Why does D-TV have to be so D-ifficult?

Digital versus Analog.

I know, I know for the last year or so (more since Obama delayed the switch) we have been hounded by the digital conversation of our ever so important television programing. First of all, I think it's all a hoax. I honestly have a theory that all those government approved digital converter boxes will someday turn into converter transformers and take us all hostage. Or, when the government finally gets their way and we all have government sanctioned health care, these boxes are going to start emitting gamma rays and making people sick to scour up some money for Washington. Okay, so those theories are a little anger driven, but I wouldn't be so angry if our digital television actually worked. I did get the government coupons (I'll be damned if I'm paying $50 for a $10 POS!) and we got two converter boxes to go in our house.
I seriously think that these boxes were made by some poor Chinese boy who was getting paid five cents a day to work in a sweat shop. They weigh nothing at all and if you've ever seen Jurassic Park you know that if its heavy its expensive. The buttons do not work well at all. And when I mean they don't work well, I mean they don't work at all! You can push the volume button and the channel will change, or you can push the 2 button and the damn thing will turn off! Recently I've started just mashing the controller with my hand to see what comes up...it's my own little game show.
This is all beside the point because I truly believe that I am suffering from ADD since we got the new digital converters. You see, you can be watching a program and all the sudden the screen will scramble and the picture will go out. This happens at least every 4-5 minutes (depending on the channel) and it's extremely frustrating when trying to watch football or any sort of programming. At least with analog you could enjoy the show even if there was a little static. Now I'll be sitting there waiting for the punch line to a joke and
*oh look a penny!*
There is one good thing about the signal scrambling all the time; since I get so frustrated I rarely want to watch television anymore!
At first we thought perhaps we need a boost for our TV to get the signals. Since the genius that designed our house used foil wrapped insulation ('cause it was the cheapest) you'd think that our house itself would act like one giant coat hanger, but I'm afraid that it's the exact opposite. We purchased a middle of the road digital antennae and put it up under the overhang of our house. This helps only when the sky is clear, there are no airplanes overhead, there are no cars driving by, and the butterflies outside flap their wings twice. I live on a very busy street in the Twin Cities, minutes from a major international airport and a mere 3 miles from a busy small engine airport, and it takes effort to get all those butterflies to get in synch! However, I can see both sky lines if I'm standing on the roof of my house! I do NOT understand how a digital signal can get scrambled from 10 miles away?!?
I think the true conspiracy theory was made by the cable companies.
[in my best evil gangster voice]
"Just in time for a giant recession, let's take every one's television away, see, so they HAVE to buy cable. Yeah. We can make it really cheap for the first three months, see, to reel them in, then smack them with the real costs of $100+ per month, see! Yeah, that's the ticket!"

Like I said, lately I haven't been watching much television so it doesn't bother me too much (except for Sundays when football is on!!) However, in a little over a month, I will be home all day long and even with my multitude of movies I seriously think I will be stir crazy by the time Christmas gets here! I guess I will just have to invest in TV on DVDs.

Hmmm, another conspiracy?!?

Happy Birthday Prince!

So this last weekend was the Prince's birthday. He chose to have a Spiderman themed party and I pretty much went with it. I served Peter Parker Spidey Punch, Green Goblin Guacamole, Doc Oct's meatballs, and Venom's Caramel Apple dip. I didn't really make anything special, I just renamed everything for the occasion. I have this thing in my brain, call it guilt for being a working mother if you must, but I HAVE to make his birthday cake myself. Don't let me pull too hard on your heart strings...I use a box cake. This year, with the Spiderman theme I was really at a loss for what I would do. I thought briefly about buying one of those cake pans from Michaels, but since I'm also incredibly cheap I didn't want to invest in something that I would probably never use again. So I searched for a few ideas via the lovely and amazing Google. I found someone had made a street scene with Spiderman saving the day. While I didn't get too involved with the cake process (he's only three and it's going to be eaten!) I came up with this.

I purchased the Spiderman figurine and it actually worked out really well. Here are some pictures that explain how it was created.

I started with two yellow cake mixes. I baked one mix in a regular 9X13 inch pan, and the other cake mix was split in two square pans. I baked the cakes on Wednesday (for a Saturday party) and froze them so the would be easier to work with.

I used bamboo skewers to support the buildings. These went all the way down through the base of the cake.
I frosted the cake from top to bottom. I used an entire recipe of cream cheese frosting (from Betty Crocker's New Cook Book) for the structuring of the buildings and the outside. Then I had to make another batch for the base of the cake.
We used spray food coloring to make the grass look more "real". Although it is a cake based on a comic book so either way it would have been okay.After a couple hours of sitting out, the towers did start to lean. In the picture above I had to "shim" the building on the left even after I frosted it. *Tip from a Novice: always have a little extra cake to use for shimming or propping up the cake* Also, by the time I got the base covered with the new batch of frosting the buildings' frosting had hardened a little. Therefore the spray food coloring didn't soak in very well (you can see the near disaster in the picture above). I just used the rest of the second batch of frosting, dyed it red and re-frosted the buildings.
I purchased black frosting in the tube (black frosting is all over the place since the Prince's birthday is in October!) since I have no idea how to make black frosting. I then used icing to make the street "dashes" and Hersey's chocolate bars are the windwos. We thought the skewers looked like antenea's so we left them, but you can clip them down with a utility scissors or wire clippers, then frost over the top. Be sure to remember that there are skewers inside before serving!

Adding Spiderman to the top and we were set!

I did write Happy Birthday on the street. We tried to make a white chocolate spiderweb, but I over cooked the chocolate (damn my multitasking) and I had no time to go out for more. There was so much more we could have done (added cars on the street, or crushed chocolate cookies on the roof to look like tar), but I thought this turned out well for my first try (and sometimes less is more!)

Now let's see what I can cook up for his 4th birthday!! Happy Birthday my little Prince!

Skeletons in My Closet

In preparation of our impending bundle of joy (or more for the impending guests that will inevitably be stopping by) we've decided to really organize our house and it's contents. This would seem like a nice weekend project right? WRONG! You see, there is no closet organization whatsoever in our house. The majority of our closets were left unfinished, and I'm lucky to have a hanging rod in my bedroom! There is only one teeny, tiny closet for the entire downstairs living area and until a couple weekends ago it was packed full of unpacked boxes (yes, we've lived in this house for over a year and a half and I still had boxes I had not unpacked...out of sight, out of mind!) The closet is now cleared of it's debris and dons a brand new hanging rod! I can actually hang up all of our winter coats and random sweatshirts! We plan to add shelves in there too for some additional storage of boots, shoes, and other essentials.
Another project that is underway is finishing our basement floor. The utility/laundry/storage room will be tile, and the "bedroom" and the someday-it's-supposed-to-be-a-bathroom-but-never-while-I'm-living-there-I'm-sure will have flecked epoxy paint (like you might see in a garage). I'm hoping we can get this finished before Thanksgiving, but time seems to be ticking away pretty quickly! In addition, the husband is back in school full time and finds juggling work and homework isn't quite as easy as some make it out to be. Hopefully once this is complete we can move some of the stuff that takes up room in our spare room down to the basement and actually have an office/guest bedroom/playroom (hey, I'm a multi-tasker and that means every room in my house will be too!!)
These projects, of course, are on top of the regular stuff you need to have organized by baby-time! Cleaning and organizing all the baby clothes, setting up the crib, making new padding for a found glider rocker (and when I say found I mean the Husband found it on the street corner next to the garbage cans...makes you wonder why they threw it out - hence why I'm making new padding for it!!), finding all of the baby items (bouncer, bottles, breast pump, swing, blankets, etc.), oh yeah, and preparing mentally for another newborn!!

Whew! That sounds like a lot. But the countdown is on...

Winter already?

Monday mornings are hard. This does not even count when they have a 2" blanket of SNOW on top of them!! I woke up Monday morning to a snowy wonderland outside. I have to admit it looked really pretty! I am also glad that it came extremely early in the season since this will make my allergies finally subside. I guess this is the earliest accumulative snow fall for Minnesota in 24 years. Either way, the snow did not help my commute! It also doesn't help that I threw away my snow brush just a week ago thinking that I would have plenty of time to get a new one. My old one only had about three of it's original 8 "teeth" for scraping and it's bristles were all over the place. I had to dig through the husbands car to find his...luckily he had one! I've also discovered that scraping the windows and brushing snow off of a full-sized SUV with an 8 months pregnant belly is not an easy task! Breathless and weak from starvation (not really) I was off to work at a decent time and even made it to work early that day - yeah me!!
On the other hand, the Husband didn't have much work to do so he decided to keep the Prince home for the day and have a Daddy Daycare day. They were able to build a snowman (the snow was just perfect for it!) and they cleaned up the kitchen, did puzzles and made Jell-o! Now for a three year old, that was one heck of a great day. When mommy came home he was so excited to tell me about it that most of it came out in jiberish. Daddy had to interpret for me just a little. I was so jealous!!
I guess my turn will come in about 7 weeks when I get to stay home with both the kids. Of course going outside will be a challenge as well as playing with him, but we'll figure it out!

Hello Fall.

So Fall has officially and figuratively arrived! We had about two weeks in the middle of September where I really thought Summer was going to make a comeback, but alas...Fall has won over. It's been about average high of 50 degrees and raining constantly. I think we've had an inch and a half of rain in the month of October (yes in the last 6-8 days). I seriously considered building an Ark! And did I hear the S word bantered around this morning on the news?!?! If the sun hadn't come out yesterday I almost thought I forgot what it looked like!


I do enjoy the changing of the seasons, but it would be nice if they changed gradually. Going from a high of 75 to a high of 47 over night is not gradual!! It also doesn't help that all my maternity cloths are made for summer and half my shirts no long fit over my belly (uh, how embarrassing is it to be visiting with the Executive Vice President and realize afterwards that your belly was hanging out!!) Luckily, I've become a wardrobe ninja and can fix most major problems with the grace and agility of a Panda. *this joke would only be funny if you've seen Kungfu Panda a zillion times like I have*


So, now that it's Fall, what is on the docket for us? I'm so glad you asked!!

• The Prince's birthday! I absolutely love planning parties. I can't wait until the Husband and I are both working and we can afford to A) own our own house and B) have more parties! For my very favorite soon to be three year old we are planning a Spiderman party. I figure it will be easy to find spiderweb decorations so close to Halloween and of course the little man loves all superheros, we just happen to have the Spiderman movie for him to watch over and over and over. I also plan to create a cake with Spiderman walking up a building...yeah, we'll see how it works out. My backup is to have cupcakes!


• Halloween! I really enjoy this holiday. Mostly because I really enjoy candy, and it tastes even better when it's given to my adorable child. We usually go out with a good friend of mine and her son (who's the same age as the Prince) and last year we had a ball! The boys loved the idea of getting toys and candy and my friend and I took turns snapping photos and giggling at our handsome terrors.


• FOOTBALL! I love watching football and now that my Vikings are 4-0 it's even more fun to watch them. I'm officially a fan of Favre, but I attribute a lot of that to the fact that Minnesota hasn't has a decent quarterback in many years. He may be "over the hill", but age is truly a frame of mind. We'll take him!


• Baking and enjoying the smells of Fall! I really enjoy baking and cooking for my family. I have yet to find a kitchen big enough for my taste, but hopefully someday I can design my own. Right now I make due with what I have. I love making apple crisp, dumpling soup, stews, and cookies (among other things). I'm willing to try any new recipe that comes my way. I really enjoy the smell of things cooking and baking...it's better than any candle Glade can come up with! I remember my mom always used to bake late at night (now I know it's because you have WAY more free time once the kids go to bed!!) and every once in awhile I would drift off to sleep with the smell of banana bread or pumpkin pie wafting through our house. To me, baking just smells like home.


• Thanksgiving. This holiday combines my love for cooking and eating. Plus, there's an added bonus of friends and family in the house! I love to entertain for my family, however, this year I may have to take a rain check because of...


• The impending birth of our second child!! This is really the best of the best of Fall for me. I'm so excited to have the holidays off this year and it will be a lot of fun to get to know the little girl inside me during the "Most Wonderful Time of the Year"!

Look at this belly! I still have two months left!

So these are my favorite things about fall. I have to say my favorite thing about any season is sharing it with my friends, husband and kids. It's always more fun to take a walk with someone while entrenched in good converstaion or to enjoy a park through the eyes of a three year old. Whatever you do this season, take time to really connect with the people around you and make sure that you enjoy yourself too!