April Fools' Fun

Gus has been talking about April Fools' Day since January. He definitely likes a good prank.

Last year, he tricked his classmates with packages of Twix Candy Bars that we'd replaced with carrot sticks.

This year, he's taking Tootsie Rolls to school - with Smarties secretly wrapped inside. (I know, we're not very mean with our pranks. We go for the laughs.)

Happy April Fools' Day. May all your tricks be treats, too!

Baking blossoms.

I just love when Mother Nature finally gives us some colorful relief from winter. Here's my dessert-version of the spectacular budding trees in the backyard this week.

Lucky.

I thought it would be fun to celebrate St. Patrick's Day at work with some lottery tickets. (And put them in Napoleon Dynomite's hand.)

Joey was the luckiest one in the office. She won $15. Two others won $1.00. Me? Not so lucky. Oh well.

St. Patty Pies

I made some mint chocolate chip whoopie pies for St. Patrick's Day treats. A few for work. A few for Bea to take to daycare. And a few for some friends I'm meeting for lunch. Even Eric was lucky enough to get a few. Although, he admits.... mint chocolate chip is not his favorite flavor. I love it. A little too much. I ate an entire carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream this week. Yikes.

Do the zoo.

I'm pretty sure it's a state law that if the temperature is above 60° on a Saturday in March, you have to go to the zoo. So we did.

And somehow, we managed to take more pictures of our two monkeys than the animals on exhibit. 

These monkeys were as tired as we were. Good thing we got a new membership to the zoo so we can come back again and again and again.

Eric loves rice.

Today is my husband's 44th birthday, and his most favorite food in the whole wide world is rice - plain white rice with soy sauce. He eats it ALL THE TIME.

So I thought a birthday cake that looked like a bowl of rice would be kinda funny. I layered white cake inside the bowls, and used a potato ricer to make the frosting look like "rice." Then I put a mixture of chocolate and butterscotch schnapps inside his precious soy sauce bottle, and we drizzled it over the rice cakes. Delish. But very sweet, even for me.

Besides the silly cake, Eric celebrated with Kung Pao Beef from his favorite Chinese restaurant, completely random presents from me and the kids (two shirts, a sauté pan and a therapeutic hot & cold pad for his injured runner's foot) and his very own, made-up-on-the-spot-birthday-song from Miss Bea.

What 44-year-old wouldn't be completely thrilled with all that?

Happy birthday to our rice-lovin' guy.

* Note to self: Owning a new camera, doesn't mean you have to share EVERY single photo. Sorry, I couldn't help it. I just love our new toy.

Pinning our hopes on an academic scholarship.

As these photos indicate, we're not raising the next Michael Jordan. 

That's OK. I'm just thrilled that Gus even WANTED to go outside and play basketball on such a cloudy & chilly day.

A handful of Spring.

Bea found the yellow crocus that were blooming on the side of the house today and got so excited, she picked a giant handful and came running around the corner yelling "Look mommy.... the flowers grew back!"

Oops. Oh well. Mother Nature will make more.

First photos with the new camera.

I literally looked at the owner's manual for 7 1/2 minutes tonight before I packed up the kids & the camera and headed down to the Wichita Garden Show. Eric was working at Tree Top's "Jurassic Park" garden and I was dying to try out this new fella. 

It was pretty crowded, but I was able to take some fun, colorful pics. Way better than anything I would have gotten from our old point-and-shoot. I can't wait to see what's possible when I've had more than 10 minutes to play with it. Maybe Eric will have the patience to give me a tutorial. (Please honey, you know how much I hate reading instruction manuals?)

Our new baby.

Meet Canon Rebel Denneler. (T3i for short.)

We've barely had him 5 hours, and I'm already in love.

Nooks & Niches

Eric cringes every time I ask "Hey... are there any wires or electrical boxes in this wall?" because he knows I'm going to want him to cut another hole somewhere. I can't help it. I like nooks & niches. They're the perfect solution for displaying fun treasures (or hiding gobs of stuff) in crowded hallways, tiny spaces or on odd-angle walls. Here's a few of the nooks & niches in our house. I have ideas for more in the basement, but I haven't shared those with my handyman husband just yet. Shhhhh.....

Hallway nooks: Yes, I know. They're restaurant steamer pans inserted into the wall. I used to be a salad bar attendant at a Sirloin Stockade in college, and these shiny silver pans always intrigued me. I like them even better in my wall, highlighting photos of Bea.

A bathroom niche: I asked Eric to give this one an arched top. Then I framed it. Makes the little blue birdies appear even more special.

Look behind that canvas painting. It's actually our medicine cabinet. Kinda sneaky, huh?

Bedroom knick-knack nooks: This crazy-angled wall in Gus' room was the perfect place for shelves to hold his Gus-themed collection.