Sharkface's Second Birthday Party

Also known as the party that I spent entirely too much time on Pinterest.

Starfish and Sand Dollars

Dinglehoppers

Rolled Utensils with Lifesavers

In case you haven't figured it out, it was a fish/shark/under the sea themed party.

Initially it was supposed to be a Finding Nemo themed party, but when I asked Steve to make the cake, I told him Fish/Shark/Nemo and let him go with it. After all, leave the cake making to the expert. I think that I mentioned before that Steve was a semi-finalist on the Holiday Baking Championship, right?

Shark Cake

Needless to say, I was thrilled with his creation!

Snack, Plate & Utensil Table 

For my kid-level table, I had plates and utensils down low to reach, as well as cheese (Shark Teeth), grapes (Seaweed), puff'n corn (Coral), pretzel sticks (Driftwood), and goldfish served in a fish bowl with a fish dipping net.

Coral is delicious

The kids seemed to really dig this table. At the end of the party, they grabbed the bucket of "Coral" and Mark kept dumping net-fulls of goldfish onto the table, plate, and floor.

Cheese Face

It's my party and I'll make a mess if I want to

Other winners of the day were the bouncy house, which I got for free through Jay's fire department buddies. Those things are worth their weight in gold for keeping the kids occupied. Parents could actually hang out and enjoy some cocktails. Speaking of which, our signature cocktail was a Shark Bite, which was basically a Moscow Mule made with Blueberry Vodka and garnished with blueberries.

I'm surprised he sat still long enough for this

The other hit was our impromptu photographer, as well as a super fun shark cutout that I ordered from Oriental Trading Company. Laura graciously grabbed my camera and started shooting without prompting... now I have amazing photos for my blog as well as some to share with the attendees. So THANK YOU, Laura!

We look a little too pleased to be eaten... be sure to check out Angela's Blog!

Slow Swimmers and Octopus Dip

Peanut Butter & Jellyfish Sandwiches and Sea Shell Salad

Submarine Sandwiches

The food items that didn't quite make it to the table:

Land Caviar - Devil Eggs
Sea Snails - Pigs in a Blanket

The Octopus Dip was supposed to have an octopus made out of a pepper sitting in the middle of the dip, but I ran out of time for that. I also was planning to carve a watermelon shark. It took me weeks to prepare for the party between making the food tags, ordering decorations and goodie bags. I completely forgot to take pictures of those, but they were these adorable fish bags that I got from Oriental Trading. I filled them with Nemo Stickers, bouncy balls, snacks, bubbles, and also candy shark tooth necklaces.

The day before the party was incredibly frustrating for me, as I had a lot of interruptions that ended up with Mark not napping and everything taking five times as long without my usual 2-3 hour window to get stuff done.

It took me four hours to ice these sugar cookies

Sand Dollar Almond Cookies were my own concoction

I have to say that I was pretty pleased with how my sand dollar cookies came out. I started off by using this recipe from Odense, but then I realized that I had more almond paste than they called for. So I added more butter and more flour. They turned out pretty tasty! I'm going to work on tweaking the recipe and will post it soon. The reason I decided to use almond paste is because I ordered a bunch of it when I made my own rainbow cookies and the paste expires in October.

Speaking of cookies, back to dessert!

Cake this awesome needs lots of pictures

Markface did his best to sing along

Markface clapping for his birthday song

Steve gave me a lengthy tutorial about how to dissect the shark - Mark looks concerned

Oh, maybe that was the dowel rod that Steve was talking about

The aftermath 

I let Steve have free rein over the design and type of cake. It was a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream. I love that he dyed it red... the inside looked just like sashimi, which was a bit disturbing but also entertaining!

I almost forgot our drinks - sea water (water with cucumbers and mint, still attached to their stems to look like seaweed), and squid ink (iced tea). For the grown-ups, we also had a variety of beer, including Landshark - which I hadn't even thought about until the party was nearly over.

A few folks hung around after the party wound down, like our friends Jen and Tim. Since we're now officially part of the friends with kids crowd, we have to get our fun in whenever and wherever we can. I love spending time with my kid, but it's nice when I get the best of both worlds. I feel like I'm away from him plenty with working full time, plus all of the weddings (6 this year!) and other social engagements we have. It's nice to be able to enjoy some combined adult and kid time, especially when everyone is having a good time.

I hope that you enjoyed Markface's 2nd birthday highlights. If you need more ideas or want to see more pictures, there are hundreds on the Shutterfly site.

Catching Up Part II

Here is a photo summary of the last month or so...

The cows have been grazing across the street again... they like to come over and say hello.

Kitty Whore aka Piper is the least scaredy-cat that we have. She stands up to Loki pretty well, but our pets are still working things out. I'm hoping that one day they'll all get along. Loki of course just wants to play and doesn't understand why the cats don't want to play with him.

The dog loves to play fetch and will do just about anything for his ball. It's our most useful training tool. Although he does love treats, he's not as food-motivated as most other dogs. We are working on playing frisbee with him and he's had a lot of awesome mid-air catches, but he still prefers the tennis ball.

There was also this morning a week or two ago, where Loki chased the rooster into the house. I was standing outside in my bathrobe with the door open, trying to stop him from chasing it. The rooster had his head down in the corner like, "If I can't see him, he can't see me!"

And then I got a hold of the dog and Mr. Roo-Roo went on his merry way.

Draco, aka His Royal Highness The Reverend Doctor Tasty, Esquire is loving his new bed. I feel kind of bad for all of our animals... they have no idea how their lives are going to change in a few months. My friends Jen and Tim are done having kids, so they gave us a ton of their baby stuff late last summer. It turned out to be perfect timing. This is the pack & play bassinet that we're going to keep in our bedroom for the first few months. Jen and Tim were over a few weeks ago with their girls (two and four, who Loki did very well with) and they helped us set up the bassinet while they were here.

And speaking of the baby, here I am pretending to chug a Strongbow. That said, I am of the belief that light drinking during pregnancy is most likely okay. It is of course a controversial subject, and since there are ethical questions over setting up any kind of study that involves pregnant women, I doubt that most OB/GYNs (in the U.S., at least) will ever encourage drinking. I've weighed the risks and read more than a few articles and studies on the subject. My definition of light drinking? Since the beginning of my second trimester (my first trimester I abstained almost entirely), I've been having anywhere from one to three drinks a week. And I do mean single servings, like a 5 ounce glass of wine instead of my usual 8-10 oz pour pre-pregnancy.

The pregnancy itself is going well... I'll be 28 weeks on June 5th, which is the beginning of my third trimester. At my last doctor's visit, I was measuring a week ahead, so my appointments were moved up to every other week. I didn't post about it, but I was having some horrible sciatica and muscle spasms in my left side quadratus lumborum. The pain was pretty unbearable, but my OB sent me to physical therapy, and I think that the combination of PT, massage, acupuncture, and chiropractic finally got me all straight. The pain also seemed to clear up a ton after passing my Series 7 exam, so that may have had something to do with it.

I've been continuing with massage and also started going to acupuncture in February. I really think that it is having a positive impact on my life as well as how I'm feeling. My massage therapist moved from the Shore Health integrative medicine group to starting up Whole Being Health with a group of like-minded practitioners, which is how I ended up trying acupuncture. My acupuncturist is also a licensed counselor, so it's like having a therapy session and acupuncture treatment together. I love it! There are also studies that show the benefits of acupuncture during pregnancy - and some states and insurance companies have approved acupuncture as another way to bring on labor naturally. So I will be keeping that up, as I do not want to go past 40 weeks.

And last but certainly not least, my dear friend Christina tied the knot with her hubby Dan a few weeks ago. She was such a beautiful bride and we all had a fantastic time celebrating her nuptials. I can't wait to see Laura Dye's gorgeous photos from the wedding!

July 4th Fun

Jay's friend Brian came down from New York on Wednesday night.

Yesterday we celebrated with our friends Laura and Jared (and their adorable munchkin Lincoln) on Assateague Island. We met up with some of Jared's family for the fireworks and generally had an awesome time.

I think I want a boat.

Great people, cute babies, tasty food, cold beer, a cozy fire on the beach, fireworks.

Life doesn't get much better than this. 

Almost Wordless Wednesday - More trip pics

All of the photos (at least those we are sharing) from our trip are finally up. Check them out on Shutterfly!