Happy Birthday Lucas!

I've been delaying this entry long enough! Lucas finally turned 1...o-n-e. He is officially not a teeny tiny baby anymore. I guess we'll have to have another right away - not.

I didn't want to have a huge bash for Lucas. As a matter of fact, I have been known to make fun of people who have extravagant parties for babies turning 1. I just wanted a simple get together with friends for cake... just a plain old cake, which Lucas would have one slice of and we'd call it a day.

Well... then my imagination started cranking. I got excited by the idea of actually making a cool cake. And the infatuation began. A little over a month ago I started my daily internet search of how to make fondant icing. I decided I would have to buy the Wilton's fondant from a craft store, but then read that it tasted nasty, so then I read about buttercream fondant and marshmallow fondant. Mmmm. The marshmallow fondant won whole heartedly because it was easy and not full of butter. A week later I made my first batch of fondant, which was successful. The next week I made another and sealed it tightly in the fridge with the first batch. THEN it was time to start the cake baking. I decided to make the recipe for the most delicious coconut cupcakes ever, sans the coconut. Each recipe makes three 9 inch layers, so I took two days and made the recipe twice, resulting in four 9 inch layers and four 6 inch layers. The next week, I made the buttercream frosting (the glue for the fondant). Before I knew it, Tuesday had arrived and it was time to build the cake.

For the bottom tier, I used apricot jam and toasted almonds for the filling. For the top tier I used raspberry jam for the filling.

The hardest part of the cake-building process was rolling out the fondant and putting it on the cake. I did the small tier first and was successful; although, I did end up with ripples on the side of the cake. For the big tier I calculated that I would need to roll out a circle with a diameter of about 22 inches. This proved to be tricky. During my first try, when I tried to pick up the fondant, it was stuck to the counter because I didn't use enough corn starch. The second try worked out perfectly. I still had the ripples, and a little rip on top, but it looked ok once I doctored it up.

Then I had to knead colors into the fondant and cut out the circles for the decorations. It was all downhill from here. I just focused on covering up the problems I had in the fondant and ended up with a pretty cute cake! Ben said it looked like a Dr. Seuss cake. These are the names he came up with: Kirkle Sake, Layer-Ma-Loo, Boo-Jelly Wahoo, Bort-A-Snort Torte, All-Mundy B'Gundy, and Pizzle Pie.

By Tuesday night I felt good that the whole cake was taken care of. I just had to stick dowels in the bottom layer and stack the cakes right before the party. What I had not taken care of was cleaning the house for my company.

The great thing about having a sister with flight benefits is that your mom can call you on Saturday and say, "Did I tell you we're thinking about coming to Austin?" Me, "No. For Thanksgiving?" Mom, "No, on Tuesday for Lucas' birthday."

Sweet! But, I did have to do a quick house cleaning Tuesday night after Lucas went to bed. It worked out just fine. Mom and Dad got in at 10:45 and we got home went to bed by midnight or 1:00.

Anyhow... this is about Lucas, right? Wednesday morning I took Ben to work and my parents, Lucas, and I had a lovely breakfast with an eggs, bacon and toast. Then we rested and lounged around the house. It was just great. In the afternoon we were taking naps and at 2:37 I did happen to wake up and say to myself, "Happy Birthday Lucas."

We went to get Ben at about 5:30 and left my dad in charge of putting the pizza in the oven. we ate our quick dinner and then our friends came over at 7:00 for cake. Of course Lucas didn't think anything too special was going on. He probably wondered why we were all gathered around singing to him... and why there was a fire on top of a cake, but other than that it was normal. UNTIL he got a huge cake placed on his tray. This was a first for him. He kind of ignored it at first until I gave him a taste of the frosting. Then he ate some cake, threw some on the floor, and used the rest as a drum.



He was very greasy after the cake so my mom and I gave him a quick bath and then he got to "open" presents. He mostly liked the ribbons and the paper. Lucas got a cool Nerf baseball bat, a couple trucks, bubbles, clothes, books, and a tent/tunnel system. I thought he would like to hide in it... like the fireplace.

It was a good night. Lucas was very cute, the cake was yummy, and it was wonderful to have family and friends here.

The celebration didn't stop there. Sadly, my dad had to leave early Thursday morning, but my sister, Carrie, and her daughter, Madison, flew in Friday night. We spent Saturday running around like crazy, but had a good time. Everyone left Sunday afternoon, so it was back to just the three of us.

I still can't believe it's been a year. I keep remembering back to last year and thinking of how I never thought I would survive. I was so nervous, I didn't have an appetite. I was exhausted, but still couldn't sleep. And I didn't think I could be home alone with the baby. Those were a tough couple of weeks! I think you have to have one kid to understand that you won't be up every three hours for the rest of your life, that eventually the kid will sleep through the night, eventually you will be able to leave the house, and eventually, maybe some day you will want to do it to yourself all over again. Crazy stuff, those kids...

The Past Year

When I think about the past year, I feel very blessed because I fell in love with a very special boy. It's been one of the hardest years of my life, but also the most rewarding. Can you believe Lucas is almost one?? I can't.

It seems like just the other day my mom flew to Austin, we got pedicures, went jogging, and the next day Lucas was born. When I think of how my life has changed since then I just have to laugh. A couple years ago I couldn't have pictured myself at home, wearing yoga pants, wiping spit up off the floor and changing diapers all day. Now I can't imagine getting ready by 8:00am, wearing skirts and dress pants, going to work and sitting in a chair all day. How life changes!

Well, I just wanted to recollect about Lucas' first year. He's always been such a sweet boy. He's got a happy temperament and a great sense of humor. We love watching him laugh and laugh. His big blue eyes are so beautiful they can light up a room... or break your heart when their filled with tears. I could just stare at him all day. Ben laughs at me because when Lucas is finally asleep for the day, I sit at the computer and watch videos of him or look at pictures.

Ever since Lucas learned to move on his own he hasn't stopped. When he started rolling he would roll and roll and roll until he hit a wall. Eventually he learned to roll the other direction, for which, I'm sure, he was grateful. Then he started scooting around with all his might. It seemed like such a struggle to use all his energy to get across the room, but he thought it was worth it to reach that shiny cell phone or bright toy. Eventually he got up on all fours and started to crawl like a pro. Now he's got rough, bruised little knees from all his crawling. He's the fastest crawler in town and we can't figure out how he does it. Sometimes I try to crawl after him, but I just get rug burn. In the past couple of days Lucas has started cruising all over the house. He holds on to the table, cabinets, couch, whatever he can to walk all over. I'm sure he'll be walking on his own soon... then running. And I'm afraid I'll be running soon, too, so I can catch him.

We've noticed that Lucas is VERY busy. He never stops. Lucas is constantly playing with, chewing, or banging on a toy. If not, he's hurrying across the room looking for something else to explore. Lucas is very curious and is learning more each day. He loves to look out the window and see outside. I'm sure it would be more exciting if we lived in a high rise downtown, but he seems to like the trees just fine.

I just want to thank all of our family and friends for all of your support over the past year. A big thanks to my mom for coming to Austin when Lucas was born, for staying a few extra days when I didn't think I could make it without her, and for promising that she would come back if, in fact, I couldn't make it.

We've had a lot of fun and we are grateful for all the friends we've made here in Austin. We do miss our family like crazy... and for that we would like to thank the Wright Brothers for thinking it would be a good idea to stick people in a very quickly propelled tube in the sky.

Here are a few pictures of Lucas over the past year. Kisses to everyone.







While I'm here I should make a list of all of Lucas' nicknames. He has so many - I don't ever want to forget them...
Little Man or L.M., Creature (Creatch for short), Rittlest Rucas, Sweetish Meatballs, Lukity, Bubbles, Butters/Budders (sp?), Lil' Crapper (in a nice way), Lucas Austin Harmanator...

Lucas' Favorite Things

Lucas is growing into such a big boy! His 1st birthday is fast approaching (August 29th) and he seems to get busier and busier by the day.

We really don't have that many toys for Lucas, but he seems to enjoy junk just as much as real toys, if not more. Some of Lucas' favorite things are boxes, dirty diapers (we don't let him play with these on purpose, but they seem to be what he most desires), pots and pans, measuring spoons, cell phones, and anything else he can bang on the tile to make loud noises. One of his most expensive toys is the vacuum. It's a Filter Queen like the ones I used to sell to people for a couple grand when we were living in Utah. He loves to push it around and play with all the parts. Oh, and his most expensive toy is my ring box -- with my wedding ring inside it makes a great rattle. When Lucas isn't chewing, shaking, or banging these toys, he's probably throwing them down the stairs.

Aside from making noise, Lucas also loves to open and close doors and drawers. He loves to play with the new TV stand with a couple doors and drawers, or he will spend a long time opening and closing the only cabinet that isn't locked in the kitchen. He likes to empty all the contents, bang them on the tile, perhaps crawl in the cabinet, and then move on to something else...

Something like the broiler drawer, for example. He discovered this fun toy just a few days ago and has been driving me insane ever since. Lucas likes to open the drawer, put some toys inside it and then climb in the drawer himself. Tonight he actually tried to push the drawer around the kitchen, but I would have none of that.

I think Lucas' favorite weird toy is the fireplace. Yes, the place where most people have real logs, fake logs, candles, or some rod iron thing (to hold said logs). Well, we had to take the rod iron thing out so Lucas wouldn't clobber himself. The kid has always had a fascination with the fireplace, but this past week he started climbing all the way inside the fireplace with a couple toys. Then he just crawls in and out over and over. I'm trying to teach him to come out feet first, but he prefers to come out head first, so sometimes we have a head bonk, but nothing too major.

I thought Lucas deserved his own song for his creativity with his "toys" so we wrote this little ditty to the tune of "My Favorite Things." I encourage you to sing along.

Lucas' Favorite Things

Sucking on noses and red oven mittens
Everything that I touch soon will be bitten.
Shiny pots and pans that go “Crash! Bang! Ting!”
These are a few of my favorite things

Ugly old boxes that I can go hide in
The shower loofah - I find it excitin’
That dirty diaper - it made my bum sting
These are a few of my favorite things

The vacuum cleaner – I love the attachments
Throw them down the stairs to my mommy’s laments
Bang things on tile and make a few dings
These are a few of my favorite things

When I can’t play
In the fridge or
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad

Lucas' First Date

A couple weekends ago we went out to dinner with our friends Wendy & Blair Jones, and Tanner & Danielle Clark, with their daughter, Addison. She is just about a month younger than Lucas, and it was their first date.

They looked really cute sitting together in their highchairs, eating off the gross table. They kind of stared at each other and Lucas tried to grab at Addison - he was very interested in her pretty flower on her head. I'm sure he wanted to take it off and suck on it or something. While the rest of us dined on meat and potatoes, Addison and Lucas had a delicious meal of baby food, cheerios, raisins, and free rolls from the restaurant.

After a while Lucas got a little too grabby with Addison, so she had to move closer to her dad. But, overall I think it was a good first date.

Above is a photo of the cute couple. Lucas is in the middle of a smack. He's probably got a mouth full of raisins. Mmmm.

Our weekend with Mom and Carrie

My mom and sister, Carrie, came in for the weekend. Carrie's kids were in Buffalo, so she was free to have an adventure of her own, and of course I made my mom come too. They flew on USAir with Carrie's flight benefits, but had a long day with a three hour layover in Phoenix. Finally they made it in Thursday night at 11:00.
On Friday we got up bright and early and took Ben to work at 8:00 so we could walk at Town Lake. I hadn't been to Town Lake in a couple months and due to all the recent rain, it was totally flooded. Here is a picture of part of the trail as it normally looks. Now it is flooded here and the little ditch that leads off to the left is full of water.

At one point we made it down to the trail to look at the flooding and my dad called the cell phone. While my mom was talking to him on the phone we looked over to our right and saw a huge group of guys running through the water on the flooded path. GROSS! We watched with amazement as they got closer. They were running in a big line, two guys per row, and they were hanging onto a rope in the middle. Each guy was shirtless and wearing little blue shorts. At first I thought it could be some sort of fraternity hazing, but then realized that most frat boys did not have six pack abs, but rather had beer guts from drinking six packs. These guys were all in way too good of shape to be frat boys. When they got up to the the dry part of the trail we realized they were ROTC boys when they started their little chants. On behalf of Carrie, my mom, and me, I would like to thank the UT ROTC for running last Friday. My only regrets are 1) that I didn't keep my sunglasses on so they couldn't see me staring, and 2) that I didn't take a picture with my phone.

The rest of our walk was just lovely. Since I moved here last year I have wanted to walk on Town Lake with my mom and sister because we always used to walk in ABQ, so I accomplished my year-long dream.

Friday afternoon our big adventure was to go to Costco. It was fun because Lucas got to eat all the samples too, which kept him quiet. Carrie and I were harassed by Costco's fish guy, who was laughing at Lucas because he's so cute. His name was Darryl and I thought Lucas was going to cry because of his loud laugh, but Lucas was so perplexed that this guy had a hair net on his beard that he just stared at him. Then Darryl asked us if we were sisters and said we must have really good looking parents because "fruit don't fall far from the tree." We tried to get away, but he kept talking and talking. When my mom met up with us again he came and made sure to compliment her on her beauty as well as that of her fruit. Thanks, Darryl.

Friday night we headed downtown after another nap time to pick up Ben. We went to Iron Works for BBQ, which was really yummy. Ben informed us that he had to do some work at 10:00 that night at a printer in South Austin (Ben has been working insane hours lately - poor Ben), so he would drop us off and head out again. BUT, on the way home we decided to go bid farewell to Lady Bird Johnson at the LBJ Library at UT. After all, how often do you get the opportunity to do something like that? So, off we went to UT. The library and campus was beautiful. We basically went into the library, which is kind of like a museum, waited in a line while looking at pictures. Then went up some big stairs to where the casket was, turned around and walked down the stairs. My mom and sister talked to one of the ladies in the library and she said everything from LBJ's presidency was in that library. If you wrote a letter to LBJ, you could find it there.

After that, it was too late to take us home, so we went with Ben to his appointment. What was supposed to be 20 mins, turned into an hour, and we were home by 11:30. Luckily, Lucas slept in the car the whole time. Carrie and I attempted to play frisbee in the parking lot, but her sorry excuse for a frisbee didn't work, so instead we did some lunges and kick boxing exercises she learned, while my mom talked on the phone to our cousin.

Saturday morning Ben had to go to work again. We spent the morning being lazy. When he got home we left him with Lucas and headed to the outlets in Round Rock. We were kind of rushed, but managed to find Carrie a couple pairs of pants for work, as well as some shorts for me.

When we got home we discovered that Ben had built a "play time facility" for Lucas. He taped three huge boxes together to make a barrier, so Lucas couldn't escape the room. Ben was exhausted and it's really hard to keep Lucas from crawling up the stairs, eating the curtains, crawling into the fireplace, banging on the TV, or eating fiberglass from under the fridge, so he came up with his own solution.
Here is a video of Lucas playing in it on Sunday:


Saturday night we didn't do much. Mom and Carrie had to leave early Sunday morning, which was sad. Two days just isn't enough, but it's better than nothing! Here's the only picture we took while they were in town. Next time we'll have to do better.

Thanks for the fun time, girls!

Kali, the dog

A couple weekends ago we watched a dog for Ben's coworker. I wasn't too excited about the whole idea of having a kid and a dog, but how could I refuse a dog who needed a place to stay?
Kali arrived Thursday during lunch time and immediately took to licking Lucas' dirty hands and the food off the floor. The great thing about having a dog is that she cleans the floor when the baby throws his food on the tile. The bad thing about having a dog is that she licks the baby because he generally tastes just as good as the floor.

Overall, Kali was a very good dog. She dug a few holes in the back yard and scratched the back door, but she was very sweet to Lucas. No matter how often Lucas pulled on her tail or ears, she never even let out a growl. It was also nice to have a dog follow me around the house, sleep at the side of my bed, and generally love me, but at this point I don't think all that affection is worth the work.


Here's a little video of Lucas and Kali:

Swimming with Lucas

Over the past couple of weeks I've managed to take Lucas to the pool a few times. Sometimes he has a good swim, and sometimes a bad swim. This past Saturday Ben finally made it to the pool with us to see Lucas swim. Lucas wasn't as excited to be there as we had hoped, but we got a cute picture of him at least. The hat he's wearing (thanks, Margaret) is a toddler size... and he's only 10 months. Poor big-headed baby.

Here's a video of Lucas making fun noises with his new found mouth skills.