Minecraft Birthday

My kids don't have friend parties every year, so I feel like the years they get to have friends over, I need to make it memorable.  This year I didn't have a lot of time to devote to planning, but I was able to find some fun graphics for free online that made everything come together really well.

I got the amazing minecraft graphics from the blog catchmyparty.com

They had invitations, food cards, banners (which I didn't use- keeping it simple), and all the other printables that you might need for a great minecraft party.  

I found this picture on pinterest and decided to try to recreate it. 

I baked a chocolate fudge cake mix in a 9x13 pan with a piece of parchment paper cut to size in the bottom.  I also sprayed the sides and the paper with cooking spray.  

While the cake was baking, I made the blue jello or "water" for the minecraft cake.  Instead of following the regular jello directions, you want to make the jello thick so you can maneuver it into place.  To make minecraft water jello, you need two LARGE boxes of blue jello.  Stir them into 2 1/2 cups of boiling water.  Pour into a 9x13 glass pan (it helps to spray the pan with cooking spray first) and place in the fridge. 

About this time the cake should be done.  Set it aside to cool and get started on the rice krispie treats.  I followed the recipe on the bag of mini marshmallows, except I added a couple extra TBSP's of butter, because I think it makes the treats softer, which worked out really well since I decided to fill all the empty space with rice krispy treat.  

 When the cake is cool, run a knife around the edges and turn the pan upside down to get the cake out of the pan.  The parchment paper should make it come out pretty easily.  I cut a piece of a chocolate wrapper (it was thick paper)- the cake box would work well- to use as a template to cut my squares all the same size (for the most part).  I marked my lines and cut about 1/3 of the cake off in a stair step pattern.  Part of it I put on top of the other piece and some of it I used underneath the second layer (since my cake was much higher in the middle than the edges- cutting it would have been an option to make it flat, but the sides of my cake weren't very thick.  Another possibility is to bake two cakes, cut them both so they're flat and then stack them together- but again, I was trying to keep things simple, so some pieces of cake got used as fillers to level things out. I also cut one piece in half to give myself a couple of short cake levels.

I frosted the tops of some pieces with green buttercream, and used my spreader to rough up the top like grass sort of.  I used chocolate buttercream to hide the wedging-layer-job on the sides, and also on some of the top pieces to hold the raw cane sugar on- I don't play minecraft, but I think that is supposed to represent dirt or something?

I cut the rice krispie treats and created a pool and filled in around the edges of the cake.

The jello worked really well.  I was worried about getting it from one pan to another, but I dipped the jello pan in warm water briefly, cut a couple of squares and used a spatula to scoop them out.  Once I got an edge up, I actually just used my hands to put them in place.  They're really solid.  I think they were in the fridge for four hours or so.  I filled in any cracks with slivers of jello.

I found paper templates online for making your own minecraft creatures here.  The first few kids who arrived saw the cake and were all pretty excited by it.  I was surprised that they all wanted jello and rice krispy treats along with the cake and ice cream.

My son made his name out of perler beads.  I had intended to make a little black and white minecraft sign too, but I ran out of time.  Google perler bead minecraft for some fun ideas though.  

My son also decided the cake needed a tree, so he made one out of legos.  "I just threw it together mom!"

The printables link has fun drink labels.

And food labels- it was interesting trying to find treats that fit each minecraft label.  "coal" for example, was mini oreos.  

10 year olds are pretty good at coming up with their own entertainment.  We watched a movie, had an impromptu dance party, played "mine and go seek" (I have no idea what that was), ate cake, ate treats, watched funny you tube clips and generally ran around being crazy 10-year-olds.  A great time was had by all, I think.  

Pinterest Halloween S'mores

I saw a cute halloween treat idea of Pinterest, and thought I'd try it out for my son's halloween party at school.  The original had ghosts, but halloween peeps were really hard to find, so I used what I could get.  I made up my own label for it since the pinterest label said ghosts.

I used a sandwich bag, the snack size would work, but would make the label a little trickier to attach.

Place peep and chocolate on crackers (I broke the chocolate in half so it fit better).

In the microwave the peep gets frighteningly large, but it flattens out when you take it out.

Enjoy!

Christmas News Letter

J is in fifth grade this year, and can now wear my shoes.  His interests are soccer, electronic games, beyblade (although I’m told that beyblades are no longer “in”), and origami.  At school he sold origami creations as part of his class store, and got really good at folding ninja stars.  Mom got really good at folding boxes.  For his birthday this year, he invited his whole class and had a movie outside in the field, and found out what happens when you put mentos into diet coke (we did that on purpose, we were’t just feeding kids diet coke and mentos...).

A is in second grade, and is still just a happy kid.  He loves his teacher, his friends, soccer, and legos.  His smile is infectious, and his teacher has told me several times that he really knows how to make her heart melt.  There are few things better than knowing your child’s teacher loves him as much as you do.

CP is in preschool this year.  When I pick him up he likes to ask me, “so, what did you do today?”  He also played on his first soccer team this year.  Preschool soccer is fun to watch, since most of the kids don’t know what’s going on, and are busy climbing their coach or playing house in the goal net.  CP, thanks to his older brothers, knew what was going on, and we got some good footage of him running down the field to score a goal.  In a few years when the other kids figure it out, that may be a little trickier.

E is finally walking, at 15/16 months.  His favorite things are going down the slide, being carried around, and playing fetch, I mean catch.  He’s a happy kid, except when he’s teething, and we’re so happy he’s part of our family.  CP especially likes having a younger brother to play with (and carry around- E is not so fond of that).  Time is going by so fast, that we’re just trying to enjoy his babyness as much as possible before it’s gone.

This year I’ve discovered that I have hobbies again!  I had forgotten about them for a long time.  I ran a couple of half marathons and my very first full marathon this year (after which I promptly stopped any form of exercise- I’m still recovering- I’ll get back to it one of these days...).  I also rode (and finished) a 100 mile bike ride with some of my friends.  I felt great until mile 70 or so, after that I was grateful to my friends for keeping me going.  

Kyle had a pretty busy training schedule earlier this year when he was training for the St. George Ironman.  He finished, and is crazy enough to want to do it again in a couple of years.  He’s decided that triathlons are more fun that single-event races.  (I tried a sprint tri this year, and am unconvinced.)  

We’re still working on getting our houseplans ready for building in the spring, and are keeping our fingers crossed that everything works out to proceed as planned.  Hopefully next year I’ll be writing this letter from the comfort of my very own home.  Maybe you can all come visit.    All Our Love,  Kyle, Alice & the boys.

Track the progress of our house at http://flaglotliving.blogspot.com

Damage, Round One

Notice the pine tree.  I'm not sure what happened there, but it looks like something took a bite out of the side.

A couple of the posts for the grape vines have fallen over.

The corkscrew willow in the front yard has been dying/falling over for a couple of years now, so it was decided to cut it down to prevent it from falling on any houses/cars.

Snapped branches on pine trees in the field.

Strawberry bed is missing a side.

Screen door at grandma's house.

The rest of the screen door- looks like it was more glass than screen...

Porch support.  

Oops, one more piece of door.

Siding on a shed.

The new backyard, minus some trees/bushes.  Maybe grass will grow back there again?

Firewood!

Good thing we didn't have a dog living in here anymore.

Fruit tree in the garden.  I think this was a peach.  Not too sad, because it would have had to come out anyway, it's where our house will be.

Broken fence, where the tree broke off and crushed it.  The clean up crew had the fallen part chopped up and hauled away amazingly fast this morning.

New, flat roof, on the chicken coop.  Hopefully it will work until spring.  We can now call it the chicken cube.

Siding damage from the coop roof hitting the shed.

We'll need to get a new boat cover.  The boat looks okay, maybe a little scratched up.  We haven't looked under the cover to be sure.

There's the roof!  It put some nice gouges in the back corner of our camper too.

Siding damage, so that's where the wasps were coming from.

Up high there's siding damage where the cable wire was pulled out of the wall.  The cable is now laying on the ground.  

Wind speeds reached 102 mph.  That's class 2 hurricane.  School was cancelled Thursday and Friday.  Church was cancelled today to allow everyone to go around and clean up the debris before the next round starts tonight.  It's not supposed to be as bad, but who knows.  I moved the cans into the garage, and picked up as much as I could so there are fewer things to blow over to the neighbor's house (or beyond).  We still need to put the small sailboat somewhere safe so it doesn't blow away again (last time I grabbed it before it went too far- that was fun), some big pieces of plastic, and maybe do something with the wood from the former chicken coop roof and the dog run.  Probably ought to clean up as much as we can with the door next door too.  The boys are hoping school is cancelled tomorrow, we'll see.

It's been a really great feeling to see all the neighbors out working together to get things cleaned up.  They're piling stuff up at a church building down the street, and from there it's being hauled to the dump.  I'm not sure how the dump is going to keep it there, but at least it would have to blow a long way before it hit anything from that point.  Kyle brought home a load of pine for our wood pile when he came home for breakfast/lunch.  I'm not sure when they'll be done.

The majority of trucks going by are full of pine branches.  It's surreal.

UPDATE: Round 2 of the wind storm petered out, so YEA.  No more damage.

Baby E learns to slide!

Can I go back to last week?

Last week I dropped Taja dog off at the vet, where she was being kenneled while we went to Oregon for Thanksgiving.  That was Friday.  I took her bed, and a chew toy, and handed her over.  I was a little sad when I climbed into the car.  I love that dog, and I was going to miss her.

I had no idea.

Monday morning the vet called to tell us that Taja had died in her sleep.  Her heart just stopped.  I'm glad it was quick, but my heart hurts that she was not home with her family.

She was a stinky, drooly dog, with floppy ears and a wiggly bum, and we loved her.  It seems a little silly to grieve so much for a dog, but she was really a member of our family.  We're going to bury her in the yard, and plant a tree to mark her grave.

Well miss you, puppy.

Taja Harley Quinn 

(she was AKC papered, and they require ridiculously long names)

AKA Taja, Taja dog, or Puppy.

April 2002- November 21, 2011

Puppy Taja

We have a lot of pictures like this.  Taja was always kind of in the background of whatever was going on.

Taja loved playing soccer with us.

Two Christmases ago

Camping

Chewing a bone, enjoying the sunshine- one of her favorite ways to spend an afternoon.

Part of the family.

Photo Update

A teaching CP some sweet soccer skills.

CP at his preschool Halloween Parade.

Our shelf of squash/pumpkins- many of these are now carved and sitting on the porch.

Kyle's getting this area all cleaned up- no more weeds and wood scraps and yard tools jumbled together.

I love watching chickens run across a yard.

J and neighbor B herding the chickens back to their coop.

This was a lot of work.  I did it with the rotary mower.  I was SORE the next day.  The grass hadn't been mowed in a long time, as I mentioned in the previous post- I had to have the boys come out and lift the grass up with rakes so the mower would even catch it- it was so long and matted down.

Not a huge grape harvest this year...  

We're already figuring how many we can drink each month to make them last a year.  :)