Saturday recap:

It was a busy weekend. Saturday morning we had Jocelyn’s last soccer game. We all melted into little puddles. Then we went drove over to some air conditioning so the coaches could hand out soccer trophies and the kids could eat cupcakes. Then we went to Target and bought some new pool toys and headed home for lunch and more air conditioning.

When we were ready to brave the heat again, we headed out to Old Town Manassas for their annual train festival.

We heard about it 2 years ago, when we happened to go into town the day AFTER the festival, and then last year we missed it for some reason (probably soccer) so we had it on our calendar and were determined to NOT miss it.

It was hot, and fun. It was under a big pavillion so at least there was shade.

There were about 6 big train layouts and I think Ethan could have stayed there all day.

He didn’t say much, but just kept wandering here and there, eyes never moving from all the trains.

I see lego trains in our future.

Jocelyn was very excited to see one train car with fish in it – She pulled me over to show me, and I was shocked to see that yes, they were real goldfish! We stayed a while, looking at all the layouts and climbing on the old caboose (which is there all the time, not just for the train festival).

Then we headed out to a birthday party/barbeque at one of James’ work friends. They had a kiddy pool and a sprinkler thingee that had a rocket launcher and the kids got their suits on and were in heaven. I let James watch them while I stayed in the blessed air conditioning. The kids and I didn’t get to stay long however, as I had a birthday party to take them too. In retrospect, I should have just RSVPed NO to the party and planned on staying for the BBQ, because they’ve been to about a ZILLION parties in the last 2 months. But oh well.. I’ll know better next time I guess.

Sunday, James took the kids to the pool while I went grocery shopping.

They came back and had lunch and then I took them BACK to the pool, where Ethan finally learned how to hold his breath and go under water! Granted, this was with big goggles, the kind that goes over eyes and nose, but I’ll take it.

He was very VERY excited with his accomplishment and can’t wait to go back to the pool.

Jocelyn escaped with I think a tiny sunburn on her cheeks, Ethan was a bit red on his back and his shoulders, and I got totally roasted on my upper back and shoulders. Ow. Hopefully we all heal before the next time we head back. And next time, I’ll be sunscreening everyone up every HOUR (including myself!)

We have a Code Red on heat here in the DC area until Tuesday. We really were lucky to go as long as we did without the excruciating heat, but summer finally decided to stop looking the other way and blast us with the heat and humidity. Ah well.

Hope everyone’s weekend was good!

So now that I have ostracized all ELEVEN of my readers (i know, a gross exageration) by NOT POSTING A THING FOR WEEKS, let me just slay you know with the WORDS WORDS WORDS!

….. WORDS!

No pictures, either, not even if you beg!

Some assorted thoughts and happenings from my mother’s visit (my dad did not come at the last minute, doh!).
Continue Reading »

Tonight when Jocelyn pulled off her t-shirt, part of it stuck on her head. Usually, we leave it there and call it “long princess hair!” But this time, it was partially covering her face, specifically, her left eye.

“I’m a PIRATE!” she called out gaily.
“She’s a PIRATE!” Ethan called out gaily.
“Look it’s a PIRATE!” I called out gaily.

“Ahoy!” said Ethan.
“Ahoy!” said Jocelyn.
“Say, ‘Yo ho yo!'” I said.
“YO HO HO!” Jocelyn chortled, pulling her t-shirt down further over her eye.
“Say, “WALK THE PLANK, YE SCURVY LASSEY!” I said.
“WALK THE PLANK YOU FLOPPY PLASTIC!” Jocelyn said.
“Say ARRRRGHHH!” Ethan said.
“ARRRRRRRRRGH!” Jocelyn said.
“Say ‘schwab the deck, ye landlubbers!” I said.
“Schwab the deck you ladyfingers!” She hollered with delight.

Then I turned into mean mommy and made them brush their teeth, despite their claims that pirates don’t brush teeth.

Err, mah BABIES’-Daddy!

Seriously, what is the proper grammer for the daddy to TWO babies? The world needs to know.

This weekend, I kept pestering James to tell me whether he wanted me to make him a cake, or if I should just buy the ultra decadent so-much-chocolate-it-may-kill-you cake from Costco (the tall layer one, with shaved chocolate on top of the frosting. OK, I’m salivating now. Good lord.)

He said, “Oh, you can just get the costco one, that’s fine.”
me: “Or I could make you one.”
him: “That’s fine too.”
me: “I’m gonna make you one.”
him: “ok already!”

I wanted to make him a cake because I haven’t baked anything in a while, and I love to bake. And also because it’s much funner with the kids to make one than to just go buy one. We had the important “what kind of cake should we make for daddy?” discussion.

“Carrot cake!” was Ethan’s vote. I quickly corrected him. (He’s really come about-face on this carrot cake business.)
“Well, carrot cake is good, but I think maybe chocolate. Because your daddy LOVES the chocolate. He is a chocolate lover.”

Jocelyn loved this description of James and has used it multiple times over the past few days. “Daddy is a CHOCOLATE LOVER!”

So in the end, I decided to make him a marble cake, because that’s what his mom used to make him when he was a kid. Only I wanted to fancify it, so instead of just using a 13×9 cake pan like the recipe said to, I decided to put it in 2 round pans.

Marble cake is a vanilla cake where you take part of the batter and add chocolate to it, and then pour the vanilla batter in first, and the chocolate on top and swirl it around a bit so when it’s baked and you cut into it, it’s all marbley with vanilla and chocolate cake.

So, since James IS a chocolate lover, I debated aloud on whether I should make the primary cake chocolate, instead of vanilla, so that would make the majority of the batter chocolate, which he likes better. Then I decided not to, and said aloud, “I should probably just stick to the recipe.”

james: “So NOW you’re going to stick to the recipe, but when I cook, you always want me to do things your way even when I’m trying to stick to the recipe!”

Pish. That’s all I have to say about that. (“Pish” is good for when you have no leg to stand on, see.)

So last night, I prepared my batter and sprayed my 2 round pans, and had the batter all ready to pour, but it did NOT LOOK like nearly enough batter to fill 2 round pans. So I poured the whole thing into ONE round pan and right then, I could tell I was really screwed. It was way too full. But it’s a MARBLE cake, so I couldn’t transfer some of it to the other cake pan or it would stop being marble-y and just be … all mixed together brown cake? Not marble cake? Not sure what you would call it! So, knowing I had screwed the pooch, I just put the over-full round pan on a cookie sheet and slid it into the oven.

(Another reason one should probably not make marble cake in 2 round pans – the “marble” effect is probably better acheived in a single big pan. Then there is plenty of each batter (plain and chocolate) to make it the nice marbly effect when one batter is put on top of the other batter. If you split all that in half, as you would have to with 2 pans, there’s not as much of each type of batter to blend with each other it probably wouldn’t make as nice of an effect.)

Sure enough, 30 minutes later it had overflowed and half the cake had bubbled out onto the sheet pan.

So for James’ birthday, he gets the costco it-will-send-your-blood-sugar-to-new-heights chocolate cake AND he gets to taunt me about tweaking the recipe with disastrous results, which I usually bristle at with unbridled fervor. Now he can tease me all he likes and I will just have to TAKE it because of my cake disaster. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HONEY! MAKE MY LIFE HELL! 🙂

This morning James made the “i’m getting out of bed” movements, so I quick told him to stay put for a few minutes and scurried into the kids room.

me: “Guess what today is?”
Now usually, Ethan answers these sort of questions first. But today, Jocelyn totally put the smack down and answered instantly.
j: “DADDY’S BIRTHDAY!!!!!”
m: “You guys want to climb into our bed and sing him happy birthday?”
j&e: “YEAAAAAAHHHH!!”

And so they did. And it was so super cute. Cuter than bunnies on top of puppies, they were so cute.

Then I told the kids, “Guess what, guys. Mommy ruined the birthday cake! So I’m going to pick you up early from school, and we’re going to go to costco to get one from there.”

Ethan: “Yay! Carrot cake!”
Jocelyn: “No! Not carrot cake. CHOCOLATE. Because Daddy is a CHOCOLATE LOVER.”

That girl. She kills me with the CUTE.

So this morning, we had a gouge or two out of the ruined birthday cake for a post breakfast snack, and tonight we’ll be lighting candles on top of the costco death-by-chocolate cake.

Because James is a CHOCOLATE LOVER.

Happy birthday to the best baby-daddy a girl could have!

love you sweetie.

I have neglected to get some of the ADORABLE drawings that Jocelyn has done up here, so it’s remedy time.

Crazy Monster with Many Eyes

tomorrow – the book Ethan wrote and illustrated.

james: I have a CRAZY idea! How about mac and cheese for lunch?
jocelyn: YES! I like that idea!
ethan: Daddy, that is NOT a crazy idea. Do you want to hear my idea?
james: let’s hear it!
ethan: YES!

That’s it. His idea was “yes!”

james: Excuse me Jocelyn.
jocelyn: I am not a Jocelyn. I am a DOOR.
james: Oh, I see.
*opens jocelyn like a door*

Sorry for the silence. This is all I’ve got.

FOR NOW!

So, Thanksgiving, huh? What a weekend! It was wonderful, my brother and his family came over for the day (instead of the several days earlier anticipated) and it was great fun. I got most of the cooking out of the way the night the night before, so it was truly a nice, relaxing day. The food all turned out great, the kids were all behaved (with the the exception of Ethan, who kept wiggling and kicking and showing the food in his mouth to everyone, luckily the 3 little ones were at the “kid table”) and then naps, monopoly, Wii, pumpkin pie and chocolate cake ended the day. It’s so nice having some of my family near by! This was a first for me!

The rest of the weekend was nice too, I had visions of getting the tree and decorating it Friday, but the actuality of it was less appealing than the idea of it. I did take Jocelyn and get a tree on Sunday however (let her pick it it, because my track record isn’t that great) and so it is up, but undecorated.

Lots of craftiness ensued, the kids and I painted butterflies, hearts, and christmas trees — all things you cut out on a fold, paint, and then fold again for symmetrical paint blobbiness (and then when you’re done with the paint, that’s when the glitter is sprinkled) – it was great fun. My kitchen floor is all glittery now 🙂

We also did some gumdrop sticking, and I made some Martha Stewart paper ornaments, and a couple of hot pads. I need to take pictures of everything to show off.

My gumdrop wreath:

Ethan’s gumdrop tree:

Jocelyn’s gumdrop tree:

Grumbling (from Ethan mostly) came along with Monday morning, but the promise of taking detours on the way home to see people’s christmas lights helped to assuage that.

There was also lots of shopping done, and despite my wish to make it low key and do lots of hand made things, there are closets stocked with presents already. On the plus side, I think we may be done! Waiting for a few things to be delivered, and need to go over all the lists, but largely, I think the shopping is pretty much done.

It was a lovely holiday.

Jocelyn was thumbing through the Toys R Us Biggest Toy Book Ever! (preferred reading around our house these days) and saw a kid’s guitar, and started talking about how she wants a guitar when SHE’s a big girl. James caught wind and told her, “I have a guitar. Do you want to see it?”

Well, they were off and downstairs in a jiffy. And now, here’s the video of our budding super star!

Oh. My. Lord.

I just died. From the cuteness. My favorite part, the first 3 seconds when she’s struggling just to sit on the couch with the guitar on her lap. The rest is awesome too though. Especially the end, where she’s states, “That’s the END.”

-amy

I’m looking back on the year of blogging and quite frankly, I suck. I used to at least post some photos several times a week which maybe kind of sort of made up for the not writing regularly. So, I’m going to try to remedy that. First up is some of the craftiness that’s been going on in our house.

Freezer stenciling on t-shirts. I have photos of the process for Jocelyn’s but only the finished product of Ethan’s. I used angry chicken’s freezer stencil tutorial to make these.

Here’s the stencil for Jocelyn’s shirt.

Next, I put the freezer paper over it, shiny side down, and traced it. Then I had to cut it out. This is probably the most time consuming part. Then, I ironed it onto Jocelyn’s blank t-shirt.

Then Jocelyn and I got to painting. (This was taken several weeks ago. You can see how I caved to kid pressure and put a little pink streak in her hair. OK, I’m lying. I caved because I totally wanted to do it! However, you’ll see later, in the photo I took this morning, how it’s pretty much disappeared now. It gave her several weeks of pure bliss. You can also see in this picture how pink haired ladies should never wear orange shirts!)

After painting, I set the shirt aside to dry. By the next morning, it was dry and I tossed it in the dryer to heat set it, and she wore it that day.

I did Jocelyn’s shirt first, because I pretty much knew what we wanted. After hers was drying, I asked Ethan what we should put on a shirt for him. He gave me a blank look. Jocelyn has a shirt that says, “My daddy loves me,” so drawing for something, ANYTHING, I suggested, “How about ‘I love my daddy?'”

He shook his head, thought a minute, and then said, “I love TRUCKS!”

“Should we put that on your shirt?”

“YEAH!”

I thought that sounded a little boring, but then I got the idea to take one of his drawings of a truck, and use that as well.

I took the purple truck, got rid of the line/road at the bottom, and made it part of the stencil.

So here is the finished results, of both shirts, taken this morning in front of their school (notice how the pink is now gone):