Fancy attire, dinner music, and a little gourmet dining {p.h.f.r}

{pretty}

My first lace shawl, which I recently finished knitting, but now need to block (eek!)  I've never been one for blocking - of course, most of my knitting items have been made of acrylic (though I recently learned it's possible to block even acrylic - drat! now I have no excuses.)  I'm especially intimidated at the thought of blocking mohair and silk - decadent fibers that I'm now terrified I'll ruin in the process!  ::SO FLUFFY!!!::

 

Our most recent trip to the zoo yesterday revealed that the trumpeter swans were, in fact, a pair and have a new family!  So cute!  And such a good excuse to use a rarely enjoyed and slightly snooty word: "cygnets"!

{happy}

 

My little pianists - even Jelly Bean is getting in on the action these days.

 {funny}

Toddler Gourmet:  Pan-seared HotWheels, anyone?

My little guy still refuses to try out potty training, but apparently Potty Scotty is interesting to him again.  After requesting the doll, he entertained himself for at least an hour, asking me to "make a bottle" (i.e. refill with tap water) for Scotty.  He even admits that Scotty is a big boy for using the potty and gets to wear underwear now instead of a diaper.  Progress?  Could be...

{real}

If I can't stop her from eating Cheerios off the floor, I can at least distract her with Cheerios on a clean surface on the floor.  She adamantly refused to sit in the high chair for this snack.  (Too restricting apparently.)

Back in high school, I used to ponder strange questions like "If we took the contents of every locker in the entire school and dumped it all out on a big scale, how much would it all weigh?" and "If I were stranded on a deserted island with only a pile of tomatoes, would I be able to make ketchup?"  (At the time, I hated tomatoes.)  These days, I find myself still pondering odd questions whose answers have no real value, like "If we were able to save every UN-consumed Cheerio over the course of our children's lives (including children yet-to-be-born) just how big would that pile of Cheerios be?  How many boxes would they fill by weight?"  And the related question:  "What is the average number of Cheerios that stick to Jelly Bean's butt every time I lift her out of the high chair?  How many days would it take to fill a whole box?"  These feel like the word problems we had in middle school math.  Maybe we are meant to homeschool the kids after all.

Wildlife and sugar, sugar, sugar {p.h.f.r.}

{pretty}

Well, zoo animals aren't necessarily so much pretty, as interesting and fascinating (though yes, many of them are very beautiful).  It's fun watching my little guy try to interact with them.  My darling girl even gets in on it too, sometimes.  You should have seen the uproar the normally casual prairie dogs were in after she chattered at them a while.
I always enjoy the burrowing owls, especially this one that actually leaned in when I got close to the glass to take this shot, and the moose, which oddly enough is kept just feet away below the deck the owls are on.  I'm still trying to figure out why I always have this strange urge to "moo" at the moose.

{happy}

Yesterday was my hubby's birthday!  We had a delicious dinner of bistro burgers on the grill and a marble cake with chopped chocolate in the butter-cream filling.  Turned out better than I expected.  I was also thrilled to be able to give him the present that I'd been hiding for the last 6 months.  My guy is an Eagle Scout and loves seeing bald eagles on the river sometimes when his work takes him there.  The first one that arrived (on the right) didn't exactly live up to the photo I based my purchase on, plus the legs had big cracks in them!  But, much to the seller's credit, he made it right and sent the replacement on the left.  Beautiful!  So, now we have two - we're talking about putting the smaller one in the garden.  Heck, maybe it'll keep the crows and rabbits away!

{funny}

My poor girly girl - aside from the Cheerios addiction and the constant "Cheerio-butt" syndrome (which definitely contributes to the Cheerio-laden state of our kitchen floor), we add insult to injury making her wear her brother's old bibs.  No girl should have to suffer through having "That's my boy!" hanging around her neck.  Curse those awesome rubber-backed bibs.  Hopefully this isn't why she's always stealing her brother's Matchbox cars.

Here, it's a little hard to see, but my son fully tried to take the cake (literally) before dinner last night.  We all agreed it was a shame, considering the effort put into it, and the time-out that resulted, that he didn't even manage to get a good finger-ful of frosting, instead just leaving deep fingerprints - the evidence leading to his arrest and conviction.  (Don't worry, we had more than just circumstantial evidence against him...)  Hubby and I made a bet this morning regarding just how many times the kiddo will be begging for cake before lunch.

{real}

 It's tradition at Hubby's work that the birthday celebrant brings donuts.  Apparently there were some (read: too many) left over.  This was breakfast.  Or rather, the jelly-filled long-john you no longer see on that piece of tissue paper was breakfast.  I'm not even usually much of a donut person, but dang, that was good!