A Little This, A Little That

Soooo, I've been working on planning Gabe's birthday party for his up and coming fifth. I found some great Super Mario party supplies and surprised him (I couldn't help it, I just couldn't wait) by telling him that he would be getting a Mario party this year. So now I'm on the hunt for things we can decorate a cake with. Today I googled "Super Mario cake set" and WOW! check out some of these:

Hannah's cake - scroll down to see the pics, there's even a video. Yeah, the cake has a motor. It probably had more horsepower than my first car, it sure does look a lot better and I bet the sunroof doesn't pour water into your lap every time you turn a corner after a recent rain.

Collection of Marios

Mario Wedding Cake (We may not want to tell Gabe that this is even possible in respect to his future bride. Unless of course he marries Princess Peach.)

This one at least looks a little more doable. Still, not doable enough for me, the birthday-cake-decorating-virgin.

Sorry Gabe, I love ya dearly but I'm not crazy enough to think even for a second that I could do something like one of these. Proof that I have not yet totally lost my grip on reality.
.....................................................................................................


Christianity Today came out with their list of 10 Most Redeeming Films of 2008. I thoroughly enjoyed the 2007 list and was a little surprised by some. They recommended Little Miss Sunshine which was a movie that I had mentally totally rejected by the commercials. Profanity and questionable subject matter aside, it became one of all time favorite movie endings ever. If you can catch the edited for TV version your doing yourself a favor (cuts the language though that doesn't get rid of the drug addicted pervert grandpa). Check out the list, you may just find a new favorite.
....................................................................................................

Zion hates to be photographed now. Suddenly I can empathize with the paparazzi as they chase down the stars only to get a lens full of talk-to-the-hand. The second I pick up the camera she is sprinting for the other room. When I can catch up with her she whips her head around so all I get is a blurry back of the head shot. Like so...

And shots like these are getting more and more common.
What? You don't' see her? That would be because that is where she WAS standing...until I picked up my camera...stinker.

I have resorted to holding her in place...

and stealing her bink and holding it for ransom.

Though every once in a while she'll be in a performing mood and stay put for just long enough. Right after this she chucked the sticks and took off.

If I can catch her being helpful she'll let me get a shot or two.

Here she's helping to take down the Christmas decorations. Was she willing to allow her picture to be taken or was she simply trapped up on a step stool and unable to get away? I'll let you decide.

And here's Mother Teresa feeding the homeless. OK, obviously not, but I had to step out of the room in the middle of getting Gideon his breakfast and came back to find this. I was wondering why he hadn't started howling when I was out of the room. What a good sissy!

.......................................................................................................

I get to give a shout out to Homemade By Jill again. That cool chick has inspired me to craft more than anyone or anything ever. Well, except perhaps my sis but that's just because we go way back. We were scrapbooking before scrapbooking got popular. Yeah. We're that cool.

Or that old.

This is a big deal though because as much as I really, really want to be crafty I'm also a big, big chicken. My fear of not getting it exactly how I want it to be keeps me from trying sometimes. Sad, huh? I know, I need a support group or something.

So I had popped over to Jill's lovely blog and found her post about this cute little baby wipes clutch that she made and wouldn'tcha know I happened to have a baby shower for a friend coming up. This is what I put together:

Like it? I do. It was hard to give it away. Sadly, I couldn't go to the shower for lack of a sitter so I didn't get to see her open her gift. I hope she likes it!

.............................................................................................

Any guesses as to what this is:

If you remember that this is the one-year calendar that I made to count down the days that Rob is gone, you are right! Sorry that it isn't the best picture. It's in an area of the house that doesn't get natural light so I have to use flash and stand back far enough to get the whole thing. Anyway, if you look really, really carefully you can see that the first six months are filled in. Do you KNOW what this means?!?

Yep, you guessed it! We are at the half way mark of Rob's deployment. WOOT!

I say it again - WOOT!

Time is just a flyin' and the first six months have gone by with a flash. Soon I think I will start working on the scrapbook to go with these pages. I plan to make a digital scrapbook page of pictures from each month to go side by side with the appropriate calendar page. Each day's square has a little blurb about what we did that day. When Rob comes home he will have a book to tell him about what we did while he was gone. Every day accounted for (except for Tuesday, December 9 - I can't for the life of me remember what we did that day. Weird. I just hope I don't end up needing an alibi for that day.) and complete with pictures. I can't wait to present him with this, mostly because it means he'll be home for good. :)