Our old scout pack used to do a Cake Auction this time of year, so we’re used to baking cakes by now. Our new pack, though, doesn’t sell the cakes off to raise money (they make plenty in popcorn sales apparently)…instead they EAT THEM ALL UP! The kids were so excited. They put ALL the frosting and ALL the sprinkles on them. Look:
G’s Christmas themed cake of love and joy
B’s cake of randomness.
Even after I took the pictures, they kept coming back and sprinkling on “just a little bit” more.
And for those of you asking “Why all the blue and yellow?” Well, our old pack did scout themed cakes and so the original plan had been to make a Tiger Cub seal and a Webelos seal. Once we found out we could make whatever we wanted, those intricate design plans went way out the window. Whew! Was I ever a relieved Mama.
We’re Doctor Who fiends at my house. The 50th Anniversary of the show occurred the weekend before Thanksgiving and we just had to have a party for it. I searched the web high and low for all the best ideas (marshmallow Adipose? Check! Sonic Screwdriver craft? Check! Pin the Face on the fleshy chick? Check!) and invited all our fannish friends.
Sadly, no one could come. They were all traveling for Thanksgiving or preparing to have loads of people come to them. So we had my parents over, decided to postpone the watching of the 50th episode, and chose a kid friendly episode to use as the party went on. We still had all the treats (fish fingers and custard, Wibbly-Wobbly-Timey-Wimey Punch, Jammy Dodgers, etc) and the games and had a great evening. 🙂
Did I mention that I had the WHOLE UNIVERSE here at my house for Thanksgiving? Well I did. Just about a week ago (late Thanksgiving is SO weird) I had my family, Nick’s family, and Kay’s family here for Thanksgiving.
It was quite busy and full of fun, game playing, eating, and togetherness. 🙂
We’re having breakfast this morning, one of those Martha White bagged breakfast bread kind of mornings, when the topic of biscuits versus scones comes up. These drop biscuits really resemble unfettered muffins more than biscuits or scones, with their weird shape and overwhelming sweetness.
So we took to the Internet and found that most sites will tell you that yes, there’s a difference, but nowhere did they state that exact difference (other than the whole “one is Scottish, one is associated with the American South” thing). So later in the week when we’re not so pressed for time, do expect us to have a scone versus biscuits extravaganza. Yes, we’re going to bake this out. 🙂
This day has been crazy. I got up, had breakfast with Nick, then picked up my mom and went out to Hawkins to get the kids. We got the full tour of the house remodel as it stands (bedrooms & bathrooms done, walls up but not sheetrocked for the rest of the house) and got to see G driving the tractor. Sadly we had to leave quickly to get back home in time for B’s birthday party. But wait, there’s more. My mom told the kids “let’s stop by the bagel place” which I took to mean “let’s pick up bagels.” Nope, we ended up stopping, eating bagels, visiting with G’s friend that we saw there, and then finally going back to my mom’s house. I left the kids there and went home to clean. I got it all done, got the cake decorated, got the party supplies out, and then the kids came back home.
I bought a cake from the store and added the giant Pokeball by hand, which actually saved me money as I didn’t have to buy all those different colors of frosting and little ball shaped confetti, nor did I have to pay for a custom cake:
Our kids came back to our house not too long before the party. While waiting for other kids to arrive, we decorated goodie bags with Pokemon stickers (that we already had and never used!). After all the kids arrived, we had Pokemon Training in the Battle Arena:
Then we had Pin the Tail on Pikachu, a game thought of by my B. (And another money saver, as I had all the supplies on hand)
After that we went fishing for Water Pokemon cards (for their goodie bags; the cards were purchased new for the event, the “fishing poles” were made of kid yard tools, string, and magnets we already had on hand):
Then we took the kids back inside for a Pokemon Trivia game while other adults hid stuff in the backyard for the scavenger hunt. The kids made up all the trivia questions and I made the screen saver for the blu-ray player. If they paid attention to the screen saver, they got hints about the answers.
After trivia we went back outside for another game: Rocket Relay Challenge. The challenge was to get the balloons to hit the target after launching them in the air. We used the “pond” from the water game and put a target in the middle.
Then we played the Pokemon Evolution Game, which involved coccooning your Pokemon completely before they erupted out a newly evolved creature. (I bought toilet paper at the dollar store for this purpose and we didn’t even use it all)
Then we started the Scavenger Hunt. We hid Pokemon related things around the backyard and had clues to get them to the next place.
At each place they got a piece for their goodie bags, like a “pokeball,” a “pokemon,” some “berries,” and then “training tools.” (Balls, animals, candy, and bubbles all came from the dollar store.)
After all that we had cake
and presents
and played Pokepark (B’s present from his grandma) on the Wii until parents came to gather up kids. It was a great party! 🙂
I’ve been working overtime this week preparing for B’s 8th birthday party. We sent out invitations last week shaped & photoshopped to look like Pokemon cards. I’m thinking they’ve mostly gone astray, as I’ve only heard back from the two parents that I personally talked to about the party. That being said, we invited 16, are prepared for about 12, and will probably have just 6 kids. You know how it goes. I’ve spent hours online researching Pokemon (which my kid loves & I know oddly little about outside of the fact that they are playing cards). I’ve made signs for the various “centers” in the yard/house. I’ve come up with games that can be played both inside or out (there’s rain in the forecast, but we rarely get it when they say we will) .
Where were we?
Wednesday we blogged about here, as it was B’s birthday. We took cupcakes up to school, but got a bit in trouble for them, as we were apparently misinformed by the teacher about bringing homemade cupcakes. Oh well. They were yummy and no children had food allergies in that class anyway. The aforementioned friend did, in fact, come over.
Yesterday MDO was open, but David stayed home sick, so I didn’t get a break all week. He wasn’t too bad off, mostly just coughing and fevery. It only lasted that day. I left him watching TV and went off to my piano lesson, which he minded not at all.
We’ve also got well child check-ups this morning, playgroup after at the park, and a new TV coming in this afternoon, so it’s shaping up to be a super busy day. Hope I have enough spoons. 🙂
It’s my middle son’s 8th birthday today. I love him so much! We had special cranberry orange muffins (from a package, not homemade, that was part of the request) for breakfast and played Quirkle (his new favorite game – from his Aunt Kay). I will be bringing his class homemade white cupcakes with colored frosting & mini m&m’s on top after lunch. After school I’d planned on having one of his friends over for a while (but haven’t heard back from the mom yet). Then we’ll have pizza for dinner and his present from grandma after.
School started for the kids back in mid-August, which meant I did lots of shopping and resting and shopping some more. Then PTA stuff started back up. I’m homeroom parent coordinator, so I’ve spent lots of time making a database of which parent is willing to help with which activity for which grade (as well as all the contact info, which flummoxes me a bit because the school already has most of that info in a database somewhere; why must I copy it?). I started volunteering a couple hours a week in the school library helping check in and out while the librarian teaches classes. I also help out with shelving (I bring in my own kneeling pad & am allowed to scoot around in the wheeled chair when my knees are bad) and in the computer lab. It’s more fun and life-affirming than you can imagine. My husband thought it might wear me out, but it actually has been energizing me because it gives me a couple hours out of my own head. Plus I get to talk to kids about books! What could be better?!
Let’s see, what else? My sinus CT came back normal (I was on steroids and antibiotics at the time; of course it looked normal) so I’m keeping the suggested surgery at bay for a while longer. I got a staph infection at the gym (I’m pretty sure it was there) the first day I went there. They now have bleach wipes for everyone to use after using the machines. Yay.
Once that was gone, I went back to my primary care doctor for a physical. He said I was the healthiest he’d seen me in ages and that we should go ahead and do those vaccinations he’d been holding off on for a long while. So I got a flu shot and a TDAP. I immediately started feeling weak and dizzy, but I HATE shots, so I didn’t say much. I told the lady doing my blood draw that I felt weird and she let me sit for a while first and eventually I was good to go. Three days went by and while my flu shot side (the nurse labeled them) stayed small and red, the TDAP side swelled and swelled and was very hot. I had a fever the first couple days, then it left and a stiff neck set in. I called my doctor’s office a couple times but my doctor was out of the office & there was a holiday weekend involved, so I finally saw the doctor about a week later. He said I’d had a really bad reaction to the vaccination and put me on another round of steroids. (Even now, a month later, I can still feel a marble sized lump under my skin on that site.)
Since I’m mostly doing all right lately, I’ve started a new food tracking program. I’m using LoseIt.com to track my food and exercise (I used to use SparkPeople, but it felt so competitive and just like too much to do). I’ve discovered a few things the past couple weeks (I tracked for a week without changing anything first, just to see what that looked like.): 1) After entering my age/weight/activity level and letting the program run its calculations, I found out that I apparently don’t eat enough, so my body’s been in starvation mode and b) once I started eating as many calories as I’m supposed to have, I started losing weight. So far just a week of eating more (and making sure that that “more” was a healthy more, not a candy bar or soda more) and I’m down 1.7 pounds. No extra exercise (although it counts weird things like housecleaning and music making as exercise) involved. We’re going on vacation this next week, so eating well will be trickier, but I’ll also be moving around more, so that’ll even some things up. Still, I’ll be trying checking out menus/nutritional values and trying to keep as close to on-track as one can while on vacation.
How’s the RA? It’s coming and going. When I’m being good and resting like I ought to it mostly stays pretty quiet. When I’m running around like a crazy person (the last couple weeks: friends came to dinner, we went out to dinner, my kids birthday party, book fair at school, field trip for MDO, PTA movie night, playing a duet at church, family dinner night out), then it creeps up on me and unleashes its wrath: hot swollen ankles, knees, and hands; a painful back, shoulders, and elbows. I’m hoping that this upcoming vacation week allows me to slow down a little and catch my breath and rest my limbs. 🙂
Lisa Holcomb 