ICES Convention - Here I Come!

I leave tomorrow for the ICES Convention in St. Charles, IL! Like always, I'm going to try to participate in the convention in every possible way - go to as many demos as time allows, take hands-on classes, take TONS of photos of the cake gallery, volunteer, and bring a sugar display! Because I'm flying to the convention this year, it's much more difficult to bring a dummy cake. Instead, I made a bridal bouquet made of sugar! I've packed it up as tightly as I can so hopefully (a) they'll let me carry it on the plane and (b) it survives the trip!

The bouquet is made up of pink roses, white stephanotis, pink hydrangea, and yellow & pink calla lilies.

I've been working from home on my dissertation a lot lately. During the day, I write...and at night, I work on cake stuff! I usually move the dining room table into the living room so I can take TV breaks occasionally. Anyway, during the day, Nani constantly wants to sleep in my lap. One night last week, Nani jumped on this chair all by herself...she KNOWS she's not allowed up there, but she did it anyway. It was like she felt like she was entitled to it since it was empty. Please excuse the condition of the living room. If you were ever wondering what it looked like while I worked, now you know! The flowers in the background are the ones I used in the bouquet above.


The best part, though, was when Nani stood on the chair and leaned over to the banister. Check out this photo Adam caught (yes, her open eye is scary...they always turn out like that in photos...oh well!):


Is she seriously winking? She's mischievous alright! But that face is so cute...how could you do anything but laugh???

A Day in the Life

Every weekend, Adam and I devote one morning to cleaning the house. Nani likes to be a part of everything we do so she always "helps." She especially loves when we do the laundry and sweep the floors.

When we do the laundry, she likes to stand in the basket and/or burrow through all the clothes. Here is a photo Adam took a few weeks ago where she was in the middle of searching through some pairs of pants...probably looking for some socks. I am still working on my Photoshop skills. I know I'm horrible at it, but maybe if I keep practicing, I'll get better...eventually. Anyway, I found this cool effect this morning! If you can't see it in the picture, click on it. That should blow it up really big.


Here's a great example of how much she likes to help! She is standing in the basket on top of the clothes while I load them into the washing machine!!

Nani steals socks all the time. She doesn't chew holes in them, just likes to carry them away. Last night, I left two socks on the floor near my shoes. A little while after I put them there, I noticed that one of the socks had been replaced with her bone. Apparently, she felt like we needed to make a trade - a bone for a sock. I guess that's fair enough.

When I sweep the floors, Nani has to check all my little dirt piles to make sure there's not anything in there that she wants to salvage or eat. I normally don't let her root around in it, but as soon as I turn my back, she sneaks over again! Since she's so busy "helping" us clean, she misses her morning nap so she's usually very sleepy later that afternoon. All that work can really wear a girl out!

This Sunday, I took her outside and tied her to the fire hydrant (is that illegal?) while Adam and I washed our cars. She loves being outside and since we don't have a fenced-in backyard, she doesn't get to play out there as much as she'd like. With the combination of being outside and having a yummy bone, she was in heaven! Her face said it all so I grabbed the camera and took a few shots of her:


This picture absolutely cracked me up. Look at that goofy grin!