my baum shelter

At some point during each night, babyBaum kicks his feet in his sleep. Sometimes, he looks like he’s doing bicycle exercises in the air. Other times, he’s at the side of the crib and kicks the slats of the crib while somehow not managing to wake himself.

Tonight, about 30 minutes after going to bed, babyBaum screamed out in pain. I ran into his room and found him with one leg stuck very firmly between two of the slats. Now, just to give you an idea of the acrobats needed to achieve such a feat in one’s sleep, it took me several minutes of twisting and turning at exactly the right angles to get the leg free. Luckily, a few minutes with Mama in the rocking chair was all it took for him to slip back into slumberland.

Not much time to post today but I wanted to share a friend’s new blog. My friend Sarah, of the Homestead Farms I’ve talked about before, has started a blog that I think is well worth your time to read. I’ve heard a lot of her stories in person and we have fallen in love with Farmer Michael and his wife at our house – and not just because they provide us with such good food. She’s a suburban girl who fell in love with a farmer and now finds herself with plenty of entertaining material about life on a farm.

Just a few days ago, she walked into the food pantry at our church where we volunteer together and says, “It’s been one of those mornings – stuck in traffic for 2 hours and now, I find poop on my jeans.” I then informed the man standing behind her with a horrified look on his face, “Don’t worry – she lives on a farm. It’s goat poop.”

On a completely unrelated, random note . . . I just finished an amazing conversation with one of my dearest friends. Her husband recently passed at far too young of an age and she, far too young to be a widow, is left to single-handedly raise their five children and take over the family business. How’s that for gaining some perspective on your life? Saying my piddly complaints pale in comparison seems too generous. Anyway, at some points in our talk, we laughed so hard it hurt and I was struck by how great it is to have people in your life who really know you and know your heart inside and out. The people you can laugh with even in the midst of tragedy. The people you need in your life especially when tragedy strikes because you need to laugh so hard it hurts. I love you, HB.

I’m too exhausted to post much right now. babyBaum was diagnosed with an ear infection today – this makes four infections in the last six months. And, that means we must go see an ear specialist and discuss the possibility of getting tubes put into his ears. I would rather my little baby boy not have to undergo surgery, but we will just have to see what the ENT recommends.

In the meantime, here is my precious baby. I swear he is cuter when he is sick.

For awhile, he played along with me as I took pictures of him. I’m still trying to figure everything out on my new camera.

Did I mention that babyBaum is also cutting some new teeth (hence the inordinate amount of drool)? Poor baby, he just can’t catch a break.

I love the fact that a 103° fever doesn’t keep my baby from dancing his little heart out.

I then turned the Auto setting off and played around – I really like how these turned out. Not that I understand exactly what I did, mind you.

These last pictures remind me of a line from a song I sing to babyBaum ~ little sack of sugar, gonna eat you up

So, now that our dear babyBaum is ONE YEAR OLD, he has gained some attitude. It seems someone wants us to know that he is not a baby anymore.

In the days leading up to his birthday, he developed a penchant for greeting people with a scrunched up nose and a scowl  — that usually is quickly followed by a grin and a laugh. But, it’s like he wants to show he has a tough side, too, and isn’t just another pretty baby face. I’ve yet to successfully catch this face on camera, but I continue trying.

Today, though, he started doing something completely new and baffling to us and we caught it on video. I present for your viewing pleasure our little Incredible Hulk ~

Fast Tube by Casper

He will grab a piece of food or toy and try to squeeze the life out of it while shaking his entire body furiously. It’s hysterical. Everytime he does it, Fred and I crack up laughing which only causes him to do it over and over again.

I’m not sure whether this is an omen of things to come, but it sure is entertaining!

For babyBaum’s birthday, we decided to have a family-only birthday celebration. With just family, we had 14 adults and 6 children and our house is not that large so it would have been difficult to include any more than we already had.

One of my favorite parts of the birthday bash was our photo booth. I bought a couple of yards of red and white striped fabric and hung it on the wall with thumbtacks as our backdrop. I then purchased a couple dozen foam clown noses here.  We tried to get a picture of babyBaum with all our guests – tried being the operative word. He was cooperative for the first two photos; however, he decided he’d had enough of the clown nose after that. Somehow, we managed to not get a photo with me and Fred, so we’ll have to try and get one with the three of us the next time we have someone here. All the photos from our “photo booth” are at the end of the post.

The clown noses ended up being quite entertaining for the young ones. I was very impressed with their creativity . . . 

 babyBaum’s cousins even made him a headband made of clown noses!

 Since I had no idea we could get by with a few foam clown noses as entertainment, we also had a genuine Bozo the Clown Bucket Bonanza game (that I got on clearance for $9.99) and we gave all the kids circus tattoos.

 This niece requested and received the most tats of all – on her hands, arms, legs, and feet. Maybe she’ll grow up to be a biker girl? I’m pretty sure her parents are hoping not.

All in all, it was a very fun get-together and worth all the effort that went into its planning. It was even worth the jokes from my brother Chad who constantly tells me that I have too much free time on my hands and need to go back to working full time. I then gloated and told him the cost of this birthday bash was 1/5 of the amount of money he forked over at the bouncy ball place for my nephew’s last birthday party. Sometimes, being crafty pays off!

Below are all our photos from the “photo booth” -

I will admit it – I went all out for babyBaum’s first birthday party. I was a crafting machine and, as is usually the case when I attempt anything creative, some of the crafts far surpassed my expectations and some were just plain failures. But, I had a lot of fun planning and creating and then celebrating amidst my crafts. Fred and I had made it ONE YEAR.

So, first the scene. I decided on a circus theme and from there decided on red and turquoise as my main colors. Because, you know, color scheme matters. For the decorations, I decided on making tissue paper chandeliers, a paper flag bunting banner, and labels for the popcorn, water bottles and cotton candy with a fun circus font.

 The tissue paper flowers were ridiculously easy to make. Really – it’s become one of my new favorite crafts because it takes all of 25¢ and 20 minutes to make one of these really pretty chandeliers that look like they took way more than a quarter and 20 minutes to make. I followed these directions from the Queen of Crafts herself, Ms. Martha Stewart. I also used her directions to make the flag bunting, which would’ve turned out a little better if I had paid any attention to measurements. As it turned out, the banner took up one whole length of my living room wall.

For the labels, I downloaded a free circus font from dafont.com. I used round Avery labels for the popcorn and cotton candy and just plain paper and double sided tape for the water bottles. This was so very easy to do – the only time consuming part was figuring out dimensions but I have a Word template now; so, if anyone is interested, let me know and I’ll send it to you. I used the standard size 16.9 oz water bottles (these were from Costco). For the popcorn buckets, I used these from Wilton.

For the food, we had standard party fare ~ sandwiches, veggie tray, fruit and cheese tray, spinach dip. And, then we had our circus birthday party fare – popcorn, cotton candy, cupcakes, cake balls, cake pops, and, of course, animal crackers.

Most of the work for this party went into the baking. My friend Barbara first introduced me to the world of cake balls. Delicious bite-sized balls of cake dipped in chocolate. I love them very much. Then, the Pioneer Woman introduced me to Bakerella and my eyes were opened up to a whole new world of baking possibilities that included not only cake balls, but cake pops. A bite-sized ball of cake on a lollipop stick? Count me in!  So, with that inspiration, I decided to embark and make some cake balls and cake pops and even make some cake pops in the shape of circus tents. The circus tent ones did not turn out so well – you can see them there in the picture. But, they all tasted great, which in the end, is all that matters when it comes to dessert, right? I also made some cupcakes and an individual cake for the birthday boy.

We had too many people to fit in our tiny kitchen, so we laid down a sheet, dressed babyBaum in his pj’s, and let him go to town. It took him awhile to realize what was before him, but once he did, he was more than happy to dig in.

Stay tuned for part 2 of the Birthday Bash – circus games, clown noses, circus tattoos, and our photo booth. I’ll post those later. There’s only so many photos I can upload while babyBaum naps!

As you can see, I’ve decided to change the design of the blog. I like the cleaner, simpler format – hopefully, you will, too.

The biggest change is our little babyBaum turned ONE YEAR OLD this Saturday. I’m working on getting up all the pictures from his birthday party. Until then, this obligatory laden-with-frosting picture will have to tide you over.

And, in the middle of eating his cake, while all eyes were on him, he stood up on his own without holding onto anyone or anything. Just like he’d been doing it forever. And, I really thought he was going to take his first step right then while all eyes were on him. But, then, after a moment, he decided it was better to be closer to the cake, so back down to the floor he went. And, ever since his party, about once every ten minutes he stands up without any assistance, looks at me with a smile, picks up one foot, leans slightly forward, then collapses back down to the ground with an even bigger smile. He knows we’re waiting and he’s just messing with us now.

The biggest change (and one we dreaded the most) was the taking away of the bottle and switching to milk. We received so many good pieces of advice on this and I felt like we were armed with many ideas to try if things got difficult. In the end, we decided to put all the bottles out of sight and just go for it. And you know what? Miraculously, the world kept spinning on its axis. Seriously, though, it was a whole lot of angst over nothing. So far, anyway. I mean, it’s only been three days since the switch, so it may be a bit premature to claim success.

We started offering him a sippy cup with milk at meal times and he takes it, no questions asked. Bedtime was our biggest fear, but he’s gone down with just as much ease as he normally does. Not that he’s ever gone down with a whole lot of ease, but we’ve stayed at status quo and to us that screams, VICTORY! Several friends and family members told me that one-year was not a magical date and it was okay if I wanted to hold onto the bottle a little longer. And, I know moms are supposed to miss the feeding time and giving their baby a bottle, but if I’m completely honest, I’m just not one of those moms. I cannot tell you how glad I am to finally have bottles and formula out of our lives. Now, I can still cuddle and snuggle with my little one but I don’t have to take apart and wash bottles every evening. That’s a win-win in my book.

We also decided to give him goat’s milk made by our friends Michael and Sarah at their farm, Homestead Farms in Keller. Goat’s milk is closer to human milk than cow’s milk and much easier to digest but the more compelling reasons for going with goat’s milk is we know exactly where the milk comes from, how well the animals are treated (babyBaum has even met a few of the goats), and we get the chance to support independent farming and good friends. And, most importantly, babyBaum loves it!

Hopefully, I’ll have the party post up later tonight or tomorrow.