Abby's birthday school snack

The twins are in separate classes, so I had to make twice the birthday treats this year. Did they want the same thing? Of course not! And, really why should they have to, because they're twins? They already share the same birthday, and usually the party, which we're not having on this year. So, I asked Gabe what he wanted. I was trying to steer both of them toward these very cute birthday cupcake ball things on bakerella.com, but no. Gabe just wanted chocolate cupcakes. I don't even have a picture, because they came out so bad. Because of the Feingold diet, I can't make cakes from a mix, which I never did until we moved here, and cakes from scratch fell time after time. So, I decided to just make the cake on the back of the Hershey's cocoa box, even though, I have a high altitude cookbook and they always turn out when I use it. Will i never learn? Probably not. I don't know why I didn't just use that recipe. I took out the cookbook, looked at it, and then used the one on the cocoa box. So, these cupcakes fell in the middle, after overflowing over the sids sticking to the pan and the adjacent cupcakes. I pretty much had to peel the top layer off of them, after cutting them from the pan (even though I used cupcake papers). I made the chocolate butter frosting, and let Tim frost them. There weren't even enough to cover all the kids in Gabe's class, so I had to take out some frozen peanut butter cupcakes that none of us really liked. Nasty. Some poor kid ate them though.

Abby, on the other hand, wanted fruit skewers with bananas, grapes, and chocolate dipped strawberries. She wanted cantaloupe and pineapple, but I drew the line.

It only took me about 3 hours to make 28 of them. I made extra, for the teachers, since they deserve some kind of treat that isn't a nasty cupcake. Why would it take that long to make a few fruit skewers? Well, I had to get pliers to cut the skewers down, then dip the strawberries, and hunt for a half an hour for something that I could sick the skewers in (an upside down colander) whose holes for the most part, were the right size for the skewers. I then added the grapes, which slid grape juice along the skewer, so I had to wipe that off, then the banana, wipe the banana slime off, then I decided, what the heck, add another strawberry: wipe more juice off the skewer. The end result was pretty. The teachers were impressed-what I live for-not really, but it doesn't hurt. And, most of all, Abby was happy and so were her friends. Yea! I did something right!

Ben's 18th Birthday

Wow! Where has the time gone? I now have 2 adult children.

Ben didn't want to have a big birthday party.He told me,"I don't like to celebrate myself, it's dumb." Ben claims most things are "dumb", unless it's Madden football, Star Wars, Willy Wonka, Pooh, tuna melts,chocolate in any form and most of all milk, by the gallon.

So, he requested dinner out and a new cell phone he could text on and money. His favorite store is the dollar store, mainly because he likes to take Gabe there. Nate gave him a gift card to the Dollar Tree. Our friends, Jason and Carrie offered to take our twins to play with their kids. It's kind of weird to exclude them from Ben's celebration, but they wanted to play with their friends, and we knew Ben would have a better time without the whining, and attention getting tactics they use.

So, we had a nice dinner with Ben at Champs, and Ben got a Red Sox jersey from Tim's trip to Boston, his new phone (mentioned earlier) and Gabe and Abby gave him Willy Wonka bars and a stuffed Pooh bear the next day when we celebrated with cake. Ben was too full to have cake when we got home on Sat. night, so we waited until Sunday after church to have the infamous Linda's Fudge Cake (which we had also had the weekend before). It all seemed kind of anticlimactic to me, but he seemed to be happy with how things turned out.

It's so hard when your kids don't want to do things the way you think they should be done. Control. I just don't have it anymore, over the big ones anyway.

build a bear and life.

Gabe and Abby were invited to their little neighbor's birthday party at Build A Bear on Sat. They got to each make a bear, which they love to do. Not only did they get to go to the party, but the little girls' parents took our kids to and from the mall and then kept them for lunch and cake. So, Tim and I got to go out to lunch at La Baguette and really talk.

I have been preparing for a talk I'm giving to MOPS at the end of the month, so I wanted to talk to Tim about our early years of marriage, from his perspective. i knew from my perspective that they weren't great, and I knew that I was the cause of most of the problems, but I had forgotten what a selfish jerk I was. It was kind of depressing, but good. The best part is that God has been merciful and grown us up a lot in the past almost 25 years, and our marriage is stronger than ever. I just wish it could have been that way from the beginning.

Tying shoes

Well, Gabe finally decided to learn how to tie his shoes. He knew how, but he couldn't do it tightly every time. It's hard to find tie on shoes for little kids. They have velcro, or they might have a stretchy laces that don't need tying. We found some shoes he liked, and that day he worked on perfecting tying his shoes. He is now an expert.

Speaking of practicing... On Monday, I had to go shopping with the twins, something I rarely do, because it's usually not a pleasant experience. They were fine for the first 10 or so minutes until we got to the cereal, which also is conveniently the toy aisle (curse you King Sooper's marketing people). The whining began, but then Gabe saw the long empty (except for one lady at the other end) aisle (sometimes it's nice to have a kid with ADD!) He yelled to Abby, "A-bby, run to the other end and watch this!" I could see the wheels turning in his little blonde head. He planned to run the length of the aisle and then slide on his knees. I grabbed his arm before he could execute his plan, and told him to grab on to the cart. Abby then took off for the Easter (seasonal) aisle and he followed. I went to stand in line (good grief, we had only been to two aisles, and they still couldn't behave). I called them back, gritting my teeth and telling them to behave and stay with me.

We got to the check out, and I kept them busy unloading the cart. After that they moved down past the cash register to lay their arms along the conveyor belt and try to stop it. AAGH! I again, gritting my teeth , say in a low voice, "get your hands off of there. It's filthy!" The cashier and bagger are now snickering at this point. The twins are taking things off the belt and trying to "help the bagger" by keeping the items as far away from him as possible. I feel like I have Dennis the Menace and Ramona the Pest with me.

As we are walking out, I tell Thing 1 and Thing 2 that when we get home, they will NOT be playing with their friends or outside or watching TV. They will be practicing good manners. Gabe asks,"How long is that going to take?" I say,"As long as it takes for you to learn some good manners". Abby questions,"SOME?" I say, "I mean ALL good manners." Gabe asks,"How many good manners are there?"

I give up.

Sickness

Nothing much has been happening around our house this week, except the stomach flu. Nate and I are the only ones who have escaped it, so far, hopefully it won't happen to us. Gabe was home one day, Tim and Ben both stayed home two days. Tim worked both days as evidenced by the headset, or was he talking to his broker...? Yeah, like we have one of those.

Praise

Let the glory of the Lord endure forever;

Let the Lord be glad in His works;

He looks at the earth, and it trembles;

He touches the mountains, and they smoke.

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;

I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.

Let my meditation be pleasing to Him;

As for me, I shall be glad in the Lord. Psalm 104:31-34.

Tiger Cub Hike

Gabe with his friend Isaac on their hike Sat. with the dads and boys from their pack.