Springtime in the Valley

February is my favorite month of the year. I am quite sure it can be traced back to the fact that my sister, brother and I were all born this month, so it is chock-full of happy childhood memories. My wonderful mother used to bake us all our very own cake, and decorate it too! We would have one gigantic birthday party with all the friends and relatives. On our actual birthday we would get a small gift and pick out anything we wanted mom to cook for dinner. As we got older we each had a weekend sleepover as well. Such fun things, but now that I am a mother, I wonder about the sanity of the plan! Thankfully all of our birthdays are spaced out a bit. Perhaps we will wind up with a birthday in every month. In that case we will probably graduate to family outings as the party of choice, with a homemade and decorated cake and a special birthday dinner of course!

Then again, everything is in bloom this time of year. The daffodils always make it for Greg's birthday, and the trees are blossoming as well. At night, when it is warmer, the air is heavy with a honeysuckle scent...I love it! It is a good thing I am allergic to molds and not pollens!

I spent the morning working in the boys room, and i have discovered some nice things. The toddler bunk bed that my dad built has just enough space underneath to slide in a third mattress, trundle style! So we don't need to add another bed in until we have another baby. I re-organized the diaper changing area and am considering moving a few of the items there into other rooms. The towels will move to the bathroom eventually (when we get the $ together for Garrett to build our linen cabinet) The sheets and big blankets can move to the hall closet and the co-sleeper bedding can be stored underneath that! I am quite happy with the theoretical reorganization. My goal is to eventually have everything stored in the room which it is used. Its kind of like the trendy "make a coffee station in your kitchen with everything you need in the same place." idea, but with the whole house!

I also have a few project ideas for the room. I want to paint trains on the walls, "Freight Train" style a la Eric Carle. I'd also like to add some "learning" items around their table area. Numbers and alphabets and shapes and such. Will be researching soon!

For the new baby, in order to keep the room uncluttered, will not be getting a dresser. I believe I can fit the tiny clothes into baskets under the changing area. I have these white wire baskets (from when I was a kid!) which are very sturdy and still very useful, but, well, holey and not very attractive. I want to sew some sort of liner for them, maybe a Velcro or elastic type. we will see!

Yesterday's quiche was a flop. The yogurt looks questionable, it has a very thick, kind of stringy texture, gooey, not sour-cream like. sigh. I guess I'll try it out on the boys, and give it another whack later. Next time I will do the half-gallon and use a different culture base, and perhaps leave it much much longer to culture. Maybe I'll make some yogurt-cheese out of this batch.

Breakfast: Cereal and milk, strawberries (W)
Snack: Toast (from homemade white bread) butter, jam
Lunch: Lentils and rice with fried onions, yogurt
Dinner: Mac n cheese, baked potato (Special request from Garrett)

NCC--1701

Things are settling down around here. It seems the plumbing issue is resolved for now. Plans are going forward to fix it permanently. I am still de-cluttering and cleaning out my home, and have been quite happy with the results. My book collection has been minimized. We got rid of one shelf. and my wonderful husband Garrett used the pieces to build me a smalll shelf for the kitchen, which now holds my sewing machine, project supplise, Home management binder as well as my plant and radio. The front hall closet now has space to hold the vaccuum, The giant pile of laundry now has a home in seperate sorting baskets its making it easy to grab a load and wash! The boys room is now free of all of the excess junk we were storing in there. It feels so open and bright now!

Today was Garrett's birthday. We have had a rough couple of weeks and decided to keep things simple, so I surprised him with a cake. Some of my best birhtday memories were of mom handmaking me a cake so I thought it would be a nice gift for him. I was feeling creative after watching the Food Network yesterday so I made him the Starship Enterprise. I don't know how to use fondant, so I did it with Grandma's frosting recipe. I was quite pleased with the results as was he. Here is a quick step by step photo montage...






First I started with cake! I used an 8 in circle and an 8 in square.














I covered a piece of cardboard and my inverted cake pan with foil, as well as two hot cocoa packages. As this would be a 3D creation.





Then I shaped and placed the cake.











Lots and lots of frosting









I used store bought frosting in a spray can for the detail work...It was terrible! So I put it in a piping bag, it helped but not by much....next time I will just settle for (home-made) gray instead of the black.












Here it is with the Nacelles




















Ta Da!













The final look, as it goes down in flames!










Overall it was a great little suprise, and all it took was creativity and time. Garrett has already put in his order for his 30th--he wants the Battlestar Gallactica. Thankfully I will have a couple of years to figure that one out!!

We will round out the birthday celebration by going out to see a local minor-league baseball game tonight. The boys will have a great time bonding over that, I hope!