Grandma's Birthday Cake

Usually either Nana or Grandma makes the girls' birthday cakes, so with Grandma's birthday coming up, the kids wanted to know if they could make one for her. The answer, of course, was yes. We decided to make a form for Grandma to fill out, just to be sure the cake was EXACTLY what she wanted:

With the information in hand, we went to the store to get the necessary supplies....

 ...then donned our aprons for the baking.

 The kids like to dump in the ingredients, of course....

 ....and they love to stir it all up....

....but Mom was particularly impressed that they are now able to crack eggs too!

 How did they learn how to do this? Not one piece of shell fell into the bowl...pretty impressive.

 The girls chose 9" rounds instead of a big sheet, so into the oven it went.

Later on, Mom tackled the job of applying the purple frosting....

 ....while the kids took charge of the decorating.

 The hard thing about cake decorating (or the best thing, depending on your point of view) is the temptation to snack on the decorations.

 Let's just say that most of them made it to the cake.

Since Mom was planning on working late on Grandma's actual birthday (Monday), we invited her and Pop Pop over on Sunday evening to have the cake celebration.

The girls couldn't wait to see if she liked their cake....

 ....and she sure did!

 In fact, it was so good that we all might have eaten a little too much cake for the late hour.

Happy birthday Grandma--we hope you enjoyed your cake celebration!

Black Friday Family Portraits

Earlier this month Mom heard a rumor that JCPenney (or "JCP", as it's now called) was giving away free family portrait sessions for the month of November. Needing a family photo for Christmas cards, we checked into it, and sure enough it was true. So we scheduled an appointment for, yes, Black Friday.

We usually stay FAR away from the stores on Black Friday, but this year we were at the Bangor Mall for our family portrait, right in the middle of the chaos.

Luckily the timing of our session (10:40) meant that the crazy early shoppers had already gone home, so the crowds seemed pretty tame. We had to wait for about 30 minutes though, so the girls got plenty of toy shopping time in.

It's pretty convenient that they put all the toys in JCP right by the portrait studio. Kate in particular was transfixed by the Barbie display....

 ....and of course awed by all the Hello Kitty merchandise.

 We had never had a formal family portrait done before, so we spent some time looking at the sample books....

....and the girls practiced some poses (of course).

 It was kind of doubtful that this one would be used, but you never know.

Finally we had our session, and it went great. They had all the poses immediately available on a computer right after the session, so we picked out our free 8 x 10 (what a bargain!) and ordered some half-price Christmas cards to boot.

We were a little worried that the Black Friday adventure was going to be chaotic and stressful, but it actually turned out to be kind of fun. Afterwards, we celebrated at our favorite southwest-style restaurant in Newport on the way home.

Ice Rink Goal Boards

With Kate learning how to play hockey, and Mom wanting to improve her own wrist shot, it seemed natural to expand the backyard ice rink this year. However, making it longer would mean buying another (larger and expensive) seamless tarp, and our tarp from last year was still good. So Mom decided to build some end boards and a goal instead, and she started working on the project (in the basement) back in September.

Her vision included three boards, each one four feet wide and six feet high, that would interlock together to make one solid end. Her hope was that making the boards in three pieces would keep them light enough for one person to handle.

The boards were easy enough to design and build, but once they were painted white a burning question appeared: What should be painted on them?

If you know Mom, you know she likes the "collegiate" style font, and you won't be surprised to see what she picked to write on the boards.

It's so easy nowadays to find anything you want to design, already on the web. Mom printed out some stencils and used a sharpie to draw the letters....

....and of course painted them orange and black (our hometown team's color).

Once the boards were done, she built some knee braces to keep them upright, and also painted those white....

....and the finishing touch was the regulation goal mouth, made out of PVC pipe spray-painted red. The big question is whether the pipe will shatter when the first puck hits it (hopefully not).

Now we just have to wait for colder weather to try out the new boards!

All Day Tea Party

School vacation is a good time to rediscover old toys that haven't been played with in awhile. On Friday morning we got out the pink silky tablecloth and tea party set that have been hidden away for at least a year. It was like getting brand new toys!

The ensuing tea party involved every small chair we had, and was a fiesta that included nearly every stuffed "friend" too. 

 The tea party lasted all day (with a few breaks for other activities), and even into the evening, when Grandma and Pop Pop came over to babysit.

Thanksgiving at Nana's

Nana hosted Thanksgiving this year, and per Maine tradition the big meal was scheduled for early afternoon. Uncle David came up from New Hampshire....

....and Grandma and Pop Pop joined the festivities as well.

Of course weddings were on people's minds, so we asked Nana to get out her wedding album from 1965. We all enjoyed looking at it!

Kate also showed off her dental work, which she is pretty proud of.

Without the cousins around to play with them, the girls had to entertain themselves....and they did a pretty good job of it.

Meanwhile Nana and Uncle David were cooking up the big meal....

....and laying out a beautiful table.

The food was delicious, of course, and the conversation was good too....

....with even a few tears shed in celebration of marriage equality.

After dinner we took a break before dessert, and headed outside to enjoy the nice warm temperature (mid-fifties).

Can anybody guess what we chose for an afternoon activity? That's right, target shooting. Mama brought her .22, and took particular glee in watching Nana fire off a few rounds.

This time even Grandma gave it a try....

....although you probably wouldn't call her a "natural" shooter. And yes, that's Pop Pop climbing a tree in the background (trying to retrieve a ball the girls threw up there).

It's always fun to shoot at a few targets, but we definitely weren't the only ones firing off rounds in the woods today. Besides opening day, Thanksgiving day is probably the busiest deer hunting time in Maine.

We did other stuff besides shooting, of course.

Nana's house is where we are planning to hold the wedding next August, so the girls tried out the "stage" on the back deck. It looks like it will work!

And, as a special treat, Mama tried on Nana's actual wedding dress, which was still up in the attic after all these years. Wedding attire plans are top-secret (and still undecided) so we won't be posting any photos, but let's just say that it fit and Mama sure looked beautiful.

Kate fell in love with Nana's veil (or "crown", as she called it), and she looked beautiful too.

Dessert was two kinds of pie (apple and pumpkin), and Mama's cranberry bars....Yum!

We hope that all of our blog readers also enjoyed a warm and wonderful Thanksgiving this year.