Moldy Oldy

We finally got around to having Sarah's eighth (and final) birthday party Saturday. Her birthday always hits right at spring break so having a party at or near the actual date is somewhat difficult. For her birthday swan song, she wanted to go see Monsters Vs. Aliens in 3-D.

I was foolishly thinking that taking ten 7 and 8 yr old girls to the movies would be such an easy party. HA! Actually, the difficult part wasn't really the movie itself, it was all the logistics surrounding the movie. Because of funky movie times, we actually did her party backwards. Cake and ice cream were first, then presents and lastly the movie. I think it was a slight mistake to get them all sugared up before going to the movies. They were all crazy hyper before we left.

One really cool thing is that the plates/napkins/goody bags were all 3-D. Of course, you had to buy the glasses separately to see it, but it was worth the coolness factor. Note that I am completely looney and decorated the table with confetti.

After the whole cake pop debacle, I ended up making cupcakes too. I think I need to find some better piping tips. Someday I would like to be able to make my cupcakes look a bit less like homemade. At least they were tasty.

Here is one of the birthday girl wearing her favorite new dress from Aunt Lori (with a long-sleeved T-Shirt under it...she's stylin'!). She is getting to be so old.

Anyway, I think all the girls enjoyed themselves and the movie was fun for the grownups too. I guess I should be glad that it all turned out OK.

I can't believe she did that

I know that all mothers of more than one girl probably goes through this situation at one point or another, so I shouldn't be shocked or surprised.

Mary lopped off a good hunk of Leah's hair tonight. Ug.

Leah had her hair up in a cute little bun and Mary decided to "trim" the fuzzy hairs that were sticking out of it. In the process, she actually cut Leah's hair down to the scalp in several places. While it was still up in the bun, it looked really, really bad. Like she was in chemo or something. Once we took it down, it wasn't completely and utterly horrible. It just looks really thin on one side.

Because Leah will now need to wear her hair down for the next oh 12 months or so, my sister came over to give Leah a haircut that would make her look somewhat decent until I get a chance to take her to a salon. Right now she is sporting a shoulder-length bob, which is about 5 or 6 inches shorter than her previous do. I'm just sad that I can't put her hair in braids anymore. It was finally long enough that braids looked cute.

Lori also put her facilitator's hat on and talked to Mary. She had been banished to her room for a good 1 1/2 hrs by that point. Lori and Mary came up with a suitable punishment that would cause Mary some anguish. She is giving up scissors for a very long time AND she is not allowed to have any animals in her bed for the next week. That second part is a real killer for Mary.

I didn't take any pictures of Leah's hair. I decided that we didn't really need to remember exactly how bad it looked. Especially since it will take a really long time for her hair to be normal again. I'm over being sad and upset now. The nice thing about hair is that it will grow back again soon. Well, maybe "soon" isn't the right word. Perhaps I should have said "eventually".

Cake Pop Update

Well, I did it. I attempted to make BOB the Blob cake pops for Sarah's upcoming birthday party. I'm very happy that I decided to do a dry run before the event because let me tell you, they aren't nearly as pretty as anything Bakerella has put out. Ready for the pictures? I'm warning you, they aren't nice!

Now as you stare at these hideous orbs of blue, please remember that they are supposed to be blob-like. I think if I had bothered to finish decorating them to look like BOB, they might have stood a chance to be not terrible. I didn't end up dipping the whole batch because they were just so unappealing to me.

Well, after making the hideous blue blobs on a stick, I gave them to my testers for dessert after lunch (testers = Mary, Rori and Leah). Mary and Rori both took a bite and declared them too yucky to eat. Leah managed to scarf down hers and ask for another. I saved one for Sarah to eat later (she was bonding with Miranda for the day) and she also declared them nasty. Actually her first comment after taking a bite was "is it OK if you just make cupcakes for my party?". She tried really hard not to hurt my feelings. What a good kid!

Long story short, everyone (except for Leah) who tried them thought the coating was disgusting. The cake/frosting mixture inside was deemed merely "OK". I can't say that I could recommend them to anyone.

Now, what am I going to do with a freezer full of cake balls? LOL!

Becky Homecky

Thanks to Jessica, I have been sucked into the joy of Cake Pops. For all of you (um...the three of you who might actually read this blog) who do not know what a cake pop is, you need to check out Bakerella ( http://bakerella.blogspot.com/ ). Tonight I'm attempting to make something that doesn't look horrible. It is my trial run before Sarah's birthday party next weekend. If they don't suck too badly I will make a batch. If they look really awful, I still have time to order something.

So stay tuned to see the outcome of what could be my finest baking disaster! Perhaps even worse than the psycho bunnies I made for Leah's birthday!

Birthdays! Birthdays! Birthdays!

We are currently knee-deep in birthday season here at the Boehm household. The season officially starts in February with Lilah's birthday and continues through June with Mary's birthday. The funny thing about all these birthdays is that I never manage to get cards and gifts out in a timely fashion. I know all year long that they are coming, yet I can't manage to plan accordingly. Geesh!

A good example would be today. Today is Colin's birthday. Colin is my godson, yet I can't manage to make a card in a timely fashion to send to him. I mustered up a e-card, but that isn't so thrilling for a 5 yr old. I would like to say that I'm busy, but really I have plenty of time. I think the real problem here is that I'm lazy. There...I said it. I'm lazy. Getting motivated is a real issue for me. So Colin, I wish you a very happy birthday and there is always next year! Oh, and Luke (whose birthday is at the end of this week), you stand about a 20% chance that I might acknowledge your special day in a timely fashion. :-)

Speaking of birthdays, I just love this picture of Leah that was taken after her birthday party was over a week or so ago. My sister got her a complete set of baby doll gear and Leah has taken a liking to the pack-n-play in particular. She drags it from room-to-room and uses it as her personal recliner. I wonder how long this thing will last if she keeps using it in this fashion?

For all you March birthdays out there - Happy Birthday!

Bein' Cultured

On Saturday morning we were trying to figure out what to do with three kids who were bouncing off the walls. Naturally, Joe came up with the idea of taking them to the Art Museum. I have to confess that it has been many years since I had been there so my memories were quite distant and slightly off-track.

For some reason, I had it in my head that the Columbus Museum of Art was really small and really boring. Color me surprised! The first floor is mainly interactive stuff for kids. The girls had a great time!!

Here is Mary trying to put together a four-sided George Bellows puzzle:

And here is Sarah trying to draw a figure in the George Bellows style:

Of course, once Mary and Leah found out that they could also draw something, they had to be in on the action. I wouldn't say that any of them had a George Bellows reproduction on their hands, but they all did pretty well. My girls all really enjoy drawing and creating some art so this part of the exhibit was right up their alley. When we were finished with George, we moved on to the Elijah Pierce exhibit which was also very interactive. Mary really had a great time playing with the magnet replicas of his scuptures. For some reason, Satan was her favorite. She called him "the guy with the tail". I suppose I should be happy that she is so innocent, huh? Here she is with her favorite magnet. Some people would say that her Hannah Montana T-shirt actually depicts satan! LOL!!

After we were finished with Elijah, Leah suddenly had an attack of being a Terrible Three and we had to go through the rest of the museum at break-neck speed. By the time we hit the Egyptian exhibit, I had a security guy following me giving me the evil eye. It was definitely time to go!

All-in-all, it was a nice activity for the girls and who knows? Maybe they might have absorbed a touch of culture while they were there. HA!

Guilt, guilt and more guilt

Every once in a while (like a couple times per year), I have to travel for work. Generally it is one of those deals where you get up at the butt crack of dawn, fly out and then return later in the evening. The last couple of trips have been slightly longer than that though. I had to go to Jackson MS in December for a couple of days and I'm here again right now for some follow-up work for a full week.

Well, a couple days of being gone really isn't such a big deal, but an entire week? Geesh! So now I'm wallowing in guilt after being gone for about 36 hours. It all started Saturday night when Sarah was slightly weepy that I wouldn't be able to tuck her in for the whole week. Then Leah chose Sunday (when I was flying out) to throw up everywhere. Just in time for me to walk out the door and leave Joe with that mess.

And then today. I call home and I'm informed that Mary had an extremely rough day at daycare today. She was reprimanded 5 + times for not being able to keep her body to herself. Not-so-coincidentally, the last time she had these troubles at daycare was when I was in Jackson in December. Now I truly feel like crap because she obviously isn't happy that I'm gone. In some ways, it would be a lot easier if she just reacted like Sarah and vocalized her feelings about being Mommy-free for a week.

I would think that they would be excited to be free of me for a while! I have a few more rules than Joe. Joe will make them very kid-friendly meals while I'm away. Why wouldn't they be thrilled to be free of me for a little bit? I just don't get it.

Ah, and then there is the guilt of leaving Joe with ALL the work for the week. Once again, a couple days is no biggie but it starts to really be a pain in the bahookie after that.

I guess I will just have to get over it and just convince my colleagues to work a bit harder so we can go home sooner.

A little bit of guilt is healthy, right?