Firemen and Ben & Jerry's

I considered titling this post "Two Delicious Treats". Seriously, I've never met an unattractive fireman. Anyway...

Our mom's group went on a field trip to a fire station. This particular fire station was especially fun because it had a pole to slide down, huge ladder firetrucks, a firetruck used during WWII, and an exceptional tour guide. 

Our time began with a basic tour of the equipment on one of the firetrucks. We've been to multiple fire stations, but this was the first time I let the trio out to walk around. 

All of the kids were allowed to sit inside the firetrucks. All seven kids easily fit inside the cabin of the ladder truck. I had to climb inside to retrieve James because he refused to exit like everyone else. The kids took individual turns sitting in the vintage firetruck.

The highlight of the tour was watching the fireman slide down the pole. The kids weren't allowed to slide down, but they were so excited to watch.

The moms were pretty excited, too. I was kind of waiting for the striptease to begin after he struck this pose!

The firefighter took the time to go get fully dressed in all his gear. He explained each piece and passed things around for the kids to feel the texture and weight of the material. James was totally mesmerized.

Unfortunately, by the time the fireman was fully suited with his mask, the girls were screaming in terror!

At least the older boys weren't scared.

I think this was the first tour where we were able to stay as long as we wanted without being interrupted by an emergency. Amelia became especially fond of the fireman.

The second part of our "field trip" was to take advantage of Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's. We all drove five minutes to the ice cream shop, but I was a few minutes later because I changed the trio's diapers in the van. James and Amelia were buckled in the stroller while I changed Maddie. All of a sudden there was a torrential downpour.

James, Amelia, and I were soaked. Just as I decided to go ahead and go home, the rain stopped and the sun came out again.

Thankfully we forged ahead and enjoyed our free ice cream. I was surprised that there was no wait at all. The trio and I shared a cone of Phish Food while Jackson indulged in his own cone of cookies and cream.

After I loaded the girls, James and I got caught in another downpour. Despite the rain, it was such a fun afternoon. The best part about it was it didn't cost a thing!

Outdoor Worship

Yesterday was our annual worship service at a local park. The Sunday after Easter traditionally had the lowest attendance rates out of the year, so our pastor began reserving a park shelter for the week after Easter to lead an outdoor worship service. We have a cookout and softball game afterwards. It has since become one of the highest attended services. For the past few years, we've combined with the Latino ministry to have a bilingual service. 

As much as I love this service, it makes me miss the nursery! Jesse and I were quite distracted watching the kids. The trio sat in the wagon the first third of the service before we let them roam around.

Amelia started to fuss and the pastor's son came up to her and began rubbing her back. It was the sweetest thing! I've mentioned before that our pastor is leaving in June (after leading the congregation the past 14 years). He and his family will definitely be missed.

The Boy Scout troop provides a hot dog lunch with fixings for everyone.

I had cancelled youth group since the times overlapped. Jesse was patient with me while I checked in with all the teenagers. Since we're not really ready to play softball, we enjoyed the adjacent playground instead. Look at these big kids!

This is the third Sunday in a row our whole family has attended church together. I'm not sure how much longer the streak will last, but it makes me happy!

Jackson's Birthday Party

Yesterday we celebrated Jackson's birthday with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle themed party. Of course, pizza was the obvious menu choice. I sent out these official invites (aka googled a potentially copyrighted image, made it a meme, and sent it out on Facebook).

We had a total of 28 people in our home to celebrate Jack's birthday. It was probably my favorite and least stressful party yet. (Confession: Jackson requested a Batman themed birthday, but after doing that for his second and third birthdays, I persuaded him to reconsider. Ninja Turtles was his second choice.) The weather was perfect so we could leave the back sliding door open the entire time. This provided ample room for everyone to spread out for food and play.

Jackson wanted to use the pinata again, so I very tackily hot glued it back together. We had so much extra candy leftover and the pinata was so durable, I didn't feel bad at all about reusing it. Everyone gathered outside to witness the fun.

It took 12 kids (with three swings each) to finally break the pinata. Quite an impressive second round!

 Next was presents. Jackson has been out of it the past two weeks with allergies, eye infections, and benadryl. He was still a bit loopy and definitely lacked manners in thanking his guests. At least he appreciated the money and toys.

When I asked Jackson what his favorite birthday present was, he said, "I don't know, the dessert birthday cake." Jackson was so happy with everything about his birthday cake. He watched me make every step of the cake, and helped put the eyes in each turtle. He made everyone laugh by blowing out the birthday candles before we even started singing "Happy Birthday". (I lit them again so we could sing and get a picture.)

This was also the first year I purchased decorations. I was going to make DIY decorations I saw on Pinterest, but I found a pack of plastic wall decor for under $10. Works for me.

When I asked Jackson to share about his birthday party, he said:
"I liked the pinata the best. And the cake. And playing upstairs with my cousins. And opening the presents to see what's inside them. I had fun."

TMNT Cake With a Surprise Inside

Jesse's mom posted this checkerboard cake tutorial on my Facebook wall a few days ago. A good friend of mine had also given me a book on surprise inside cake tutorials a while ago, but I had never found an excuse to make a checkerboard cake. Jackson's birthday was as good a reason as any.

I had already planned on making a 4-layered cake with orange, blue, purple, and red. (In case you're not a ninja turtles fan, these are the colors of their masks.) I cheated once again by using these single layer cake mixes. It's so much easier to get vibrant colors with these mixes.

In regards to making the checkerboard cake, my biggest advice would be to make sure the cakes are all the same height. Otherwise, when you mix and match rings of the cake, they're not going to be flush against one another. The other requirement to this cake should be to freeze the layers. I actually froze them overnight and they turned out fine.

Since I was making four different colors, I needed to make four rings of cake. I only had one biscuit cutter, and had to trace various circular lids with a paring knife to get the different sizes. Of course this step would be easier if you have different sized cookie cutters.

Here are all of my cake rings once I finished cutting them out.

The next step was to frost the inside of each cake ring, then place the smaller size inside. I followed a red, orange, purple, blue pattern for each layer.

For extra stability, I put the layers in the freezer for another 15 minutes before I stacked and frosted them. I frosted the cake with green buttercream.

I kept the actual decorations simple with four ninja turtle heads on top of a sewer lid. I keep ready made fondant on hand, so I simply dyed a small fistful of fondant gray and rolled it out to a flattened circle. I used my spatula, lids, and piping tips to make indentations that would resemble a sewer lid.

To make the turtle heads, I dyed a big hunk of fondant green, then rolled them into four balls. I had purchased candy eyes, with the original intention of making ninja turtle cupcakes. While you could use black and white icing, the candy eyes made it much easier and gave a 3-dimensional appearance for the ninja turtle heads. The last step was to take four small (i.e. thumbprint) amounts of fondant and dye them orange, red, purple, and blue. I rolled them into snakes, wrapped them around the heads, then made slits for their eyes to peek through.

Here's the finished cake:

And what it looked like when it was sliced open!

This was an especially fun cake to make and serve.

Birthday Boy

At 4:28 this morning, Jackson officially turned 4. Our crazy boy has evolved into quite a thoughtful, energetic, determined young boy. Birthdays are always a change for me to be nostalgic, so here are a few of my favorite photos that show Jackson's maturing, lovable face.

We'll be celebrating Jack's birthday with a family party on Saturday. Of course, I also wanted him to feel special today. I've been asking him over the past several days what he wanted to do on his birthday. The only consistent things he told me he wanted were:

1. a special pizza lunch

2. to play with his friends

3. a turtle cake

4. a pinata

I was able to deliver most of those things. Thursday mornings are reserved for Zumba. After a rough start to our morning (i.e. birthday boy in time out for repeatedly shoving his siblings) I was relieved to drop the kids off in the playroom and dance my stress away. 

There is a CiCi's a few minutes from the gym. An all you can eat buffet with four young kids on my own was definitely not my first pick, but it's not my birthday. We had a very successful lunch, per Jackson's request. 

Next on the birthday agenda was a play date with Jackson's friends. Two of them had to cancel last minute, but we still celebrated with three friends. Last night Jackson randomly requested a pinata. He was so enthusiastic about it and rarely requests things on his own. I didn't want to disappoint him. Party City closed before I was able to get there, but I found this cute dinosaur pinata at Target. The hook for our bird feeder doubles as an excellent pinata holder. The kids hit the pinata, stabbed it with a baseball bat, and stomped on it, without so much as making a dent in it. After the adults made no progress, we finally tore it open with our hands, then made it rain candy. Good times!

The only request Jackson made that I didn't follow through with was the turtle cake. I plan on making that for his family party on Saturday. Today I made a cookie cake for his friends to share. 

Jackson opened his presents. He was especially fond of a bug set that came with a net, magnifying glass, and bug carrier.

Our evening was spent playing with play-doh, trying to catch bugs, feasting on tacos and more cookie cake, and getting ready for bed. To carry on my own mother's tradition, we've sung "Happy Birthday" to Jackson dozens of times. He's started singing it to himself now.

Jesse, Jack, and I are currently snuggling on the couch together watching Cat and the Hat. Jackson said his favorite part of his birthday was "breaking the pinata and eating desserts and catching bugs".

Happy 4th birthday, Jackson Lee!

Book Clubs & Bomb Threats - A Very Special Jesse Post

Wednesdays for me mean I have to get into work early to get set up for Comic Book Club. I am so excited to have started this club. My core group of young men and women is about 12 strong. We usually talk about any news the kids want to share and watch trailers and clips about new books and movies coming out. Recently, we've been learning how to play and beginning to play an RPG called Icons. This is one of my favorite parts of the week, because the kids are really passionate about comics and I've been able to get a group of kids involved in extracurricular activities that normally wouldn't have a chance to do so.

My cooperating teacher from my student teaching days at Appalachian told me to always be rigidly flexible as a teacher, and I've always tried to stick by that. Today was a day where more flexibility than rigidity was required. During my morning bathroom break after my kids left for their encore classes, I noticed some writing on the wall. Generally, this is from a boy who is trying to rebel by scrawling the f-word on the wall. However, today, there was a threat directed at the school.

On top of all this, we just had a teacher resign with short notice yesterday (side note: usually, teachers are held to their positions for thirty days to try to guarantee a replacement can be found, but this teacher was released from his contract that day). I hated to have to bring this threat to my principal's attention since she is dealing with just starting at our school, plus having to deal with a teacher resigning with short notice, but these things have to be taken seriously.

As a result, later in the day, all of our students were forced to evacuate the building. Upon hearing that it would be at least an hour before Cabarrus county deputies and Charlotte-Mecklenbug police could sweep through the school to make sure everything was safe for us to return, we all walked the half mile to our neighboring high school. For about an hour, our entire student body sat in the bleachers at the high school. Of course, they all wanted to know what was going on and when we were going back, so it was a bit of a headache to keep everybody chilled out for that time period.

Upon return to the middle school, we resumed a semi-normal schedule with abbreviated class periods until dismissal. Parents will be informed this afternoon what happened and no one was harmed, thankfully. Even though the kids were whiny and confused, they did a great job getting out quickly and quietly. It's times like these when I'm remind of the words of the Immortal Bard, Calvin Broadus, who once said, "If the ride is more fly, then you must buy."

Tween Sleepover

We all had so much fun celebrating my nieces' eleventh birthdays with a sleepover, I thought we should make it an annual event. Spring break falls in between the girls' 12th birthdays, which makes it easy to pick a day for them to come over. My nieces made a list of things they wanted to do during our sleepover. We crossed off several of them and added more to the list. Our activities included:

• A blind taste test (identify the color of Skittles)
• A blind smell test (using various spices and baking items)
• An egg toss
• Baking and decorating cupcakes

• Zumba (I asked my nieces if they wanted to attend my Monday night Zumba class with me. We have free visitor passes to the YMCA and they are old enough to attend. As always, it was a fun workout!)
• Play games (Old Maid, Jenga, Taboo)

• Stay up late to gossip
• Eat snacks and watch a movie (None of us made it through Mean Girls.)
• Make homemade waffles for breakfast
• Play with the kids

• Walk around uptown

• Meet my friends at the children's library for a morning of play

• Lunch at Brixx (pizza, pasta, and salad)
• More games, texting, selfies, and cupcakes
• Play outside with Jack and trio (bubbles, chalk, sandbox, etc)

I hope they had as much fun as I did. It's a fun way for me to learn more about my nieces as well as teen culture. It's also a fun glimpse into what the future might look like with Maddie and Amelia. 

Happy 12th birthday, girls!