Scary Blaise

The night before my Dad left Blaise had a good time "scaring" him before going to bed.

2 Months!

The Unveiling

My Mom has always enjoyed baking and making my birthday (and wedding!) cakes.  We have given her the honor of baking Blaise's two birthday cakes.  Last year's was a fish based on his love of swimmy fish and this year's was Elmo based on his new found love of the little red monster.  She is very methodical in her ways and it shows in the outcome.

Those of you interested in children's birthday cakes in Germany, I can highly recommend the online service of Backformenladen.  Not that it is impossible to find cake pans here, but the selection leaves something to be desired.  Backformenladen has (at least what seems like) hundreds of pans for many occasions available for rent (also some to purchase).  The price is fair and I liked the idea of renting so that I don't end up with 40 pans by the time my kids move out (less stuff!).  I found them very easy to deal with and accommodating.  They ship cake paraphernalia (food coloring, icing, baking soda, etc.) along with the pan and you pay for whatever you use.  We actually didn't use this service, but it was good backup should we have run out of something (which we almost did - Elmo's fur needed a lot of coloring!).

Birthday Tunes

Clarification

There seems to be some confusion about the new photography project that I started.  The deal is that I am committing to posting one photo a day on a new blog.  In order to make it more straightforward I added a button - the "One a Day" button - funny?  All you need to do is click that button and it will take you there.  Hope you enjoy!!

Birthday Cupcake

My mom made cupcakes so that we could sing happy birthday to Blaise the morning of his actual birthday. We practiced a few times how to blow out the candle so that he is ready for the big party on Saturday. I think he's got it down now - he kept pointing to the candle and saying "mo'".

How is he two years old already?

 

Have some cupcake, Kate

Blaise imitating his sister - "Baby ääh" he says

Blaise's Words at 2 years

in random order, possibly incomplete - german words in red

He can sometimes repeat words, like "normal," but these are the words he uses independently.

Mommy/Mama
Daddy/Papa
auto
no
nein
paw
hi
owl
elbow
arm
eye
hammer
Babi
two
ball
eine
more
baby
down
up
po
poo
knee
ein
pumpkin
corn
Elmo
bye
Hai
snow
yummy
cow

A Shelving We Will Go

Those of you who have known me long enough might remember the shelves in my bedroom in my parents' house.  My Dad built the shelves when I was quite small and I enjoyed them throughout my childhood.  Since my parents were going to be visiting for a chunk of time, we asked my Dad to build some shelves for Blaise.  Just before Christmas Jan and my Dad spent an afternoon planning and measuring and buying wood and drilling and re-measuring and admiring.  Blaise had a great time moving pieces of wood around, hammering the work-in-progress and just helping in general.

On a photography note, I have been disturbed by the red tones in the pictures I've taken in the evenings.  I'd read something about white balance, but didn't really understand what that meant so I ignored it.  After looking at pictures from this evening, Jan mentioned the white balance.  It took me less than five minutes to google and change the setting on my camera.  Not trying to give the impression I actually understand the whole concept now, but there is a definite improvement in the coloring with the auto white balance setting.  Next step is figuring out how to set it manually, for which I'll need a grey card.  Recommendations, anyone?

Witness red toned pictures:

Blaise hammered Daddy on the head!

Witness the not so red toned pictures (admittedly taken the next morning):

Finished product taken with my point and shoot because I don't have a wide enough lens on the DSLR

Thanks for the shelves, Grandpa!  Blaise loves them! (and so do we!)