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.)