I’m still playing catch up and feeling pulled in a dozen directions. I still haven’t resolved my Photoshop, OS, internet problems.

I’m working with a trial version of Photoshop right now. So, yay…for um 26 more days. Then, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I had decided to buy it but now I’m waffling again and thinking I’ll just go back to my old OS.

And on the internet front, we traded in the crap router for a different router. The headaches aren’t gone though. We might have another crap router. My internet is working fast but sometimes not at all, like we get kicked off even though I’m directly connected through the ethernet and wireless.

And when it’s fast it doesn’t work on Alan’s laptop at all. Yikes. Does it have to do with him on Windows and me on a Mac?!

But anyhoo, that’s not what I wanted to talk about. There’s a reason for my post today: catch up. Last week, actually over a week ago on the 12th, Alan turned 36!! And we surprised him. Sort of.

Alan says I suck at surprises. Well, this year I only half sucked. On the night before Alan’s birthday, me and Isabelle started making Alan a cake. Of course it was no surprise what we were doing in the kitchen. But I said we were making cookies. Yeah right. Cookies.

So, at midnight we had yummy caramel cake. It was yum yum!! I didn’t follow the directions to the letter though because I was missing some ingredients. I substituted buttermilk with some milk and lemon. And the corn syrup with honey. Alan thought the cake was delicious even though he could taste the honey and doesn’t usually like honey. We ate it all!

Then in the morning, while Alan was still asleep, me and Isabelle decorated the living room. A few days before we had thumbprinted some wrapping paper.

And a card. See, that’s Nathan’s thumprint (all smooshy because it’s hard getting a good print with a squirmy baby), Isabelle’s, and mine.

So, I took that idea and scanned in our thumbprints, enlarged them, and printed out maybe 20 pages of our thumprints to make garlands.

And I had cut out a “HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALAN” garland. So, see, this part of the surprise was actually a surprise. Alan had no idea we had made all this stuff.

So, that morning, I attempted to hang it all up. Only, I couldn’t find our push pins. I know we have an entire box of them but they were hiding. So, I used tape. Big mistake. I started with the happy birthday garland. It kept falling repeatedly. And I insanely kept taping it up over and over again. With more tape each time. It finally stuck.

After that we moved onto taping up the thumbprints. That only fell once. Then as we were working on getting more thumbprints onto a string, the happy birthday garland fell! It fell right in front of where I had laid Nathan down. He’d been watching us hanging and making things with great interest so when the garland fell right in front of him, he made a wild grab for it. He immediately stuffed the N into his little mouth and wouldn’t let go.

So, it’s a little smooshed but I love that N now.

It was a pathetic sight, garlands falling and me trying to restick them. It was plain ridiculous. But I kept going and Isabelle must have realized the insanity because she went to wake daddy up. Surprise daddy!

Alan was groggy but he helped find a few push pins and yay two entire garlands up. I have a big stack of untouched thumbprints. I am a goober.

Then Alan opened his presents: a video game and Isabelle’s handprint in clay.

The handprint in clay was not a surprise. After Isabelle painted it, I had put it into the entertainment center to dry. Alan rarely goes in there. But he later told me that he had found it earlier in the week. D’oh!

So, that was really all of the festivities. Alan said he didn’t want to go anywhere, it was a rainy day. So, here we are. My Alan at 36 and Isabelle at exactly 4 and a half. It was her half birthday. And Nathan, almost 6 months.

We’ve had warm weather lately. Today it was in the 70s. So, why am I talking about a snow hat? Because when I made this little hat and took this picture, a month ago, it was cold. And it made perfect sense then.

I didn’t realize I was so very behind on pictures. That’s ok. Moving on.

Isabelle loves her little snow hat.

I was thinking of making Nathan one. But ummm that was a month ago and it’s a little warm now. Oh well…moving on.

Still playing catch up. Took these last week.

And awww look who’s sitting up all by himself. This was two days ago. Gotta squeeze in the new stuff too.

Sitting up for over a minute video on Flickr

Well sat up all by himself for all of a couple of minutes.

I’m still working through older pictures. These was taken a little over two weeks ago.

And I’m thinking it must have shrunk. It just has to have shrunk from when Isabelle wore it. She was a little over a year old here:

I mean I know Nathan is big but he’s not that big, right?!

I’m not a big fan of Star Wars. Blasphemy?

But I do think these Star Wars mini amigurumi patterns are pretty brilliant. I only drew two characters. It’s actually a pattern for ten characters but you get the idea.

I think the ewok is my favorite. So why didn’t I draw that one? Nathan is fussing on my lap. I just quickly drew those random two.