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Gingerbread Houses 2012 edition

It's a tradition. And, apparently, one Biscuit looks forward to doing!

It was Oscar's first year "decorating." In hindsight we should have saved his first year for next year.

Whereas Biscuit didn't figure out for years that the candy was edible, Oscar was a bit quicker to cotton on to that idea. He only seemed to like the Skittles but licked several gumdrops, peppermints and a bottle cap. He's quick this one. Then he was up on the table and in pursuit of more.

He did manage to help squeeze some frosting and stick on some candies so it wasn't a total waste. And I got to finish his masterpiece for him. Which was fun.

Meanwhile Biscuit has become quite independent at house decorating.

I'll have to post photos of the finished masterpieces another day. This year they're living on the mantle, high above inquisitive fingers.

Here's to another year of decorating. And to finally, finally remembering to use the gingerbread house mold I've owned for years but always unpacked too late in the season.

National Neighbor's Night Out=Halloween

Last night, while accompanying my little tiger and medium sized cowgirl and full grown sized husband for a short trick-or-treat I decided there is one thing I do like about Halloween--the excuse it provides to knock on your neighbor's door and actually meet them.

Biscuit's primary interest on Halloween is giving OUT candy. She's made it her personal responsibility and she takes it seriously. But she was willing to close up shop for a few minutes to go "see Michelle" (our across the street neighbor) and "a few more houses." We hit about 10 houses total. I was rather disappointed to see that almost all the houses in sight of our house and at least 50% of the houses in our immediate neighborhood were dark. I know several neighbors attend church events and "trunk or treat" events which are billed as "safe" and "community oriented" but, really, what is safer and more community oriented then creating community in your community? (ok, if all your neighbors are crack houses, you can skip my manifesto. If you only have one or two crazy/druggie neighbors just skip those houses).

So, I like the concept of National Night Out (it's a thing--apparently it was in August) but it's a bit contrived. Last night I realized our nation has a national night out. It's called Halloween and, as citizens, we are already obligated to buy ridiculous amounts of sugar and hand it out to strangers. Why not use the opportunity to meet those strangers from down the street?

So, here's my Halloween Manifesto.

• All children (12 and under) shall be encouraged to dress up in whatever costume they can cobble together (or buy) and shall be obligated to trick-or-treat IN THEIR OWN NEIGHBORHOOD from 7-8 pm on Halloween.
• All parents of children (12 and under) shall be obligated to tag along with their embarrassed children from 7-8 pm
• All parents shall be required to accompany said children to the door and attempt a casual introduction or small talk with the candy distributor*
• All community members lacking children in the 0-12 age range shall be obligated to purchase candy (or toothbrushes or raisins) and keep their porch light lit from 7-8 pm.
• Community members shall offer candy to each trick or treater and shall try to engage in small talk** with the trick or treater or his or her parent.

That's it. Let's all participate and get to know our neighbors! Are you in for next year? Will you let my neighbors know?

* Suggested talking points for parents:

• Hi, we live over there in the blue house. I'm Melissa by the way (handshake).
• Hi, so nice to finally meet you, I always admire your roses when I walk by.
• Hi, those pumpkins are amazing--did you win a carving contest?

** Suggested talking points for candy distributors

• Hi, Happy Halloween, what are you dressed as?
• Hi, so nice to see some neighbors out this evening--do you live nearby?
• Hi, your children are so adorable/polite/hilarious/spirited--how old are they?

*** The stars don't connect to anything above but just a note that Swistle is right. Glow bracelets are the best for Halloween!

Hello mandarin eaters

If the stats are to be believed I am getting a boatload of traffic to my blog and 100% is to this post.

Two years ago I used a sharpie to draw a jack-o-lantern face on a mandarin orange and now Pinterest is in love. The internet is funny.

This year, I'm buying mini snickers bars but if you need a healthy Halloween treat, you're welcome.

Farm Party

Today was Biscuit's 7th Birthday Party. A Farm Party.

I am pretty much obsessed with how awesome the cake turned out. Exactly how I imagined it.

Frosting pumpkins, lettuce, corn (candles), cauliflower and carrots (Mike'n'Ikes). In a field of Oreo crumb and chocolate frosting soil. Of course, worms maintain the soil quality so the middle layer was filled with them.

To balance the cake, we also had a tray of farm fresh veggies.

And fruit. October is a spectacularly good month at the Farmers' Market in Northern California. And isn't it cool that my mom saved my Playskool farm for decades? I'm trying to be less of a packrat but I can still appreciate a packrat!

In addition to the fruit and veggies we made a big bowl of popcorn. That was a surprising hit. (the favor bags included an ear of popcorn on the cob so I guess it was thematic).

Ok, enough about food. There were also games! Thanks in large part to you kind folks who left comments with good game ideas.

There was pin the tail on the camel the broken necked horse the donkey.

 

And bobbing for apples

And hot potato. The prize was a potato gun (plus the potato). I'm pretty sure those parents hate me now.

They also played in the barn playhouse (well, everyone but Biscuit, of course)

But the crowning glory of the games was the "find the candy in the haystack" game. What a delightful mess! And I'm not even being sarcastic!

Three bags of unmelty (non chocolate) candy and most of a bale of straw and that was many minutes of fun. Then, inevitably, it turned into a straw fight.

All in all, a very fun two hours. After it was over we still had enough energy for a family photo in the hay disaster.

PS Typepad is driving me BONKERS. Anyone else having trouble lately? I lost this post (and then pieces of this post) MANY times in the last 45 minutes of trying to post. ANNOYING. And sorry for any typos.

 

Bash

I promise, last post about the birthday--but this is pretty much the baby book so a few photos are in order.

The classic first birthday shot--he ate the entire cupcake!

All three birthday boys!

Happy Birthday, guys! We love you.

 

Jam job

My sister's friend paid me to make 30 tiny jars of strawberry jam and package them up cute for engagement party favors. As I suspected making the jam was tons of fun. Packaging was sort of annoying.

There must be a better way but the best I came up with was to use a rubberband to temporarily hold the fabric "hats" on the jar while tying with string. Worked well enough.

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I'm pretty sure all internet posts today are supposed to be about Mother's Day. So here's a cute photo of my mom, the girl who made me a mom, and my sister getting ready to go to a bike race.

Nothing says Mother's Day like the Tour of California bike race. Am I right?

 

 

Hearts + river rocks

Last weekend we collected rocks at the river.

Biscuit painted hearts

Then added initials to the back and we sprayed them with a clear acrylic.

And, in typical Biscuit fashion, she wrote notes on envelopes and enclosed a stone and a package of smarties. All set for Tuesday.

Unrelated to giving folks rocks for Valentine's Day but related to love, we got this Knock Knock brand note pad from a friend for Christmas.

It's really perfect for lunchbox notes. If you like to put notes in lunchboxes I'd recommend it.

Resolved

A month (and a few days) late I think I've finalized my New Year's Resolutions. In fact, this might be my new timeline for resolutions--start thinking about it on New Year's and finalize the list by my birthday.

Or maybe I'll work off the Chinese New Year. After all it's MY year this year. I'm a Dragon. A story on NPR tells me this is very lucky so I'm feeling lucky this week. Probably because I am very lucky in so many ways.

So, resolutions. For 2012 (or age 36) (or the year of the dragon)

• Prettify the house and conduct a photoshoot of each room as though I was going to be on a design blog (which I'm totally not)
• Run a half marathon
• Use up my stash of Crest whitestrips
• Do some sort of social crafting monthly (teach a sewing class, get together with a group of friends to craft etc)
• Launch the quilt project I keep thinking about and not acting on

Should be a pretty good year, eh? Better fitness, whiter teeth, cuter house and plenty of crafting. Just perfect.

Anything but not everything

I saw a poster on Pinterest that said

"You can do anything but you can't do everything."

So true.

Crafting, reading, exercising, keeping up with friends, cooking, working or, you know, parenting. Options abound but there isn't time for all of them. This month seems to be dominated by dishwashing (apparently we failed in our attempt to fix our dishwasher), reading (Blackout and now All Clear by Connie Willis) and planning/thinking without a lot of doing. 

The only exception seemed to be yesterday when I actually got something done (along with the dishes). A good 10 years after my mom gave me an album to keep all our annual holiday cards/letters I finally started using it.

For the 2011 page I took an idea from Ali Edwards and punched squares out of all the cards we received to make a collage.

This was the perfect solution to my inability to throw away received cards but my lack of desire to store  said cards for decades.

It was kind of a kick to look back on old letters (those I could find anyway)

And to rediscover the card I made in 2003 when I decided to try linoleum printing with an overly complicated design.

This should be any easy album to keep up and it's nice to have that easy project checked off the list.

Now I'm going back to my book. Maybe I'll turn some of the ideas into projects in February.

This and that

We spent the last few days at the beach with my family. Kind of a random trip but fun to hang out with my parents and sister and the weather and scenery were amazing.

Before the beach, Christmas was fabulous. Biscuit outdid herself with beautiful gift making (mini "art" quilts for the grandmas, painted ceramic mugs for the grandpas and dad) but the funniest were the painted, wood flags.

She painted these over the summer on leftover wood plaques. They've been in a drawer for months but apparently she pulled them out and wrapped them up for gifts. I had no idea till they got opened and it was hilarious. Especially all of us trying to identify the state flags. "This is Ohio," she'd state confidently. "Ummm, I'm pretty sure that's New Mexico" I'd suggest. We were probably both wrong. My mom's was labeled on the back "I think this flag is Texes." It wasn't.

These are the things I brought home from the beach. I'm almost as obsessed with seaweed as I am with lichen and moss.

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I've been in the mood to go running/jogging. This morning was super foggy and perfect for a run/jog so I went. I think it's time to get back in shape. Perfect with the New Year.

::

While I was running (jogging) I imagined a project I'd like to make. Jogged to Michael's but they were sold out of the supplies I needed. Typical, right? Jogged home and Mr. H had precisely what I needed and I was able to make a prototype in about 15 minutes. It's exactly what I had in mind. Don't you love that? Photos once I've got it perfect.

::

Our house is in a completely unbearable state. Messy, cluttered, ugh. We spent the day after Christmas dismantling the diswasher (completely!) It works again but we never caught up on dishes. Then we went on a trip so now we're behind on laundry. Plus the holiday stuff. Tomorrow I plan to put away/clean/purge and start the new year fresh. Biscuit is freshening the windows with wintery snowflakes.

::

Oscar's a grouch. I'm guessing teeth but there's a touch of a cold and he's trying to learn to crawl and that's a lot to do when you're a baby. He's generally SO happy we don't quite know what to do with him when he fusses. Fussy babies are a lot more work.

::

Biscuit is hilarious. She's also endlessly hungry and clumsy. Growth spurt?

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I'm trying to finish up some scrapbooking projects so I best sign off for the evening.

Happy New Year!