Friday Fun – Page 13 – Write From Karen

Friday Fun

Friday (edible) Craft – Halloween Goodies

October 24, 2008 Karen

Nothing says spooky like eating gross, creepy Halloween goodies. 😀

Here is one of my favorites this season from Family Fun:

Melon Brain

Made from nothing more than a small, round seedless watermelon, this spooky cerebral creation is bound to turn heads.

RECIPE INGREDIENTS:
1 small seedless watermelon

1. Use a vegetable peeler to remove the entire green rind, exposing the inner white rind.

2. Slice off the bottom of the melon to create a flat base that will keep it from rolling. With a toothpick, outline squiggly furrows that resemble the folded surface of a brain.

3. Finally, carve narrow channels along the tracings with a sharp paring knife (a parent’s job) to expose the pink fruit beneath the rind.

Ghost Toast

Looking for a treat that truly embodies the spirit of Halloween? Try serving some of these flavorful phantoms.

RECIPE INGREDIENTS:
White Bread (1 slice per ghost)
Whipped cream cheese
Currants

1. For each, toast a slice of white bread and then cut a ghost shape from it. You can do this freehand using a knife, or you can use a gingerbread-girl cookie cutter.

2. When the cutouts have cooled, spread on a generous coating of whipped cream cheese.

3. For eyes and mouths, add currants.

Goblin Tongues

On a night when everyone will get more than their fill of sweets, these mini bagel sandwiches will add a little variety to the offerings.

RECIPE INGREDIENTS:
Mini bagels
Cream cheese
Bologna slices

1. For each Goblin Tongue sandwich, spread cream cheese between the top and bottom of a mini bagel.

2. Use a butter knife or kitchen shears to cut a tongue shape from a half slice of bologna. Then gently press the base of the tongue into the bagel hole.

Monster Cupcakes

Surprise your little goblins with monster-headed cupcakes filled with a slimy surprise-green pudding.

Watch a step-by-step video demonstration of this recipe.

RECIPE INGREDIENTS:
2 dozen cupcakes from your favorite recipe
3.4-ounce box of vanilla-flavored instant pudding
green food coloring
1 cup of green melting candy (we used Wilton Candy Melts)
24 large marshmallows
skewers
waxed-paper-lined baking sheet
M&M’s Minis
small serrated knife
chocolate frosting
black gel
2 green Tic Tac mints

1. Bake and cool 2 dozen cupcakes from your favorite recipe. Prepare a 3.4-ounce box of vanilla-flavored instant pudding. Stir in drops of green food coloring until you have a shade you like, then place it in the refrigerator to chill.

2. Next, microwave 1 cup of green melting candy (we used Wilton Candy Melts, available at party supply stores) for 1 minute at 50 percent power, then stir. If necessary, heat in 15-second intervals until completely melted. One at a time, spear 24 large marshmallows with a skewer and roll them in the melted candy, coating the sides. Set them on a waxed-paper-lined baking sheet, add M&M’s Minis for eyes, and place them in the refrigerator to chill.

3. With a small serrated knife, remove a 1-inch-wide chunk from the center of each cupcake. Fill each hole with a tablespoon or so of the pudding, then spread chocolate frosting around each pudding hole.

4. Cover each pool of pudding with a chilled marshmallow. Add black gel facial features and 2 green Tic Tac mints for bolts.

5. Finally, top each monster head with a bit of frosting and muss with your finger or a fork. Keep the cupcakes chilled until serving time.

Friday Craft: Halloween Decorations

October 17, 2008October 16, 2008 Karen

I have a confession, we don’t really DO Halloween around here. The boys no longer trick-or-treat (though I do give them a bag of candy because I have to DO something!) and we don’t decorate. In fact, I think we might have decorated for Halloween twice the entire time we’ve been parents.

We just don’t care for Halloween that much, truth be told. It’s an evil holiday and before you roll your eyes, check it out, Halloween is based on some pretty disturbing rituals and beliefs.

We don’t do evil spirits – I’m just saying. 🙂

However, I don’t have my head so far up my butt to be a snoot about the holiday because it’s fun to watch the kids dress up and eat fun foods (that will be next Friday) and appreciate people’s creativity.

Just don’t lose your head and start worshiping stuff. 😀

Here are a few uber-cool crafts that are new to Family Fun this year:

CandleEyebra

When illuminated, these votive holders cast an eyeful of moody shadows on the walls.

CRAFT MATERIALS:
Glass votive holders
Black construction paper
Hole punch
Mod Podge
Paintbrush
Black paint

Time needed: Under 1 Hour
1. Tear a sheet of black construction paper into about a dozen small rectangles that measure roughly 1¼ inch by ½ inch. Use a hole punch to add two eyes to each piece.

CandleEyebra: Step 2 2. Brush a portion of a plain, glass votive holder with Mod Podge, affix a paper rectangle, then paint more Mod Podge over it. Add the other pieces the same way, making sure the edges overlap.

3. When the candleholder is dry, use a tiny paintbrush and black paint to add little round pupils inside the eyes.

Pumpkin Shirt

Wear your Halloween spirit on your sleeve with this groovy tie-dyed jack-o’-lantern shirt.

CRAFT MATERIALS:
White T-shirt, washed
Rubber bands
Orange fabric dye
Sink or bucket for the dye
Rubber gloves
Blunt-ended scissors
Cardboard (for inside of shirt)
Black permanent marker
Black fabric paint
Paintbrush

Time needed: Under 1 Hour
Step 1. Pinch and gather up a portion of the T-shirt fabric, then add a rubber band 1 or 2 inches from the point of the pinch. Wrap the band around several times until it’s nice and tight. Create similar sections with rubber bands all over the shirt and sleeves.

Step 2. Prepare the dyebath according to the instructions on the package. Thoroughly wet the shirt with water. Wearing rubber gloves, submerge the shirt in the dye. Let it soak until it looks a shade darker than you want it to be.

Step 3. Still wearing gloves, rinse the shirt under warm running water. As the rinse water becomes less orange, change the water temperature to cold.

Step 4. Once the water from the shirt runs clear, carefully cut off the rubber bands. Dry the shirt.

Step 5. Insert cardboard inside the shirt, then use a permanent marker to draw jack-o’-lantern features inside each circle. Fill in the shapes with the marker, or use black fabric paint (which stays black longer).

This is not a new one, but I still crack up every time I see one of these:

Witch Crash

This witch may have failed driver’s ed., but she’s still got a few tricks up her sleeve — namely, the ability to provoke hysterics in every trick-or-treater who sees her.

CRAFT MATERIALS:
Black adult-size sweatpants
Black adult-size turtleneck
Four 1×4-inch wooden boards
Handsaw
Hammer and nails
Black boots
Broom
Green dishwashing gloves
Trash bag with drawstring top
Wig or skein of thick yarn
Store-bought witch’s hat

Time needed: Under 1 Hour
1. First, choose a crash site for your witch — a tree with a trunk that’s sturdy, yet not huge in circumference. Ideally, the tree should also be highly visible to passersby.

2. Measure the sweatpants’ legs and cut two of the boards to a few inches longer than the pants. Slide the wooden legs into the sweatpants and — with an assistant’s help — nail a leg onto each side of the tree 3 or 4 feet above the ground and parallel to it. For the best illusion, you’ll want to have at least a few inches of the legs extending toward the witch’s back (so that she appears to have hips).

3. Slide the boots onto the ends of the legs.

4. Secure the broom in place — roughly parallel to the ground — by nailing it to the tree and one of the wooden legs.

5. Pull the trash bag drawstring tight, then nail the bag in place so it hangs down as a cape. Secure the cape at the bottom as well, so it doesn’t blow around.

6. Lastly, nail the wig to the tree, cover it with the hat, then nail the hat in place. If you don’t have a wig, simply cut a bunch of thick yarn into long strands and tie them together at the top.

You can also watch a video on how to make this craft, too.

Have fun!

Friday Fun

Fleeting Thoughts

October 10, 2008 Karen

I can’t believe this weather. It. Has. Been. Gorgeous. As in, sunny and low 70’s gorgeous. And LOW humidity! That’s really saying something for this area of the country. (I live in SW Missouri, in case you’re curious).

The tips of the trees are beginning to turn. I really hope we have a blinding in-your-face sort of fall. I am the most relaxed (and dare I say happiest?) this time of year!

I think Google is mad at me. And I’m not even sure I can explain this, but I’ll try. I purchased my own domain name – writefromkaren.com. I’ve had it for quite some time, actually. Anyway, when I moved my blog over to wordpress.com and redirected my domain to this URL (so that when you brought up my blog, my URL showed http://writefromkaren.com instead of https://writefromkaren.wordpress.com) I noticed something really curious – the number of visitors to my site plummeted. Which doesn’t really bother me overmuch, I don’t base my blog success on how many hits I receive, but I was curious.

So, I changed my blog URL back to https://writefromkaren.wordpress.com. And suddenly, I started receiving hits again.

And then, being the dolt that I am, I forgot about that little experiment and changed it back to http://writefromkaren.com. And when nearly a week had gone by and no one had entered my photo contest (what is up with that, btw? The photo contests are usually so popular!), I began to wonder what was going on. Oops, it was because of the URL change. (I’m assuming! Maybe people don’t like me anymore).

So, I changed it back to https://writefromkaren.wordpress.com again.

Apparently, Google gets cranky when you toggle back and forth like that. I didn’t know that, but I read it somewhere.

So … I need to quit messing with stuff and allow Google’s spiders free reign. WELCOME GOOGLE! (It never hurts to do a little butt kissing, now and again).

I just received a reminder call from Sears Portrait Studio. We are scheduled to go in this Sunday and have our family picture taken. The last time we did this was in 2006. I have no idea what we’re going to wear. I dressed (the boys would die of humiliation if they knew I share the fact that I “dress” my kids when it comes to picture time. HEY! Pictures are important to me, they aren’t going to look like homeless geeks that day, mmkay?) the boys in sweaters last time, I’m thinking something a bit more dressy this go-around. In fact, I think I’ll shop for some oxford shirts for the boys today. Then all my guys could wear different colored oxfords and me … well, I’ll wear something to color coordinate.

I know. I put WAY too much thought into getting our pictures taken.

Speaking of pictures – we took a bunch of random pictures of our family outside in our yard this time last year. And they were some of my favorite pictures of our family. We set our camera up on a tripod and the husband had one of those remote control things and just began clicking away. There are several where we’re all laughing or just acting goofy and I LOVE them! I think we’ll do that again. In fact, this weekend is supposed to be nice and we live just a half mile from the lake … maybe we’ll go down and take some casual family pictures this weekend. (maybe)

The boys will be THRILLED! *grin*

GD is riding in a car, with a stranger, today. And I’m not exactly worried, but … okay, I’m a little worried. He is going to a park with his Graphic Design class today to take some pictures. And considering he’s only 15 and not driving, he needed a ride.

His teacher offered to take him and two other classmates in her car (and yes, I asked if it was just going to be him and his teacher. Because if so? I would have driven him myself). I’m nervous because he’ll be putting his life in someone else’s hands. She better take good care of him or I’ll kick her ass.

Just sayin’.

MK has been limping for a solid week now. And not just a little limp, a bona fide lopsided walk sort of limp. He says his heel is hurting him. But he doesn’t want to go to the doctor. And it doesn’t hurt him when he runs, only when he walks.

WTH? What sort of pain only hurts when you’re walking and not running? Shouldn’t that be the other way around. So, I’m wondering if it’s his way of getting attention or trying to draw sympathy from people or what. I can’t decide what is wrong with that boy. We’re going to give it another week and if it’s still hurting, I’ll take him in.

But I really don’t think it’s anything serious. I’ve looked at his heel and it looks fine (though that’s not always a good indication, I know) and I watch him when he’s not looking – he limps sometimes, and sometimes he doesn’t.

Mainly when he knows I’m watching him.

Hhmm … suspect.

I think I’m wearing the wrong kind of makeup. Look at this picture:

Look at pale my face is!! Compare the skin on my face to the skin on my chest – VERY DIFFERENT shades. I think my makeup is too light. Which wouldn’t surprise me because I’m not the sort of person who spends too much time thinking about what makeup I’m wearing. It covers blotchy spots and freckles? Works for me!

I think I’ll buy a little darker foundation and see if that helps.

Of course, it would help if I wore blush but that takes time and … I don’t really care all THAT much.

I can’t decide if I like reading Dr. Laura’s blog or not. Though I like the woman, and I like what she has to say (most of the time), I think she might be just a tad too off-putting for my tastes. I’m pretty arrogant in my opinions, but I’m a marshmallow compared to this woman.

Read this blog entry and then tell me what you think.

Me? I think feminism HAS gotten way out of hand, but geez, not every woman aspires to be a 50’s wife cardboard cutout.

Thoughts?

And speaking of blog entries – here are some that really touched me this week:

Huckkdoll’s Carnage

The best pouty face I’ve EVER seen over at A Whole Lot of Nothing.

I’m REALLY enjoying Abbey Ryan’s art. She posts a new painting each day and you can even buy it from her on eBay!

Spidey’s dance totally made my week at Mommy’s Martini.

If you have some fun/interesting/touching blog links to share, please do! I’m always looking for new blogs to add to my reader.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Friday Fun

Friday Craft: Halloween Pumpkins

October 10, 2008October 9, 2008 Karen

We used to carve a pumpkin every Halloween.

We don’t do that much anymore. *sigh* It’s sad when you stop doing something you’ve done for years. I don’t really know why … well yes, I do know why. The husband simply doesn’t want to put up with the mess anymore. And the boys don’t really “help” anymore so it’s sort of boring without their participation.

BUT, I know that a lot of you DO carve/decorate pumpkins for Halloween, so let me pass along some of my favorite “how-tos” from Family Fun.

I’ve posted this little guy before, but I have to say, he’s still one of my favorite pumpkin characters:

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Ball Player Pumpkin

Transform a pumpkin into a bubble-blowing major leaguer.

CRAFT MATERIALS:
Pumpkin
Carving knife
White paper
Acrylic paint or markers
Pink balloon
Baseball cap

Time needed: Under 1 Hour
1. Cut the pumpkin’s top off and hollow out the shell.

2. For eyes, carve holes in the shell and tack white paper behind them.

3. Use acrylic paints and colored markers to add hair and eye black below the eyes.

4. To make the gum bubble, blow up a small pink balloon and pull the knotted end through a small hole in the pumpkin’s shell. Then add a baseball cap for the finishing touch.

Here’s a really easy one that would look really cool lined up on your front porch:

Say Boo! Pumpkins

(The instructions on this one are self-explanatory).

Frank N’ Friends

You can find the instructions for the pumpkins pictured above, as well as a Frankenstein pumpkin here.

And here’s a new one this year:

Bat O’ Lanterns

Stage a spooky scene by assembling a colony of these winged creatures made from miniature pumpkins and craft foam.

CRAFT MATERIALS:
Black acrylic paint
Ornamental (miniature) pumpkins
Black and white craft foam
Hole punch
Glue dots
Black duct tape
Toothpicks
Wooden skewers

Time needed: About 1 to 2 Hours
1. Cover your work surface with a drop cloth or newspaper, then paint the pumpkins. Allow them to dry completely.

2. For each bat, snip two identical eyes from the white craft foam and use the hole punch to make pupils. Adhere the eyes to the pumpkin with glue dots.

3. Cut matching pairs of ears and wings from the black craft foam (our wings are about 6 inches long). Attach the ears by taping a toothpick to the back of each one, leaving about 1K inches of the toothpick exposed, then inserting it into the top of the pumpkin.

4. Finally, tape a skewer to the back of each wing, leaving a 2-inch point exposed, and push it in place.

Have fun making memories!

Friday Fun, Life

Fleeting Thoughts

October 3, 2008 Karen

MK is mad at me.

Which he really doesn’t have a right to be because he only brought this on himself.

MK is grounded – sort of.

We have a “retain privileges” policy in our home, and it’s tied directly to their “job”, i.e. school and their grades. If the boys keep in the A to C+ range, they get to keep their unlimited video/computer play time. If their grade drops to a C or a C-, then their play time is reduced to three hours, but still unlimited time on the weekends. If their grades drop in the D+ to F range, they lose all play time, period. They will get it back when they raise their grades.

Simple, right?

MK has been blowing school off. He’s now a solid “C” student. This is very disappointing because MK is not an average kid – he’s definitely above average. He’s a smart kid – he’s just being a turdwad right now. I’ve been warning the boy for weeks now that his grades were dropping, that if he didn’t buckle down and get serious, he was going to lose that precious play time. He blew me off and would not take any suggestions I gave him to get more organized (his excuse being that he “forgot” – I hate that excuse). So, now we’re at the stage where his play time has been reduced and he has no one to blame but himself.

This is especially bad because today? Friday? The kids are out of school – it’s a teacher workday. This means that MK only has three hours to play all day today. Bummer. On top of that, I promised the boys that the next short break they could purchase a new game for the Xbox (with their own money), so GD purchased it. And MK is DYING to play it. But I told him no, because it’s just another distraction from his “work.” He needs to quit blowing school off and get his work done. We don’t reward mediocre work, ESPECIALLY when I know the boy is more than capable of doing better, he’s just choosing not to. (His attitude has been SUCKING lately – but that’s a post for another time).

He’s furious and I say TOUGH. However, before you think I’m too cruel, consider this.: MK wasn’t all that interested in bringing his grades up UNTIL GD bought this new game and he couldn’t play it. Suddenly, he’s taking an active interest in bringing his grades back up. It’s all about motivation in our household.

We’re going to a high school football game tonight. And I’m really looking forward to it. I haven’t been to a high school football game since … well, high school. GD’s school is playing my husband’s Alma Mater – that should be fun. 😀 MK is playing with the high school band to give him a little glimpse about what it will be like to be part of a high school band. (They’re prepping the kids because so many kids lose interest in playing music and drop out of band by the time they get to be in high school).

It’s supposed to be a chilly evening – perfect weather to cozy up with my husband in a blanket and drink hot cocoa. GD is not really looking forward to going, but he’s not exactly being a jerk about it, either. I think he’s curious, quite frankly. He’s not thrilled about hanging out with his parents, though. We did offer him to invite one of his buds along and they could sit somewhere else, but he just shrugged and said, “Nah.” So, I’m thinking it’s not embarrassing him that much. I’ll try to take some pictures to share with you all.

We canceled MK’s music lessons. And we have vetoed the black saxophone purchase – it’s just too freaking expensive, folks. Though we are using the money that would have gone to lessons and putting that aside to save for an intermediate saxophone – a compromise, if you will. The saxophones we were looking at were professional grade – hence the price. This way, we’ll build more equity in his rental and then that, paired with our savings, we’ll be able to buy MK a better saxophone without having to take out a loan. And, if it gets a bit banged up, we won’t freak out quite as much as we would if it was professional quality.

MK was pretty bummed about not getting a black saxophone, but he’s okay with this compromise. I think he might be just a tad relieved that he won’t be responsible for carrying a $3,000 saxophone around. That’s just too much pressure for a 13-year old boy.

I’ve started my Christmas shopping. The husband and I ran into some little candy mushroom containers (from the Mario series) at Hallmark. So I bought a couple to put into the boys’ stockings. I also found something for the husband’s stocking, but I can’t tell you because he reads my blog. (Hi honey!)

I’ve asked the boys and my folks to make a wish list. October is generally when I start my shopping because I like to stretch it out so we can pay our credit card bill off as we go along as opposed to being slapped in the face with a huge debt in January.

Here’s a tip if you’re shopping online: if you find yourself shopping at a store that you haven’t shopped at before or you don’t quite trust (you know the shops I’m talking about), then check to see if your credit card company has some sort of “virtual” account number program.

For example, we use a Citibank credit card. We use it for everything – we don’t carry cash and we don’t write checks. This way, we’re earning frequent flyer points so we can cash them in every few years and fly for virtually nothing (we went to Washington D.C. this past summer for $40.00 – for all four of us!!). One of their benefits is their virtual account number program. So, for example, when I bought the husband’s stocking stuffer the other day, I went through a website I wasn’t familiar with. To be on the safe side, I obtained an alternative credit card number from Citibank so I didn’t have to use our regular number. It’s a temporary number they assign you that’s only good for one purchase before it expires. So, if someone tries to steal it, it won’t work. And by using a temporary number, thieves won’t have access to our account.

This happened last year. We bought something for GD on a questionable website and before we knew it, someone tried to use our card. Our credit card company, being on the ball, caught the unusual transactions and notified us immediately. We shut the number down and was re-issued another one. Now, to prevent that from happening to us in the future (because we do a lot of online shopping), we use a temporary card number.

I highly recommend it.

I bought a funky pink notebook to put my NaNoWriMo project in at Staples yesterday. It’s called a “hybrid” notebook – it’s half notebook, half binder. (Have you noticed “hybrid” is the new buzzword?) It’s pretty cool and I’m really looking forward to filling it. Speaking of NaNoWriMo, I’ll be posting excerpts from my prologue every Thursday in November. Hopefully, it’ll make you want to read more!

Banned Books Week runs through Monday. I found this little gem on BoingBoing just now.

Adrienne sez, “We’ve created a ‘live’ Banned Book Display at our library [Twin Hickory Public Library, Glen Allen, VA]. We have volunteer readers who sit in the display and read (silently) banned and challenged books. So far it’s gotten a lot of attention – we hear a lot of ‘Mom, what are those people doing in there?’ The best part has been hearing parents explain to their kids what the display is all about which is exactly what we wanted to happen!”

HAHA! Isn’t that awesome!! I love the “See Live Humans Read” caption. Too funny!! And I love how it’s prompting questions from our young people – the minute you make something a big deal, it is. It’s better to talk about these things and educate our children correctly than leaving it up to them to find erroneous answers.

THE OCTOBER PHOTO CONTEST STARTS TOMORROW!! You can check out the details here.

I just ate three donuts – I have to do Turbo Jam now.

Bye.

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Friday Fun, Life

Friday Fleeting Thoughts

September 26, 2008September 26, 2008 Karen

This week was crazy.

In between battling numerous website requests (which is my job by the way – I’m not complaining, just saying), and getting this elementary school website up and running, (which still needs some tweaking but honestly, what website doesn’t?) I haven’t had a lot of time to think outside my Dreamweaver box.

Things have quiet down for me, though, and I can breathe for the first time all week. I had some stomach pain two days out of this week and I’m wondering if I may have an ulcer? Or perhaps it was just stress? Who knows. I feel better now (now that the waters have calmed) and am ready to take on more projects (hinthint – you know who you are).

In short, my brain is scrambled. But this of course, will not keep me from blabbing nonsense at you, so here’s what’s on my mind:

I told the Write Anything writers they could take a week off in October so I could post a week-long “seminar”, if you will, about how-to write a novel. Now that the time has arrived, I have nothing. I haven’t even begun to PLAN for this week-long seminar. Swell. Chock this up to another one of my hare-brained ideas that sounded good at the time. I will, however, throw something together because I did promise – and I keep my promises.

I’m getting quite nervous about my contribution to the Chapter Seven project. We’re currently on chapter two. I believe I’m scheduled to write chapter six – in a science fiction story. ZOINK! Science fiction is NOT my bag and I hope my part doesn’t totally suck. We plan on posting this story in November on the Write Anything blog – I’ll post my chapter and the link to the full story when the time arrives. This, of course, would be another one of my hare-brained ideas.

I installed Carbonite.com on my computer four days ago. For those that don’t know about this nifty program:

Carbonite installs a small application on your computer that works quietly in the background looking for new and changed files that need to be backed up. It looks and feels just like part of your computer, and is integrated with your desktop — there’s no new interface for you to learn.

In essence, it continously backs up your computer whenever you change/update any of your files so that if your computer crashes, Carbonite will restore your data.

Sounds good on the surface, right? So, I downloaded the 15-day free trial and today, four days after installing the thing, it has finally backed up all of my files. Now granted, I had to pause the process several times because even though Carbonite works in the background and doesn’t really slow my computer process down, it does drag our internet connection down. And when you have three other people sucking bandwidth, it can get ugly.

I’m not sure if I’ll pay the $50 dollars annual fee required for a full membership yet – so far, I haven’t been that impressed, but it WOULD be nice to not have to worry about keeping hard copies around as much (you should always have hard copies anyway). We’ll see. My free trial is up in eleven days. If I don’t buy the full subscription, then Carbonite will just delete my files.

My husband’s toe is better. He didn’t go to the doctor (I knew he wouldn’t) and though it’s still not 100%, he can move it and the swelling has gone down. It still pains him to wear his dress shoes though and I think that’s just because they are too small. This man of mine is awfully stubborn and refuses to accept the fact that his body is changing as he gets older and that his feet are just wider than they used to be. I’ll most likely drag him to the shoe store this weekend for bigger, and more comfortable, shoes.

By the way, the slick horizontal lines you see throughout this post? You can do the same thing on your blog by inserting this code
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Just a little code tip for you this Friday.

I am now actively on the prowl for 16 gifts for GD. His 16th birthday is coming up in November and I really want to give him 16 little gifts throughout his day to make it special for him. My mom did that for me on my 16th birthday and that is one of the few birthdays I can remember because it was so much fun! I have a few ideas: Microsoft points (he can cash those in to buy games for the XBox), Wii points (same thing), Mountain Dew (the boy is a Mt. Dew FREAK) … and that’s about it for now. Yeah, this is going to be tough. I don’t think this would have been so hard if he was a she – I mean, what girl wouldn’t want lip gloss and makeup? However, I’m lucky if GD combs his hair in the morning so grooming items? Would be a total wash. If you have any suggestions on what to buy a 16-year old hard-core gamer boy, trust me, I’m all ears.

I did stumble across some UBER cool cupcakes though:

super mario cupcakes 2, originally uploaded by hello naomi.

Aren’t these sweet? (pun intended). Actually, MK might get a kick out of these more than GD since MK is OBSESSED with anything Mario. But wow, if I could find some edible gaming thing like this, I’d be in heaven! I wonder if she does Halo? And if she would SELL them to me??

(By the way, you MUST see her robot cupcakes – YOU MUST! GO NOW! Then come back, please. 🙂 )

I did not go to the husband’s company picnic yesterday. I know. I feel REALLY BAD about that. But I had an excuse (albeit flimsy at best) – MK had his saxophone lessons. And they were smack dab in the middle of the thing. Well, we could have gone before his lessons, but the kids had homework. So, if we had gone, it would have only been for about 30 minutes. We did end up dropping by as everyone was leaving, and I think that made the husband happy – but I still feel guilty that he was surrounded by co-workers and their families and we weren’t there.

It wasn’t a good wife moment.

But while at the music store, MK and I noticed they got a new saxophone in. He’s been on the prowl for a more sophisticated, BLACK sax. We priced the two shiny, black saxs they had in stock – holy mother of God – they are freaking expensive. And we’re not QUITE sure we can justify allowing a 13-year absent-minded kid to walk around with a $3,000 saxophone.

But they are cool, truly. And he’s proven to us he’s serious about playing sax; he’s been playing for a solid two years. And he plans on playing all through high school. (Which is another bone of contention – a $3,000 sax in marching band??)

He’s even hinted around that if that is all Santa brings him for Christmas, he’d be one happy boy.

*sigh* No pressure, Santa.

But last night, as we were leaving, we noticed they have a black matte saxophone – and WOWSIERS. That thing blinds you with its coolness. In fact, MK actually started salivating – I had to hand him a napkin. He wants it; he wants it BAD. And considering the boy is going to be playing his fingers off this year (band, jazz band, pep band, honors and competitions) it’s not like we would buy it and then it would sit around and collect dust.

Yes, I’m going to call today and see how much it’s going to cost. We have some equity built up in his old sax, and then there’s the book value of his old sax (which isn’t much, you know how that goes), but still, every little bit helps. And they have a 12-month no interest thing and we can probably pay it off in a year …

I don’t know. What would you do? Your child LOVES playing the saxophone. He’s scheduled to play A LOT in the coming months. He’s proven that he’s careful and responsible with the one he has now (though I don’t trust other kids and if anything happened to it we would totally press charges), and it’s the only thing he wants for Christmas.

To me, that says he’s serious.

Update: I just called the music store and we ran some numbers on the black matte sax – WOW. It’s the most expensive yet. The husband is not going for it. He says we don’t always get what we want. I agree with that, but it breaks me heart to have to deny MK this luxury. 😦

Friday Fun

Friday Craft: Halloween Costumes

September 26, 2008October 28, 2010 Karen

My boys are too old to go trick-or-treating, but when they were younger, I would always set the end of September aside to start saving up for a cool costume. I’m not nearly crafty enough to put one together, I used to spend an unreasonable amount of money and buy them something.

But if that’s not in the budget this year and you’re still wanting to do something fun for your kids, here are some easy, cheap and unique costume ideas from Family Fun.

Windy Day Duo

The neighbors will be blown away by these fool-the-eye outfits. No fans were used here. Instead, wire and tape give everything from braids to shoelaces a blustery look.

Sunflowers Costume

This glorious costume, featuring petals made from yellow craft foam, will have your child positively blooming. The directions below are for one sunflower costume. For detailed illustrations of the various parts of this costume, click here.

Little Bearded Gnome