I don't have a drop of Irish blood in my veins and Gavin has little to none as well, but that doesn't mean we don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day with yummy food! On Saturday, I baked "green velvet" cupcakes with cream cheese icing. I never thought I'd ever make a cake batter that was the same color as my mixer...

I made both regular and mini cupcakes, and hired my wonderful helper to spread the icing...

I gave Gavin one cupcake and a bowl of icing for a trial run...

So far, so good...

He was satisfied with his application of icing on the first cupcake so I gave him a mini cupcake to work on next...

Wait a second! This step wasn't part of your instructions, Mr. Highsmith!

No, this was definitely not part of the plan! Icing first! Eat later!

Why am I not surprised that a toddler doesn't understand that process?

I gave him one more mini cupcake and he promptly ate that one, too, after spreading a little icing on top. Then I fired him.

I went downstairs to raid the kitchen for an afternoon snack today and caught a glimpse of this outside:

Our grass was in terrible shape when we moved in last May. Jeff fixed it up pretty nice, but winter turned it into a mess of weeds and moss again. So, father and son spent some time fixing it up, plucking dandelions, and picking moss by the handful.

Gavin picked moss for an hour. An HOUR! Such a good little helper, than son of ours. He'd rip a handful from the ground and dump it into the bucket over and over again.

Mommy, of course, had to take over a dozen pictures of mundane manly housework. They were just so darn cute working together side-by-side that I couldn't resist!

Oops! I've been spotted!

Sorry, folks. He's not for hire. He's mine!

It's beginning to look a lot like Spring: the air is warming up, tiny buds are growing on tree limbs, and Gavin wore a t-shirt today for the first time this year! Of course, I thought this exceedingly monumental occasion was a great excuse to take a ridiculous number of pictures of my son.

I returned home from a morning walk to find Gavin and Daddy sitting on the front porch. "Aw, Gavin was so excited for me to return home that he had to wait for me outside," I thought. No, Daddy quickly explained that they'd been reading a book with the picture of a garbage truck, so Gavin had to wait for one outside, still not understanding that the garbage truck only drives through our neighborhood once a week and not on Fridays.

Today was still pretty exciting, though. Although Gavin doesn't mind the cold weather at all or being required to bundle up layers upon layers of shirts and coats, it's quite liberating to explore the yard wearing just a simple t-shirt.

When Gmummy arrived to play for the day while Mommy and Daddy worked, he knew exactly who to give his flower to...

Having dirtied his hands in weeds and wood chips, how does a fastidious two-year-old clean up? By wiping his hands on his shirt, of course.

This is the expression I usually get when I'm conspicuous and Gavin doesn't want his picture taken...

He still has the same "trapezoid mouth" that reminds me of his infant days...

Weekends have turned into Mommy-and-Gavin time lately. Daddy has been working most weekends and the 10:00-6:00 schedule he's been assigned lately has allowed us to drop him off at work and keep the car for the day. Whenever Jeff works a shift that ends with store closing at 9:00, we're stranded at home without the car since Gavin is already fast asleep by the time we'd need to pick him up.

We don't usually do anything too exciting on the weekends. There is always the weekly Harris Teeter grocery shopping trip and this weekend, we also went to Earthfare for our monthly stocking up of organic staples (heaven help us if we ever ran out of toddler cereal bars!). Last weekend, we were able to stop by the library for Rhyme Time. Gavin attends at least one of the many weekday sessions every week, but there are only two Saturday sessions a month. Playgrounds are usually off-limits because they're too crowded when the weather is nice. No matter what we end up doing, however mundane it may seem, I just enjoy the mommy-and-son time that makes me so jealous of stay-at-home moms!

In addition to the usual shopping trips this weekend and a lot of reading at home, we went for a walk in Aunt Kristen's neighborhood on a beautiful, cool Saturday afternoon. Gmummy came, too, and we stopped at a new gelato and pastry shop during our walk. Gavin and I shared a dish of chocolate hazelnut gelato. The first bite of cold, creamy goodness caught him off-guard but he quickly dug right in and was soon oblivious to his surroundings as he helped me devour the bowl!

I had to eat fast before Gavin devoured the entire bowl...

Gavin was so engrossed in gelato consumption that he barely noticed Gmummy snapping away with the camera. Don't you be getting any ideas like stealing my gelato, Gmummy!

Even more exciting pictures of Gavin eating. How do you stand the excitement of some of these blog entries?

At home, I tried a brief photo shoot. I need practice taking pictures of active toddlers who don't sit still long enough for me to focus the camera and don't like having their picture taken. Fortunately, I have a subject that exhibits those exact qualities in my very own home.

Don't let these images fool you. This kid does not like his picture taken anymore. All of these photos were taken during a noncontiguous 7.38-second time period in between grunts, frowns, and turned backs.

Gavin agreed to reluctantly pose for this snapshot only after I showed him a picture I'd just taken on the LCD screen of my camera. The kid loves seeing pictures of himself. I'll jot that tip down in my photography notepad. It only worked for one round of several shots but at least he cooperated for a few seconds!

I was so desperate that I even tried the old cliched, "Smile!" which goes against my photography philosophy. This is the face I get as a result. Note to self: Never as a child to "smile" or "say cheese."

Then, he just started getting goofy. Gavin likes contorting his mouth, showing his teeth, sticking out his tongue, etc. Perhaps if we stopped laughing at him when he does these things, he'd stop doing them but he's always being the comedian trying to please his audience.

One of the few "bump progress" photos taken while Gavin was growing in my belly was snapped at 32 weeks which is how far along I currently am with Baby Brother. I thought it would be interesting to see a comparison of both bellies during the same week of pregnancy while wearing the same outfit. My belly measures the same size (31-32 centimeters) at the time both pictures were taken and I weigh the same overall, give or take a pound, in both as well (this pregnancy sure feels like deja vu in most ways!).

October 24, 2007 - 32 weeks pregnant with Gavin:

March 6, 2010 - 32 weeks pregnant with Baby Brother

The shirts seem to have stretched out a little in the past 2 1/2 years! I'm not wearing the necklace in the second photo because the baby in the belly of the first photo broke it about a year after that picture was taken!