Paige’s pig cake

Paige had a Girl Scout field trip today to a bakery and got to decorate a cake. 

This, that and the other thing

So much of nothin' going on, I hardly know where to start. The kids are really enjoying playing basketball. Jacob and Carly have both scored points for their team. Wesley got hit in the face with a basketball Saturday but managed to soldier up and carry on. In celebration of all of this, we made chocolate milkshakes in the afternoon.

Carly finished reading Little Women, so Monday afternoon, Andi and I watched the movie with her. I can't wait for her to read Anne of Green Gables.

We also found an old tape of Andi and Zac growing up when we were searching for Little Women, so we watched that, too. It went back to when Andi was just 16 months old - about what Sophie is right now. It was easy to see that Sophie looks like her mom.

Last night was the Raingutter Regatta for Scouts (a boat race). Not that I'm a slacker mom, but right when I was trying to get everyone in the car, a horrible storm rolled through and Wesley was freaking out worse than I've ever seen. I opened the garage door and the rain started pouring in totally sideways from the wind blowing at around 50 mph. I sent all of the kids back into the house and grabbed my wood I had stained for a conference table base I was making for church and started to dry it off.

Meanwhile, Wes is spinning in the kitchen floor screaming that Mom is going to be killed in the garage and Jacob is putting on his pajamas, thinking we weren't going at all. So by the time I got Wes calmed down, Jacob re-dressed and we went out again, the camera was forgotten. Jacob won 3 out of 5 races and placed 7th overall out of 23 kids.


Backtracking a bit, Jacob ran out to the garage on Monday to tell me that Ms. Terry was bringing something over for me. As you may recall, I conned her into taking Wego off our hands, so as long as what she was bringing wasn't furry and peed everywhere, I knew it would be OK.

HOW OK IT WAS -- I wouldn't have guessed. Check this out. We are talking major compartments, a huge outside zipper and a little flip out thing to hold more stuff. I don't even have all the parts in the billfold in the picture. I spent about an hour on Monday just moving stuff around and thinking what a great thing a blog is. Just because I wrote about something I now have a new billfold that might possibly be even cooler than my most favorite old one.

My dad showed up unexpectedly last night. Just walked in the door about 9:30 - nearly scared me to death. He spent the night and we had a good visit today. Andi and I played Rummicubes with him all afternoon and I got beat soundly. Gotta tell you - that is nearly unheard of. I lost every round.

School is going well for the kids. Carly and Wesley finished their third grade reading and spelling books and have started their fourth grade books.
Ryan is almost done with his second grade books. Everyone is progressing nicely but I really can't imagine them in public school. I think they are too used to the way we do things around here to suddenly change into what would be expected of them in public school.

I took the table base to church tonight and was able to mark that off my list of things to do. As of now, there are 18 kids signed up to take the cooking class I'm teaching on Saturday. Andi was going to by my helper, but found out today that the Polar Bear Plunge for Special Olympics starts at the exact same time.

Although she took the plunge a few years ago, this time it is Big Guy who will be doing it. Sort of like policemen hazing, near as I can figure. Some sort of "all the rookies have to do it" tradition. So, I'm down one helper and trying not to panic.

Andi has been to another roller derby practice. All of our friends think it is great, albeit hilarious that she is doing this. I'm sure she's good for some ticket sales.

Keegan is staying awake for longer periods of time and any day now I'm sure he is going to break out in smiles. Right now he just has that same serious look that Sophie had for so long. Oh, and the doublechin.

I guess that about catches things up around here.

And just because she's cute -- a picture of Sos to close this long post out.

Scouting Report

The boys had a good time at Scouts but Big Guy reported that Ryan didn't say anything. At all. Now, if you know Ryan, you know this is TOTALLY out of character. He is never quiet. Talks constantly. Even talks in his sleep.

He and Wesley were just playing together and Big Guy told them to go make some new friends. Wesley promptly started playing with David, while Ryan hung back.

David finally asked Ryan, 'Don't you talk?" and Ryan said the only two words Big Guy heard him say all evening.

"I talk."

Reporting for duty

Wes and Ryan are ready to take the Scouting world by storm. They have memorized their pledge and Big Guy is taking them to their first meeting tonight. I heard Wesley mumbling a while ago as he was reading his handbook yet again, "I am ready, ready, ready for this."

To answer the age old burning question

If you put more than one coin in a parking meter at a time, does it register them all? I decided to find out today as I had to pay the meter to go into the judicial center to get my first CASA case. The answer: Nope. It will register the largest denomination and for the rest there is a little internal flag that pops up and says, "Thanks, sucker."

I'm currently experiencing one of the grossest feelings in the world - fresh cut hair all down my shirt. I HATE that feeling. Normally, I would come home and go straight to the shower after a haircut, but today I'm going to compound that itchiness with a lot of sawdust. The only good part of this is how wonderful a shower will feel later this afternoon.

I slept for 11 straight hours last night. Usually, I sleep about 6 or 7, so I was REALLY tired. Today, I feel great and am ready to turn my Illinois lumber into a portable kitchen of sorts for Hope Central.

Patricia - I drive to Illinois to buy wood for a project because there is a salvage lumber yard there that has such good deals, it makes the drive worthwhile. You never know what you're going to find, but it's always cheap.

Tonight is Carly's first Girl Scout meeting and then I want to get all my Christmas presents wrapped. I'm pretty much done shopping and I seem to have some nosy children this year who just happen to want to find things that are in the present closet.

If anyone wants to come to my first cooking class, it's September 11 at 5:30 at Hope Central. It's called Appetizing Appetizers and as the flyer promises, "We'll have something good to eat - even if we have to order pizza." You can register by calling Hope Central's Abba Clinic at 897-4910, call me at home or you can sign up at church.

Another cooking disaster averted

I don't know why people think I'm can cook decently. If they saw all the behind the scenes flubs, that thought would fly right out of their head. Bill likes Peanut Butter pie, so it seemed like a sign to make one when Patricia posted a recipe for one on her blog last week. Her pie was beautiful, little circles of hot fudge around the edges, but then she got distracted and just went crazy - still it looked mighty pretty.

I showed it to Bill and he agreed that a Peanut Butter pie would be a great dessert for Father's Day. So while he and Jacob were at Boy Scout camp this weekend, sweltering out in the 95 degree heat, the little guys and I made the pie.

As as side note, Jacob was SO excited about eating in the "mess hall" at camp. Such a bitter, bitter disappointment. Breakfast was cold cereal (which he does not like), lunch was stale sandwiches (which he does not like) and dinner was hamburgers "so thin that if you picked them up they fell apart." It's a good thing he had a lot of fun doing the activities or he might not want to go back next year.

Anyway - back to the pie. Here's the recipe:

Peanut Butter Pie
A large graham cracker crust (it’ll say “2 extra servings”)
12 oz cream cheese at room temperature
1 ½ cups smooth peanut butter
2 cups powdered sugar
12 oz cool whip, thawed

With an electric mixer, thoroughly combine the cream cheese and peanut butter. Add the powdered sugar and mix until thoroughly combined. It will be very thick. Mix in a cup or so of the cool whip with a spoonula type utensil to lighten the mixture a bit and then fold in the remaining cool whip just until combined. Do NOT use the electric mixer to add the cool whip or it will turn watery. Pour into the crust, spread out and swirl hot fudge or chocolate or caramel or your favorite sauce on top if desired. Cover with the lid that came with the crust and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

Everything was going along just wonderfully, till I got to the topping part. I had an amazing idea - oh the creative juices were flowing. I thought I would take the hot fudge, heat it till it was very thin, put it in a shaker like you use for cinnamon sugar or such and then turn it upside down over paper till it started flowing and then go quickly back and forth over the pie making the most artful design. Amazing idea - total flop. I ended up picking off a bunch of little globs of hot fudge and smoothing the pie out again.

Idea #2 was not nearly as brilliant - but in the end it had the same result. Streaming it with a knife did no better and I picked it off again.

Idea #3 was to forget the hot fudge and just eat it later with a spoon and move on to chocolate syrup. Turns out - I can not make chocolate syrup swirls a bit more than Andi and I could make polka dots for Sophie's nursery letters last year. By the time I had scraped chocolate off of the peanut butter for the third time, the pie had taken on a sort of nasty color.

Idea #4 solved all my problems with how the top looked.


Yep, glob Kool-Whip over the entire thing, shave a bit of Hershey bar over it and it's ready to go. Everyone loved it! It was so simple to make and I have requests from three kids to have this pie instead of birthday cake on their next birthday. Works for me and now that I know what I'm going to do with it, it'll be a lot quicker to do.

Bill is off to shop right now for his Father's Day gift. The kids wanted him to get a bike. Well - not Jacob so much as he is his mother's child in the bike riding department - but the other kids were wild about the idea. Bill has been riding with them on a borrowed bike and so we gave him a card with money and a picture of a bike. I thought about picking one out for him but then decided that was a personal thing - he might not like the one I chose and then there would be the whole return thing to go through. This will be better.

My part in the bike riding is to sit by the phone and wait. Just in case someone gets hurt or needs water or is to tired to go on...I can go to the rescue. This was my idea. Bill's idea was to buy me a bike, too or a bicycle built for two. Sometimes he has some really bad ideas. This would be one of those times. It's a good thing I recognize a bad idea when I hear one.

If there was any doubt about how Jacob feels about bike riding, I think he put those to rest the other night when he was begging "somebody, anybody, just break my leg!" Nobody did and he ended up riding almost 5 miles........while I waited by the phone in the air conditioning.

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there!

Here's Billski with his new bike, ready to head off to the splash park with the kids.

My kids are blessed with a dad who gets better at being a dad every day.

Scout Crossover

Tonight Jacob had a ceremony where everyone advances up to the next group in Scouts. There were lots of games, a hot dog roast, s'mores and all the kids had a lot of fun. Everyone gets all the badges, belt loops and pins they've earned and Jacob came home with a lot more little things pinned to his shirt,(which of course have to be un-pinned and re-pinned every time the shirt is washed.

It's called a Crossover ceremony, however, Wes kept getting confused and asking if it was time to go to the Passover.