2 half

the little dude officially turned "2 half" at the beginning of june. as i'm a little behind, it took me awhile to take his photos...and then of course to actually post them! above is my favorite of the bunch!

oh where does the time go?

i would really like to blog more than i do, but it seems that time keeps slipping away from me and the next thing i know it's been two weeks!

last friday was our last day of this session of cooking school. here are some of my favorite photos from this round.


the little dude sporting his apron.


waiting patiently to eat his chocolate covered strawberries with sprinkles.


making spotted rice. a mixture of rice and a variety of veggies. (i ended up eating this for my lunch.)


taking a nibble of his "mini tacos" : tortilla chips with refried beans, olives, and cheese.


attempting to peel his first hard boiled egg. (mostly because i'm a horrible mom who didn't make eggs for easter!!)


taking a nibble of his freshly made egg salad sandwich.

of course the little dude enjoyed this session as much as the first. unfortunately it will be quite some time before the next session as they don't do them in the summer. bummer. i'll have to hear him ask for "cooking school" and "art school" every day this summer. we'll have to try and find some other replacement until they start again.

bawling like a baby

if you can watch this whole video without crying (or at least tearing up), there's something seriously wrong with you!

coming up for air!

after returning from the nationaln stationery show, i buried myself in my office for a couple weeks. i'm finally coming back up for a little, much needed, air! what's happened over the last 2 weeks? well, it looks like my super sweet friend leslie tagged me for a list of 7 interesting things about myself. i figure since i need to discuss what's happened over the last 2 weeks that i'd make it 7 things that have happened since then instead. so here it is!

1. the little dude is still doing well with being potty trained! no accidents in probably 2 weeks now! he even wakes up dry after his naps and in the mornings!! we're still doing pull-ups (or spiderman underwear as he knows them by) at night and naptime, but he's in full-blown big boy undies all day long. i think that we'd be safe getting rid of the pull-ups too, but i'm too chicken to actually do it. (i'm not a huge fan of washing sheets!)

2. i've been in contact with the certain large children's hospital from the nss about their custom project several times now. i got a response to the formal quote i sent them with an e-mail containing some images they want me to use......i assume that's a good sign that they want to go forward! i'm really excited about the possibilities of this job! we still haven't discussed quantities so i don't know exactly how large of a project it may be, but even at the smallest quantities quoted, it's a rather large job.

3. the little dude and i have started cooking school again. he's such a freak for school! (in a good way) he asks me every day if it's "cooking school" day. poor guy. too bad it's only once a week! the first week we made cinnamon & sugar bread, hand squeezed lemonade, ants on a log, granola, fruit and yogurt parfaits, and fruit loop necklaces! phew.....and that's all in 1 hour!

4. i've started having some pretty serious braxton hicks contractions. i don't remember them being this intense with the little dude. i'm honesly a little nervous that they're this painful and frequent already. part of me wants to call the dr., but i know she'll probably just tell me it's normal and not to worry. my biggest fear is being put on bed rest, so many it's best not to let her know. (ok, i'm only half kidding there....so don't comment that i'm a horrible mother who's putting herself first. if i had to do bed rest for the sake of the little bean, i'd do so in a heartbeat)

5. the hubby is very close to getting a new job in the town we live!! right now he commutes about 2 1/2 hours every day! so this would be a huge deal for us. not only in time, but also in the $400 we spend every month in gas! (and that's with him carpooling!) he had his second interview yesterday and it sounds like it's in the bag. now we just have to wait for a formal offer and see where we go from there. keep your fingers crossed!

6. we chose a name fo the little bean. (ok, so this actually happened right before i left for the nss, but it's still something new) i think we're both happy with it. it meets our reuqirements of not being in the top 100 most popular baby names as well. first and middle name alike. as usual, the name will remain a secret until he's born. we don't need everyone's opinions. we know not everyone will like the names we choose.

7. i made record time with my new card release. i was supposed to have 12 new designs to release on june 1st. (i release quarterly and these are my deadlines so that i stay on track) however, with the nss, i got a little behind and didn't even start designing until june 3rd or so! oops. i ended up getting all of the new designs done in less than a week, and i must say they're not just crap either! i'm actually pretty excited about most of them. they're now off to my product embellishers who are working furiously to get prototypes done to send out to my reps so they can start selling up a storm!

the best part

price of 10' x 10' booth for the nss: $2000 and change
price of electricity for said booth: $99
price of hotel stay: approx $200/night

coming home to a potty trained 2 year old son: priceless!!

thanks hubby and mom! i owe you bigtime!

home again

i've been away for the last week attending the national stationery show in new york. i wrote a post in the airport on the way there to mention my departure, but then the internet in our hotel didn't really work, so i didn't have a chance to post it until the day before i left....which is kinda silly.

so here i am. back home again.

it's was a good trip, but extremely exhausting. i don't think i'd want to do the show any more pregnant than i already am. set-up day was torture. by the time i got to the hotel i could hardly roll over in bed because my hips ached so bad. not fun. the rest of the show was much easier. i tried to sit as much as possible to save my feet and it worked pretty well.

the show itself was, i think, busier than last year. there seemed to be much more traffic than usual. i'd say we did just as good as last year, maybe a tad bit better. we also have a contact with a certain huge children's hosiptal. they want us to do some custom work for them which could easily add up to 5 digits!!! it would certainly make this trip worth while. i need to get some numbers together for them and then we'll go from there. it sounds very, very promising.

i also got some photos of my booth this year.....unlike last year where i forgot to take a final photo after it was done!


this is what your booth looks like when you first get to the show. blank canvas!



here's our final booth after about 8 hours of work.





and some side views.

now i need to go lock myself in my office for the next month or so to get started on all these orders!!

obligatory photo

the whole "second chid" syndrom is already in full effect at our house. by this time i already had 4 or so photos of myself along my pregnancy journey. this time....well....not so much. i'm at 21 weeks, over half way there, and we just now took our first photo*! sorry kiddo! so, here i am, in all my pregnancy huge-ness! i swear i'm twice as big as i was with the little dude at this point. no laughing!

*no, we don't have a big grey backdrop in our house! it's actually one of the walls in our livingroom that i had to stop decorating mid-redo when we found out we were pregnant! i think we're going to put my grandparent's family cradle there when the little guy arrives.

it's a . . .

well, we’re almost to the halfway point! we had our ultrasound yesterday and have included some of the pictures above.

we also found out that we’ll be having a little brother for the little dude! (although he’s not too convinced!) if you ask him, he still says: “baby brother, sister”. (and no, there aren’t 2 in there!) he’s also informed me that we need to name his baby brother “doctor baby”.

the new little bean is quite the mover and shaker and it was tough for the technician to get any decent pictures. she must have tried for 15 or 20 minutes at the end just to get a good image to give us, but gave up as he decided to turn his back to the "camera".

art school

tuesday was a sad day as it was our last day of art school. the little dude loves it so much and will miss it terribly, i'm sure. i took the camera on tuesday to take a few shots of what goes on at school. i should have taken it a different day as the projects were limited since we wouldn't have time for anything to dry and take home. normally there are many, many more "wet" projects.


face painting. of course it had to be "mick*y mous* cl*bhouse", so mommy drew on some classic ears.


top: getting ready to do a full-body tracing. top right: the little dude adding "features" to his face.
bottom: my little lefty at the easel doing a collaborative painting. bottom left: again, contributing his part to the group project.


top: "cutting" play-doh* and driving "dumper trucks" through it for fun!
bottom: looking at some grass throug the magnifying glass.


ending the day with his favorite parachute! he freaking LOVES this thing.

easter

this year was the first time that the little dude really understood what easter was all about. for weeks before if you asked him what the easter bunny was going to bring, he would say "num n nums" (m&m's). he was pretty excited about the whole thing. we wrote a note to the easter bunny and left it by his basket before bed. the easter bunny even hid the little dude's basket for the first time! i think he may have to hide it a little better next year because he found it pretty quickly.

here are some photos of the little dude digging into his stash of num n nums.



we went to my aunt and uncle's house for a gathering with our extended family. we always have an easter egg hunt. it's the first time he really enjoyed that too. he got to collect 7 eggs with tons of goodies inside. i love the photo on the left with his squishy excited face! too funny.



overall, we had a blast. it's so much fun when the kiddos start to understand all the holidays. oh, and the little dude got to wear his big brother shirt that i posted about. everyone loved it and now the entire family knows our news! too bad i don't have a photo of him in it without his jacket on! oopps!

modishoppe

i've been a real slacker in posting about this, and i feel horrible. the whole preparation for the national stationery show is really kicking my butt! i can't believe it's been almost 2 weeks since i've posted anything!


anyway, i'm excited to announce that marzipan inc. has partnered with another online retailer! modishoppe is now open for business and you can find a few of our things there! go check it out. it's full of great stuff!

odds & ends

last week the little dude thought he'd show off his decorating skills in the living room:



tuesday the remainder of my valentine's day gift showed up in the mail. (the hubby didn't notice the 4-6 week shipping time when he ordered it) i love it. i've already tried it out twice. you can order one here.



and finally, here's the shirt i mentioned a few posts back. it's for the little dude to wear to easter next week. he will wear it to dinner and it will be how all of my aunts and uncles will find out about the "new" pregnancy. we did the same thing for the little dude. we announced it at a graduation party where my hubby wore a shirt that said on the front: "knock, knock. who's there? i'm a. I'm a who?" and on the back read: "i'm a gonna be a freakin' daddy!" everyone loved it, so we're continuing the tradition with this one. our only problem is that i'm already showing so they're going to have to notice the little dude's shirt before they notice my belly! anyway, here it is:





it's by no means perfect since i've never really done anything like this before. but, it's cute enough and will hopefully hold together well enough to wear to easter and then maybe the hospital when the little bean actually arrives.

oh, speaking of which, i had my 16 week appt. on monday. everything is still looking good. the little dude can now tell you what the baby sounds like. it's so cute. he does this: "swish, swish, swish" sound. he so excited every time he hears it.

seriously . . .

when most kids are busy actually playing with their toys, this is what my son does:


we were in my office this morning and he came running up to me saying "line up, line up, line up". so of course i have to go see what he's talking about. this is what we found at the other side of the office. not only were his toys lined up in a perfect little row, they were also arranged from largest to smallest, ending with his little bowl of cheerios. he was so proud of himself posing for the picture with his perfect little row.

i know people don't believe me when i say my kid has OCD, but seriously, every day is full of stuff like this. the hubby says "we should get him checked out", but i'm not so sure what they'd say. i picture them looking at me with that lady-your-crazy look in their eyes and saying: "you mean your kid organizes stuff, and your worried about this?" i mean really. there are worse things in life.

date night

the little dude and i had "date night" tonight. daddy was off doing a consulting gig for the second night this week, so i decided it was time for us to get out of the house instead of sitting around waiting for him to get home.

we went to two craft stores. one, to return something i previously purchased, and the second to pick out fabric for a t-shirt i'm making the little dude. (i'll post pictures of it when it's finished.)

after the craft stores, i thought it would be fun to do fast food at a place that has a playland. the little dude has never been exposed to "playland fun", so i thought it was about time since he's a big 2 year old now. i must say that he loved it. however, i knew from the moment we stepped in, i was doomed. the room was completely closed off to the rest of the joint and it had a nasty, nasty smell to it. i'm not sure if it was my pregnancy nose in action or what, but it was bad. the fact that the heating vents must have been turned up full blast in that room made it 100 times worse. nothing like bad smell multiplied by excessive heat. mmmmmmm. yummy. just the kind of place i want to eat my dinner.

just to add to my pain, it's now snowing here. yesterday was 70º and we were outside wearing t-shirts. today it's in the 30º's, and raining/sleeting/snowing. oh, lovely wisconsin weather.

ok, so this post kinda ended on a downer. i didn't really mean it to. it was supposed to be about spending time with my little dude. so i'll officially end it like this:

i love you little dude! thanks for going on a date with mommy tonight.

focus

i have completely lost my focus.

there is so much to do before the national stationery show in may, and i'm not accomplishing anything! i really don't remember it being this bad when i was pregnant with the little dude, but man, i can't concentrate on anything! i think i have pregnancy brain, or pregnancy ADD if there is such a thing. i have so many projects/new products/deadlines that are half finished that it's absurd. the littlest thing will break my focus and get me working on something completely unrelated (and often times not as important). usually when i feel like this, making a list helps me out. i've tried making one of those lists about 5 different times just this week and i can't even get anything down on paper because i'm so overwhelmed that i don't know where to start.

anyone else go through this? how did you break through and actually accomplish something? HELP!

heartbeat: 101

as of tomorrow i will officially be 12 week pregnant. it's a good feeling to have made it to this point as the risk for miscarriage drop dramatically.

on tuesday i had my 12 week check-up at which the little dude and i got to hear the heartbeat of the little bean. luckily my nurse was able to find it almost immediately upon setting the probe on my tummy. i remember with the little dude that every second that went by while they searched for it seemed like an hour. it was very reassuring.

i was able to get the heartbeat recorded on my cell phone so that the hubby could hear when he got home. it's very faint and hard to hear, but it was nice for him to be able to be a part of it.

i'm sure there's probably a way for me to get it off my phone and onto my blog for the world to hear, but honestly, i'm not that tech savvy, nor do i care to spend the time researching it. so, sorry about that. you'll all have to be ok with photos and stories.

cooking school

man, i've been gone for awhile. things have been so busy around here it's crazy.

so the little dude and i have gone to cooking school for the last 3 weeks. it's at the same place as art school. we have both had so much fun. i think the little dude is definitely going to be a creative type. between art school and cooking school he's been in heaven.

here are a few photos of the things we've made in cooking school over the weeks:


top left: fruit and yogurt parfait
top right: hand squeezed lemonade
middle left: bagel face
middle right: cinnamon and sugar bread
bottom left: alphabet soup
bottom right: fruit soup

it's great because most of these "dishes" included teaching opportunities. for example, the alphabet soup was really called "counting soup". the ingredients needed to be counted out by the students. so, 1 scoop of tofu, 2 scoops of carrots, 3 scoops of peas, 4 scoops of corn, etc. etc.

i'm sure the little dude will be disappointed when next week comes and we don't get to go anymore. we'll be sure to sign up when the next session comes around.

my crazy kid

i know i've mentioned the little dude's obessive compulsive tendencies on my blog before. here's more proof:


out of the gigantic box of 96 crayons, he picked out each and every one of these colors. as he chose each of them he would say "orange". then if it met his requirements, he would say "yup". if however, said crayon did not meet his "orange" requirements, (being a shade too brown, pink, or yellow) he would say "nope", and then put it right back in the box where it came from.

i had to take the photo as proof to the hubby, as i knew he'd never believe me if i just told him the story.

gross....i know

the food cravings have been going strong for a few weeks already.

when i was pregnant with the little dude i had one craving that i hoped wouldn't come back a second time. unfortunately it has....



yeah....i know. my hubby is totally and completely grossed out by the whole thing. he cringes every time he sees it pass my lips.

i'm not quite sure why i crave them. i'm pretty sure it's not because it's filling some vitamin or nutrient void....are there even any in them?

the people who write fortunes . . .

on new year's day, the hubby, the little dude, and i went to our local chinese restaurant for lunch. at the end of the meal, we received our standard fortune cookies. after opening them and comparing, the hubby and i gave each other one of those looks.

here's why:


of course i saved them for good luck. exactly 7 days later i got that positive result on my home pregnancy test!

i think the people who wrote those fortunes need a raise!