The rest of my vacation recap with a ton of photos

Evan was not happy this morning when I woke him up to head out the door.  He's gotten to sleep in for three whole weeks and today it was back to a 6 am wake-up call.  First he had a week at another daycare, but that place didn't open up until 7:30am so I let him sleep in and when he woke up I brought him over there.  Then I was on vacation for a week so we both got to sleep in, and then my husband had to take a week off for his cataract surgery so he got to sleep in some more.  When I woke him up to change his diaper and brush his teeth (since he still nurses at night I am very diligent about brushing his teeth the second he wakes up), he kept saying "night night".  I felt badly, but hopefully he'll go back to bed at my sister's.  He's been going through a bit of separation anxiety and cries (or screams) when you drop him off - so not sure if that is conducive to falling asleep.  We'll see.

So, what else did I do on my vacation?  Besides sit home and watch TV?  Actually, there wasn't as much TV watching as I'd like because I don't like to watch TV when Evan's awake and he's awake most of the day.  I did catch up on Parenthood (it was the season finale already????), NCIS, Believe, and The Voice though.  And I got in a bunch of 19 Kids and Counting, my new Netflix obsession.  

Aside from that, I decorated a wedding cake for my co-worker.  I alluded to it yesterday.  I worked on it for about a week.  I started with molding the chocolates into seashells.  This was easy but you could only do so many at a time, so it took a while.  I ended up making way more than I needed, but I put them in goodie bags and gave them away at the shower.  I then bought "mini" Adirondack chairs and a picket fence.  The chairs turned out to be way less mini than I had envisioned.  They said "garden fairy gnomes" but I guess garden fairy gnomes are a lot bigger than I imagined.  I then had to paint the chairs and fence because they were unfinished wood color and didn't look great.  I also got little hearts that I painted and wrote the bride and groom's name on.  Then I finally got started on the cake.  If I am decorating a cake I usually buy the cake mix and then make the frosting, so that is what I did.  I made a 9x13 cake and then a heart shaped cake.  I also made 12 cupcakes because the heart pan only used half a cake mix. Then the next night I frosted it, but a bunch of gold balls around the outside and some brown sugar sand on the top.  I was pretty happy with how it turned out, just sad about the enormous chairs.

Here's the cake in all it's glory!

Not too shabby, right.  Here are the cupcakes.

They also turned out nice.  I was excited and my co-worker loved it, so that was all I wanted.  Now I am on cake hiatus for a bit...making cakes is exhausting, especially the cleanup.

The rest of the week was spent playing with Evan.  He had a ball taking things out and making a mess - like all his numbers.

And all the bowls and pots and pans.  Here is is making soup.  He even has a whisk!

But no worries, most of the time he cleans everything up!

His is obsessed with cleaning supplies these days - vacuums, brushes, brooms, wet paper towels to wipe the floor.  It would be great if this continued into his teenage years, but I am not going to hold my breath.

We also went hiking again, my favorite thing to do.  He loves it also, but he really loves hiking off the trail and walking straight into the woods.  Now that it's getting nice out I am nervous about ticks so I'm going to need to invest in some insect repellent that isn't too toxic.  Any suggestions?

Evan has recently entered the "chase me" stage and thinks it's really fun to stare me down and then take off running in the opposite direction.  It's funny when we are in the woods all by ourselves, not as funny when we are at the grocery store with a million other people.

 
He also still loves trees in all shapes and forms.  He wanted to run up to every tree and touch it (kind of a challenging goal in the woods), and was super excited to see some fallen trunks that he could sit on.

We also spent a lot of time at playgrounds.  It was a gorgeous week (so much sun and beautiful warmth - I was in heaven!!!), so I was more than happy to go outside.  I comprimised with Evan and we'd go for a run to a playground - that way I got a run in and Evan got to play on the slide.  Win win.  This was a little tot lot we came across during our run and it worked out perfectly because it was small and there was no one there.  Just how we like it.

His favorite thing is still the slide.  He just goes down over and over again and even says "weeee", which I think is too cute.

 He also found some Easter eggs in the sand volleyball court.  He had a blast filling them with sand and then dumping the sand out.  I had less fun finding sand all over his body when we got home!

And then my last day of vacation we met my sister in Philadelphia!  She was in town for a work event and we decided to drive up to see her.  It was a beautiful day and so fun to walk around and eat some delicious food.  Here we are at the Irish Memorial - for the tiny bit of Irish blood we have in our bodies.

And this is my favorite picture - the tulips are out in full bloom and if there aren't any deer around to eat them, they looks so beautiful!  

Ok - that is enough of my recap!!  Back to regular scheduled programming in my next post - whatever that is.  Thanks for reading and sorry I was AWOL for so long!!!