Toy Story 3

It's been a heck of a weekend and I was just getting started on designing Emilie's birthday party invitations when I stumbled upon the new teaser for Toy Story 3. Ari & I couldn't wipe the smiles off our faces so I wanted to share it with you all. Enjoy!

I'll Take the Rain

"I'll Take the Rain" is the third and last singled release from R.E.M.'s 2001 album Reveal. The song is not really one of my favorites, but the video is. The video for "I'll Take the Rain" is the first R.E.M. video that is completely animated. I've been thinking about this video a lot lately so I decided to post it. Enjoy!

R.E.M.- I'll Take The Rain

Summertime

Some see Memorial Day as the unofficial beginning of summer, so I thought I'd do a summertime post. The way I feel about summer could not be better represented than in the above Calvin and Hobbes comic. Many of the activities that Calvin and Hobbes are shown doing are the same that I did growing up with my best friends. Digging holes, climbing trees, taking silly pictures, looking under rocks, gazing at the clouds, inventing games, lemonade stands, and catching lightning bugs are some of my most cherished summer memories of my childhood.

Calvin and Hobbes also hold a very special place in my heart. I remember as a child in elementary school, I would anxiously await the arrival of the Bookmobile. Whenever it came to my school I would always take a Calvin and Hobbes collection to look at. My parents started buying me the collections because I enjoyed them so much and I ended up owning every Calvin and Hobbes book. Being a kid, I didn't keep very good care of them, and some of them became damaged from frequent use and general carelessness. A few years ago, my dad bought me The Complete Calvin and Hobbes which is a hardback three-volume set containing all the strips. I was elated.

Since then I have enjoyed reading Calvin and Hobbes even more than when I was young. Rediscovering the strips and reading them as an adult further capture my imagination and make me appreciate the times I had when I was young. Ari really enjoys looking at the strips as well, as we often look at them when I put him to bed. I don't really read them to him, but just explain to him what's going on in a particular strip. I remember the first time I stumbled upon the above strip while reading to Ari; as I was explaining it to him, I kind of got choked up, it was so powerful for some reason.

Calvin and Hobbes encapsulate the best parts of summer. Playing outside, discovering, imagining, creating, exploring, and never letting a moment go to waste.

The Chewy

We don't make chocolate chip cookies at our house; we make The Chewy. The Chewy is perhaps the most palette pleasing cookie of all time, and it's the only chocolate chip cookie recipe I use. No other recipe can compare. The Chewy is an Alton Brown recipe; and in the Good Eats episode in which it appears, Alton provides the viewers with three chocolate chip cookie variations depending on personal taste. The Thin, The Puffy, and The Chewy were all featured in the episode. He presented The Chewy last, and once I saw him make them, I knew this was the recipe I wanted to try.

I like my cookies soft and chewy, so this is the recipe for me. The slightly browned crispy edges leading into warm, chewy, melt-in-your-mouth center is exactly what I want in a cookie, and The Chewy delivers in all respects. I have taken The Chewy to many work and family functions and they have always been a huge hit. I don't know how many times I've printed the recipe for other people.

When making The Chewy just to enjoy at home, instead of baking them all at once, I bake them in batches of six and freeze the rest of the dough. I use a disher to scoop the dough out in cookie size portions and freeze in plastic wrap in batches of six. That way, I can have fresh baked cookies whenever I want them without doing all the work. Though they keep fresh several days after baking, there is nothing like a cookie fresh from the oven.

Also, there is no reason to only limit The Chewy to chocolate chips. I have made them with crushed Heath bars and M&Ms. Angela really enjoys adding a few Reese's Big Cups to the batter. I have also added some of my homemade peanut butter to the mix, but that made them a little too rich for my liking. The Chewy has been a staple at our household for several years, and if you're looking for something to take to that Memorial Day cookout you may be going to, The Chewy will not disappoint.

Speaking of Memorial Day, I hope you all have a safe and wonderful holiday weekend! I'm looking forward to a leisurely three days off with a couple of cookouts and volleyball highlighting the agenda. I'm hoping to squeeze in a nice bike ride, too. It's shaping up to be a nice weekend in our neck of the woods.

Birthday Cakes in Review

Now that we decided we are going to have Emilie's birthday party at our house, it is time to start thinking about if we are going to have a theme, what decorations to have, and better yet, what kind of birthday cake to make.

We are still struggling with ideas, though we do have a few. I have discovered it's more difficult to find decorations for a girl's birthday, unless you want Dora or Disney Princesses. Maybe it was easier to do Ari's parties because it was easier for me to like at get excited about his party decor, and of course, the cakes. I have a feeling I'm going to have to get more creative for Emilie.

Here's a look at the cakes I have made for Ari's birthday parties so far...

For Ari's first birthday party, I made a Mickey Mouse cake. It was a butter cake with "snow white" icing. Obviously, I added black food coloring to the icing. Every one's mouths were blue after eating the cake, something I didn't consider. Oh well, it was all the name of fun.
For Ari's second birthday, he had a Dr. Seuss theme. The cake was based on the cake on the cover of the Dr. Seuss book Happy Birthday to You!. It was a just a white cake with vanilla icing. We had two parties for Ari that year, so I made a cake for each party. That's why I kept it so simple. I still think it turned out pretty good, though.

Which brings us to my favorite. For Ari's third birthday, we celebrated with a Super Mario Bros. theme. I made AB's Fudge Cake with chocolate icing. I made the cake to look like one of the blocks from the original Super Mario Bros. game for the NES. The pièce de résistance was the "Mario Party 8" logo that I modified to read "Ari Party" with the "3" taken from Super Mario Bros. 3. I was so proud of that, but I don't think anyone noticed without me pointing it out to them. I guess we needed more Nintendo fan boys at the party. Add the finishing touches of the Mario and Luigi figurines my mom got me for Christmas, and he had an awesome cake, if I do say so myself. Aside from the infamous Mario falling head first into the cake fiasco, the party went off without a hitch.

So, what will we do for Emilie? Only time will tell. I do know one thing for sure; she's going to have a tasty cake.

By any means necessary

Emilie loves to walk. The thing is, she has to have some sort of assistive device in order to do so. Whether it's her walker, one of Ari's toys, Ari's desk chair, or holding someone's hands, she has to have something or someone else's support in order for her to do her favorite activity. Valerie and I think she can do it on her own. She is able to stand all by herself if she is focusing on something else, then once she realizes she is standing, she slowly sits down. I know she'll grow out of it, she's only 11 months old, but it's fun to see the things she comes up with to support herself.

Good as New

After much deliberation on location, we decided to celebrate Emilie's first birthday at our house this year. Our yard is quite small and we want to have her party outside since her birthday is in June. We were thinking about having it at a park or at a relative's house who has a big yard. But after a scheduling conflict with one party, and an apparent lack of interest from another, we decided it would be best to just have it at our house. Hooray! Once we decided, we realized we had a lot of work to do outside.

So this weekend, my mom came over to help with some painting projects I had been meaning to get to. I painted the flashing on the house while she painted the garage door. I can't tell you how wonderful the garage looks now. It looks brand new! I didn't realize how much a fresh coat of paint would brighten it up. I wish I had a before picture to show of the garage, but the after picture will have to do, I guess. The best part is that my basketball won't get that white chalky stuff on it every time it touches the garage door. Thanks Mom!

Strawberry Quandary

An old bit of knowledge was knocked out from the caverns of my brain last night: The strawberry is technically not a fruit. I knew this was true, but I did not know what classification strawberries belonged to; so I looked it up. As it turns out, the strawberry is an accessory fruit, false fruit, or, my personal favorite, pseudocarp. This is true because the flesh is derived not from the ovary but from some adjacent tissue.

I guess I'll just add this to the useless information pile in my head, and now you can too!

Pastaholic

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

The thing is, I don't see it as a problem. I just like to have an unreasonable amount of pasta on hand at all times. It will all get consumed, eventually. Only to be replaced by more pretty blue and yellow boxes. Ha ha ha!

I'm just surprised it all fits in my pantry; except the pasta machine, I keep it out on display.

LOST: The Birth of an Obsession

With the fifth season of Lost coming to a close last night, I started to think about why it is that I am so fascinated by a television program. I remember that on the night of May 25th, 2005, I was flipping through channels looking for something to watch. I stopped on a show that was showing a man holding a corroded stick of dynamite in the jungle and explaining how dangerous it is. As he was demonstrating how to handle the dynamite, it exploded, sending pieces of him flying everywhere. That was the first time I watched any of the television show Lost, and I was intrigued enough to watch the rest of the episode.

It turned out to be the season finale that night. The cliffhanger was compelling, even though I had no idea what was really going on. I had heard people at work talking about the show, and saw lots of commercials for it, but I was never that interested in watching it. The summer went by and I started seeing commercials for the new season. I remembered how much I liked the finale so I decided to watch the season premier. I enjoyed the season premier so I kept watching the show. When I watched the following scene from third episode "Orientation" I knew Lost was my kind of show.




Having missed so much of the first season I realized that I needed to see all the episodes so that I could better understand what was going on. I asked for the season 1 DVD for Christmas and my mom got it for me. Valerie and I plowed through the first season in a couple weeks and were caught up before the new episodes started after the Christmas break. All the mysteries, characters, and twists and turns of the plot had me hooked. I soon found myself looking at Lost message boards and forums looking to see what other people were saying about the show. Then along came episode 17 of season two, "Lockdown." When the following image grace my television screen, Lost when from an interest to an obsession.

It is a picture of a map that has been painted on a blast door that only comes down during a lockdown that is supposed to only happen during a food drop; and it can only be seen in black light. It kind of sounds silly when I type it out of context to the show; but when I first saw it, it completely blew my mind. I was fascinated by the mythology and was on the edge of my seat during every new episode. I still eagerly anticipate every new episode, and love to discuss it and break it down with others who enjoy the show with me. I don't really get on the message boards or read theories like I used to, but I still like reading recaps of the episodes to get other people's viewpoints or to catch something I missed. Next season will be the last for Lost and I have no doubt that it will be just as riveting as the previous five. I know it's only a TV show, but it sure is a heck of a lot of fun!