the innocence of youth

During Sharing Time this afternoon...

Me: You really need to sit in your chair quietly.
Sunbeam: hmmmpfff! (sitting down quietly but not exactly willingly)
Me: Thank you.
Sunbeam: (gently squeezing my arm with both hands with a mischievous grin - but doing it rather quietly)
Me: What are you doing?
Sunbeam: Squishy!!
Me: (in my head - not really what I want to hear but the child is still being fairly quiet and is still sitting in the chair which is quite an accomplishment)
Sunbeam: Squishy!!
Me: Okay - well then why don't we just sing with the group now.

2nd Annual Del Ray Music Festival

I live in Rosemont which is between Del Ray and Old Town Alexandria so I feel that I can claim either. I love this area! Every year there is Art on the Avenue where I always find unique pieces - there is something about buying a ceramic piece from the actual artist that makes it more fun. This weekend Del Ray is hosting the 2nd Annual Music Festival. Browing the festival website I found out that the Del Ray Community, was formerly known as the Town of Potomac and it is celebrating its 100th year.

E is for what?

On Tuesday night I was running errands late at Target and noticed that my gas gauge was on empty. I made a mental note to stop at the gas station on the way home because I knew I was driving into work the next day. The last time I remembered looking at the gas gauge was on my way to BWI and at that point it was showing a quarter tank. Alas, my mind wasn't working very well and by the time I checked out and got to my car I completely forgot. I remembered as I was falling asleep at 1 am and thought - no problem I pass three gas stations on the way to work and can just stop in the morning. Obviously I didn't remember in the morning either.

Here is what my gas gauge looked like when I pulled into the parking garage for work the next morning. I honestly think that had my car started to sputter and die I would have been seriously perplexed at the situation.

Another cake...

...again using my new favorite form of chocolate magic. This four tier chocolate tower was concocted to celebrate Andrea's birthday.

cupcakes!!

More wedding cakes...this one was for Kerstin and John. Becca helped tons - coming over and staying up until 3 am - I would have been in trouble without her help. We tried lots of different flavors and settled on vanilla, brownie, and oreo (the raspberry was a complete disaster so we left that out). The groom's cake (Terp's helmet) was marbled chocolate chip. And the giant cupcake was chocolate. It was lots of fun to make the flowers out of chocolate plastique - which is my new favorite chocolate invention. You can do such cool things with it and yet it still tastes good. And it has a shelf life of weeks. The cupcakes and the football helmet worked out even better than expected. Getting them all the way to Maryland in one piece was nerve wracking but it all turned out well. The kids especially loved the the miniature cupcakes.

green growing things

So I took these pictures a couple weeks ago but haven't has a chance to post them. Our yard got a bit out of control this year and before anyone noticed turned into a jungle. I was pretty impressed with what our lawnmower (an electric one) was able to accomplish. However, even after I went over it a couple times it wasn't completely trim as you can see.