Almost an entire month ago Recently, we held a joint birthday party for my son & niece.  Usually, the kids' birthday shindigs are a big deal because we hold them in DC every time as a way to be able to reconnect with so many friends & fam (or friendmily) that we don't get to see regularly due to our military life.  AND...thanks to our amazing fam, we've pulled this not-so-tiny interstate but intracoast about 10 times now.

So, I'm usually the one who creates and is responsible for a majority of the menu...and like at home, it tends to be from scratch and healthy (or at least healthier).  The cakes are no exception.  I get the uber-insane idea of baking nonstop for 48 hours before these parties to ensure some delectable treats.  The cakes (with icing), from scratch, always include two flavors...let me clarify...two different cakes.

This year was easier...one cake for my son & one for my baby, oops, I mean niece.  Jaron's was chocolate with cookies & cream buttercream...the texture & color of the buttercream actually added a nice gravelly effect to the finished product.  Big Boy vascillated between chocolate chip, chocolate, and lemon raspberry for his cake flavors.  LUCKILY, I got to choose the lemon raspberry for Talia.  This was also my first foray into the wonderful world of fondant (which I DID NOT MAKE from scratch).  I bought these cute little posies for her cake and used yellow pearl luster dust to color it a pale yellow...except I also forgot to bring a soft brush with me and used my mom's old pastry brush resulting in some streaks here and there.

However, friends should not let friends fondant (yes, I made it into a verb) without doing a test cake first.  Also, friends let friends RESEARCH how to work with and drape fondant correctly before doing so on the DAY OF THE PARTY.  I apparently am not a fondant rockstar like my friend Melissa.

Otherwise, you'll have to take your first try and let your shame face the wall.

Have a fabulous weekend!

Figure It Out Friday

I am the author of 3 blogs.

3.

Why?

Well, I started our family blog for the obvious.  Being a military family away from friends and fam, I started it to keep everyone updated.  Except, I failed to realize that also being a military family, you run into slumps...most noticeably when you're a "single married spouse/mom" (SMS/M) and/or the computer is in a different room on a different floor in your house away from your kids.  Also, when I have the time to blog, I'd rather spend it with my husband with whom I've probably spent 1/2 of our relationship actually being in his physical presence.  I also didn't want to clutter our family blog with my own personal stuff since well, it's our family blog.

Besides my family, my passion is cooking and eating.  So, I started my food blog.

Since I'm starting to lose steam, time, and energy on giving the appearance of maintaining three...I'm going to simplify and put everything on this bad boy...with the exception of my food blog which I'll just double post on both blogs,  so any foodies won't have to read my ramblings & babblings...except in my food posts.

Which means, I'll still be blogging with the same frequency...which is occasionally.

So there.

Figure It Out Friday...

It's been a while...so, I apologize to my one reader...and by one, I mean the spammer who likes leaving me messages in Chinese.  Dude, my family left China a long time ago.  Not building-the-railroads long time ago, but several generations back.

Anyhoo...one of my new favorite reads is Julie's blog @ The Peanut Gallery...Exit Here.  Her family had a newly adopted pet duck this past spring and named him Buck.  That reminded me of last year.

Right before my sweet baby niece was born, we had a little arrival of our own:

That's a frikkin' unfathomable amount of offspring for one female, but she did it.  We watched them grow, beg for food from us, come up on our deck and return our food (albeit in a different form than it was originally given and through a different outlet), use my SUV simultaneously as a shelter AND a restroom, and mature from cute furry little things to these:

Do you see the dinosaur resemblance?  I have never seen such "interesting" ducks outside of this area.  By "interesting" I also mean who hit these ducks with the ugly stick?

Although the number of our duck family significantly dwindled from 18 to a core group of 6, the circle of life continues...on the side of our house, no less:

Have a great weekend!

Figure It Out Friday

Dear Big Puppy,

I love you but you need to stop using Mama's boots as chew toys.  I've tried to be patient with you.  I've bought you lots of toys even when Dad said you had too many.  I've let the kids know the importance of putting away their wooden toys as you seem to have a penchant for wood.

But now, you done did it.

You ate Larry.

You know Mama doesn't buy expensive shoes/boots.  These were my ONLY leather boots...and I even named them.  Even the kids know their names and which is which and that they are Mommy's other children.  Harold is sad that his partner Larry has been maimed.  I waited patiently for an entire season for these bad boys to drop in price...drastically.  

Seriously, Puppy, you need cheaper chew toys.

But, thank you for providing a great lesson for the kids that Mommy needs to work on HER procrastination and put HER stuff away.

Still, touch Harold and be prepared for the wrath of Mom.

That sounded tough, didn't it?

Love,

Mom

Figure It Out Friday

Just a snippet of The Hubs' pile o' laundry.

Note the prior Abercrombie & Fitch folding skills are still intact.

That mountain has since diminished and today, it starts all over again.

But, laundry is one of the only types of cleaning I strangely enjoy.  Again, it's probably due to all those damn years @ A&F during college that ingrained my love in perfecting folding piles.

Weirdo.

Figure It Out Friday...

From I'm not sure what I want to be when I grow up...

I've been coveting this piece of art from a fellow sub wife Becca for a while.  I love the quote and it holds so true for us military fams.  "Bloom where you are planted"...that is definitely a saying most military fams can relate to.

Then, I took this photo of a weed growing on our front steps and thought about the metaphorical significance of this little thing growing and thriving in an environment not suited for it.  I thought about the beauty of how things/people placed in adverse situations managed to flourish despite conditions that they are not suited for and/or ideal.  It's the self-discovery of a different kind of strength that so many of us never knew we had to go from a rooted life of relative stability to one that is nomadic and dynamic, often far from the life and loved ones to which you have been accustomed.  Yet, this constant uprooting of myself & my family have done nothing but strengthen us as individuals and as a family.

However, moments after this photo was taken and before I could reshoot the photo, The Hubs came by with the weed killer and promptly annihilated the poor thing.

Figure It Out Friday...

I had to comb through old photos since I've kind of slacked on taking photos lately.  Between the scholarship reads, a stomach virus, and colds...I've been slacking.  Ooh...plus, I'm shopping around for my DSLR now too!  ;o)

I promise to post photos from the Hubs' Hail & Farewell too...albeit they suck but still...it's something.

I did dredge this one up from January.  Apparently my son thought it would be funny to wear his sister's gold sequined belt.  But Little Man didn't think it was so funny when I took a future-blackmail-evidence-proof photo of it.

Silly boy...SILVER would've gone WAY better with the outfit.  Boys...they never learn.  ;o)

For more on my silly son, you can see him in action over here on our family blog.

Figure It Out Friday...

Sean found this while purging some old drawings from the kids' corner:

No, Sweet Girl, I have the best daughter EVER!!!

Figure It Out Friday...

It's that time again, Kids...



I've had a cold that's been kicking my ever-shrinking tush (thanks to no exercising for a week now...and this bad boy deflates real quick)...which had been expanding quite nicely prior to this crappiness.

Anyhoo, so this week I'm stealing a photo...without permission.  Shhhhhhhhhhh.  Yup, I'm a total bad-a$$ like that.  

Did I mention the photographer is only 6YO and that I supplied 50% of her DNA (if not more, since poor baby seems to really take after her maternal side...poor girl).  So, since I feed, clothe, and nurture this little photog...I can do things like steal her photograph.  

OK, mommy guilt...I asked.  ;o)

My baby's photography talent seems to be heading in a pretty awesome direction.  Her perspective and composition is just *wow*.  This is her shot of me taking my turn doing what she had just done.

I love my daughter.

Figure It Out Friday...

This photo is so wrong on so many levels...

1) The woman in pink was attempting to snowboard on a toboggan.  Said woman has never snowboarded in her life.  Said woman should not have even attempted this since she tore her darn ACL back in h.s. and...back to the main point, she was attempting to snowboard snowboarding on a toboggan.

2) The woman fell off of the toboggan perilously close to her 6YO daughter...potentially decapitating her.  JUST KIDDING...but still, had I she chucked that toboggan higher, it could've happened.

3) The woman is wearing size 14 snow pants from when she was that old...size 14 kids.  Normally that is something to be celebrated, except these were big pants apparently made back when fitted was not in style but extremely baggy and made for short 14YOs...except that I am she is the height of many 10-12YOs.  Also, please don't judge that my mom said woman's mother has kept the snowsuits from when said woman was more than half her current age.

Note here the female Asian American versions of Mario & Luigi (the identities of the 30-something YO sisters have been protected for the sake of their reputations...except for the cutie 6YO who is doomed by her dominant maternal genes...sorry Sweet Pea):

There are actually more normal shots of our weekend in DC.  You can find them here.

Figure It Out Friday...

That, my friends, is gluttony at it's finest.

Figure It Out Friday...

I often think it'd be so awesome to get inside my kids' minds and see the world from their vantage point.  

I want to visit this world where knights ride in on tiny race cars and dino skeletons drive bulldozers.

Figure it Out Friday...

It's the second week of Figure It Out Friday.  

So here is this week's photo:

What is it?

Could it be expensive designer pleated shades?  Oh no no no.  It is not.  They are the temporary blinds that are covering our windows that recently got replaced...

and by recently...I mean SEPTEMBER.  

So, I guess that the definition of "temporary" is relative to the person utilizing the word...whether "temporary" means "a couple of weeks" or "FIVE months"...it's all relative, right? (To our defense, our new windows have less than 1/2 inch to work with...that doesn't give us much leeway or options.  But...since we bought plantation shutters for our FL home...we're definitely going uber-cheap this time...apparently you can't get any cheaper than temp blinds.  Hahaha.)

Poor Melis...she was witness to our high-class "temporary" window treatments.  At least she had a good laugh. ;o)  She'll have a good surprise when she comes back over and sees we are in the process of trying to replace some of them...but procrastination is winning and we've taken a 2-week going on 3-week break.

Oy vey.

Figure it Out Friday...

Bloggers have Wordless Wednesdays and other such days to showcase poignant photos. Me...I'm makin' my own...Figure it Out Fridays. When I start taking better photos and/or get my DSLR (eh, hmmm...HI HUBBY)...I'd love to participate in those days. For now...it's time for photos that share a different special place in my heart...

This is the doorknob on my back door...weathered from the wonderful salty-air climate of Hampton Roads, VA. It's also weathered because it's on the OUTSIDE of my door. Someone needs to tell my big puppy Jax that THAT'S the side of the door he should see AFTER he poops OUTSIDE my house in the backyard...again, the operative word being OUTSIDE. Ideally.

Except...

One of us is not onboard with doing his bidness outside since apparently the warmth and comfort of carpet in a warm house is way more appealing than the soggy, frigid, muddy wetness of the backyard. One of us is also becoming more impatient with cleaning up messes that don't belong inside the house and is tired of keeping said living creature living since one of us has a partner who gets a little ticked when I...oops, one of us, tells him that said living creature had another accident.

Thank you, Jax.

I love you.