want a Hello Kitty party!" Umm, so, bee birthday party it was, and he was SUPER excited (I would have been ok with a Hello Kitty party if he actually liked Hello Kitty, but before he said her name, I didn't even know he knew who Hello Kitty was).  

I let him choose five friends to invite and we made them bee shirts for the festivities.

 I got the idea for bee shirts here and then adjusted it a little and added wings to the back.

We just put up some honeycomb bees around the house and the decorations were done.

Creed barely slept the night before because he was so excited (picture him waking me up at 3 am to ask if it was time for his party yet) so he was crabby when everyone arrived and there were lots of tears (please tell me that your children do this too)

 We started off the party dancing to "Flight of the Bumblebees" which gave me a case of the giggles and a bunch of blurry photos.  Then we colored bees.

 and we hung them up for all to admire.

 I was hoping for warm weather so we could have a pollen hunt like this one, but it was snowing outside so while the kids colored we hid "pollen" around the house for them to collect (yellow pompoms, werthers, rolos, small cadbury eggs, etc.) I think it was their favorite part of the party.  They were hard-working bees.

Then we ended with lunch.  The napkins, paper bags, plates, straws, and candles were from Sweet Lulu.  Have you checked out their shop?  It's full of the sweetest party supplies.  I wanted to buy two of everything and stock all my cupboards.

We had to have lots of honeycomb shaped oyster crackers on hand.

I just used a beehive cookie cutter to cut out the peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and I stuck little sugar bees on top.

 And I used bee cookie cutter to cut out watermelon to top the fruit kabobs.

 And of course bees only drink from flowers

 I had grand ideas for a bee cake, but Creed loves the chocolate donuts a Costco and we figured this was a good time to give into his begging.  I just stacked them into a beehive and stuck some candles on top.

 And afterwards we had a surplus of donuts to deliver to friends.

 We sent each of the bees home with bee notebooks and pens (thank you dollar section and Michael's)

 And Bee balloons with bubbles + bags bursting with "pollen".  What more could four-year-olds want?

 The smile on this guys' face at the end of the party was totally worth it. Think there's any chance something as sweet as a bee party will please him as much in ten years?  Can't we just freeze time?

Simple Joys of Turning Four

Creed turned four two weeks ago, and I'm still shocked at the reality that I have a child that old.  How did that happen so quickly?  Larry took the day off and we spent it just being together.  We tried to fill his day with things we knew would bring him joy like this giant number four balloon he's been begging me to buy at the party store.  I knew he would be thrilled.

We wrapped his presents up in black and yellow because he was having a bee birthday party later that week with his friends.  It looks like a lot, but some of them were pretty dinky and most of them were picked up at after Christmas sales.  Of course when you are four, a pile of presents is the most thrilling thing in the world to wake to.

He got right to work opening presents 

 And put them all to use immediately

 Ollie got in on the action too.  In fact he has claimed these Minion goggles and wears them all the time.

 We feasted on donuts (Have you been to Beyond Glazed?  Wow!  So sugary, but so good)

 And while the boys played.  I threw together a birthday shirt.  I dug through his dresser until I found an unworn shirt that he wouldn't miss.  Then I printed out a big four on cardstock.

 I just used a sharpie to trace the number and fill it in a little and wallah!  So simple but it did the job!

We let Creed pick the activity for the day and he had his heart set on bowling.  I asked him why bowling, he hasn't even been bowling, but he told me that he had a feeling that he would really like it so he should try it.

 By the end, he didn't need our help.

 I thought he might get competitive, but most of the time, he didn't even watch for the pins to fall, he rushed back to watch his ball magically reappear in the ball return.

 He loved the arcade too.  I do not love arcades, but birthdays are all about special treats you would normally say no to, right?

 Ollie enjoyed the Dance-Dance Revolution

 Then we headed home to make a cake.  I was going to make it ahead of time, but Creed really wanted to help so I let him go for it.

 It wasn't anything special, but it had Cat's brown sugar frosting, and he told me that I was the best cook in the whole world.

 I hope all his birthday wishes came true!

Busy Times

Sorry, I didn't mean to take a blog hiatus, but things have been crazy around here.


In the past week I:

• Cut up and de-boned a whole chicken in my cooking class while feeling like Julia Child
• Threw a Bee birthday party for Creed + five other adorable bees
• Finished designing 2011 additions to my line at Sycamore Street Press
• Took Creed to his annual check-up and treated him to lunch of his choice after he survived his shots
• Worked on two other freelance jobs
• Went to a DIY night with friends to start working on a quiet book exchange (each girl will make 20 copies of the same page and then we'll all swap)
• Went to book club to discuss The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Larry has never been so excited to hear about one of my book club reads)
• Held a family dinner party in Creed's honor complete with the second chocolate cake with Penuche frosting of the week (I planned to make something different, but Creed was insistent and it was his birthday after all)
• Helped my sister-in-law Keri play an April fools joke on her husband
• Held Ollie during four seizures while I shed a few tears.  You'd think it be routine by now, but it makes my heart stop every. single. time.
• Oh, and did I mention that we went from preparing to make an offer on a lot so we could build a house to finding a house and we're in contract and scheduled to close in less than two weeks?  More details to come if it all goes through, but I hate to jinx it.  In the meantime, we been filling out lots of paperwork and spending most of our time on the phone with agents, inspectors, and lenders. We've been through the house three times and are trying to reach an agreement post-home inspection so say a little prayer for us.  

Did I mention that I'm taking a cooking class?

You are probably used to me mentioning that cooking is not my specialty.  It just does not come naturally to me.  I can follow a basic recipe, but I have no natural instincts in the kitchen.  Well, this year I decided to do something about it.  I like to try new things every year, and I usually try to work in a class or two so this year I signed up for a cooking class; The Fine Art of Cooking Series at Orson Gygi, to be precise.  It's a six week series covering all the basics: knife skills & sauces, starches, fruits and vegetables, chicken, fish, beef & serving.  

I was on the Gygi website preparing to write a Salt Lake City Spotlight post, when I checked the class schedule and noticed the series started the next day and had one spot left.  They aren't offering the class again until June and we might move before then so it seemed meant to be.  I knew the class was great because my friend Jeff took it and has become a wonderful cook so I signed myself right up.  So every Tuesday night you can find me here in the class room located in the middle of the store (have you ever seen such a big island?).

 This is the teacher Chef Shawn Bucher, author of The First-Timer's Cookbook.

He stands at the head of the class and talks about the subject of the night while demonstrating.

 Then at the end of class we always get to try out making something while Chef Shawn and several volunteers are there to help (which I really like because I'm not very confident at times, and it's nice to have people to consult with. It's also fun to try out the different ways classmates season things).  All the food is prepped before we arrive and we each have our own work station.

 This particular night was fruits and vegetables night so at the end of class we were steaming asparagus and making hollandaise sauce or salad dressing and putting together a salad with the fruit and veggies we'd practiced making garnishes with.  Here's one of my orange peel roses.  Fancy, no?

 And not only does every class end with a meal from the things we make and the things Chef Shawn demonstrated making, but they don't let you help clean-up!  We all leave with a smile!

I'd like to be clear that I have no affiliation with Gygi, but I can't recommend the classes enough.  And if you're not a beginner cook, like me, there are a lot of other cool options.  I really want to sign up for the French Macaroon class.  Want to take it with me?