THE! Elmo Cake

My sweet baby boy is now one year old. We had a small cook-out the weekend before his birthday. For this occasion, I baked a tiny two-layer round cake especially for him. Brett tore into it. By the end of the evening, he was a chocolate, blue icing mess (an understatement), but his messy happiness was positively contagious.

Well, when Andrew and I decided to invite our family over for a shindig the weekend of Brett's special day, I knew we would just have to have another cake. I already had Sesame Street on the brain when I discovered the Elmo cake pan at Michael's. Luckily (and oh so conveniently), I also had a handy 40% off coupon, too. I spent hours locating the proper preparation materials and cooking-up this work of Elmo art. The effort, time, and energy I expended were all worth it--Elmo came out looking fabulous!

It was so neat for me to do something so different, so out-of-line with my habitual interests. Before Brett's Elmo, I had never even considered decorating a cake. And now? Haha...Don't get too excited. I'm thinking once a year is probably often enough. We shall see!

My new favorite.

I keep an ongoing list of books I'd like to read, and I love the summer because no school means I have a chance to scratch some of them off the list. I have recently added: The Time Traveler's Wife, The Bridges of Madison County, and The Girl Who Fell From the Sky. There are so many works I want to indulge in, that I sometimes find myself overwhelmed. I'm always thinking: If only my job were to read, read, and read some more. What a profession!

I made a trip to the library last week, picked up a couple of the books listed above (along with Michael Parker's If You Want Me to Stay), and dropped off one of my new favorites, The Prince of Tides. This was my first reading and I will say, like so many others have before me, I felt as if I was reading poetry, rather than prose. I felt, so many times, that I should stop and record Conroy's lines, that I absolutely could not live without them tucked safely away, where I might return to them. I fell in love with the language and the story. I must say I was a bit sad as I sent the old, heavy hardback clunking down the cold, metal book return. I wanted to hold it in my hands, place it carefully on my bookshelf. A book like that doesn't belong in a dark box, waiting for someone to return it to its place. I cannot say I have ever felt this way about a novel before--poetry yes, but fiction? Nope.

What book makes you want to hold on forever?

Please join me in celebration!

I felt I must redeem myself after the post on my lousy cheeseburgers. Tonight I baked, for the first time EVER, a homemade cake. Today was Andrew's birthday. He requested a pound cake. Naturally, I just had to add blueberries. And yes, my friends, it looks fabulous and tastes great, too. I know, I know....I'm still in shock.

my first time... with the grill

I thought I would do something awesome all by myself, as they say. I did something alright. I attempted to make dinner on our charcoal grill. I worked with hamburgers and hot dogs-- nothing fancy. I figured, every Memorial Day weekend almost every family across America grills hamburgers and hot dogs, right? I didn't expect the operation to be so difficult. Less than half of the meat was actually edible, and that tee-tiny amount was pretty frightening. Check out the pictures. Need we say more?