what's the ball count?

we've been celebrating a birthday around here, this week. celebrating our youngest son.

which also means, i've been baking like a fool.

yes, i mean that literally--like a fool.

i baked two 9 inch rounds for a traditional two layer birthday cake. (i don't really like cake and i really don't like sheet cakes....sheet cakes are not festive, in my mind)

that being said, i should have baked a sheet cake.

i let the cakes cool and then began frosting them. the rounded top required a lot more frosting than i had originally figured. all frosted, i carefully covered the cake with the glass dome. i could decorate with swirly lettering after i had cut up two cantalopes and four pounds of strawberries.

this is what i found.

www.cakewrecks.com has nothing on me.

so, then i baked two dozen cupcakes, because i really couldn't put candles in that cake. it would be overkill, right?

then yesterday i made another 48 cupcakes for our little guy's class. and now today i am baking another 48 cupcakes for his baseball team and their families.

oh, and all those little cupcakes are decorated to look like baseballs....if you do the math (i'll save you the trouble) that makes 120 baseball cupcakes.

um, i thought i didn't bake.

oh. yeah. i don't bake WELL.

that's all i've got....i hear the timer going off. sheesh, i hope it's the timer and not the fire alarm.


love and light and cake
deborah

puzzled

r's been wanting a rubik's cube for weeks now.

do you remember them?

the package said it was the 30th anniversary edition.

30th?

holy. moly.

that can't be right. can it?

over the weekend, he received one. he can get one side all the same color. and it did come with the solution. however, r is certain if we give him just one more hour he'll have it figured out.

aw.

i love that confidence.

but, now i'm really puzzled.

this is what i came across this morning when i went to open all the blinds and drapes.

if i come back up here and true has it all figured out--expect to see us on the evening news. er, well....the evening news is a little 30 years ago. expect to see us on youbtube.com.



love and light and confidence
deborah

roughing it....r-style

5th grade camp was last week.

r is our 5th grader.

big red took the week off and went along to chaperone.

big red loves camp. he went to 5th grade camp several years ago with our oldest and didn't want to miss out camping with r this year.

i over-packed for them. it's what i do.

they had a ball.

b and i met up with them one night for dinner in the lodge. and i brought nail clippers because i had forgot to do r's nails before camp. r was a bit annoyed with his manicure at camp. can you imagine? whatever.

so left without his momma and in the wild, r built a fire and a shelter.



he held a tarantula and several snakes.

he tried archery.

he went no-handed on the high ropes course. (i have a video of that, but blogger is not allowing it to load)




some times, boys need some time without their mommas.

but r turned up his nose at dinner one night this week. then i found out he voluntarily ate a worm at camp. oh, correction....half a worm. c'mon. are you kidding me?


love and light and bravery to try new things
deborah

coaching, focusing and editing....or this is the post where i try to make sense of random things....

i'm smitten with picnik--the photo editing site. i haven't even joined, so much that you can do for free. i can fiddle away hours playing with text and saturation, exposure and frames.

last night was r's basketball year-end get-together at the local dairy queen. the boys were their usual silly, adorable spunky selves. 10 and 11 year old boys.

we've always been especially thankful for the men--in our case, all men that have stepped up to coach our boys in sports. i would love to do it, red would love to do it. only one little itty-bitty problem. we aren't sporty. we learn the sports our boys are wild about as they are playing. makes for fun side-lines, but not so helpful coaches. so here we were again, thankful for coach gary for being who we needed--being the person we cannot be--for our son and for the other boys on this team.

it is always a treat to hear a coach say a few kind and helpful words to young people. i only teared up a teeny-tiny bit.

as we stepped outside, the sky was still all soft and whisper-y--a glow in shades of blue, lavender, pink and orange.

by the time we arrived home and i high-tailed it to the backyard this is what it looked like.

if you are in the states, there seems to be a good chance your sky last night was similarly beautiful. my facebook homepage was streaming with photos from all over--all sunsets.

i wondered what i could possibly change on this picture of the sky on picnik. nothing. it seems it was already perfectly altered.


love and good lighting
deborah