Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Geriatric Gerbils!

I saw this:

 It's from https://www.facebook.com/debbieerey1 a lady that takes pretty and cutsie pictures for a living. Great! It IS really adorable. A lot of her pictures are absolutely Adorable! But on this picture, particularly, all I can think of is: I wonder if our geriatric gerbils would hold on to a swing if I made them one.

Now the thought went ever further than that. I even envisioned how to create a simplistic swing from a craft stick and yarn. Thought of the perfect place to hang it. Thought of the amusing things the cats would/could do with a geriatric gerbil dangling from a string. I really now just have this compulsion to *try* to put a geriatric gerbil on a swing, but for the life of me I can't figure out how the darn thing would hold still.

See, then my mind went to The Bloggess. I mean, she gets HERS to pose. The caveat?? Hers aren't alive. I don't want to HARM the poor buggers. (Love her BTW!)



Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Summertime Ice Cream

Today we made a new (to us anyhow) ice cream treat. Because of my allergies, the kids don't get to have a lot of commercially prepared novelty food items because 90% of them have something I'm allergic to in them - usually nuts. We are a nut free household so when we were watching How It's Made I started to realize just how many junk food items my kids have never heard of. Today, we tackled the ever popular summertime treat Drumsticks.


Magic Shell, sugar cones, Braums Mint Cholocate Chip ice cream and we were good to go! 


Coat the inside of the cones with Magic Shell. After the first tasting, it's been decided that this layer isn't thick enough, so go heavy here if you like a nice thick chocolatey cone. I must admit I totally stole the egg carton holder idea from someone's Pintrest post and I'll post that as soon as I can remember where I saw that. 


I lapsed on the photos for the wrapping of the cones in wax paper and the cramming of ice cream, it was getting melty. But, this is what it looks like AFTER it's been in the freezer for a while and it no longer oozing all over the kitchen counter. 


And after the Magic Shell as been poured on top and allowed to freeze for a while and been unwrapped. 


The boy enjoys it. He particularly likes that it's Mint Chocolate Chip and not that "plain ol' vanilla".


Now they're just being hams.





The weather has been really nice in the mornings too. They gather a giant (and I mean GIANT) laundry basket of stuffies and go outside and play hide and seek. Or make them slide. Or throw them at each other. Or just snuggle them.




Monday, June 18, 2012

Schmogasborg of Hash

I've been lazy about a number of things lately. I could claim "busy", but really, I got lazy the last little bit and have been prioritizing the To-Do list.

Things that haven't made it to the top lately:
Grocery Shopping (more out of lack of funds than "lazy" but that's an entire story on it's own)
Taking pictures
Updating the blog
Folding laundry (it's been getting washed then stashed it random places ;p  )
De-cluttering the massive piles of crap piling up in HUGE ginormous clumps all over the house.

I have gotten several, non essential, things done that have been on the forever list done though. I baked a rather fantastic looking cake for a very good friend. She is one of the best friends ever and has done so much for me over the years. I would do anything she would ever ask. She's reaching a GIANT life milestone and needed chocolate cake. I'm very proud of her for making her life choices that she needed to make because sometimes, they suck.



I actually ended up making this same cake for C for Father's Day. The kids thought he would like it because C really, really LOVES chocolate. It's a chocolate cake with chocolate icing, chocolate ganache, with chocolate chunks on top. It was good, but I already have plans for my next cake. I have to find someone to pawn it off on who doesn't mind me stealing 1 try-it piece to see if my experiment worked. I want to make a chocolate cake, with whipped cream or chocolate (I haven't fully decided yet) and cherry filling in the middle, chocolate icing on the outside with the same ganache and then instead of the chocolate chunks - globs (decorative of course) of whipped cream with cherries on it about an inch or so apart. Not that I've thought about it.


We've gotten a Slip-N-Slide for the first time ever this year. The kids LOVE it. I do know why we waited until they were older to get one though. They hurl themselves at the most grotesque angles at the ground and half the time they fail to slide anywhere. And yet, they love it and keep doing it. It's really special when they face plant.



Anyhow, I'm going to attempt to take more pictures of our summer time adventures, because we really HAVE been doing a decent amount of relatively fun kid type stuff and I just need to pull the ol' camera out more. I took a couple this morning when they were talking their "pets", I'll try to add those tomorrow - it was A.D.O.R.A.B.L.E.  I just don't know where the days go sometimes.