This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soule Mama.

Cupcake Royale

I don't necessarily enjoy giving people gift cards as gifts, but sometimes it's the best sort of gift.  When giving a gift card you want to make it special.  Dress it up a bit.  A few years ago I found THIS online tutorial on how to make a cupcake gift card.  My oh my, this is perfect!  I've made several for teacher gifts at the end of the school year and they have always been well received. 

The gift card slides right down into the slit you create in the foam ball.  The binder clip holds onto the card so you can easily pull it out of the cupcake.  I had to use a larger binder clip than in the tutorial because it was the only size I could find in the house.  Always make do with what you have.

My mother-in-law's birthday was a few weeks ago.  What do you give someone who has everything, and is currently downsizing to a smaller house/condo?  A spa gift card of course!  I had a cupcake holder almost completed from the previous school year so I put the final touches on and voila!!  She loved it!

Of course, Mor Mor always needs new picture for her birthday.

Teen Years Here We Come

I've been dreading this moment for some time now.  Being the parent of a newborn baby is definately challenging, the toddler years bring an entirely different set of parenting skills, young boys are certainly challenging but a teenager?  I don't feel prepared for this next stage of parenting at all. 

I'm in complete denial.

It's one thing to realize I'm actually old enough to have a teenager.  That brings it's own set of issues with it, but that's not what this is about.  It's about the frightening realization that I need to have the parenting skills to handle a teenage boy!  I grew up with an older brother and watched the relationship between my parents and brother during those years.  I also dated hubby and remember what he was like as a teenager.  Needless to say, I'm a bit freaked out.

To celebrate this milestone of officially becoming a teenager, and all that comes with it, it was a several day celebration.  Last Friday night we had a few of his friends over for a video game fest with pizza and cake.  How fun to see these guys hanging out playing Xbox.  The pinacle of the evening was at the end when they broke out Rock Band and started singing terribly off-key with the windows open for all the neighborhood to "enjoy".

Okay the cake.  Let me explain.  Thing 1 and his friends play this computer game called Portal 2.  It's the current "thing". In the game you have this machine that shoots portals into locations.  One portal (the blue one) is the "in", and the second portan (the orange one) is the "out" where you can use these portals to navigate around the game.  There is also this chocolate cake that has little mounds of whip creme with cherries on top.  The cake shows the chocolate cake from the game going 1/2 way into one portal and 1/2 way out another.  It looks pretty rediculous unless you understand the game...which I don't.  But I managed to pull off the cake!

On Saturday Hubby, Thing 1, his best friend and his dad, all went to a shooting range.  If you know me, you know how hard this was for me to let him go.  I paced in the house nervously until they came home...in one piece...with bullet holes only in the targets.  The family came over for BBQ that evening and enjoyed more of the funky cake.

It was a great weekend.  Bring on the teen years!!!  I'm ready!!  Okay, not really.

Going Green

I'm not sure if this is a sign of going green, or going cheap.  When we bought our house 16 years ago, my father-in-law gifted us his precious Honda lawn mower.  This thing has been the best lawn mower I've ever seen!  Hubby remembers as a young kid going to the Honda store with his dad to buy this mower so it's been around for a while.  We have enjoyed it for 16 years but everything has a life span.  The Honda has finally gone on the lawn mower heaven.

There was healthy discussion about how to replace it.  Do we get the green and cheap push mower?  or another loud, gas mower?  Of course I liked the push mower idea the best but I felt I didn't have a leg to stand on with this position since I haven't pushed a lawn mower since I was about 14!  Honestly, they intimidate me. 

Hubby broke it out of the box last weekend and gave it a whirl around our very small patch of grass. 

It seems to do the job, although I think hubby felt like he was pushing one of these instead.

Cub Scout Hike

Our Cub Scout pack organized a pack hike this past weekend at a local park.  I haven't been to this park before so I didn't know what to expect.  Thing 2 was just coming back from being sick all week so I didn't know exactly how he was going to do on a two mile hike.  The poor thing had a fever all last week that finally broke Thursday night.  By Saturday morning he was back to his normal self but with a bad cough.  It was one mile downhill to the beach and one mile back up.  Going to the beach was just fine but going back he had a tough time.  Granted, it was a steep incline so I was huffin' and puffin' but Thing 2 lost his mojo on the way back.  I wore my FitBit and it tracked just over 10,000 steps and the incline counted as 46 flights of stairs!  Whew!  My body had a little fun pointing out that I'm not in the best shape the next day.

The boys had a great time playing on the beach, finding shells, throwing rocks in the water, just being boys. 

The trains run right along this beach so the trail actually runs underneath the tracks.  They had fun standing in the tunnel as the train roared over their heads. 

This was a hike to be repeated with the whole family next time.

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soule Mama.