Anyway I found some outer space pancake molds at Williams and Sonoma and couldn’t resist buying them. They said “easy to clean!” and “nonstick”! Not so much.

I’m sure they would be super cute if I ever could get them out of the mold. Oh and I know what you are thinking. I used to much batter, yes? Well I tried it three more times, with a minuscule amount of batter and no such luck. Maybe I can hang the molds on the wall as decoration.

I wanted to share some of the books we found! I checked and I believe all of these are still in publication, or at least can be found on amazon if you want to buy…or at the library when we return them!

Two eggs is a great book that teaches that things can be different and the same. It has great illustrations from Betsy Lewin (I love her Click Clack illustrations).

This one I liked because it not only has a whole spectrum of colors discussed they are placed with different elements in a cultural setting, so it teaches elements of a different culture while showing you the colors.

This one teaches numbers, and the benefits of helping. Plus it has cooking and a birthday surprise at the end which our little cupcake loved. He is REALLY into birthdays and parties right now…(He also loves If You Give a Pig a Party)

This (in my opinion and to my knowledge) is probably a lesser known Eric Carle book. However, Super A LOVES it…we have already renewed it once. It has great cloud shape pictures that are easy to point out and it has an airplane and a bunny which are two favorites in our household.

This book was actually a gift from Granna and Papa, but if you love the illustrations from Two Eggs, this is the same illustrator. It is also a great book for learning counting.

And this was a recent gift for Super A from Grandpa and Nana. I had completely forgotten about this book even though there are copies at all the grandparents’ houses. It’s a great catch all for word association with pictures!

There is actually a copy of Sheep in a Jeep at my parents’ house, but we don’t have a copy so we checked it out from the library. Super A finds this book hilarious for some reason, he giggles through a good part of it!

Happy Summer Reading!

]]> http://cupcakesandcommentary.com/summer-reading/feed/ 0 http://cupcakesandcommentary.com/and-now-for-some-complete-randomness/ http://cupcakesandcommentary.com/and-now-for-some-complete-randomness/#comments Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:43:20 +0000 Cupcakes http://cupcakesandcommentary.com/?p=1512 I was SERIOUSLY excited when I saw the following soda in the check-out line at Target…

When did they decide to bring back Squirt? I wonder if those Koala sodas I used to drink in Texas will surface next….

Lately Super A has been really busy working on his computer…

Hard at work updating his blog.

How do you spell tomato? Oh that’s right…”pah-toe-toe”

“Yeah! Someone left a comment on my post!”

I think the light needed to be behind me more…and this was pretty close to noon which Erin said was not a good idea. I did love the look on Super A’s face though!

This one was around 3 p.m. near our front window that gets quite a bit of light. There still seemed to be some shadows, I don’t think I was getting enough light from above.

My aha moment…I asked him to look up at me, this was late, late afternoon and I could finally start to see the light capturing correctly.

Three out of four people looking at the camera is what we call “the best picture ever!”

Opening Presents

Running off to do his nails

Taking the card

A little late afternoon reading

When I was thinking about the “different” shots I first tried different angles of our little cupcake.

My result was a little bit too much of a fishbowl effect…and not really different than other pictures I had taken before.

Later as I was getting ready for work, and our little cupcake was sitting on the counter helping me get ready, I realized I hadn’t taken a picture of him sitting on the counter helping me get ready before.

We have a routine where I do my hair while he sorts through all of my make-up brushes. I set him down on the floor and then we went to grab my camera. I placed him back up on the counter and got ready to take his picture, but then I realized what would be really different is a picture that actually has me in it. One of the things about having a first born is you try to capture everything they do and I don’t want him to look back at all of his pictures and it looks like he lived alone!

I placed him back down on the floor and then tried to figure out where I could safely put the camera to take a timer picture. The linen closet seemed to be the best spot. I placed it, turned the timer on, and quickly placed my little helper back on the counter right before it took the shot. I know that my best pictures happen serendipitously because this is what I found when I had time to check the pictures later…

(Yes I did remember to take the camera out of the linen closet.)

To this…

As I was doing my daily blog catch-up after I finished lesson plans (haha), I was excited to see that Natalie from Natalie’s Sentiments is doing her Mother’s Day giveaway. And it includes a giveaway from the cupcake tree, a shop on Etsy. You really can’t get away from cupcakes can you? Or maybe just I can’t!

In addition to all of the other products Natalie is giving away copies of Rebecca Wells’ new book. Rebecca Wells wrote Little Altars Everywhere and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. I happen to have some insider knowledge (wink, wink ) on the family that Wells bases her books upon, so I always find them interesting reads.  Go check out Natalie’s blog to see all the other products!

]]> http://cupcakesandcommentary.com/a-sprinkle-of-this-a-sprinkle-of-that/feed/ 2 http://cupcakesandcommentary.com/liberty-of-london/ http://cupcakesandcommentary.com/liberty-of-london/#comments Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:57:27 +0000 Cupcakes http://cupcakesandcommentary.com/?p=1058 I have literally been waiting months for the new collection that Target has brought to its stores. It is called Liberty of London and obviously it is from London. It’s a complete collection from clothes to home decor…what I love about it is that they specialize in actually making textiles (not just creating collections, but also designing fabrics). Much of their products look similar to items that you find at Anthropologie, etc., but at a much more reasonable price! Almost all of their home decor has already sold out on-line, but I’m sure you can still find some things at your local Target. They are supposed to be continuing to get more things in stock coming soon. I am hoping that it is popular enough that they will decide to carry the brand longer than their usual month or so. Here are some of my favorites of their products!