A pot of gold

Happy Birthday to my baby boy! I can't believe you are already 8 years old; it's obvious that the age-freezing potion I spiked your cake with last year didn't work. You are a ray of sunshine in the life of everyone you meet. The Lord certainly blessed all of us with your birth.

To go along with my blond-haired boy's heart of gold I made him rainbow cupcakes to take to school.

What's that? You have a child with a heart of gold as well? Well, let me share the love and show you how to spend 3 hours in the kitchen making them rainbow cupcakes too!

Ingredients:
2 boxes white cake mix
Items needed to make cake (eggs, water and oil)

I made the cake mixes according to the box but of course, the rebel bit of blood running through my veins means I had to change it a bit. I cut the water down from 2 cups to 1 1/2 cups and used 1/2 cup of vanilla coffee creamer and I also added a bit of vanilla extract just to make it extra yummy.

Mix it up good and then let it sit for a few minutes while you get your mixing bags ready.

Divide the cake mix among ziploc bags. I used five colors, technically not a scientific ROYGBIV rainbow but I was getting tired. Little did I know, I was only beginning.

I mixed the color into the bags and then zipped them closed to mix.

Cut the corner of the bags to fill the muffin cups; I put just a thick enough layer to cover the previous color.

Bake according to the box temperature and time.

Frost with your desired frosting and sprinkles, if you'd like.
To make this frosting I mixed 3 sticks of butter, a splash or three of milk, two dollops of cream cheese, some vanilla and enough powdered sugar to make it all stick together. It is very tasty!

Mother Earth

I love Earth Day; and just to celebrate Mother Earth, I made cupcakes.


OK, so I was really making cupcakes for Matthew's birthday treat at school (which I will show you tomorrow) and with leftover cake batter I made these cupcakes. I'm so tickled with them that I'm thinking about making a whole batch of these next year and send them to school with the kids.

Flower War

It all started as a photo idea; let's sprinkle the flower petals from the cherry tree over Claire while mom takes her picture.
OK, let's do it!

It didn't take long for Claire to show her disgust with this idea.

Matthew figured out he could shake the branch and make more petals fall.

Claire started hiding handfuls of petals behind her back to try and ambush the others.

That provoked Emily to start scooping up her own handfuls off the ground.



Matthew started getting a bit sneakier and hiding a bit more.

Claire thought long and hard...

and decided her best tactic would be to hide.

When that didn't work she resorted to gathering up her own handfuls.


Then it was a free for all with flower petals!




Toby checked out all the action but quickly decided this was too much, even for him.

Soon the patio looked like this,

and the grass was carpeted with a beautiful shade of pink,

and the petals followed everyone inside.

You might notice that Jacob is absent from these photos. We convinced him to join us outside for the fun but after a few handfuls thrown his way he was convinced that flowers being thrown on him was not the ideal way to spend the evening. If you look closely in the 6th picture you can see him standing behind the tree.

You can also see a few more pictures from the flower war on Claire's blog.

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
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Ever run to the mailbox in your pajama shirt sans bra and hope nobody was peeking out their windows, put the kids to bed half an hour early and say they get a full half hour of reading time for their good behavior when really it is because you were so tired you couldn't make it another 30 minutes?

Well stop feeling guilty and join in on "Not Me" Monday where we can be brutally honest about our imperfections. Ready? Here we go.

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It was not me you saw at Lowe's watching one child, then two crawl inside a dog house. I would never let my children do this to occupy them while my husband pondered over weed killing products.

And I was definitely not me who actually encouraged three children, then four to cram inside the dog house just to see if they'd fit. When given weird looks from other customers I would never say something like "hey, want to see if you can fit with them?"

Nope, not me.

And just in case you are wondering and don't have four children to cram in a dog house- Yes, four children can fit inside a dog house, together; and it also keeps them busy while picking out weed spray for the lawn. Just in case you wanted to know.

The chair

The dentist.
One word, seven letters and half the people who started reading this post have now quit.

Why did I have to inherit teeth that rot a hole when I look at a cookie? I mean, I love you unconditionally Mom and Dad and when I get told I'm too young to have 4 children and even when a teacher at school says there is no way I could be Claire's mom because I look 20, I actually do pass the compliment onto you; telling them that I was blessed with the youthful look DNA. But these teeth? Damn, they suck.

So, the dentist. Probably one of the people I love to hate the most. And, I have to pay her money, actually a lot of money just to hate going by her place for a visit. Now, my dentist as a person? She's great. She's frugal so we talk about saving money, she's a mom to girls around the same ages as my kids so we talk about expensive girl things like American Girl dolls and stores (which goes into the being frugal conversations), she bought a foreclosure home and remodeled it so we talk about that, you name it, we talk about it. Sometimes I think she clears out the next appointment when I come because between her, me and the assistant we talk away half an hour in no time.

But, to sit in her chair and keep my mouth open without talking? Thank the heavens God gave someone the medical geniosity of anti-anxiety medications. And that's all I have to say about that.

Bad Mommy

Feeling like such a good mom, I took all the kids to a lake today where we met J for a picnic lunch and they got plenty dirty and wet played on the beach, then goofed at a waterfall where they tried to climb everything while I tried not to freak out about the thought of broken limbs encouraged their exploration skills, then went to a school where they played on the playground. When two kids had to potty that meant we had to take a trip to Target, because you know, they are the only ones with bathrooms. Actually, the kids got some gift cards from Meme for Easter so I let them go and spend them. I consider it a successful trip because I made it out with all 4 kids and nobody cried. Woohoo!

So, to end the day we went through McDonalds for an ice cream cone. I ordered one for each kid and one for myself and then pulled up to the window where she hands me 4 ice cream cones.

Me: Um, did I only order 4 ice cream cones (as I realize I just handed the 4th one back and she didn't imply that any more were coming my way)

Her: Yes

Me: Oh my, I meant to order 5.

Yes, I actually forgot that there were now 4 children sitting behind me.

Motherhood FAIL

Eventful night

Last night I was typing up a post about the dentist, which was flowing well after the consumption of pain medicine. But not much later the pain medicine didn't sit well in my stomach so I saved the post and promptly went to bed. About an hour later I awoke to the weird sound of water trickling right next to my bed. Hmmm, that is one of those sounds that isn't supposed to be in your bedroom.

So I sat up and over the end of the bed I see my youngest son standing there in proper position and peeing all over my clothes I just placed in a storage container. "Matthew, what are you doing?!" is probably what squealed out of my mouth which was returned with a blood curdling scream from him because I just scared the daylights out of him. J came running up the stairs and directed Matthew to the proper vessel to receive such pee and then we both couldn't stop laughing.

Like a true gentleman, J carried the pee soaked container down to the laundry to wash them; I don't think they include jobs like that in marriage counseling but I suggest they start.

This morning I pointed Matthew towards the laundry room and asked if the storage container brought back any memories for him and he said no. "No memories? Like peeing on all my clothes last night and then screaming as loud as you could when I asked you what you were doing?"

"Oh yea, that was my dream last night!"

No, no, no my young son; my pee soaked clothes were certainly real and not a dream.