Our Little Scout

Sam has his first Pinewood Derby coming up next week. He's been very enthusiastic about Cub Scouts so far. Clark has been taking him to most of the meetings (thank goodness) and helped him with the car. I was pretty proud of both of them, because Clark let Sam do it almost all by himself, unlike a lot of parents. ;)

Here are some pictures:




Using some power tools!





Nailing the wheels on:






The Finished Car

The big guy with his car:

By Request

Here are some cake/cupcake/cookie pictures, as a certain friend asked to see!



Superman cake for Sam's 6th birthday--Superman is made of chocolate



Mickey Mouse cake for Paul's 3rd Birthday



Life Is Good cake for Papa's birthday--I made all of the pieces out of chocolate, but then realized that the cake wasn't nearly big enough to fit them all on!


Simple white cake with french meringue buttercream frosting


Petit Fours made for Christmas 2007



Easter Bunny Cupcakes




The Sneetches Cake made for Dr. Seuss's birthday (which is a holiday in our house) :)


St. Patricks Day cupcakes--chocolate mint cupcakes with chocolate ganache and mint buttercream shamrock


Chocolate cupcake with peanut butter frosting and chocolate glaze drizzle



Sam's second birthday cake for 2008! His first party got canceled because he was sick, after I'd already made the cake.



Smores Cupcake--chocolate cupcake with marshmallow buttercream and graham cracker crumbs, topped with a mini hershey bar and toasted mini marshmallow on a graham cracker piece


Birthday cake made for a friend's 2 kids, who both love the Todd Parr books (for those not familiar, here's the website: http://www.taffylive.com/shows/toddworld/default.php )




Clark's golf course birthday cake (the ball is in the sandtrap)



Sam's first birthday cake of 2008--this is a Komapod from the Spectrobes video game.




Halloween cupcakes with homemade chocolates on top--chocolate bat


chocolate "eek"


and a chocolate truffle decorated to look like a pumpkin.
Autumn leaves cake--this was a pumpkin cake with a fluffy pumpkin spice filling






4th of July cake



Autumn leave cutout cookies made for a class party at Sam's school

Sounds of the Season

Top Ten Christmas Songs That Make Me Wish I Didn't Have Ears.

10. My Grown Up Christmas List, as performed by Kelly Clarkson. Or Mariah Carey. Or anyone else who thinks they need to hit 3 different octaves in one song.
9. The Christmas Song as sung by Luther Vandross. He tries WAY too hard. And it's really annoying.
8.The First Noel. Sung by almost anyone. The word "looked" should not have four syllables.
7. Merry Christmas Darling by the Carpenters. Nothing against the Carpenters. I have a fondness for them, thanks to my childhood. BUT the line "Logs on the fire fill me with desire" makes me snicker every time I hear it. And "Christmas-ing" isn't a word. Sorry.
6. Little Saint Nick by the Beach Boys. Another song that induces snickers, especially the repeated lyric of "Christmas comes this time each year". Hmm, nothing like stating the obvious!
5. Happy Christmas, War Is Over sung by Celine Dion (I LOVE the John Lennon version of this song, but hearing Celine do it makes me want to run away screaming)
4. Anything by Aaron Neville. Or Celine Dion. Or Amy Grant.
3. The Christmas Shoes. Seriously makes me nauseous.
2. Jingle Bells by Barbra Streisand. Torture. Pure and simple torture. I wish the one horse open sleigh would just run me over. That would be less painful than listening to this song.
1. Feliz Navidad, sung by Celine Dion. This needs no explanation.

Top Ten Holiday Songs That Actually Make Me Feel Festive!
10. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (James Taylor's version is my favorite) Even though this song almost always makes me cry, I still love it.
9. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town by Frank Sinatra & Cyndi Lauper. My two favorite singers from two different eras together, singing a cheesy warning to kids to behave--what's not to love?
8. I'll Be Home for Christmas. I love most versions of this, but my current favorite is by Michael Buble.
7. The Christmas Song by Nat King Cole. Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without it!
6. White Christmas by Bing Crosby. Another classic!
5. The Grinch song from the original cartoon. (You can't beat lyrics like "You have all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile")
4. Ave Maria, especially the versions by Harry Conick Jr. and Josh Groban.
3. Happy XMas (War Is Over) by John Lennon
2. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen as performed by Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan
1. Oh Holy Night. An oldie but a goodie. I especially love Tracy Chapman's version.

And now for the final category--songs I should hate, but don't. The songs that really are quite awful, but I find myself turning up the volume on anyway.
6. Last Christmas by Wham. The cheesiest of the cheesy. But I still love it.
5. Christmas Don't Be Late by Alvin and the Chipmunks. In all other circumstances, the chipmunks drive me insane. I spent the summer lying to the boys, telling them that my MP3 player's batteries were dead, just to not have to listen to any more chipmunk songs. But I can't help but sing along in a horribly squeeky voice to the line about the hula hoop. There. I've admitted it.
4. Little Drummer Boy by Bing Crosby and David Bowie. So odd it's almost creepy. But I still like it.
3. Do They Know It's Christmastime by Band-Aid. Of course there's no snow in Africa this Christmas. But I love my 80s cheesiness!
2. Jingle Bells by the Barenaked Ladies. Starts out quiet and soft and pretty, then breaks into chaos. Including the classic "batman smells" lyrics. I guess I know now where my boys get their music taste from! (although I couldn't dislike anything by the Barenaked Ladies anyway)
1. Funky Christmas by the New Kids On The Block. Seriously awful. But it always transports me back to 7th grade and makes me laugh. We tried to make up a cheerleading dance routine to this song. Talk about awful!

The unexpected questions!

As a parent, I've come to expect questions. Sometimes ones that are hard to answer, sometimes even ones I don't know the answer to and have to look up (thank god for whoever invented google, I would spend most afternoons in a library without it, looking through the card catalogue for books on every topic under the sun!!) But sometimes they (especially Sam) throw one at me that totally catches me off guard. And there were two of them the other day!!

The first one:
If you were a conjoined twin, and your heads were attached to each other's, and your brains were attached, that would mean that you feel things at the same time, right? Because your brain is what really feels what your nerves are doing. So if someone kissed a person who shared a brain, would the other twin feel it too? And would they fall in love too?

The second one:
What if reincarnation is real, then can you come back as a germ?


I need a nap after trying to answer some of these!!!

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet, Give Me Something Good To Eat!

We had a Pokemon Halloween this year, due to the boys' most recent obsession. They chose their characters before I had a chance to do any research and discover that it's all but impossible to buy costumes for these characters. So I thought, how hard can it be? Well, it was hard. There was much grumbling at my sewing machine. But they came out cute in the end.

Here's my little Pikachu

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of Sam by himself in his costume, but here's one with him and Paul.


The whole pokemon family (Ash, Lucario, May, and Pikachu)

And here are the boys out trick or treating with Mok and Pa (old man and scooby)
And last, but not least, here's Ash and Pikachu in their standard pose!

When you go to vote, would you, could you on a boat?

As I was getting the kids ready to go to our polling place this morning, Sam asked where we needed to go to vote. I explained to him that there's a church across the street from his school that is the place that our neighborhood goes to vote. The boys both asked a few questions, and then figured out which place I was talking about.

On the way there, Paul suddenly said "There's no water."
I said "Where? What do you mean?"
He said "There's no water at that place we're voting."
I said "Well, they probably have a water fountain inside if you get thirsty."
He said, "NO! I mean for the BOAT!"
I said "Oh, honey, we're going to vote, not go on a boat."
He said "I know, but we're going to vote on a boat!"
So I had to explain to him that while boat and vote do rhyme, you don't actually get to go on a boat to vote. A little disappointing, because that would've been fun.

Voting went amazingly well, though, considering we had to wait in line for an hour and there were no boats. Thank goodness for portable video games!

After telling this story to a friend later, she sent me this little voting story a la Dr. Seuss:
Would you vote for John McCain?
I would not, could not, in the rain.
Not on a boat nor on a train
I would not like him here or there
I do not like him anywhere
I will not vote for that old man
I do not like him Sam I am!

Layers

Sometimes the kids have such a "brilliant" idea that you can't even come up with an answer when they explain it to you. You stand there with a blank look on your face or else you have to walk away (so you can crack up laughing without making them feel bad) This morning was one of those times.

I asked Sam to get dressed. He said "Okay, that's easy!"
He stood up and pulled off his pajamas. Ta-da!! There were clothes underneath.

Then he said "Want to see something cool? I had this idea last night!"
He lifted his shirt up. There was another pair of pajamas underneath the shirt.
He said "I decided that I'd put my pajamas on over clothes for the next day, so then I wouldn't have to get dressed in the morning, I could just take my pajamas off. Then I decided I'd put those clothes on over pajamas, so that way I don't have to put pajamas on tonight either, I can just take the clothes off!"

Um, yes. Brilliant. Sort of.

At least I don't have to worry about him getting cold at night and needing extra blankets!