The Process of the Guitar cake

The kids all helped to make Micahel's birthday cake, today.  

Mixin milk

Milk...by the way, Aunt Laura, another apron would be awesome unless you want to keep seeing him in polka dots.

It's his birthday, he gets to lick the frosting beater.

I bought a guitar cake pan a while back.  Some overflowed and made the whole houe smell like burning chocolate.  I greased the pan a TON and still, a little stuck.

All I could think of was Chunk from Goonies, "Chock-let!"

Almost final version.  Red sprinkles for frets, red gel for strings.

Then I stepped into my room for a moment...a moment.

This is what I found when I returned.  I left him eating sprinkles in the chair away from the cake.  He switched chairs and just went to town.

This is him placing back ONTO the cake, the peppermint candy that he had been licking.

The effects of George.

More little videos from today

We had noodles for lunch.  Michael was still running a bit of a fever this morning, but he was good enough to eat, after some medicine.  George was AWESOME with his noodles, so I had to film him.  He's hilarious.  I could watch him eat forever and he KNOWS it!  Jane is simply brilliant with her little puzzle from Aunt Laura.  These are just George and Jane.

Brown Presents, videos

Here are a couple videos of mostly Jane.  Just a little insight to her brain.

Baby #4 will be here soon!!!

That is right.  Baby 4 is going to be a girl.  The ultrasound tech had a 5 times rule, she had to check 5 different times for the gender to be assured and she was and showed us.  Girlie girl.  Jane was with me on the birth center when we found out.  She was so sweet.  She hugged me and at one point, Jane just bent over and kissed me on the cheek.  She is so sweet!

So, we are pretty excited here about little baby girl coming.   The tech also had a predicted due date a little earlier than ours based on size of the baby.  I have always been saying late March-early April and I suppose thta doesn't really change much.  But it might be more March than April.  We have no idea when George would have 'naturally' arrived, but the other 2 arrived before their due dates.  Jane by just one day and Michael was early by at least a week. I am not getting my hopes up too much.  I am mentally prepared to go until April.

I'll finally get my baby Maggie!!  I was very tempted to name Jane Maggie but I wasn't completely happy with the arrangement.  In the meantime, we encountered someone who had the name Magdalene, or something very like it, and went by Maddy. That helped me to realize, and I told Tony right away, "If we named the next girl Magdalene we could call her Maggie!!!!!"  Problem partially solved.  The next dilemma, first name or middle name.  Do we go full Bible and say Mary Magdalene.  Then we would complete the Mary Poppins theme that we unwittingly bestowed on our children.  

(For that story.....After Jane was born we started getting questioned 'Oh you like Mary Poppins?' Wha??  'The kids are Jane and Michael Banks.'  Me: oh, ya well, I didn't realize that.  Then after George was born, we saw someone else who said the same thing, 'Oh like Mary Poppins!'  I said, "You GOT to be kidding me!  Did we do it again??" Then this person told me, "Oh ya, the dad's name is George.') 

Do we give a little girl the first name of Magdalene that she'll have to live with forever?  There aren't too many other names that would go well with Magdalene, even with Magdalene being the middle name.  Then, one day, Tony said Magdalene Marie.  It sounded really nice, solved the Mary Poppins problem, in a way.  It's still a Marian reference, but his family is German and there are several 'Marie's,' especially as middle names, in the family.  Even Aunt Katie is Kathryn Marie.  So, I get my baby Maggie, and Tony and his family get a Marie.  For everyone else, yes, we completed the Mary Poppins quartet of usable names.  If we have another boy, later on, we are NOT naming him Bert (Dick Van Dyke's character), nor are we naming another girl Winifred (the mom's name).  I simply can't go that far, it is a little too neurotic.

Plus, I think this girl is going to be an awesome Magdalene, whether she goes by Maggie, or switches to Magdalene when she is older.  Or Maddy (like her cousin), or Lynn, or whatever suits her fancy.  She has been a super active baby in the womb and we can't wait to meet her.  It has been a joy to see the other 3 ring circus develop and we just can't even begin to imagine how much awesomeness one more baby will bring to the mix.

The Brown Presents

Our Aunt Laura-Uncle Dave-Cousin Thomas Christmas-Birthday presents arrived, tonight.

I was at Mass, alone, while presents were deposited by Elf Aunt Katie and happily opened.  The Brown's were able to see the festivities via facetime.  When I got home, I asked Jane about her presents and she jumped with GLEE to tell me about "Pincess book and cyose and puzzle!!!"  Really that should be in all caps and about 10 font sizes larger, but there is no real way to accurately type the level of excitement she was at when telling me about these presents. 

Then she started to say something about a phone she forgot.  I got confused and thought she was making that part up.  But when we were in her room, I saw the puzzle and opened the drawers to see some clothes.  She showed them to me, in both drawers.  Then I asked, "Where is your book?"  "On da bookshef!"  Well, that, in itself, is amazing because there were about TWENTY other books of theirs that were not on the shelf.  Jane stepped on several of them to go over to the bookshelf and retrieve the small Princess book.

She started showing it to me and daddy said, "It goes with the phone."  "So there IS a phone?" I asked.  "Where is it?" I asked Jane.  Jane said, "In da box," meaning the toy box.  Again, another HUGE surprise given the state of the room.  She went back to the toybox, stepping on the many books and over several toys, to dig down and pull out the cutest little smartphone-looking toy phone I have ever seen.  Video to come on next blog.

George absolutely LOVES this cute little helicopter with a pilot and chair he can push to make noises and play a song.  He had to take it to bed with him.  

Michael got a couple of awesome books but was so tired and worn out from his fever and the weekend that he was in bed already and barely staying awake.

Daddy got some shirts and I got a few books.  2 on Kindle to be read anytime anyplace, yeah, and a neat new book of Novenas.  The novenas will definitely come in handy in the coming weeks and months as we prepare for Maggie.  Oh ya, did I blog about Maggie?

Phone pictures Gee & Papa visit

Playing candy land with Gee.  "It's all about moving the pieces," says Gee.

Gee trying to explain to Jane that she needs to mind mommy.  Good luck with that, Gee.  We know you mean well.  :)

Showing photo ornaments to Papa.

Michael reading Uncle Elephant to Gee.  Yep, he's gonna be 5 and reading books for grades 1-3. READING!

Very serious with the microphone.  Not saying anything, but had to have it just so.

Too fast for the camera!

Best present ever.

Swinging and giggling with Papa.  Love!!

Jane and her daddy

I can't even begin to describe the conversation that Jane is having with Tony right now.  She fell asleep at 4 and he put her in her bed at 5.  At 7, we put the other boys to bed and she woke up.  Tony offered her food and she's eating with him at the table and talking about the oddest things.  Georgie, food, strange little 3 year old girl things.  Tony just goes along with it.  It's adorable and hilarious.

Dacy Grand's Early Birthday Visit for Michael

Gee and Papa brought meat, chips, cake and presents!!!  Daddy (Tony) fired up the grill, we had great hamburgers.  I've never heard all THREE kids giggling as much as they did, today.

Here are some videos.











I realize there aren't videos with Georgie.  He was here.  I'll have other pics later.

The Farm Playmat

The Lion Brand Yarn company has an excellent website and IOS App.  On there, you can create an account and peruse hundreds of free patterns for both knitting and crochet.  They also have some other loom crafts, but I don't look at those.  I'm all about the crochet patterns.  I have quite a few marked in my favorites list and I've made several of them.  This particular item was one that I looked at and first thought, 'ugh, really?'  But I saved it anyway.  

Then, I decided to click the "order items" button for myself for Christmas.  I was able to order all the yarn specific to the project.  Yay, Merry Christmas to me!  I started stitching on Christmas Day and finished it on the 28th!!  

This tractor was a total pain in the booty.  Way too many pieces for a little amiguri tractor.  After finishing, I noticed a crocheted applique of a tractor that looked much better, I think I'll use that if I do the path and tractor again.

I had to sign it after all this work.  EDR 2013

One thing I'm really excited about is the stitching of all the surface pieces.  After stitching the sun and the grassy patch, I saw how it was looking on the back.  I really didn't like how the stitches came through.  After that, I took care to stitch the pieces onto the surface of the stitches on the inside of the playmat.  This is how the back looks with the path, barn, carrot patch, and pond stitched.

Here's how it is all synched up.  I made a cord instead of using the chain lengths that were recommended in the patters.  The ends of the cords are supposed to be pumpkins.  They seem more like oranges, but whatever.

After finishing the mat, the kids simply can't play together with it.  So I've started making a second mat with the extra materials.  It'll be different but still have some fun pieces.