Saturday, January 31, 2009

Make and Take

On Thursday night, the house was full of crafty people whipping up scrabble tile necklaces right and left. More on these later!

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Dear Michaels

Dear Michaels,

Your new dollar bins ROCK!

Dear KitchenAid

Dear KitchenAid,

I consider myself a loyal customer. I own many KitchenAid products and consider my mixer to be an essential component to my marriage. However, I do have a bone to pick with you. This is the THIRD beater I have had to replace. I can understand wanting the beater to match the color of the mixer, but please - no one wants flecks of white plastic in their cookies. I have discovered the non-coated beater and I ask you - why did you not give me this in the first place?

Thank you for your concern KitchenAid, and if you feel racked with guilt and would like to send me something to make me feel better about your products, I would be tickled to receive the Pro 500 series stand mixer in red.

Sincerely,
Scrappycook

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Shake Your Groove Thing . . .

What do you do with four kids with too much energy after lunch? Why, you pop in a Wiggles Live! CD and force them to dance for 15 minutes straight!

The culprits - the two in the middle are the ones who know they should be napping. See them giving me the evil eye . . . "you can't make me nap" . . .


. . . but after 15 minutes of heart racing booty shaking, there was blissful napping and peace filled my house. Thank you silly singing Australian men.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

I love my Socks

American Girls . . and their dolls

Saturday was Natalie's 5th birthday party and both Sophie and I were invited. It was held at the new (since November) American Girl Doll Store in the Mall of America. I was invited as a parent volunteer and Bryan stayed home with the boys - hooray!

To the store's credit, no one commented on the fact that only two of the girls actually owned an American girl doll.


Please forgive the lady's fat bum in this photo. Wait - is that me?


The party was adorable and they did everything leaving Susan I free to cheer on the girls and eat salmon for lunch. They played games, made crafts and had a fancy lunch with fruit kabobs, pink lemonade, pizza and cake.


Do the dolls look a bit freaky hanging there on the wall? I love the little hanging pendant lights and I kind of want that throne for my house.


Um, I also want this cake stand.


Thank you Susan! Susan and I kept sneaking cake off the girls plates when they weren't looking.
Did you really think that was my bum? Mine may be that large, maybe, but it's cuter.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Accidental Birthday Cake

Last night, I fed 11 people dinner including the missionaries. I made this new recipe: chocolate devils food cake with sour cream chocolate orange icing. Calvin said it looked like a birthday cake.


Lo, and behold, it just happened to be Evi's 2nd birthday yesterday! Evi is impossibley small for a 2 year old. Her parents will be able to pass her off as under two on domestic flights for another year at least.


This is all that remained this morning. Are you thinking "why, that's just the right size for breakfast!" So was I - and it was.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Winter Preschool

You have to be tough to handle winter preschool in Minnesota. Calvin and Natalie attend a three mornings a week preschool that is held in a warming house of one of our local parks. If the temperature creeps above freezing, the kids go outside to play.

In the summer they play on the playground, but in the winter, they head to the snow piles. The park boasts not one but two ice skating/hockey rinks and just for fun, they flood the space between the rinks so people can skate from one to the other.

I don't know which is cooler for the kids - the snow or the ice!


Here is the view behind the huge snow pile in the first photo.

Thoughts on Marshmallows

Here are my thoughts on the use of marshmallows in a mug of hot cocoa.

You can never have too many.


It is 11 degrees right now. Brrrrr.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Playdate


Someone was not keen on being photographed. Actually, I had to bribe them all with lolly pops. Thank heavens for dum-dums.

Views from my window - Unexpected Guests

The weather is back up in the 20's which means our feathered friends are back to visiting us regularly. Actually, I think we were just too cold to go out and fill the bird feeder when the temperature dropped to -26. Sorry about that guys.


Do you see the guy on the left with the jaunty patch of red on top of his head? That's a Common Redpoll (according to Bryan), and it is the first time we have ever had one come to our house. Bryan is a walking encyclopedia of bird facts. If you ever want to see him swoon, get him a heated birdbath. He was been telling me we need one years. I'd rather have new toilets, but whatever.


The birds come in huge numbers until this guy shows up and scares them all away. No longer intimidated by knocking on the glass, in order to get him to leave, you have to open the sliding glass door and lob a snowball at him. He can pack away birdseed like nobody's business.