Food?....or not?

Oldest Granddaughter is having her 15th birthday this week.

Since macaroni and cheese from a box is one of the main staples of her diet, this is one of the gifts I gave her:

No.....I did not just make her a batch and plop some on waxed paper........


....THAT IS A BAR OF SOAP!!!!

Isn't that the funniest thing ever? Don't you just love it? I bought it on ETSY from AJ SWEETSOAP

Anyone who knows me well, knows I have a weird thing about fake food in any form.....I'm a sucker for anything that looks like food but really isn't food.

Which is why I bought this soap, too.......of course I had to have it..... just because.....I mean, could you pass it up? Just look at how amazing this rocky road brownie looks....AND IT'S A BAR OF SOAP!!!#$%&*!!

It will be the perfect gift for someone eventually.....

please go on over to AJ sweetSoap and look at all the yummy looking soap she makes (check out the deviled eggs!)....I dare you to resist buying something! (or maybe it's just me and my weird fake food fetish?

another Birthday...OR...another reason to feel old!

Today is Oldest Son's 35th Birthday (oh, no! my SECOND child is now 35!! Yikes!!)



So what does a mother give to her son, born in 1975? Star Wars pancake molds, of course!






(ignore the ridiculous face... he's been making that face just for photos since he was 9 years old....obviously some things NEVER change!)


Son has been teaching 5 yr. old Grandson all about Star Wars for the past year, watching the original movies together and collecting new action figures and vehicles, so the pancakes were a big hit....

Grandson said they taste better than "regular" pancakes!

I also made Oldest Son a new apron from a cigar-themed fabric that he thought was really cool.

We went to Sunday Brunch at his favorite mexican restaurant that he hadn't been to for several years. He actually was a waiter there back his college days about 18 years ago, so he had lots of memories to talk about.......



Oldest Son & his kids

Oldest Son & Me

I sure do wish my kids would quit having birthdays already!!! It sure would help ME to stop feeling so old........

What does a swamp taste like?

I'm not really sure when it happened, but somehow I've become the official Birthday Cake Maker for all the Grandkids Birthdays. It's not because I have any special talent in this area, as you'll see in a minute, I just have no fear of making a cake that might end up looking ridiculous! I alway do my best to make each child EXACTLY the cake they were envisioning, and so far every 3-4-5-6 year old has been very pleased with the results. I'm pretty sure their age has something to do with it, though, since the 2 biggest girls now ask for things like Caramel Apple Cheesecake.....no possibility of a cake decorating embarassement there!

Here, I'll show you what I mean.......and before any of you mention Cake Wrecks, it's already one of my favorite blogs, and besides, the cakes on there are all professional cakes so mine don't qualify (thank goodness)

3 yr. old Grandson asked for a scary dinosaur.....

What? You don't think a light blue dino with pink candy corn teeth is scary? Well, Grandson LOVED it! It was obviously what his little 3 yr.old self had in mind.....

When he turned 4...... Monkey Cupcakes. He loved those,too, even though I decorated them while they were still in the muffin pan and they didn't look quite so "good" when we tried to take them out without destroying them.

I think these Flip-Flop cakes were for a 7 yr.old. I remember she was very impressed with my "decorating skills"! (?)

No, this is not a Kangaroo face, it's a pony.......

A flock of Butterfly Cakes

This one actually came out looking like a kitty!

And now for what prompted this post in the first place: Grandson turned 5 this past week. Together we came up with the idea of a swamp cake! And what's better than helping with the decorating of your own Birthday Cake!

I'll give you a tour of our "Swamp"....... chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting, covered with oreo crumb "dirt". The green frosting swamp is surrounded with chocolate "rocks" and has gummi frogs swimming near green fruit leather "swamp grass". There are gummi worms, snails, slugs, and caterpillars crawling in the dirt.



Our Masterpiece!

Just what a 5 yr. old boy wanted! A creepy, swampy (and delicious!) cake!

Happy Birthday!!

Ethan

Bethan

Wheat Thin
Ethie-boy

...Love, Mimi

Birthday x 3

In my previous post I might have made a brief mention of how much I was NOT looking forward to having a birthday this week (OK, OK,... so it wasn't just a mention, it was a full-on RANT, but hey!, it was a brief rant...)

Since I share a birthday with my Mother (see last year's post) I've never been allowed to just let the day go by un-noticed, no matter how much I might want to. And #2 Granddaughter was almost born on our birthday, too, but at the last minute she decided she wanted her own special day, so she came the next day instead. We have since forgiven her for that, however, and try to have a triple birthday any year we can work it out.

This year we had a triple-birthday-swimming-party at my sister's house. Cousins that only get to see each other once a year (twice if we're lucky) spent the whole day in the pool together.

We cooked a spaghetti dinner for 24 people.

There was Caramel Apple Cheesecake and Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes for dessert.

and another triple birthday is over for another year.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGAN!

(and happy birthday to me......)

***************************************************************************************************

STRAWBERRY LEMONADE CAKE

1 box lemon cake mix

1 3 oz. box strawberry jello

4 eggs

3/4 cup oil

3/4 cup water

GLAZE:

2 cups powdered sugar

3/4 cup lemon juice

GLAZE: (make glaze first so sugar can be dissolving) stir together lemon juice and powdered sugar. Set aside while preparing cake.

Add dry jello to dry cake mix in large bowl. Prepare and bake cake according to directions on box using eggs, oil, and water.

While cake is still warm, poke holes over the whole cake with a fork. Pour glaze over cake. Serve with cool whip or vanilla ice cream. (I think this cake tastes best stored in the refrigerator)

variations: use lemon jello for Lemonade cake

use lime jello for lemon-lime cake (makes a neon-green cake that kids love!)

it's my birthday...again?!!

Okay. Now wait a minute....how could it possibly be my birthday next week already?!! Didn't I just have a birthday?!! I'm not even finished being traumatized by turning 50 and now I'm already going to be 52?!! What is going on here? With all the technology these days can't someone figure out a way to stop this? I was just 30 for heaven's sake! I still feel 30(ish).....(but I guess that would be weird since my kids are 35,33 and 28......don't know how that would work). I keep repeating to myself "you're only as old as you feel, you're only as old as you feel", which was working until I recently started having......HOT FLASHES!! What the heck! I mean, my Grandma had hot flashes and she was OLD! How could this be happening to me? I know I have 5 grandkids, but I also was a mother at 16, so once again....WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE?

I actually never really feel my age and always think of myself as 50 years YOUNG, until something rudely comes along to remind me, like a birthday, or needing to carry around a battery-powered fan in my purse!

Some other recent rude age reminders:

** Oldest Grandaughter is starting HIGH SCHOOL in September.....AAAUGHHH!!
** Daughter recently refered to 70's music as "oldies" (?????)
** Son observed the fact that in less than 2 years all of my children will be in their 30's (WHAT?!)
** I'm getting junk mail about cemetery plots, hearing aids, and incontinence supplies!!!
** I found a box of LP records that my kids used to listen to and when I asked the grandkids if they wanted to listen to a record with me, the answer was "what's a record?"
** I was reading a book to 4 yr. old grandson and he asked me to "press pause" while he went to the bathroom.

on a positive note.....

on a recent visit to the grocery store with 4 yr. old grandson, the Checker thought I was his mother!....YESSS!! That woman has no idea how much she made my day! ......but now that I think about it, she was about my age, so she probably recognized how I was feeling and was just being kind.....whatever.....I"LL TAKE THAT COMPLIMENT ANYWAY!!

THANK YOU GROCERY STORE WOMAN....I FEEL BETTER NOW!
BRING ON THE BIRTHDAY......