Spring fever, kicking in.

Right around the end of February/beginning of March everyone at our house starts to go a little bit nuts. We do our best to keep the kids busy, playing outside in the snow or over at friends' houses or chucking them in the basement to play when our toes start to curl. I can't put a number on the times we've headed shopping more just to get out and about than to buy anything that we actually needed. I'm hoping that that doesn't mean we now own a bunch of random crap that has no function...
Sarah happened to be off this past Saturday (yay!). Her cure for the Fever for the day was to roll out a bunch of sugar cookies and have the girls help her decorate them. For good measure the children selected all the spring-oriented cookie cutters they could find (ducks, tulips, bunnies, etc); unfortunately for me these cookie cutters happened also to be of the "mini" variety - as in bite-sized. I say unfortunately because Sarah makes a mean sugar cookie, and making them tiny only increases my ability and propensity to gobble them by the dozen. I'm pretty sure that I ate almost two dozen before they were even cooled.
It's a good thing I'm not on a diet.

Let's get started.

Mary enjoys her role as taste-tester.

"I think I hab do sdeeze..."
"COVER YOUR MOUTH!!!"

Jules trying out her artistic talents on a cookie-canvas. It's nice how, as the kids get older, messes during activities like this tend to be smaller.

And one final shot of the cookies, a.k.a. my nemesis.

Coconut cake!!

There are so many things I have learned since becoming a stay-at-home dad in June. One of the hardest lessons for me has been that, no matter how much I want to or no matter how hard I try, I am not going to be a perfect homemaker. There are a few things that I am just not going to be able to master. Cleaning I can do, and do well. But grocery shopping? No intuition whatsoever. I am a fair hand at parenting. Cooking, however, is something that is better left in more capable hands (AKA Sarah, who is the most amazing cook in the world; she can make a three-course meal with a toothpick and some ketchup).
Time and work constraints being what they are, my family is unfortunately subjected quite often to my (lack of) cooking skills. Once in a great while I will hit the nail on the head and pull off a tasty dessert or breakfast...like yesterday. When I found the most amazing cake recipe EVER. Coincidentally one of Sarah's friends from residency came for dinner so it was an opportune time for me to test it out.
Needless to say I had three small "helpers" for the execution of this endeavor. Photos of the project are below, and a link to the recipe is here. Try it - it's incredible.

The lovely Miss Mary...

...Luke, squealer extraordinaire...

...and Julia, the comic relief.

Mmmmm...buttermilk!

Taking a break from the action to play "house" under the hall bench.

One of the most important side effects of making a coconut cake, besides the 35,000 calories, is having some extra delicious toasted coconut to snack on later.

Of course, no cake is complete without beaters to lick off afterward!

And P.S.: I would have posted a photo of the finished product, but, uh, we ate it already.

Julia's new bike

OK, I have a LOT of blogging to do. I have been trying to remember to take pictures here and there, so the next few posts will be a "blog hotdish."

I'm going to start with two weeks ago when Mike and I picked the cherries from the bushes in our yard and actually made them into a pie. It was grueling...the darn things are about the size of a little bitty marble. Oh well. We were sad watching them get too ripe and fall off the bushes...so we spent five hours picking, pitting, and pie-ing.

Just for the record, and in case I ever read my own blog: SARAH: YOU HATE MAKING PIE CRUST. It is the most abomidable task I can think of. Messy, requries exact measurements, requires lotsa counter space (not little countertops made for an Asian midget like we have), and feeling comfortable about using a recipe that calls for a CUP of crisco. Ew. I pledge to you, my family and friends, that I will always buy extra frozen pie crusts when I"m at cub just in case I get the urge to make a pie at home. !@!!

I was so tired by the time I was making the filling (damn that stupid pie crust) that I accidentally added three tablespoons of baking soda instead of cornstarch to the cherries. It was incredible. Within seconds, the cherries became a molten, fizzing, bubbling, oozing mound. I stared in shock and awe....what the heck? Then I tasted it (because whenever you make some oozing red mound of stuff by accident, the first thing you should do is eat some!). It was very salty. And then I realized what I did. Luckily, the cherries cleaned up nicely with a little bath and we were back to where we started.

Here is psymuhn, with a couple of cherries stuck in his fur. He is trying to tell me, "you idiot. You KNEW they had cherry pies on sale at Super One for only $3.99. Fool."

Here is my replica of the sculpture in the cities in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.

I had a weak moment. There was a princess trike on sale at Target and I went for it. Mike frowned. He wanted a red trike for "when" (HA!) we have a boy someday. I guess he has a point: why get more than one trike? Girls can ride on red, boys, too. But before I had a chance to return it, Julia saw the box and started to jump and scream for Joy. You can see the results of our rash, emotional decision. Eldest-daughter bliss. Papa put it together for her right away. What a softie.