Braden

Here's a picture of Braden I took this morning during his pre-breakfast reprieve. We always have a bit of happy time in the morning before he starts getting hungry. After that, I feel like he's hungry for the rest of the day, despite the fact that I feed him regularly! He eats just about anything, including salad, something my big kids don't even like. He does occasionally have his own ideas about what he will eat and when, which makes for some interesting mealtime interactions.

Despite all that eating, he's still a little peanut.

Party Pics

Thankfully Strawberry Shortcake didn't scare anyone.

I loved seeing Anna so happy about her long-anticipated plans coming to life.



Here's the singing

Mom and Dad

Uncle Mitch

My sister and I hated dolls when we were little, so this might be the only existing picture of us holding them.

Dad reading to Braden and Braden's very large twin

My sister and a real doll

The girls and cake

Opening grandma's card

Buzz Lightyear made an appearance

As did Mr. Turkey.

Take This Cake

Anna will be turning 5 next week, but since her cousins are in town we're celebrating her birthday tomorrow. In preparation, I made this cake which may have brought me to the end of my long and storied cake-making career.

In 2004, Lisa, my friend and former coworker in Virginia, was taking a cake decorating class and offered to teach me to decorate a cake for Anna's first birthday. I showed up at her house one evening to find an already-baked and cooled cake, sitting on the professional rotating cake platform, with a rainbow of premade frosting colors sitting in front of me just waiting for my bidding. There I leisurely squeezed stars onto my 3D bear cake for a couple of hours while enjoying friendly conversation. Before I knew it, boom! The cake was finished! Easy, right?

Little did I know how much work she had done before my arrival.

Somehow, since that time I have felt obligated to make a special cake for each kid's birthday. This one took over 5 hours! Who has 5 hours to spend making a cake while keeping up with 3 kids? Or preparing for a birthday party?

To top it all off, I'm afraid that Strawberry Shortcake is looking a little psycho. In the sample cake picture, the white specks in her eyes make them sparkle. On my cake, they make her look rather deranged. Perhaps she is reflecting the state of mind of her creator as I tried to cover all of the edges and white background parts of the cake using only 1/2 cup of thinned white frosting (beware of instruction typos!). And that was only step 1 of 14.

Anyway, right now we are in serious danger of never seeing Batman's smiling face at Jonathan's party a few weeks from now. This might be a good thing, as I am hard pressed to decide which character is scariest at a kid's birthday party: psycho Strawberry Shortcake, psycho Batman, or psycho Mom?

Scherazade

Although in my profile I describe myself as an occasional musician, in the past few months I've had more practicing to do than time to do it.

Currently I have the joy of practicing the second violin part of Scherazade by Rimsky Korsakov. It's the first time I've played it since college and I remember it as one of the only times I've ever had chills (the good kind) while performing. Normally while performing symphonic works, my feelings are more akin to panic, as I haven't had much violin training since high school, and I'm proof that a decent high school musician does not magically turn into a professional. Still, I love it - and hate it - but mostly love it.

Back to Scherazade, apparently the story is about a Persian King who, discovering the infidelity of his first wife, takes a new wife each night and beheads her in the morning. When Scherazade becomes the king's wife, she spends the night entertaining him with an unfinished story. He is forced to keep her alive to hear the end of it. This continues for 1001 nights, until the king pardons her.

Hmmmm....that might be more than I wanted to know.

But it's beautiful. Check out the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th parts as well.

Earthshake!

I was awakened this morning (at 5:36 apparently) by bits and pieces of my room rattling about. Further researched showed that it was from a big earthquake in Southern Indiana.


My kids, who are big fans of "The Land Before Time" were alarmed and excited when they imagined the devastation and destruction portrayed in that movie. Thankfully no one seems to have been hurt, which is amazing.

In other weather news, the meteorologist reported Wednesday that temperatures reached the 70's for the first time in 178 days. That's almost 1/2 a year, folks! We northerners must be a long-suffering, hardy folk. In high school I worked at the Wendy's drive-through window. When the weather first got warm, the customers suddenly became so pleasant! Even the surliest regulars improved for at least one day.

Needless to say, we are fully appreciating spring.

I haven't pulled out my camera yet, but here's one of my favorite spring pictures of Jonathan in our back yard in Virginia when he was 3.

Q-Tip Man

One of Braden's favorite activities is finding containers filled with matching things and relieving them of their contents. This includes Kleenex boxes, tea bags, marbles, bouncy balls, cotton balls, and Q-Tips:

In other Braden news, he has finally graduated beyond cave man grunts and the little sign language we have taught him to a few words. His first recognizable, consistent word was "Baba" for "Grandpa". Grandpa is one of his favorite people. That was last Sunday. Now he has added the word "ball" to his vocabulary. I've been getting tired of telling the doctor he isn't talking, but can't help feeling that with every milestone, I'm losing a little bit more of my baby.

Now for some Jonathan news:

In my spring break post, I forgot to report that Jonathan lost his 4th tooth on April 5 somewhere on Highway 65 South of Indianapolis. It was duly celebrated at kindergarten.

And now you know.

Spring Break

For the next couple weeks I'll be busy abusing my typing fingers practicing the the violin. In the meantime, here are some pictures from South Carolina.

Braden and Tom looking at elephants.

Cousins!

Braden's first time walking (climbing) outside

Another cutie pie cousin

Sleeping at Paris Mountain State Park

Milking the cows at Fair Oaks farms in Indiana

Hey, you've gotta stop somewhere! Indiana's a long state.