New Jewelry

The last bead mix I got came with a challenge: What the heck can you do with this?
As always, I took the challenge to heart. With an idea in my head, I got to work. After what seemed like hours I finally got the pieces of the focal point to do what I wanted. I LOVE this mix. I can't wait to get started on the wool beads Sara sent, which I have sketched a few ideas for. This requires me making some beads from paper first, and I don't have time before I'm off on my adventure, so I'll hopefully get that going sometime in August!

Miah is TEN!

Today my youngest is in the double digits. I can't believe it. I remember her babyhood like it was yesterday. She was such a stinker! She still is, but in different ways now. She's funny, energetic, excitable, loving, puzzle solving, sarcastic and artistic. She prides herself in being just like her daddy, loves her puppies, webkins, computer games, Spongebob, and Tom and Jerry.
She is a little bomb just waiting to explode. Constantly running circles around Harley through the kitchen, art room, and hallways. Squealing, screaming, and laughing. Drawing portraits of strangers and pausing to give them their pictures. She elicits smiles and compliments, smiling in her devilish way, and always telling strangers way more than they ever wanted to know about whatever is interesting her at the moment. She builds castles, and cities with her blocks, tells stories about them to her dolls, and playacts for her audience. She isn't always so cute, she'll drive you nuts...but I'm counting on her complete uniqueness and strength to make her one hell of an interesting adult. I can't wait.

Miah: Funny little girl!

We found a lizard on the steps on the way into the house.

Me: "Oh, look, it's a chameleon! " (not really, it's a Green Anole)

Miah: "Does that mean it tells jokes?"

I never remember the funny things Miah said, so I rushed right over to the computer to get it down. She just cracks me up!

Thunderstorm

Since I was a little girl, I've loved thunderstorms. My dad used to take Jason and me outside during particularly spectacular ones so that we could feel the electricity in the air. I'm not sure Jason really got it, but I fell in love. I've seen and heard all sorts of crazy things, ball lightning being one of my favorites, but the thunder has always been my very favorite thing. In the Valley where I grew up the thunder bounced off the mountains like a rubber ball. The sound boomed from one end of the fields to the other and seemed to last for full minutes. Wonderfully enough, it does the same thing here. I caught some of it, and even a small flash if lightening right in front of me (I never saw it, not until I loaded the video up on the computer. You have to look carefully, it's fast!)
I love the sound of rain beating down on the leaves, I'm sad that the sound doesn't really translate well on the video.
Jay thought I was crazy for going outside with my camera. Not that he said so, but he gave me that look...Laurel was still asleep and in fact slept through all of the noise...but my girl Miah was right behind me squealing and giggling the whole time. It was really hard to get her to keep quiet for the video, and in fact I think you can hear her in the background in one of them.

Laurel's 13

My baby is OLD. *sob*

Laurel turned 13 on the 29th. We'd been planning her party for a couple of months, mostly because Jay always does something super special (if he's home, that is.) This year he made a Twilight/New Moon version of Jeopardy for the party. He spent a lot of time making an entire game of crazy hard questions. It was spectacular. He used PowerPoint to do the clues, the answers, and even had the Final Jeopardy music playing when that last question came around. He went above and beyond. Laurel's friend Rebecca won the grand prize, the Twilight Trivia game. Jay also baked at Laurel's request, a Brownie Cheese Cake. (From the Rachael Ray Website)

Chocolate Cheesecake Brownies

Tags: desserts cookies bake

Submitted by

Plan B Mom

on 05/04/09

These bar cookies are the perfect combination of cheesecake and brownie. They are very rich, so a small square is a satisfying serving.

Brownies:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 4 squares semisweet chocolate
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt

Cheesecake topping:

• 1 package cream cheese (8 oz.) softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tbs. butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbs. milk
• 1 tbs. flour
• 3 squares semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

Icing:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup whipping cream
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 squares semisweet chocolate
• 2 tbs. butter
• pinch of salt (optional)

Preheat oven to 350ºF degrees.

Brownies:

Melt butter and chocolate together, set aside to cool. In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs and sugar until light and creamy. Stir in flour and baking soda, and then the chocolate mixture. Mix well and pour into greased 9 inch square pan.

Cheesecake topping:

In a large bowl, beat together cream cheese, sugar and butter until creamy . Mix in eggs, milk and flour - mix well. Stir in chocolate and spread evely over brownie layer. Bake 40 - 45 minutes. Cool.

Icing:

Combine sugar, cream and vanilla in a small saucepan. Stir to blend. Place pan over medium high heat and bring to boil; reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring. Remove from heat and add chocolate and butter, stirring until smooth. Let sit until mixture is slightly cooled and thick enough to spread.

Pour over cooled cake and chill. Cut into squares and store in refrigerator.

Holy Cow, They're Good!!

The rest of the time we let Laurel, Ben, Miah and Rebecca hang out and watch Twilight and New Moon on Blu-Ray, while Jay and I watched the Food Network upstairs.
Laurel got all kinds of jewelry, vampire t-shirts, and even got a couple of things from Bj, April and the gang. Very cool twilight bag and necklace!
Okay, so now for the few, but silly pictures:

Miah's Dollhouse

I've been meaning to post these pictures for a long while now, but I seem to have been caught up in actually living life, rather than talking about it, so I've been seriously behind lately. As long as my patience holds out I'll get semi caught up today.









On a random day a while back the whole family went out on a shopping trip, not looking for anything in particular, just bored. When I saw this dollhouse at Tuesday Morning, I got excited. Miah loves to play with her blocks. We've posted pictures of her before, setting up towns, using her soldiers to play war with Daddy, and building crazy buildings with her Lincoln logs.

I thought immediately that a wooden doll house would be her new favorite thing. It was! Tuesday Morning is a great store, tons of cool things at sale prices, so we got this usually $100.00 set for $40.00. We brought it home, Miah and I built it together, and had a ball playing with it. Miah grabbed all of her Polly Pockets and set up the entire house to look like a miniature sorority house. I went back to the store later and picked up the Pet Shop set, and the Ice Cream store, which greatly added to Miah's story lines. I charged her $1500.00 to wash her little cat, telling her that it was feral, and almost killed me, so she says "Okay, not an issue. Here's your money, and I think that's enough you won't sue me, right?" I almost died laughing.
Miah loves this dollhouse, even passing up tv time to set things up, so I put her things together on one of the Front Room tables so that she doesn't have to drag it downstairs when she wants to play. Every once in a while I hear "Mom, check this out!" and she's done some new silly things with her props. Last week she hid the cat and asked me to hunt him down, she has also stuffed tiny rubber shoes into drawers, and did I mention the toilet has a lid, and you can hide things in it?
Miah is nothing if not entertaining. I can't wait to see if she can get her Daddy to play with it too. I just know he'll be planning house raids, or Indian attacks or something. I'll be around the corner sneaking pictures!