Mark's Third Birthday Party

I just discovered that the iMovie app on my phone works pretty well for making little videos!

So since I am not the greatest at blogging right now, I am going to post a few videos of trips and other activities to make up for not writing. :)

Here is Mark's Third Birthday Party - Train themed, of course.

Back to Blogging

I swear it's going to happen this time.

I never posted about our five year anniversary reunion in Key West. It was a bit of a bust, although parts of it were fun. The best part for me was the diving, even though the visibility wasn't great. We saw two dolphins and two rather large reef sharks at Looe Key. I'm looking forward to getting back in the water this year. We'll probably check out Lake Phoenix this summer to brush up on our skills. I would love to do a trip out with our dive shop to the Outer Banks this year, but we'll see how that goes. I don't know if I'll be comfortable enough to go to the depths that most wreck diving involve. Not to mention my dive buddy's excessive air consumption! But maybe a few weekends of diving at Lake Phoenix will cure some of our problems.

Here are the last few months in photos...

Markface eating rocks at the Waterfowl Festival

Our annual post-Thanksgiving walk to the persimmon tree (aka the permission tree)

Markface showing off his latest moves

We had a sweet van for our group from Miami to Key West

Ryan and Jay pushing Markface's stroller... this trip we stayed pretty far north, in the quiet White Street district. I liked being a bit of a haul from Duval Street, it made for some impressive Fitbit stats!

Markface being adorable at the Conch Republic Seafood Company

Markface trying to feed me something

Shark wrangler

This will forever be known as the Tomato Soup incident. It was one of the low-lights of our trip.

Markface passed out on Duval after the boat parade

Jay and Brian attempting to wash off a sandy Mark at Bahia Honda State Park

The flight home was much better than our flight down

Setting up our tree. Mark was trying to put a cracker into the tree

Feeding the chickens... Mark calls them cluck-clucks

One of his newest tricks - getting on top of the table

Jay took Mark on an impromptu trip to New York to see friends and family... this is in Long Beach

And we got a bit of snow a few weeks back. Mark was a big fan and probably would have stayed out all day if he hadn't gotten cold.

We are off to Phoenix tomorrow to visit Colleen (yay) and for some R&R. 

Plans:

Survive a 7 hour flight with an active toddler.

Visit the Grand Canyon.

Attend the Ren Faire.

Attend some Beer Week festivities.

Eat at Sassy's Cafe and visit Melody from Holiday Baking Championship.

Since I followed Steve so closely during the Holiday Baking Championship, I feel like I personally know everyone that was on the show. I figured that while we're in AZ, we definitely needed to check out Melody's place. The funny thing is that Steve and Rob will actually be arriving in Phoenix the same weekend that we are leaving. Sounds like there may be a bit of a HBC reunion going on out there. I'm sorry to miss the fun!

Wordless Wednesdays

Markface's First Birthday

I've been wanting to post these photos for weeks and I am so happy that I finally have a quiet night at home to do it! Jay is working and I put Markface to bed early. Huzzah!

So, we did it. We kept him alive for an entire year.

We've been so busy for the past few months that I was tempted to say screw it and not throw a first birthday party at all. After all, he's not going to remember it. The first birthday party is always about the parents and the pat on the back we give ourselves for surviving.

Not gonna lie, that first year was brutal. I'm sure that each year will bring its own challenges, but this one was rough. 

There were many reasons not to throw the party on the date we decided to - it was Labor Day Weekend, we'd given everyone less than a week's notice, it was the day after we were attending a wedding, and Jay had to work the next day... among other things. The following weekend, we had TWO weddings to attend. We didn't have the "perfect" weekend to throw his party until nearly a month after his actual birthday.

So we said screw it, let's do it on his birthday - September 6th. 

On Monday, I sent my new friend Steve a message... was there any way he could do Markface's birthday cake for that weekend?

As luck would have it, he could. He asked me what I wanted to do... I said it could be simple and just have his name in the STAR WARS style font, or that he was welcome to be "creative" if he wanted. 

He's amazing, so obviously he went the creative route. 

"I was thinking Death Star," he said. 

The detail was just incredible.

"Oh, and you should do a smash cake, too."

These cakes were absolute masterpieces. And even better, they tasted awesome! I couldn't believe we had to actually eat them. 

The other really cool thing that we found out a few weeks ago is that Chef Steve is going to be on the Food Network's Holiday Baking Championship. It airs November 1st at 9 p.m. - make sure you tune in!

And my kid had to destroy his smash cake? Little did I know at the time that it was prepared by our own local celebrity.

He was actually pretty meticulous about the way he destroyed his cake. It was anticlimactic to be totally honest. First he ate the piping piece by tiny piece.

Then Dada ripped open the fondant so that he could get to the delicious inside... chocolate and vanilla.

He didn't have enough on his face, so Makayla (Aunt Brenda's granddaughter) smeared some icing on his nose. I was actually kind of happy at the lack of mess. I think it's pretty gross that parents purposely cover their kid's face in icing. It's sticky and just gross. Yuck. Not to mention that it's wasteful! Especially with a cake as great as that.

A day or two before the party, I realized that we were going to have a lot more people than our "low-key" planned event. I was expecting no more than 25 people. Maybe 30 people at most. We had over 50 show up! When I realized that the guest list was getting out of hand, I asked Steve to make some vanilla cupcakes. "Really, Lauren? You have a Death Star birthday cake, and you're asking for plain old vanilla cupcakes? "Okay! If that's what you want..."

He of course had to decorate our plain old vanilla cupcakes too. Which were amazing. I'm glad I got one before they were all eaten.

Here are more pictures from the party...

Twinsies!

We do what we can to get him to look up. He's always looking down - except of course when he's running or walking. Then he faceplants. A lot.

He looks thrilled.

With his Godfather Sean

Silly boy

Markface is all sugared up and on the loose... oh hey look, his tux has tails!

One last thing to mention about the party - due to the last-minute nature of it and pretty much not giving a shit, the food was terrible. We bought crappy pre-made burgers and hot dogs at the store, and I attempted to make baked beans for the first time. I used dry beans. They were awful. Thank God for the desserts (apart from Steve's cakes & cupcakes, we also had his Cannolios, which are amaaaaazing). Sara also brought cole slaw, and Jay's macaroni salad is always delicious... but the main food was pretty bad. We've fallen a long way from our grilled tenderloin with fresh horseradish sauce, raw oysters, mini quiches, fresh bruschetta on homemade baguettes and local cheese! And definitely no ice cream on fresh-baked cookies. I didn't even make pulled pork. Ugh. It was pretty embarrassing. Next time we'll do better... although maybe our poor performance will dissuade some guests from attending our next party. Ha!

I'm going to do my best to get back into blogging. Now that I'm getting more sleep, I hope to be back into it. I have so much to catch up on and we're also heading back to Key West for our five year anniversary in December. It's gone so fast! 

More to come soon, I hope!