A new Goal: Make things that taste good and look good

Usually when it comes to baking I head to my mom's house so that she can help me create something that looks beautiful. When it comes to baking I can usually settle for something that tastes delicious even if it isn't pretty. No more. My new career as a full-time mother has changed me and I want my baked items to look pretty. I will, even if I have to cause every one around me to gain 5-10 pounds when I drop off treats at their door.

My first attempt at cake balls on my own went fabulous (others may disagree). I was so excited that I took pictures-hey I am not afraid to celebrate.

P.S. Instead of blogging the past 5 weeks I have been reading silly novels.

Talia sets the World on Fire!

Talia has the best times with all things dangerous. If she is not jumping from high places, she is relating another tale of being tied up and escaping the dragon. I mean she lives such a fast paced life it is incredible that she is related to me. She is pictured below with a Talia size sparkler hijacked from our friends wedding.

Her brother is following in her footsteps. He shakes his baby gate to slowly wedge it apart to make his escape and last week while trying to give me a heart attack he crawled to the pool and got in to the water. He backed up, legs first and even held onto the side dangling in the water (I was trying to give him the fear so he wouldn't be so daring-no such luck). When he let go and tried to walk\swim to me I had to retrieve a floating Tristan. This picture is him recreating the event for the blog picture. Now that I think about it I was nicknamed "Danger" when I was younger so maybe I shouldn't act so incredulous.

Growing Up to be Like Mom and Dad...

You know when you are young and naive and promise yourself how your life is going to be? I made a lot of interesting plans like for instance I planned to visit every country before I was 50 (hasn't happened but I still have tons of time-I have been to Mexico so cross that one off) or learn how to ride a skateboard and be able to competently ride to locations without mauling my face (still in progress). I also had several things on my list from my childhood experiences with my parents. They are wonderful people but there were certain things they would do when I was young that would drive me crazy. Well kick me in the leg and call me Linda\Marc because I went and committed one of the worst ones. I put Talia to bed last night and then proceeded to make dessert. My parents used to send Candice and I to bed and we would be lying in bed and the popcorn maker would go on. Man we used to get so burnt about it. I remember being in my dark room and at 7 years old promising myself that I would never do such a mean thing to my kid. I mean come on it is the loudest dessert you can have. It is not like you can hide the sound of the blender or the popcorn maker (they used to make milkshakes without us too-I am getting ticked off again just remembering the unjust nature of it all) and last night in my pursuit of a good treat after a long day of entertaining my children I flipped that loud ole' popcorn maker on and I knew that Talia could hear it in her bed. Am I a jerk or what? I didn't even feel any guilt about it as I added my Ghiradelli milk chocolate chips to the warm popped corn.

I guess the morale of the story is parents have a hard job and deserve their uninterrupted treats. And there should be things that our kids don't get that we do. To my mom and dad I hope you enjoyed your treats because you earned them. And I will be removing "Never leave my kids out of dessert" from my life long list of things to do.

P.S. Here are some pictures of my children enjoying their desserts (Tristan eating food off the floor and Talia after eating a Popsicle).

Party Socks

For any one who has met Talia this might be a little redundant of a post, but I had to comment on this obsession of my daughter's. Talia loves having adventures, tying people up and seeing her friends (by the way I like many am her best friend). She also loves collecting things and putting them into socks. Now I don't why she does it, I only know that she calls it her party socks and carries which ever sock she is most inclined to care about that day around as such. She has become a little fanatical about it because I keep finding random socks throughout my house filled with items. Not to mention the fact that these hijacked socks are usually without their mate which means I folded laundry and some of my socks in my sock pile wandered away-hmmm.

The following is the collection of socks I found today to prove to you all that according to Talia, party socks although not wearable are great accessories. It can be worn over the shoulder or just in ones hand:

Items in sock (interestingly some days there are many more items stuffed into socks):

Tristan Attacks

Tristan has begun to crawl and man is he everywhere. He is the most mischievous boy in the land right now. I can't seem to keep up. Now he isn't up to full crawling antics because he is mostly using the army crawl technique but at times he sticks his bum-bum in the air and stands his legs up like a stink bug. Right now his favorite trick is to crawl as fast as he can to the receiver by our television and turn the surround sound off or flip the volume knob so that it gets very loud. While he is in en route I call out for him to stop and he turns his head and looks at me smiles and then begins to crawl even faster towards his goal. He thinks it is a hilarious game (I do not). Still I will play it with him all day because he is just so darn bright and cheery. This kid could make Darth Vader smile-if you could see Vader's lips through his breathing mask.

Television and Games

Most who know my family know that we recently subscribed to cable. I have been boring my parents with my descriptions of these great shows that have been on for a long time that I am just now being made aware of. I can't help it if Dinner-Mission: Impossible it interesting to me. I mean what girl wouldn't want her quincenera cooked to completion in under 7 hours by a man who has never made a cake before. It is entertainment genius. Still to fully understand our family's devotion to the telly I give you exhibit a and b. The front view is the results of a second that Tristan and Jacob turned their eyes away from the television to pretend to want to take a picture. Exhibit B is what they were actually doing. In fact just last night Tristan was nursing and stopped to crane his head around my arm to watch some of "Gary Unmarried".

I really am not that upset about it because Talia and her "Playhouse Disney" + PBS has really advanced her vocabulary. I am extremely amused by the pretend conversations we get to have wherein I am Handy Manny and she is the ice cream lady calling about her broken freezer. In her scripted phone call (she insists on telling me "No you say (whatever it is) and I say this okay?" and then we do it. Tristan even gets to be involved: Talia calls him "The tool" which is a riot because to some that is a derogatory name. "Daddy is a tool" really becomes a giggling moment for Jacob and I -we can't help it.

We do not however only watch TV. Jacob and I are quite adept at playing all manner of games. In the following picture we are showing off our excellent gaming skills after taking over in Cranium on Christmas Day. Jacob is quite good at "silently" drawing. We are working on improving our Nerts skills for the Nichols family reunion and finding new words for Speed Scrabble. I need to get back to studying the "Q" and "X" section of the dictionary to hone my skills for the upcoming game night... so I hope every one's new year is going fabulous and until next time.

Talia's Imagination and Other Information

The Christmas season is here and I finally unpacked my very last "moving in box". I put the finishing pieces on my tree and lit my evergreen candle (I really miss the smell of a real tree). I made shortbread cookies last night with Candice. Tristan helped a little but mostly just tried to maintain control of the cup that Candice was letting him drink water out of. He is a strong old bugger. I have two things to address in this post first is to mention that it is really hard to have traditions once you move away from home and your whole family leaves. Continuing that feel good family feel when it is just little ones (who barely know what is going on) makes the holidays almost a sad time. I did my best to find the present everyone wanted but I think this year for me I have been fighting to not long for silly things like the ugly sweater contest or dumb old Christmas caroling. Please don't get me wrong I have much to be grateful for. I am grateful for my mother-in law for helping me continue my families tradition of matching pajamas for Christmas Eve (and Day). I am even more grateful that my children are happy and healthy. It is so fun to answer Talia's favorite question (no not "Do you want to see my new room?") "What do you want for Christmas?"; although I must say she keeps telling me that I want toys even though I keep answering that I want socks. I am grateful for family in general, I just miss some of the things that Christmas will be lacking this year...

On a totally different note: As we were decorating the tree this year Talia made a new friend out of my tree garland. I would like to introduce you to her cat. In fact she has now taken this cat somewhere that I can't find and now my tree is only half garland and half not. Personally I think it gives it some character. Below is Talia taking her cat for a walk.