A night out with winners

Tonight, we took our children to Chik-fil-a, dressed as cows, in order to get free food. Why no, we have no pride, thank you for asking.

Christopher cried because he didn't want to dress up like a cow. We just told him he was Sheriff Woody instead.

Colin rather liked dressing up like a cow and was enjoying himself until he projectile vomited nuggets, fruit, and chocolate milk all over himself, the high chair, and the cup I formed out of my hands to try and contain some of the toxic spill.

I wheeled him into the bathroom, still in the high chair, caught some additional puke, and stripped him down. After trying to clean the high chair as best I could, we mooooooved on out of there as quickly as possible, letting the nice girl up front know that they had a contaminated high chair in the ladies room.

Parents of the year.

But hey, dinner was free, so I'm marking it in the "win" column.

Don't eat the baby chickens

I don't write about Mallory much anymore because she's 14 and her own person. However, she has granted me permission to tell this one on her.

In the four years I've been cooking for Mallory, she has refused nothing. There are things she loves (chicken enchiladas) and things she would rather not have again (butter beans), but she has eaten everything. Even when I'm not cooking, she is game to trying anything. We took her out for sushi one night, not telling her what it was, and her only response?

"It's a little fishy."

She kills me.

On nights that Papa brings Mallory home, we have family dinner. Since the baby came (see how I say that like it was yesterday, not EIGHT months ago), I've been a little slack. So when I fond some organic cornish hens on sale, I thought they would be a nice change from the all pasta all the time. You know, fancy little tiny birds. Kinda creepy, kinda cute.

Everything was going swimmingly until somebody, I'm going to blame Papa because he doesn't do the internet, called it a "baby chicken."

And there it sat. The "baby chicken." Mallory wouldn't touch it.

To make it worse, Kevin made up songs about the baby chicken that included choreography from his baby chicken's carcass. She didn't eat a single bite.

It is, if you can believe it, the very first thing she has ever left on her plate untouched at my dinner table. And really, I can't say that I blame her.

They are a little creepy.

Microwave Smores Maker

This past holiday season, my mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I pointed her to my Amazon wish list. She replied, "But it's the same as last year. You haven't updated it."

Well, that's because I didn't get anything off of it. Ahem.

I retold this anecdote to Kevin, my wonderful husband who had NO time to shop this year, and voila! My Amazon wish list appeared under the tree.

Minus a Kindle. But that's because I never use the iPod he bought me two years ago. Well, not never, but rarely. He's deemed me unworthy of new technology. I can't disagree I suppose.

Anyway, along with a Tom Waits TRIPLE cd set, an immersion blender, a book called Weekend Sewing, a pastry scraper, and a digital picture frame - was THIS:

A microwave smores maker.

I married the most wonderful man in the world.
















A few essentials from the store:














Set up of the high tech machinery. The little arms hold the smore together since the marshmallows go CRAZY in the microwave.














The finished product in the microwave:














Kevin tries a bite:














Kevin declares them to be quite lacking:














The overall result was lacking. The marshmallows don't have the chance to char over an open flame, which is my favorite part of smores. Kevin was definitely not sold on them. Me? I'm headed into the kitchen to give them a second chance. After all, melty chocolate goodness can never be far from wrong.

Was there a time you weren't here?

Six months. I feel as though we can finally do a little celebrating.

Nothing has been easy since Little Bird came to town. The first two months of his life were agonizing for me. I thought I had made a terrible mistake in becoming a mother. I couldn't feed him like I should. I couldn't get him to sleep like I should. I was bound to the house as though an ankle bracelet was hidden just under my sock.

Last week, he and I traveled across the country together. Just the two of us through airports and on planes.

That's saying a lot for someone who let a friend come over one day just to let the dogs out into the backyard. Because I could not leave my room. The walls would have crumbled in on me and the floors collapsed had I left my room with the baby.

But now we are mobile. Slings and Mei Tai and a Moby. We travel. We shop. We play. We walk. We sing. We dance.

We.

I am no longer just I.

There is me, and I am still her, but there is us.

A family.

I've always wanted a family.

Little Bird. Christopher. Mr. Kickypants.

Thank you for coming into my life. Thank you for being my son.

I'm sorry that I fed you apples and filmed it for the world to see. That will happen though, you providing entertainment. You were so cute in your disgust; I just had to share.

Rationalization

We don't typically keep candy in the house. Or store bought cookies. Or little powdered donuts. If it is in the house, then it gets eaten. If not by one of us, then by the setter-goat, who helped Lovely polish off some of her Halloween candy. A gummy crabby patty to be exact. Weirdo.

None of us need the snacking though. It's not healthy and promotes bad habits. Weight gain, eating for comfort, eating for boredom, you name it. Prepackaged snacks are a big no-no around here.

However, when I was tooling around in Target today, I spied a lone bag of orange and black MnM's. Everything else Halloween was gone. Cleared out. But someone had missed this one bag.
I knew it had to be cheap.

38 cents, people. That bag of MnM's was 38 cents.

And it was so lonely with all of the Christmas stuff. It just had to come home with me.

Cupcakes of Shame

Yesterday, Guy and I joined a church. After the service, they had a potluck for all the people who have joined in the past 12 months. I love a church potluck.

We signed up to bring dessert.

Saturday night, Lovely and I set out to make our Black Bottom Cupcakes. We have our own little system for division of duties, and can whip out a batch in no time now. She is in charge of the cream cheese filling, and I am in charge of the chocolate cake part. These rich, dark chocolate cupcakes with a cream cheese and chocolate chip filling don't last long around our house.

These cupcakes have been one of my favorites since I was a child and my momma would send them in my lunch box. It never occurred to me that they look a little funny.

Until yesterday.

Now, a potluck is more than just a potluck where I come from. It's almost a cooking or baking competition in it's own rite. Women, and some of the men, pull out all the punches to make sure that they are taking an empty dish home with them. That their dish is the one that has been scraped clean and then peered longingly into by the ones who took too long to go get their seconds.

So when it was time to leave and I went to collect my plate, I don't have to describe my horror when there were only 2 cupcakes missing off of that platter. One that Lovely ate. And one that Guy ate.

Perhaps I can blame it on pregnancy hormones, but I actually cried. A little. I couldn't help it.

Lovely insists that if just one person had eaten a cupcake besides our family, that they would have been gone. She said that they wouldn't have been able to stop themselves from telling everyone how fantastic they were, and that there would have been a mad rush for the cupcakes at that point and none would be left.

I think she was only a little disappointed. Because after all, we were taking home a couple dozen of our favorite cupcakes. Ones that we didn't have to share now.

Nevertheless, I'm thinking of changing the name of the cupcake to The Cupcake of Shame.

I have failed my first potluck at the new church.

I should have just made a pound cake.

More hell than heaven cake

Tonight has to be the biggest baking disaster I have ever created. Girl shared a recipe for Heaven and Hell cake. It sounded so so good, and I was feeling up to trying something more than cookies or brownies.

Momma will know the first problem when I say that you start by making an angel food cake from scratch. Not my forte. But I keep trying. It didn't taste that bad, but it was the consistency of a thick whoopee cushion.

The devil's food cake turned out so moist and soft that it fell completely apart under the weight of the angel food rubber.

The best part was the peanut butter mousse. I wish that I had just tossed the angel food and spread the peanut butter mousse on the devil's food cake and dipped it in the chocolate ganache. But I didn't. I continued to try and assemble the cake.

The ganache poured off the top and onto the counters. The devil's food gave way under the weight of the angel food and squirted out the sides. A giant glop of it dropped onto Pupstar's back and onto the floor. As much as she shouldn't have chocolate, I was laughing too hard to stop her. Most of it was the peanut butter mousse anyway. She is still trying to lick it off her back.

Forgoing the refridgeration that was the last step because it was too far gone anyhow, I scooped some onto plates for us. True to form, Papa ate his in its entirety and gave a brusque, "What? What's wrong with it?"

I adore him.

Guy and I ate enough bites to determine that it was possibly the worst thing ever to come out of my kitchen and then gave up.

Now, all I have to do is figure out how to get it in the trash without spilling anymore on the dog.

~~~~~~~~~~

I decided this needed photos.










The angel food cake. Not looking too bad here.

Unfortunately, in about 10 minutes, they looked like this:









Rubber. Scary scary rubber cakes.










This is the oh so yummy peanut butter mousse.










The finished product before attempting to cut. You can see the lump of devil's food cake that are getting ready to squeeze out the sides.










And after cutting, but just before the ganache headed for the counter.

You would think I had never baked anything in my entire life.