birthday blog

Because Grandma Graham is staying with us this week -- and she is a master gift and card shopper -- we are celebrating two birthdays. It's not so much that we have two birthdays in our family this week, but dear Grandma plans way ahead so she never misses a birthday between visits.



Eliana decorated a bag with letters for Daddy's birthday. She's also been yelling "Happy Birthday, Daddy!" at full tilt most every day this week as he walked in the door.



Tim never seems to have the time or interest to go clothing shopping. You'd think shredded shorts and holey t-shirts would provide the inspiration needed, but no. Clothing shopping in particular seems a painful experience for Tim. So Maia and Eliana and I had some fun bringing the store home to him. At the local thrift store we picked out about 20 things thought might look good on him. What fun... especially for my little almost-five-year-old fashionista. It wasn't until five days after his birthday that we found a few minutes where we were both home together and not needing to be occupied with something else, but he finally tried them all on tonight and narrowed down the mobile store to about 5 items. To top it off, the t-shirt I ordered from FreePeopleFreePeople (a non-profit that some friends from North Carolina started) arrived in time for Tim's bday too. Love their site, their stuff and especially their cause!

Every birthday, we flip-flop between our two favourite birthday cake recipes: super chocolately chocolate coffee cake (thanks to the Siebert's yummy recipe!) or spelt carrot cake with super scrumptious cream cheese icing (thanks to google). This week, the carrot cake won out. Maia thought it should be decorated with fresh raspberries from the garden. Fancy shmancy.

Now I'm left with a post-birthday dilemma: leftover cream cheese icing that's begging for an encore cake. But it's too hot in the house to use the oven. I googled microwave carrot cake and apparently the recipe exists. But really... can it be any good? Jury's out. It's encore cake time... check the comments to find out how it turns out.

growing up dreams

Alas, our camera has hit old age. It's doing funky things that don't make pretty pictures anymore. The good news is, it still takes video. So you can expect more videos than pictures for a while...

So yesterday I asked Maia and Eliana to introduce themselves. Maia wanted to talk about what she hopes to be when she's grown up...

Amazing how clearly she knows what she wants to be when she grows up. I'm turning 35 this year and I've only just figured it out... er... well... I probably only think I have it figured out.