Our "baby" turned 8 today.

This is the cake the Riley insisted that we (read I) make. We saw it in the Rachel Ray magazine and I showed it to Riley. I said, "hey Riley isn't this a cool cake and it's got your favorite cotton candy on it". She decided then and there that she needed this cake for her birthday. Those of you who know me well know that I don't bake cakes. Paint a house? Sure! Use my power saw to install molding or baseboard? No problem. Remodel a bathroom? I'm there. Cake baking is just my downfall. I cannot get the friggin' cake out of the pan without making a mess. I'm not good at frosting and I just plain don't have patience for things like preheating an oven, mixing certain ingredients in a certain order, waiting for the cake to cool. I could go on and on about my baking issues. So this was a true test for me and I can't tell you how relieved I was that it turned out and as you can see from the picture below Riley was truly pleased with her cake. Oh, and it was delicious and we did not have a crumb left.
























On to the party details. We had about 20 family members over for dinner which was hamburgers, pasta salad, chips/dip, veggies and dip. All simple and all also requested by the birthday girl (maybe she was making up for that cake request). So the kids all played in the backyard, the men were glued to the USC game and the rest of us sat outside and enjoyed the perfect weather. Then she opened her large haul of presents. Thankfully she got lots of Barnes and Noble giftcards to feed her book addiction and tons of totally cute new clothes. Scott and I gave her a pink nintendo ds which she opened before we even woke up this morning, the little sneak.
Right now she is in her room with her cousin snuggled in sleeping bags with the lights off watching a new DVD on her portable DVD player and having a great time.
All in all she had a great birthday and now I have just over 2 months to get ready for Zachary's 12th birthday, the last one before the big teens. YIKES!

We now have a trumpet player in the house

Lord help me!!! This does not seem like a quiet instrument. We went out today and rented his trumpet, got his music book and cleaning kit. He starts band on Tuesday and will have practice twice a week. He will practice every night at home for at least 30 minutes though. Maybe I should have picked up some ear plugs and tylenol while I was out. At least to get me through those first few weeks. LOL!
Seriously though I'm really glad that Zachary is getting more involved in extra curricular activites this year. He has applied for student leadership, joined an archery class and now band. When he decides to get off his duff he really gets off his duff!

Uncontrollable urges

Riley got her first ticket of the school year. Not bad for my girl, she made it almost 3 weeks. Her ticket stated that she "had the uncontrollable urge to take one of her neighbors chicken nuggets at lunch." So I'm asking her why she did this and it goes something like this

me: Riley why did you take someone else's food?
R: I don't know. I could not help myself. They looked so good
Zachary (yes he had to chime in): Were they McDonald's chicken nuggets?
R: No
Z: Were they cafeteria chicken nuggets?
R: yes
Z: Those SUCK! Why would you even want to take one of those?
me: Ummm, excuse me. Can we focus on the real issue here? Why did you take someone else's food Riley?
R: I told you.... I COULD NOT HELP MYSELF!!
me: Well, what happened when you took her chicken nugget?
R: She got upset and told the proctor. The proctor (insert big tears here) made me go sit at a table by myself for the rest of lunch and then I could not eat anymore because it made me sad.

So hopefully a lesson learned that you don't get to help yourself to your neighbors lunch no matter how good it looks.

Laundry woes

My dear husband who still insists "I don't know how to do laundry". Was sorting laundry today. He told me to come double check the sorting before he put stuff in. Now I will openly admit I am totally anal about how the laundry is sorted, but I figured he has been doing the laundry for a while now and I was not coming to double check it. What was the worst he could do? Put some lights in with whites? I figured he knew enough that there would not be a laundry disaster. Well, think again. I had a pair of pants sitting on my dresser, which to me is a clear indication that it does not go in the laundry. It's not IN the laundry hamper right? It's not even on the floor near the laundry hamper, which seems to be where all of Scott's clothes end up. No, it was clearly placed on my dresser. It was on my dresser because they are nice lined dress pants from Ann Taylor that I wear to work and they have to be dry cleaned. Well, Scott did not interpret their location as I would have and he threw them in with the darks AND dried them on the regular cycle. Aaargh!! I really do appreciate him doing all the laundry, but I am so bummed about my pants.