The Tale of Two Fish

or: Reason # 317 We Don't Have Pets

Once upon a time there was a beautiful Princess, her mother the Queen, and a Fairy Grandmother (who was also the Queen's mother-in-law.)

The Fairy Grandmother had threatened on numerous occasions to purchase an enchanted aquarium for the Princess. The Queen feigned deafness whenever this plan was suggested. The wiley Fairy Grandmother snuck the aquarium into the Princess's Christmas presents and cast a spell which got the Princess all excited about raising fish.

The Princess, who has been known to form unrealistic expectations about aquariums, pets, toys and life in general, immediately began plotting to fill her 2-gallon aquarium with several breeds of tropical fish, sharks and possibly a small whale.

The Queen resigned herself to travel to Ye Olde PetSmarte in search of a very tiny whale.

After viewing completely every possible type of fish and convincing the Princess that neither a rat nor a parrot would be very happy living in an aquarium, the Queen was able to purchase 2 small and allegedly durable fish to return home with the Princess. They were named Silvermist and Shadow. The Queen took several really lousy pictures to post on Her Royal Blog.

Silvermist.

And Shadow (their names were originally Squirt and Bat Fish but the Princess wanted something a little more enchanting.)

The Queen let the Princess decorate the aquarium with all manner of pink plants, a fish cave and shiny jewel rocks. Everyone was pleased.

The fish lived happily ever after... for 1 week. Then an evil spell was cast on Shadow and he was turned into a female and spawned 28 baby fishsticks, which both fish proceeded to gobble up. The tank got stinkier and stinkier (possibly in a misguided attempt at escape). One day the Princess noticed that they were both floating upside down. She laughed her head off and we transferred them into the toilet so they could swim out to sea.

The end.

Works for me: keeping track of the remote

Looking for the remote, listening to kids complain about looking for the remote, telling other people to look for the remote their own dang selves and replacing all the furniture after successfully locating the remote takes up approximately 83 hours of my week. I've tossed around various ideas for keeping them in once place. My favorite involved hooking them to a retracting wire (like a janitor's keychain) that pulled them all the way to the ceiling and out of the reach of marauding 4-year-old pirates and the like. The problem with this plan is that I can't reach the ceiling either.

Finally I remembered that I have a giant roll of stick-on velcro. It's two different adhesive strips, one with the hook side of the velcro and one with the fuzzy side.

I stuck the hook side to the side of my computer desk (conveniently located next to the couch) and the fuzzy side to the back of the remotes.

Voilà! The remotes have a 'home' of their own and don't spend quite as much time under the recliner or lost in the sofa bed.

This also works well in the craft cupboard for pencil sharpeners, flashlights, lighters and the elusive Big Ol' Sharpie.

Remember my love for vintage cake pans?

To go along with the boy-themed cake pans from my mother-in-law, my own mother gave me this Wilton doll mold that she used when my sisters and I were little.

Fortunately Wilton still sells the doll toppers because we needed a fresh one. I wish they still had the headband that you could decorate without getting frosting in the doll's hair.

Anyway, here's the start of Minnie's birthday cake. She wanted a masquerade-themed party this year, so the doll pick has a feathered mask on. It kind of messed up her hair so I need to figure out how to re-set her curls. I'll put up pictures of her cake when I get them off the other camera.

Take that Spring

I may not have seedlings planted and my house is not any sort of cleaned (let alone spring-cleaned) BUT I updated my blog background when the season actually changed. And not 3 months late. So there.

Time changes are hard on everyone

Even the littlest of monkeys.

It's hard to get him to preschool on time when he wakes up like this, because he drags his tired little bed-headed self to the living room and wants to sit in your lap until he's more awake. So, more often than I would like to admit, he just goes to school with messy hair, yesterday's shirt and too-short pants.

What am I thinking?

Brittany and I are going snowboarding.

I am kind of nervous. I haven't been snowboarding since before Bart (that's 5 long years for those who are keeping score.) If you have any prayers to spare today, maybe mention that I would not like to become injured or dead today.

Update: we have both returned un-injured and non-dead.

I love snowboarding and can't wait to go again! We had about 3 inches of powder, light snow and an almost completely empty resort. In the middle of the day we rode the lift to the tippy top for a twice-baked potato and the most chocolaty, indulgent, whipped-cream-with-cinnamon cup of hot chocolate. Totally fabulous.

Officially 4

You're pretty much not an official 4-year-old until you've fought crime and saved princesses whilst wearing a dishtowel cape. It's like a right of passage. Bart prefers the vintage flour-sack dish cloths. Because he rocks.

Batman cake

The finished product.

Oh yeah. He just oozes justice and crime-fightability. We tried to limit the amount of black icing by using some grey and purple - I think he looks pretty awesome! Here are some of the pictures of the decorations. We kept it pretty simple but birthday boy really loved it.

Joe drew this awesome Batman poster and we played Pin The Batarang On The Utility Belt (or whatever.)

Minnie colored the poster after Joe drew it so everyone got to be involved.

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Super Hero birthday

It's Bart's birthday today! My supa-cool mother-in-law was digging through her basement and found her Wilton cake pans from when her 4 boys were little and she gave them to me!


I think my husband was way more excited than even I was, because he remembers all his Superman and robot cakes that he had for his birthdays and he was thrilled that we have these pans. Also this was really lucky because Bart wants a Batman cake this year. Yay!

So later today I'll be trying to ice a cake into a respectable Batman and use the least amount of pure-black icing. Wish me luck!

Also this was our cake-related discussion this morning. I had to ask him all this over the phone while his dad chased him through the dinosaur museum, so it took much longer than seemed strictly necessary.

Mom: What kind of cake do you want?
Bart: Batman
M: But what flavor?
B: Batman!
What would Batman flavor be? Thinking about it kind of makes me gag.

M: OK.... What color do you want your cake?
B: Vaniwah
Try not to imagine me rolling my eyeballs until they rattle themselves loose.

M: Do you want white vanilla or yellow vanilla?
B: Yeh-wo vaniwah Batman cake.
M: Done.