I’m Not Dead! (And Our Floors Are done)

I don’t think there were too many people out there wondering if I’d actually died or not, but I’m sure someone other than my mother was wondering if I was ever going to blog again.  I am!

I’d like to get back into a sporadic-regular blogging schedule, but we’ll let that work itself out in the future.  I have tons of stuff (by tons I mean about 5) to blog about, but I haven’t had the motivation to actually sit down and get any of it into word form. 

Anyway, I thought I’d update you on our floors.  They’re done!  They were done before Christmas, which meant we were able to host our annual family Christmas Eve celebration with my sister’s family and our mom.  I LOVE that Christmas get-together.  I love them all, really, but because this is the only one I host, it seems more special to me I guess.

Here is a look at our floors in the few Christmas pictures I could find that showed off our floors. I never took a really great AFTER picture, so these will have to suffice. 

This was the night that we actually finished.  I was in love.  We have since changed out the metal registers for wooden ones.

Here is the widest shot we have from our Christmas Eve party.  Those are my sister’s boys.  Jack (and the rest of us) LOVE them!   You can see how our dark coffee table and our dark secretary (in the back to the left of the tree) look with our dark floors now.  I like it. Though, I have my eyes on a light beige shag rug (that I’m hoping comes way down in price soon) to put under that coffee table.

This is our Christmas morning.  You may notice an absence of presents under the tree.  We usually stick to the rule of 3 presents for each of us, but this year, Rick and I decided to count our floors as our gift to each other, so we didn’t get gifts for ourselves.  I love how, on Christmas morning, I asked Jack “It’s Christmas morning, do you know what that means?” and his response was “Yeah!!  We get to get out the train!!” 

This last picture is blurry.  Too blurry to show as a good picture on a blog – unless you’re trying to show the length of the new floors you just put in, and you’re trying to protect the identity of the Plasma Car thief in our house.  It also does a good job of hiding the clutter in our kitchen. 

We love our floors, but it was HARD WORK putting them in.  It took about a week (or 2) longer than we expected, and we had two big situations that required us to pull up floor that had already been laid.  It was very interesting ad frustrating. 

Thanks for still hanging around my blog to see if I’m alive.  I appreciate all my readers, even the ones who never comment.  If you are so inclined, please leave me a comment today saying that YOU’RE alive, so I know if anyone other than my mother reads my blog.  I have missed you, blog friends! I hope to be around more often on your blogs as well as writing more posts for my own blog.

Happy 2012!

 

Foto Friday–Out the Window

Today’s theme was a little tricky for me to come up with, but after scrolling through my photos, I ended up with two that I can’t decide between.  I’ll let you pick your favorite for today.

We went to the National Air Force Museum near Dayton, OH a few weekends ago, and boy was that fun!  They have three HUGE hangers full of military planes that date back all the way to the Wright Brother’s first plane.  It’s a free museum, which makes it even more impressive. 

There are two cockpits that kids (or anyone) can sit in to see what it feels like to be a pilot.  Jack loved them both.   The F-4 cockpit made Jack look so little!  I got down on my hands and knees to take this picture, and I’m so glad I did.  I love how he’s peeping out of what would be a window if it was a complete cockpit. You should click on the picture to see it bigger.  This small image doesn’t do it justice.

The following weekend we went to EnterTrainMent Junction near Cincinnati, OH which has the world’s largest indoor model train display.  It was not free, and perhaps a bit overpriced, but very impressive all the same.  The models were amazingly detailed.  You could stand there and look at one little scene for five minutes and still not see all the tiny little details.  That is, if you didn’t have a toddler pulling you to the toy train area. 

While looking at the detailed buildings and scenery, I noticed one building that was a jailhouse.  It had an inmate escaping through the window, and I thought that was the funniest thing. 

See him?  He’s escaping “out the window.”

Thanks so much for stopping by today and seeing my take on this week’s theme.  As always, please visit La-La’s Home Daycare to check out other Foto Friday submissions.  If you blog, and don’t already participate, you really should!  This photo meme is not intimidating at all and everyone is so nice when they stop by!

Have a great weekend!

Foto Friday–On and On

Have you noticed how good I’ve been with linking up to this party?  I’m amazed that I’m still going strong.  I am not a photographer, but I do love taking pictures.  When there’s a challenge or theme to stick with, it makes it even more fun. 

I went through a couple of ideas for this weeks’ theme: On and On.  I could have taken a picture of Jack – he keeps growing on and on! It could have been the rain – it keeps going on and on!!  I actually tried to take a picture of the rain, but I don’t think it turned out.  Plus it’s still in my camera.  I also thought of taking a picture of my laundry or dirty dishes.  Those seem to go on and on as well!

Jack and I went for a drive yesterday and took pictures of airplanes (I live near an airport, and the planes were doing touch and go’s today like they do often.  It goes ON AND ON!), roads that seem to go on and on forever, and the rain.  But what we landed on as our favorite was the railroad tracks.  Jack LOVES trains, and wouldn’t ya know – they go on and on!  So, here is my picture of something that goes on and on. 

Stop on by Mom Tried It to see other pictures for the theme On and On.  I look forward to seeing how everyone translates this into a picture.

Have a great weekend!

The Train Cake

In January (yes, three and a half months ago and I’m just now getting around to posting about this), Jack celebrated his 2nd birthday.  If you missed it, I did a quick picture montage.  Boy, I love that kid.

Last year for his birthday, I made a cupcake shaped ‘healthy’ cake.  It was a carrot and raisin cake with cream cheese icing.  He really loved it, but no one else liked it at all.  Luckily I made regular chocolate and white cakes for the adults. 

This year, Rick and I decided to be brave and create a train cake. Jack LOVES trains.  He loves all planes, trains, cars, trucks, and construction machines.  We decided to go with a train cake because he seemed to love those the most (that week) and the idea of how to make it happen was in both of our heads. 

First, I must tell you that there are much easier ways to make a train cake.  The smaller you make it, the easier it is. We did not make it small.  No way.  We took the BIG BOY TRAIN route.  Here’s what we did:

We used a coffee can for the boiler part of the engine and cake pans for the engine cab and coal car. The coffee can we used had a lip on it, and by luck, I found that the Pampered Chef can opener took the lip right off so the cake could slide right out.

 

 

 

 

 

We used rice krispie treat for the bed or gravel part of the tracks.  It took about 2 and a half batches.  Then we laid the black licorice ties down.

We started assembling the cakes on the track, but we found that the yellow cake we baked didn’t cook in the middle, so we had to throw that out and bake another cake instead.  We were up pretty late the night before his party baking and assembling this thing.

Finally, we started assembling the train.  (One of his toy trains –my toy from when I was a child- was the model)

We cut one cake in half to make the base of the engine and the coal car.  We then placed the round cake on top of the cut cake.  It sat there perfectly, so I didn’t secure it with anything.  We also added a cow catcher in the front with a scrap piece of cake.

Then we sat another rectangular cake upright behind the round cake as the cab.  We secured that with skewers.

Then the icing went on.  It was a lot of icing! We added an Oreo and mini marshmallow on the front as the light.  At this point, we added the rails to the bed. 

Finally, we added donuts and more Oreos as wheels, Whoppers as coal, and we piped some detail to make the train come to life.

We used an ice cream cone as the smoke stack.  I put an Oreo on the top to hide the inside of the cone and some white icing to represent smoke and to keep the cookie glued on.

When Jack woke up the next morning and saw the cake, he yelled “TRAIN!”  He loved it.  After all the hours we spent on that cake (and little sleep we got because of it), it was totally worth it to see how happy he was to see his cake.  He could name every part of the cake that we knew was important to have on a train cake – smoke stack, coal car with coal, cab, wheels, and rails.  He really loved it.

It was a big hit at his party too.  Everyone oo’ed and ahhh’ed over it.  We were very proud of it.

After everyone had been served, we ended up only having to cut into the coal car.  The rest was left over for us to eat throughout the week.  It was a good thing too, since the round cake might not have been cooked all the way through after all.  Of course, that didn’t stop Daddy from eating it!

Jack ended up not eating anything but cake for lunch that day.  And the smoke stack was his very favorite part. 

Growth Chart Moments

Jack turned 18 months last week.  A year and a half!  Time flies when you’re having fun!

Here are some cute things he’s doing or saying that I’m sure to forget if I don’t write them down.

• He says “BESS YOU” to anyone who sneezes, coughs, hiccups, or burps. 
• He calls all animals by the noise they make. 
• Dogs = FUFF FUFF!
• Sheep = BA!
• Cows = MMMMMMMOO! ( sometimes Mmmmmeee)
• Mokey’s = OOO OOO EEEE EEE EEEEE!
• He counts to two.  Sometimes he counts to three, but his three sounds like one, so we’re not really sure about that one.
• He yells “CHASE!” and “RUN RUN!” when he he wants you to chase after him.  His chase turns into chrase after a few times.
• He loves putting blankets around him while walking around.  He loves all blankets and hats, and he loves to wrap them around his shoulders or waist and see how far he can walk around the house before it falls off.
• He is in love with CHOO CHOOs!  The boy turns his food into choo-choos, and everything looks like a choo choo track to him evidently.  He can sit on Daddy’s lap and watch choo-choo videos online all day long!
• He still loves to read books.  He knows what he likes and doesn’t like each night for bedtime, and it changes every night!  His nursery floor is covered with books that he fishes through to find just the right ones for that night.
• He can identify most animals, but that doesn’t mean he wants to touch them or get to close.  He’ll enjoy looking from afar for now.

OH, and he’s sleeping through the night now!  It only took 17 or so months, but he’s not getting up much at all now.  YAY!!!!!

This is his favorite blanket to wrap around himself.  And he can’t go to sleep without it on top of him…even if his room is 82 degrees!!!

Our little Darth Vader Boy.

 

He likes to wear hats!