end of the year

I just received my evaluation for Joey's first grade school year:

At bedtime tonight Joey told me, "I used to think reading was boring, but now I think it's amazingly fun."

I'm happy.

cake pops

Joey had a birthday.

So we made a cake.

And then they scooped it out of the pan into a bowl.

Then they crumbled it into crumbs.

Then Joey dumped in almost a whole can of frosting,

and mixed it up until it was nice and squishy.

Then we shaped it into balls,

but then flattened the balls on the top and bottom.

I then sliced some marshmallows into four slices and the kids cut little circles out of them using an icing tip.

Using some melted candy melts, the kids attached the marshmallow rounds to the tops of the cake balls.

Then we dipped the tips of lollipop sticks into the bit of melted candy and inserted them halfway into the pop.

While we waited for the pops to harden in the freezer, we melted a bag of candy melts in a double boiler,

then we dipped the cake pops into the melted candy and twirled and shaked to try to get the candy coating on evenly.

(Note: up until this step, this project is extremely kid-friendly. The dipping and twirling and shaking is not. I had never worked with candy melts and this was hard for me to do. The kids can dip the pops into the melted candy, but it is best for an adult to do the finishing.)

Can you tell what they are yet?

After the candy was nice and dry, it was time to give them faces.

They're Lego heads!

Joey was happy with the results.



All that was left to do was to light the candles,



blow,



and enjoy!

(These turned out nicely because I used the directions I found here. I used icing instead of decorator pens for the faces -- the pens would have been much easier.)

little people live here

Little people make the house noisy. They fill it up with crumbs. They leave artwork on the refrigerator door and on the wall in the foyer.

And they do things like this:

An interesting discovery I made while turning off the bathroom light before bed that made me smile and enjoy her Katie-ness just a bit more.

There is an even littler little person in this house who discovered she can do things like climb on top of the kids table,

stand on top of stools to see what is out of view,

and climb on top of the kitchen table when she needs to study the nutritional value of a Happy Meal.

(She realized that sadly, the food standards in this household have taken a turn for the worse since my stomach got all weird and icky with the pregnancy. Hopefully we'll be back to normal in a couple weeks.)

And, alas, I am stuck with no clever way to finish this post.

I will blame that on being pregnant too; which, I guess, is the result of a little person living inside of me, so there's my ending after all. :)

So, what have your little people been up to lately?

(update: I just re-read this post at 9:50 and found a typo in each of the first three sentences. Arg! What is wrong with me?!)

learned

Lessons of the first trimester I have been reminded of in these past few weeks:

1. No matter how much of a good idea your weird pregnant appetite tells you it is to eat a big bowl of baked beans for lunch -- it isn't. Ever.

2. Someone will inevitably get the stomach bug while you suffer from morning sickness. Consider each yucky crib sheet change as some bonus supermom points.

3. An awesome husband who takes over cooking dinner, grocery shopping, changing yucky morning diapers, and numerous other household duties is an invaluable asset. Do not take him for granted. Love him, thank him, and promise him you will be normal again...soon.

4. There is no such thing as too much peanut butter and jelly.

5. When you have an opportunity to sit, sit. Sitting is wonderful.

6. When you have the opportunity to sleep, sleep. Sleeping is even better than sitting.

7. Growing a baby is hard work, but it's worth it.

nicknames

JoeyBear



KatieBug



LizzieBee



KidneyBean





Ok, so the last one needs a little work. I have 7 months to think about it.