Oh, it's a piece of Cake!

Alexander cooked his very first cake today, and he did it almos completely on his own! Matthew, who just had to help, measured the baking soda. But Alexander chose the recipe, read the ingredients, and helped me decide if we had everything we needed (that was the only restriction; I didn't want to go to the store).

Then he read and followed the recipe- by himself! Along the way, the only help I offered was "are you sure that you only need 1/2 cup of flour?" And "check that, buddy- is is Tablespoon or Teaspoon?" He can definitely say that he made this cake all by himself. I even told him how to test for doneness, which he did all by himself (though he was a little too nervous to actually take the cake out of the oven by himself).

He is so proud of himself- if you get a chance, I hope you enjoy a piece of celebratory cake with us!

Crunchy Topped Cocoa Cake**

Cake†

1 1/2 cups all purpouse flour

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup Hershey's Cocoa

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup water

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Broiled topping

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter or margarine, softened

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup coarsley chopped nuts (we used pecans)

1/2 cup Mounds Sweetened Coconut Flakes

3 Tablespoons light cream or evaporated milk

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour an 8-inch square baking pan.

2. Stir together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a lagre bowl. Add water, oil, vanilla; beat with spoon or wisk just until the batter is smooth and ingredients are well blended. Pour batter into prepared pan.

3. Bake 35- 40 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Meanwhile, prepare Broiled Topping by combining topping ingredients in a small bowl, spread on warm cake. Set oven to broil, place pan about 4 inches from heat. Broil 3 minutes or until top is bubbly and golden brown. Remove from oven. Cool completely in pan on a wire rack.

**From Hershey's Best Loved Recipes, p.54

†You may notice that there are no eggs listed- that is not an error. There are no eggs in this recipe

Costa Rica and Cantaloupe Slices.

We've been busy, as you can see! Anthony and I painted the living room and the hallway. The colors are called Sandpoint and Peanut Butter. I think that it came out really nice. It may sound strange, but for the first time ever it really feels like we're living in our house. Base housing, rentals... even before when we were surrounded by someone else's color choices... it just never really felt like ours. At least to me. I don't think (though it'd only be a guess) that Anthony actually even fells like it's ours yet. He still doesn't even feel like he lives in Kansas.

Well, here some pictures. The colors of the boys' room are called Cantaloupe Slice and Costa Rica Blue (I alluded to it in the title, obviously). Enjoy- the boys certainly did!

Click on any photo to bring up a larger version.

Here is the boy's room. The center photo shows the difference between the "old" blue and the new, brighter shade.

Here is the living room. It's really difficult to accurately capture the color and not have turn pink or orange- this is pretty close.

The second photo shows the main color in the far wall, "sandpoint", and the accent color on the near wall, "peanut butter".

Snow Way!!

Yep. Snow.

I have learned that tomatoes can survive snow. Thay can survive freezing rain. But, even covered, they cannot survive 18 degrees. Altough it was the 18 degrees that got them, at one point it got down to 6. Yes, you read that right. Six degrees above zero.

My tomatoes were so happy! I think it was about 72 degrees or so the day I planted them. I t was nearly two weeks past that magic "last forst" date, the coldest nightime temperature forcasted for the next two weeks was a chilly, but certainly manageable 35 degrees.

I was a little too irritated to restart anything for a few days. I briefly considered ripping out my garden and planting grass. Well, that was a bit extreme, to be sure. My tomatoes are restarted, as are my peppers. I lost about 2 1/2 months, but I certainly couldn't have predicted record low temperatures for 2 weeks straight if the national weather service didn't see it coming!

Well, that's enough of my sob story. Dearest Anthony tried to remind me that they are only plants after all!

A Hip, Hip Hooray and a trip to the ER.

It's Alexander's birthday!

He had a great little day- several times, actually. Anthony gave him the Star Destroyer as a special early birthday present before he left. Alexander was shocked- as you can tell! (click on the photo to bring up a larger image)

Then, right before his birthday party Alexander got his presents from the rest of his family. I tell you, my "well, just one more" as I shop here and there for their gifts has them making out like bandits! His birthday party, well, that was a whole different story.

I had rented a jumpy-castle for the party's main entertainment. I rented it from outdoor rec on the base, but here's a link that shows what it looks like: Castle. So, anyway, all was going well. The kids were having a great time, and Anthony and another dad were happy to hang out in the garage keeping an eye on them. I should backtrack and give a bit of history on the guests. We had a bunch of kiddos, of all ages bu mostly 5-8. One of the guests is just 8, but is very, very big. Alexander doesn't quite tip the scale at 50 pounds yet, and this other kiddo is almost exactly 3 times heavier. Very sweet kid, but very big. So, anyway, they were in there jumping around, having a great time. And then.... the very thing I was afraid of happened. One kid landed on another kid, and he got hurt. Unfortunately, it was the big kid landing on Alexander. And, at his very own birthday party, Alexander broke his arm.

One of the worst things about all this, as far as Mommy-guilt goes, was that I hadn't wanted to have a birthday party at all. I had really been pushing to take the family down to San Antonio for the weekend and go to Sea World. Anthony had been against it, because it would have been too expensive. Well, with all that is involved with a broken bone, this will have been the most expensive birthday party I've ever thrown. And I don't think Sea World would have hurt as much, either!