pictures for ya

First of all, Katie's first sleepover. It went well: I only had to tell them to quiet down twice, and I was able to fall asleep around 1:30 so....much better than any sleepover I had as a kid! (Sorry again, Mom.)

A phenomena I've observed was highlighted during this party - the almost mythical dimensions "the sisters" have reached. We had carefully coached the younger girls to stay out of the way of the party, but both Katie and her friends wanted to include them at every turn. One of the crafts we did was to decorate and sign pillowcases, and the other girls all insisted on having not only the girls from the party, but Katie's little sisters sign them as well. The younger girls were treated like celebrities. It made me proud to realize just how much Katie talks up her sisters to her friends, and it also made me proud to see what a force these five girls make when they band together. The other kids all clearly viewed them as something special that they wanted to be a part of, and it did my heart so much good to have it confirmed: it's not just my mother's eyes that see it, these girls really are something special.

They even insisted on including the sisters in the group photo:

Here's Katie blowing out the candles on her cupcake. (It's become a bday party staple here to have decorate-your-own cupcakes. Makes it easier on me!)

Here's Katie's actual birthday cake. I wasn't completely happy with it, but I learned a valuable lesson: never use dark colored glittery sprinkles with light colored frosting!

And here are cupcakes that I pretty proud of. Funny thing, though - Katie's teacher (very sweetly) emailed me to say that she grew up in New York City, but thought my cupcakes were the best she's ever had. (Yeah, okay, I'm bragging, but wait for the rest of the story...) The thing is, the kids in school didn't like them at all. Chris thinks it's because they aren't used to frosting that isn't from a can, but who knows? Obviously, the cupcakes were pretty frosting-heavy. Katie was happy with them, though, so that's really the only thing that matters. As always, my goal is only to impress my kids. If that's accomplished, who cares what anyone else thinks!

They were cute, though, weren't they?

It's been a while since I've updated this! Sorry! This whole working thing is cramping my internet habits these days.

I have pictures from Katie's birthday party (our first sleepover - which went well, considering the bad karma I should have coming my way from my own childhood sleepovers...), the visit from my family (which ended in the swine flu - three of my cousins immediately went home and became very ill - so chalk up another miracle for us that we don't seem to have caught it) and the super cute cupcakes I made for Katie's classroom, and of which I am very proud. The laptop is being wonky, though, and that's where all the pictures are, so it'll need to wait.

Work is going pretty well. I like playing with frosting, I like baked goods, I like giving cookies to little kids, so it's lucky for me that I work in a bakery. I had assumed that I would be given extensive training and time to get up to speed, but nope! My first day, I made at least 20 cakes to put out on the floor. Let me tell you, your frosting skills really made leaps and bounds when you are spending 6 hours every day doing it. I made one cake with balloons that I was not proud of - they looked very deflated. And while I can now pipe ghosts in my sleep, my very first one looked....well, obscene is what it looked like. I kept looking at it and thinking of Cake Wrecks - a blog I really love (and am not going to link to, because I don't want her to know I exist, but google it! You'll be glad you did, it's really funny!) and thinking how terrible it would be to find a picture of something I had done on there. My ghost could have made it - it was that bad. I even tried to chuck it, but we had a Halloween cake sale going on, and they needed every cake we could get out there. Oh, well.

So....I'll put up some pictures soon. Till then, amuse yourself with some of the posts over at Cake Wrecks, and pray that I may never again deserve to end up there. :)

My zombies are the coolest!

I wrote an article about zombies for my Examiner column, (you can see it here ) but I couldn't find any relevant pictures through Examiner's AP feed. In the end, we did an impromptu makeup session and zombie photo shoot in the front yard, and some of the pictures are just too good to keep to myself! I could only include three in the actual article, so here are the best of the rest. The girls were really, really into it.

This last one is my absolute favorite. Look at that commitment! Abbie is a natural!

Jellybeans and little girls

Do you see this jellybean cannister? Imagine five girls standing around it, salivating. Coveting. Sort of like this:

I bought the jellybeans for Chris. Anything that qualifies as a treat around here has a tendency to....disappear. Quickly. The girls are a lot like locusts when it comes to sugar. So, because I bought the jellybeans for my hardworking husband and wanted him to be able to eat a few, I put a strict prohibition on the jellybeans. They are only for BOYS.

The girls can't take it. They are dying of desire. They have not, however, touched the jellybeans. They gather around the jar, look longingly at its contents, repeatedly wonder aloud how the various colors might taste...but they don't touch them. They respect the Daddy's right to his own treat.

But let's talk about Lucy. She is a wonder and a worry to me, in that order. I marvel at how self-assured she is, how little she cares what others are doing or thinking, how confident she is in her place in the world. I can't believe this little firebrand shares genes with me. I can't believe that I had a hand in bringing this force of nature into existence. While the other girls were tip-toeing around the jellybeans, Lucy studied them long and hard. Then, a few days after their arrival, she came to a decision.

Chris and I were in the basement when she came halfway down the stairs and stopped to confront us. "I am share Daddy's beans, " she announced, looking expectantly at Chris.

Her gaze was unflinching and steely.

He stood up and went to get her some beans.


How could he not? "I am share Daddy's beans," she said, and she meant it. It wasn't a question, it wasn't a request, it was a statement. Concise and unconquerable. Just like Lucy.

Watch out, world, because your jellybeans are next.

Adding to the resume....

Two things:

1- I was just hired to work in the bakery of our local grocery store part-time! I am excited, nervous, worried, curious and about a million other feelings all at once. My first day is Monday, and I'll let you know how it goes. With a little luck, I'm hoping to work the schedule so that I am away from the girls as little as possible.

2- I've begun writing a freelance-ish column for a local website. The link is on my blogroll to the left. I'm enjoying this quite a bit, although it's not exactly lucrative work.

Life is a funny thing, and can take you all sorts of places you never expected to go. One thing you can always count on, though is this: it's always interesting!

Zombie Groundhog

We had a wild time in the fake country tonight.

I am warning you now: the stuff below is not for the squeamish.

Chris and I were cooking dinner in the kitchen, and the girls were all playing outside with the neighbor kids. Suddenly, Beth came shrieking up the hill from the playset, and barreled into the kitchen yelling, "Groundhog! Groundhog!"

"Where?" Chris asked, looking out the window. Beth explained that they had been playing on the slide, when somebody noticed a large, furry animal sitting at the bottom.

"What did it do when you saw it?" Chris asked.
"Uh, not really anything," said Beth. "It just sort of sat there and looked at us, like this." With that, she did a pretty spot-on groundhog imitation, with her paws held up to her face.

So Chris got his shotgun (a.k.a. the child-sized critter-killin' machine from WalMart) and sped off down the hill where the kids were all gathered together, watching the groundhog who was indeed crouched beside the slide.

Chris could tell immediately that something was wrong with the animal, so he did what needed to be done. When it was over, we all crowded around the dead groundhog. One of the neighbor kids asked if Chris could turn it over, because she thought that it might have only one arm, so Chris turned it over and...

Oh, wow. Are you ready for this?
It was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in my life. Half of the groundhog's belly was covered in maggots. Maggots. You can see them in the picture above. The groundhog was literally being eaten alive before Chris put an end to it.

So we buried the dead, and we were all relieved to have it out of sight.

Out of mind is another matter, though.

The fake country can be a pretty brutal place.

I love Lucy

Yesterday was "Family Fun Night" at the girls' school, so we reluctantly (we hate mingling) packed up and headed on over to have some pizza and awkward conversation.

I am so glad that we did.

They were playing music in the gym, and Claire almost immediately took up residence on the dance floor with her best friend. Not long after, Lucy joined her and it was one of those sights that I will remember for the rest of my life. Claire and Lucy danced. And danced. And danced. While other kids came and went, joined in and wandered away, the two of them stuck together and boogied like there was no tomorrow. Every other kid out there was easily twice the size of Lucy, but she couldn't have cared less. She did the funky chicken, she shook her hips and she hopped around without a care in the world. At one point, she decided to wriggle around on the floor, and I watched as Claire positioned herself over her crazy baby sister to keep the other kids from stepping on her. Lucy, however, was just lost in her own world. When a conga-line formed Abbie, who had joined in with Katie, was stiff and awkward, whispering (loudly) to Chris, "I don't want to touch that boy" (in front of her.) She was nervous around all those big kids. Not Lucy. Claire and Lucy joined up, and Lucy funky-chickened her way around the gym without a care in the world.

Later, when we went out to gather the older girls from the playground, Lucy began to pester me to let her go down the playground slide.

"I don't know," I told her, eying the chaos in the dark, "There are a lot of big kids there, Lucy, and they're being pretty crazy."

Lucy patted my shoulder, "Don't worry, " she said. "I strong, Momu."

(Momu is her new nickname for me. I can't get her to stop using it. It rhymes with "Shamu.")

There's nothing more to say about this kid, really. "I strong" she says. And she should know: nobody is more confident in their place in the world than my little Lu.