Need a Laugh or 2 to Get Your Day Started?

My nephew and his wife, April, have 2 of the cutest little boys, Schafer and Anderson (aka Andy).

April also has a blog. If you need a few laughs today, you've just got to hop over and read her post from yesterday.

She also takes wonderful photographs of those darling little guys, don't you think?

Another Candle Added to the Cake

                                                      

AD and I went to Oklahoma City this past weekend for G4's 9th birthday party.

Being the Star Wars fan that Son is, he was extremely excited that G4 asked for a Star Wars cake.

There was light saber limbo. That's G4 going under the limbo saber and G3 preparing to. The little guy in the red cap was just too adorable!

Son made all the kids light sabers out of PVC pipe.

The "light" of each saber was made using duct tape. Each child got to choose the color they liked best.

They all really had a good playing with them.

Besides the cake and of course ice cream, Son made a couple of snack recipes using a Star Wars cookbook. (I took some photos and wanted to post at least one but for some reason blogger just won't bring it in.)

Happy Birthday, G4! Next year it's double digits for you.

Monday Night's Mowing

When AD got home yesterday afternoon he said it would be a good time to mow. Between the two of us, we mow about three and a half acres.

With the mower gassed up, my hat and ear protection on, I proceeded to mow my area.

Usually, there's really not much to see except the grass. But not last night.

(click on the photo to enlarge it)

Not long after I started I caught sight of this little guy. Can you see him? He's just to the right at the top of my shadow. Although it doesn't look like it I'm really pretty close to him. He just kept running back and forth along the mow line and seemed to be looking for something, not caring that I was around.

Later I caught sight of this dead snake. He must have been in the path of my mower but not concerned that I was around either. I'm not a fan of snakes but if I'd seen him I wouldn't have intentionally run over him.

I don't make a habit of carrying even a small camera with me while I'm mowing. After all, what could there possibly be to take a photo of? When I saw Mr. Quail I did wish I had my camera. As I watched him it suddenly occurred to me that my cell phone was in my pocket so I was able to get a couple of photos of him. Not great, but better than nothing.

Maybe I should start carrying my camera with me after all.

Mother's Day Weekend 2011

Remember how busy I was last weekend? Well, this weekend was every bit as busy and today I'm pooped!

It all started last Friday when the scrapbook store closest to my house held a weekend crop because Saturday was National Scrapbook Day. The crop started on Friday at 11:00am  - ok, so I got there at 10:00 - and lasted  until midnight. The crop continued on Saturday but I wasn't able to go that day because . . .

. . . I took a cake class in Tulsa. Did I mention that after getting to bed around 12:30, I had to get up at 6am to pack up my things for the drive to Tulsa?

Son drove in to Tulsa from Oklahoma City to take the class too. Since the first time we saw a "topsy-turvy" cake - you know, the ones that look like they're about ready to topple over? - we've wanted to know how to put one together and this class taught us how.

The cakes were actually supposed to be 3-tiered but Son and I chose to make 2-tiered ones because of the distance we had to travel back home with our cakes. Not to mention the actual size of the cake! What you see above is three 2-inch thick layers of 9-inch cakes and 3 2-inch layers of 6-inch cakes. Had we made 3-tier cakes the one you see above would have been on top of 3 layers of 12-inch cakes. And that's a whole bunch of cake!

The decorating design was left up to each student. I found a cake design online that I liked and tried my hand at it. I didn't think it turned our too terribly bad considering I was in a big hurry to get it done. I actually had to finish it after I got home -still in a hurry - but I had places to go and things to do. 

Son made a "Angry Birds" cake. Do you know that game? I don't really know anything about it other than I've heard it can be addictive and I just don't have time.  But I've seen pictures of the characters and Son did a great job on his cake.

Once home and the cake decorating was finished it was off to be the videographer for G1's turf car race. AD and I made it home about 11:30pm. Not bad for a race night but I was running way low on energy.

Yesterday, Mother's Day, was a day of rest. It had to be. I was dog-tired.

Daughter and her family came over for a little while in the afternoon and G2 surprised me with this bouquet of flowers. I've said before that he is one onery kid but then he'll do something like this and it just melts my heart.

Then AD took me out to dinner. What a guy! But then, he was probably thinking that if he didn't he'd just had to eat cake.

So that was my Mother's Day weekend. I hope yours was just as much fun as mine was!

P.S. Seems I forgot to mention that I made these cookies for the crop weekend on Thursday.

(For those of you who don't scrapbook and are wondering what those sparkly baby bottle-looking things are, they're supposed to be bottles of Stickles, a kind of glitter glue made for scrapbooking.)

Whew! What a Weekend

Last Friday I drove to Oklahoma City for a visit with Son's family.

G3, G4 and Girlie had soccer games scheduled and there was going to be a Fancy Nancy party at the Borders bookstore in Norman.

I also thought I'd take the opportunity to take each of the 3 older ones, individually, out to eat. Kind of some one-on-one time with each of them.

G3 chose to go to IHOP for supper. We had a nice visit and he told me about things he was doing at school. He's in the 4th grade and they're learning to label a map of the US with all the states names. He told me that on his first attempt at the labeling he got 41 states out of 50 correct. I thought that was pretty good!

Saturday morning it was G4's turn. He chose to go to Krispy Kreme for a breakfast of donuts and milk. I asked if he'd seen any good movies lately. He told me ALL about Tron. I think he told me the whole movie, start to finish.

Because soccer games started at 9am, we really didn't have a lot of time but it was a good visit, just the two of us.

G3's game started at 9am. That's him kicking the ball. It was a cold, windy morning! I was glad I'd taken a hoodie along for the weekend.

G4 and Girlie's games were both at 11am. We sat in the car in between games to warm up.

The soccer fields were not far from each other so I was able to walk from one to the other to watch the action.

That's Girlie in the pink hoodie standing near the ball. Son says she's always excited to go to her games but she was just standing there watching everyone else play. Son was concerned about that but it just takes her a little time to get warmed up.  

G4 really wanted to play goalie but his coach didn't play him there. Son says he makes a great goalie but I thought he did a really good job getting the ball down the field. And he almost scored a goal one time.

Back at Girlie's game, she's still thinking about getting into the game.

Almost there. See how's she's almost ready to try kicking the ball.

Not long after she was into the game. I told Son she'll be better next season. After all, she's only 4.

As soon as her soccer game was over we headed for Norman to the Fancy Nancy party. Son changed her out of her soccer uniform into her party dress in the car. He'd gotten a boa for her to wear so she'd be very fancy for the party.

As it turned out, the store had originally scheduled the party for 2pm but somewhere along the way the time was changed to 11am. The manager told us to just come when her game was over.

Girlie was the only one there when we arrived so she got individual attention. This nice lady read a couple of Fancy Nancy books to her, they both colored a crown and then decorated them with glitter and sparkly "jewels". There was even some chocolate cookies and a special "fancy" drink. It was fun to watch and Girlie had a good time.

Just as we were getting ready to leave another group of little girls showed up. It was probably just as well that the little girls came in groups because I imagine it was a lot easier to manage all the glitter and glue that way.

Afterward Son, Girlie and I went to lunch at her favorite place - Red Robin. Although I'd intended to take Girlie to lunch by herself, it just worked better for us all to go while we were there.

We'd also planned to do another photo shoot at one of the parks. I wanted some photos of Girlie in the other dress I'd gotten for her before Easter. She had a lot more smiles for the camera this time.

I'd made some mini sugar cookies to take along. We'd actually planned for one of her little friends to be there but unfortunately she wasn't able to do that.

Then it was back to Son's house to get ready for a Pampered Chef party.

Son is a Pampered Chef consultant (I hope that's the right word) and he'd invited me along. He was going to prepare a salad similar to one that he likes to order when he and his wife go to Charleston's. It was delicious and everyone loved it.

On Sunday I woke up to cold rain, thunder and lightening and it was time to head back home.

I'm sure glad that rain held off for the weekend!