Sugar Coated Monday

PARTY PREPPERS: Pre-birthday festivities (translation: work) continue here at MPA. We've been working on a Death Star pinata and Star Wars themed cake for the past few days.

This weekend we primed and painted the Death Star. Today the devil was in the details. Specifically, painting shapes and shades on the orb to make it look like something other than a gray beachball. As of 10 p.m. tonight, I still have 2 layers of paint to do. :(

Yesterday we baked the layers of cake. Annabelle was the official taste tester. She liked the red velvet cake batter.

We stacked and crumb coated the layers. Also, the tauntaun cake topper was sculpted out of Rice Krispie treats. The kids enjoyed eating the scraps we cut away.
Today, it was all about the fondant. My kids probably play with fondant more often than they play with Play-Doh. Annabelle is getting really good at mixing colors. She came in handy today.

MASKED INTRUDER: Zoo Pals are a product that's being heavily advertised on many of the shows the kids watch right now. They're colorful paper plates with animal faces on them. The jingle goes "When you clean you plate, then you see their face!" and "Zoo Pals make eating fun!"

We've bought them before months/years ago, but lately we haven't found them in stock at anywhere - until yesterday. Annabelle spied them in the Ballard Safeway. She carried them throughout the store.

When we got home she looked at every animal in the collection and chose to make a mask out of this one.

CJ is less enthused Zoo Pals. In fact, he really really doesn't like them, as he does not like a face hiding under his food or anything staring back up at him when he's eating. Just one of his quirky CJisms. ...

FRESH AIR: The kids spent a fair amount of time outside today, enjoying the waning days of sunny August. They played in the alley on scooters and other ride on toys. They also played on the small climbing toy in our yard for awhile. It's pre-schooler size, but they still enjoy it.

They each had a chance to perch on the carport roof for awhile, too. Christian was up there almost all day, putting a new window in the south side of our house (hallelujah!). As I type, instead of staring at solid drywall to my right, tonight I can see the twinkling lights on the towers atop Queen Anne and a full moon in the cloud streaked night sky. Nice!I LIKE: I took the inspiration for this morning's writing assignment from a question Annabelle asked me yesterday.

"What are 10 things you don't like?" she asked. Making the list wasn't as quick and easy as you might think. I had to do a lot of soul searching. (And yes, "clowns" was one of the items on my list.)

Preferring to take a positive tack, I asked the kids to write down "I like ..." and then list 10 things. The kids took quite a while (a half hour plus) to come up with their lists. Maybe they were doing some soul searching. Their lists follow...

CJ: The park. Slides. Computers. Videos. Chocolate. Toys. The Wii. Art. Baseball. Mario.

Annabelle: Living in a hilly city. Playing Club Penguin, Mome and Dade. Pingazane (the friend they play Club Penguin with online). Parks. Computer.

(I just realized Annabelle only listed six instead of 10!)

MONDAY MATINEE: The kids had a rare treat this afternoon. Biggest brother Rick took them to a movie. They saw "Despicable Me," an animated film. CJ and Annabelle both said it was "Great!" which was pretty much the consensus of the reviews I read online ahead of time. Annabelle noted that there were "little girls, like me," in the film. That made me stop to think about the fact that more often than not, movies seem to have little boys as principal characters. Hmm.

POSTER BOY: We received an email from a graphic designer at Dechen Chöling, a European Buddhist Centre in France. She wanted to know if they could use a photo of CJ on a poster for an event they have coming up. I'm not sure what CJ flying a kite in Seattle has to do with their message, but it was fine by me. WORDS FROM THE WISE: "If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself." - Albert Einstein