Certifiable

With all twenty-seven of mine and Glenn's family members being in town this week, two big holidays (and I'm just talking Christmas Eve and Christmas Day), and a baptism with its subsequent lunch, food has been on my mind quite a bit lately. More than usual, if you can believe that. I have been trying to plan ahead and prepare, and most of that focus has been on cookies.

It is enough to drive a person mad.

Evidences of my mental decline:

Hastily scribbled recipes copied from the internet.
Cleaning the kitchen over and over again, only to have it end up looking like this once more.Hoarding the food in the garage, right next to the gas can and fertilizer.All-consuming thoughts of cookies and the incessant need to bake them.Along with the baking comes, of course, the sampling. Creamed butter and sugar are running through my veins. The extra layer of padding around my middle is composed solely of shortening, flour, baking soda, and vanilla. And a little cocoa powder and peanut butter. I don't think this carbohydrate and fatty overload is doing much to contribute to the sanity, either.

But no one is going to go without this Christmas. Trust me. The voices in my head told me so.

Angels We Have Heard

Curled and pinned-up hair, new dresses, jewelry: Check

Two dozen cookies: Check

Snowy night and slippery roads: Check

Coats to save nine seats: Check

Full house at the Performing Arts Center: Check

Grandma Brooks, who changed her plane ticket to be at the concert: Check

More grandparents, cousins, siblings, a mom, a dad, and an aunt: Check

Enthusiastic intermediate school orchestra director and his very beginning but still lovely orchestra: Check

Over 170 fifth grade choir members dressed to the nines: Check


And singing their hearts out (well, some of them): Check

Tears during this song: Check

Best first concert ever:

Check!

Lucky Number Seven

This little burritois now our seven year old Mexican jumping bean--old enough to have lost two teeth (with a little help from the dentist),

and have his first Wear-Your-Pajamas-To-School day._____________________

And by the way...when is a boy too old to be smothered in kisses?

Because after seven years, I still cannot resist
those cheeks!Those lips!This face!Just as yummy now as the day he was born.

This takes the cake, Part 2

It was doomed from the start. Just not meant to be. We all know how the first cake turned out. And wouldn't you know, the second cake wasn't much better.

I simplified the plan, scaled things down. But there were just too many crumbs, and not enough frosting to fix it. And I was not going to make more.
Then while writing "Go Browns," I forgot the exclamation point, which I had added after "Go Cavs!" and "Go Indians!" But I had already switched frosting colors, so it was too late.
And then, this afternoon, we discovered this:
I mean, really. This must be some sort of a sign.

It seems this guy was the culprit:

But once again, appearance isn't everything. It tasted just as good, if not better, than a cake that looks like this would taste:
And once again, this guy didn't seem to mind a bit.

But I'm taking a good four months off. The world is safe from my cakes till April.

Formula for a successful party

1. Keep it small. Five boys is a great number.
2. Serve lots of food. You can't go wrong with hot dogs and cheese puffs.
3. Send them off to the movies with your husband.
4. Relax and get stuff done for the two hours while they are gone.
5. Listen to the lines they quote from "Bolt" when they come bounding back in the door.
6. Open presents, eat cake, pass out gift bags, say thank you, goodbye, and you're done!

Your boy is happy and all sugared up and stocked with new toys to play with. Simple as that!

Decking the Halls

My most favorite ornament--a set of three angels my mom made for me. She used leftover materials from making my wedding veil.

The traditional take-a-picture-in-front-of-the-tree-with-the-self-timer picture. And of course we had to do a silly pose.

Notice an extra little elf in the pictures? It's Andrew's friend, dropped off that day at 10:30 for a 12:00 party. He ended up staying until 5:30 that night. He's a cute kid, and I don't think he'd ever decorated a Christmas tree before. The more, the merrier, right?

This takes the cake

I did it the first time 25 years ago. And based on how I did it last night, I haven't come very far.

From this:
to this...

...is not much progress.

It was a deceptively simple request.

I asked Andrew what type of cake he wanted for his birthday. Stripes of colors from all three Cleveland sports teams. Piece of cake. So to speak.

But then I started making the frosting. And realized that I had to make six different colors. Including burgundy. I actually found burgundy food coloring at the cake shop, which in reality is a nice purply magenta color. A color that would not do for a team with a perfect at-home record and only three losses on the road. But with a little brown here and some red there, I was able to mix a passable shade.

Soon the second blue color (because the blue for the Cavs is quite distinct from the blue for the Indians) went out the window. This was a cake for five 7 year old boys, for heaven's sake.

I borrowed a huge (and I mean huge) cake decorating tip from Melissa, perfect for making nice, wide, stripes of color. This should be done in no time, I foolishly thought. My bowls of colored frosting were in the fridge and I was ready to go. But here is the problem. I did not have enough of the different colors to make the tip an effective tool. It did not make a nice even stripe. It did, however, make a lumpy, streaky stripe that needed to be smoothed with my spatula.

I had all the colors on, but decided that the white stripe in the middle needed to be thicker. Notice how it is flanked by red and blue. Do ya think that white went on nicely? Nope. Not a chance. And in no time, this cake has decidedly taken its place as the worst cake I have ever decorated in my life.

I always make my kids' cakes. I know I am not great at it, but that's ok with me. It's fun. And I have definitely had my strokes of genius. Take this one, for example. This is my all-time favorite cake. It was quite impressive, even to the little girls at the party. That cake rocked.

So this time, I'm off my game. It's all right. And please, no half-hearted comments meant to reassure me that the cake is "nice" or "fine" or "cute." I'll know that you are flat-out lying. And besides, like I mentioned earlier, it's for a bunch of boys. They won't know the difference and it will taste fine.

But I have told Andrew that some adjustments will need to be made when I decorate the cake for the family party tomorrow. After all, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Har har.