Well, it wasn't actually chocolate cake, but it WAS cake for breakfast. We had our first annual school carnival on Friday and Monkey Boy won a cake in the cakewalk. There were dozens of beautiful homemade cakes and which one did he pick? The pink one with frosting so yellow that someone asked me if it was mustard! It didn't seem to matter to the small men- they asked if they could eat it for breakfast this morning so I said Yes.
That's what happens when momma walks a 5k, goes out to dinner with friends and wakes up at 8am on Sunday with no idea what to make for breakfast!
I was hoping to go with a completely different color scheme downstairs but it's just not working. None of the blues are playing nice with our sofas, so it's back to the yellows and taupes.
I found this Laura Ashley color at Lowe's:
Deep Cowslip 4. You can actually see the paint chip on the wall under the mirror..it's a little darker and more saturated than what we currently have (the color here on my screen is more peach-y than the actual color chip).
Valentine's Day = lots of cooking for me...check out these cute heart lollipops I made for the boys to give out:
I don't recall where I saw the idea, but it's basically two mini candy canes heated in a 350F oven till they *just* soften. Poke the lollipop stick into the base and use your fingers to very gently mold the stick in place. Let cool briefly, then fill with edible candy melts. Easy peasy! We used bookmarks from Living Locurto as tags, though I changed the pink bookmarks to blue per Monkey Boy's request (because boys can't give out pink bookmarks, dontcha know!).
For our Valentine's Day Dinner we decided to eat in. It's just too much trouble to go out and fight the crowds. So I made filet mignon + seared sea scallops served with rice and mushrooms/zukes tossed with butter and garlic. Super yum!
What did we have for dessert? Well check out my new kitchen gadget: a mini donut maker! This thing makes THE.CUTEST.DONUTS.EVAH. I used a recipe I found online and whipped up 20 donuts in about 20 minutes. A simple sugar glaze was the vehicle for lots of sprinkles...
Aren't they the most twee things?!? I'm dying to try some chocolate ones...or maybe plain with chocolate ganache....or chocolate with powdered sugar...Oh dear, I might have to buy some elastic waist pants!
The small men are suffering through another wintertime cold; this one seems to be mostly about the coughing. Little Man spent half the night doing this: cough cough cough *pause* cough. Poor thing. He woke up this morning and said he couldn't sleep very well, and his back hurts from all the coughing. Luckily it's a dry cough and it seems a bit better today.....but now Monkey Boy is coughing too. Both of them were complaining of headaches over the past couple of days but I thought it was just because we have been staying up late (Pajama Party, anyone?) and they have been super busy.
Evidently not; I talked to a friend and her kids have the same thing: a dry cough, headache - but no fever- tiredness and lots of time spent being cranky on the couch.
*sigh*
Oh well, the coughing has given me a chance to try out honey has a natural cough reliever. Normally I just give it straight (the kids get a 1/2tsp straight out of the jar) but then I thought it might be good to thin the honey and add some lemon. I found a couple of recipes online that involved mixing the honey and lemon juice with warm water to create a cough syrup. Those looked good, but then check THIS recipe out:
In small jar mix whiskey, honey and lemon juice. Take 1-2 tablespoons every 3-4 hours. I can't promise it will get rid of your cough, but it sure tastes good!
I'm going to make this one and see how the small men like it....though I might just have to have a nip first to test it out myself. :)
We celebrated MB's 6th birthday with a Perry-themed Pajama Party (Perry is the platypus from Phineus and Ferb). Somehow I had invited 13 kids....oops! We were able to entertain all the kids for two hours...we had the Wii set up so they could play Mario Cart upstairs. Downstairs we had pillow cases for them to draw on and paint (those were the party favors).... Or they could hang out and watch a movie and eat some sugary snacks.
Most of the kids went home around 8:30pm, but a few were invited to stay over night. The sleepover went pretty well- we managed to get the kids all asleep by 11:30pm (tho the Dearest did have to sit with them in the loft and use his "daddy voice" once or twice to quiet them down). And they even slept all the way through to 7am this morning without a peep!
Monkey Boy had specifically asked for a Perry-shaped cake and after finding this tutorial at Dabbled and decided to give it a try. My multi-talented friend Lanya came over to help, since I had never worked with fondant on a cake before. She showed me how to knead in the color (hmmm...actually I think she did all of that herself), and how thin to roll out the fondant. Here's our process and the finished result:
A slightly better photo of the finished cake (click for a bigger photo and notes): The kids loved it, especially Monkey Boy! He was super excited to "eat Perry"....working with the fondant wasn't as scary as I thought. Lanya even suggested a marshmallow based fondant that I actually liked the taste of (I'm not usually a fan of the regular fondant). So I might be making more cakes with fondant in the future.
All in all, a succesful party! And look at the 'day after':
This is what I found when I came downstairs around 4pm. Evidently, Monkey Boy told the Dearest "I'm not going to let you go to sleep, Dadda!" Oops!
Yesterday we went up to the local mountains for the day with the intent to let the kids do some sledding and snow play. We made great time- then we hit the single lane road to Mountain High ski resort and spent an hour creeping along at 3mph. Luckily it looked like everyone was trying to ski because once we went past Mtn. High, there was literally no one on the road and we found an awesome spot to sled and have a picnic. I shot tons of video of the kids (and growups) sledding, so I played with Windows Movie Maker and came up with this:
We had so much fun, can you tell??? Everyone, including the adults, got in on the sledding. Unfortunately the camera battery ran out on us and we couldn't use it for the last hour or so. But the Dearest did get some good photos of the snowball fight:
It was a great day- the perfect celebration for Monkey Boy, who turns six today!!!! Can you believe it??? I can't! I remember when he was this little:
And now look at him! My baby is no longer a baby.
It makes me sad, but at the same time MB has turned into such an interesting, fun kid that I'll forgive his growing up. He says the funniest things and has an opinion on *everything*. The kid can talk you into believing the sky is purple if he feels like it. At six years old, Monkey Boy loves:
the Nintendo DS that Santa brought for Christmas
riding his scooter all over the neighborhood
playing Super Mario Bros. with Little Man on the Wii
having playdates with his kindergarten friends
sushi!
Sonic milk shakes!
playing Legos
getting dirty
watching Phineus and Pherb
'reading' (he's not quite reading, but loves to open books and sound out words)
Six-year-old Monkey Boy is a lively, completely extroverted little boy who makes me laugh and exasperates me daily. I'm so lucky to be his mom, and I'm so glad to see him growing up...so happy birthday Monkey Boy!
our annual Christmas Caroling...done inside because it was raining all week!
Finally time to open some presents on Christmas Eve!
G'ma P and the small men
G'ma P and G'pa T
What time is it????? Christmas morning and time to open pressies!!!!!
We finished off Christmas day with a delicious filet mignon dinner cooked by the Dearest (no pics because we ate is so quickly!), plus a trip to see some outrageous Christmas lights at a nearby neighborhood. Everyone had their own cup of hot chocolate to sip while we enjoyed the light show. A nice end to a lovely Christmas!
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