The Good Neighbor

I almost breathed a sigh of relief when the last Friday of school was over. Almost. But see, we have these great new neighbors who moved in right before Thanksgiving.

Before we moved in almost five years ago, we were invited to a block party a week before our move-in date. It was awesome because we'd pretty much met all our new neighbors before we moved in July of 2005. In the winter, our new neighbors didn't really have that perk. And because they're a family we'd met and been friends with when Smunch was in preschool, I felt like I had a vested interest in making sure they felt welcomed.

So, with buy-in from the new residents, I scheduled a holiday brunch and invited everyone on our small street. Of course, that amounts to 12 boys, 7th grade and younger. And one Mam. It seemed slightly dicey, but the weather was decent and the boys mostly played outside when they weren't scarfing the food. All our neighbors came, with the exception of the strange older single guy across the street and one family who'd left on a ski trip. It was a potluck, so minimal work for me. I made a couple big quiches, cut up some fruit and supplied coffee and tea.

It was really nice to see our neighbors. I'd forgotten how little we see of them during the winter months! Our new neighbors got to meet everyone and we all got a chance to reconnect. Several people said they'd be interested in having it become a yearly event. I call that a success.

Of course, I also made mounds of truffles this year...just like the last several years. Somehow, they were distributed in a flash to the teachers, speech therapists, swim instructors and a couple of moms to whom I owe what sanity I have left.I didn't get started on Christmas cookies (despite the cookie exchange earlier in the month) until the kids were out of school and then it was a race to get them completed before Christmas arrived. Fortunately, I got a lot of kid help with decorating sugar cookies and decided to take the easy way out on the gingerbread cookies and decorate them in simple classic form instead of regular over-the-top Stacey form. They were cute. And my delivery duo was very efficient. Thank goodness! Each neighbor got a nice little plate of cookies on Christmas eve.Just in time to wrap the last presents and get a few last minute surprises set for the big day itself...

Cookies!

As mentioned briefly in the previous post, this year, I decided to host a cookie exchange. Well, sorta.

I did decided to host a cookie exchange, with the idea of inviting some of the other kindergarten moms to come while the kids were at school. And then, as the holidays approached, I realized I hadn't done anything about setting up such an exchange and it was getting late. I decided it probably just wasn't going to happen.

And then, one day, my friend Julie called. She has this funny (and rather compelling) way of suggesting that you take something on. Fortunately, she's also good at helping out once she's got you convinced. "Do you like baking cookies?" she said.

Turns out, she'd also been thinking about a cookie exchange, but didn't want to host it. Since I'd already been not-quite-planning to host that exact same thing, it was easy to spur me into action. The guest list got longer. We added a few second grade moms and moms from the other kindergarten classes. It got big...and in the end, I think there was just one person who didn't show up, when we'd been advised to count on just half of our 20 people being there.

And it was fun! There were so many yummy cookies. Everyone made their own, as requested in the invitation and the dining room table quickly became a beautiful array of the yummiest cookies ever.In the kitchen, we'd put together a pretty good spread of coffee, tea, apple cider, mini quiches, holiday breads, munchies and fruit.Websites advertise cookie exchanges as a great way to stock up on different kinds of cookies for all your holiday entertaining needs. Really? Because our cookies were gone within a week...long, long before any more holiday entertaining was done!I wonder if maybe this will become a new tradition of mine too. Could be...

Stretching the Spooky

Have you noticed that celebrations for children seem to go on and on and on these days? Was it like that when we were kids? Don't get me wrong. It's really fun, but it also makes each event something to "get past" before anything else can happen. Know what I mean? In this instance, of course, I'm talking about Halloweeen.

Halloween in our house started a full week and a half before October 31st. One of the fabulous mommies from Mam's kindergarten class hosted a Halloween tea for all the little girls in the class. She has the perfect house for such things...huge, unmanicured yard and a rambling, non-upated house. Nothing to destroy. Absolutely perfect. And, of course, it was crazy cute.We had a fun couple of hours relaxing in the sunshine and it was a great way to kick of the excitement for Halloween.

A few days later, we made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch, to meet old friends and see everyone's costumes. And, of course, to take photos of the kids that actually include pumpkins. Sir Smunch was a wee bit baffled, apparently.Mam, on the other hand, was all about the posing with pumpkins, even though the bright sunlight wasn't exactly camera-friendly.My sister and I used to pose for these very same pictures in this very same pumpkin patch. Things were simpler then. It wasn't crowded. There was no $5 bounce house, no haunted house. No pony rides or petting zoo. No costumes either. I need to get hold of those photos, just for comparison. I suppose we still did plenty of wandering among the pumpkins, but we didn't look nearly this noble.And I don't recall the need to kick-test them, but maybe that's a boy thing. I'm quite sure there was plenty of this: And my mom probably even helped us pick that pumpkin up and purchase it...unlike me. I opted for the $3.99 pumpkins at CVS instead of paying $20 for this bad boy.

The pumpkin patch trip (followed by the annual pilgrammage to Jake's Pizza) was a whole week before the big event, giving us time to work up some eager anticipation for the Halloween parties and parades at school on Friday. As usual, I overvolunteered my time, not realizing that Smunch's Halloween party was at the very same time as the kindergarten parade and party. Fortunately, the front of his classroom is directly opposite the back door to Mam's kindergarten room and I managed to go back and forth and not miss much.

However, I was in charge of one of two crafts for the second graders. And all 80 second graders would be rotating through Smunch's classroom, so it wasn't a small job. The craft had to be explained three times and I'd failed to cut streamers to length, which turned out to be a fatal flaw in my plans. There were always at least two of us busily cutting streamers as fast as we could. The projects turned out cute though and the kids seemed to like them.I loved seeing all the kids' ghost wind socks together on the table. They're way cuter as a "flock" than they are flying solo. I wished I could've taken them all home myself!In mid-craft, I ran over to the kindergarten yard to watch Mam's parade. It was small and low-key, but obviously, it was important that I made it. She was already dressed when I got there. After the grand march, the kids were treated to Frankenstein hands (gloves filled with popcorn with candy corn "fingernails") and pudding with chocolate crumbs on top...in addition to cheese pizza. Spoiled any?I ended up having to drag Mam back to the second grade room, where she made her own ghost, we cleaned up and hightailed it home for lunch before going back to school to help Smunch get dressed for the whole-school parade.
The parade was fun, but very long and too hot for so many kids sitting out on the blacktop. Mam only begrudgingly participated in this second parade, even though most of her class had returned for the event. For Smunch, it was the main event. But he didn't see me in the sea of parents, so I didn't get much of a photo.His mask was always falling down, so his chin was pointing up towards the sky trying to keep it on.

After the parade, the second graders (and many younger siblings) headed to the multipurpose room for a 20-minute viewing of It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, complete with their own Frankenstein hands (their other craft from the morning) for munching.Then all the little monsters and goblins went home for the weekend, completely hopped up on sugar and excitement...thinking the next 24 hours couldn't pass fast enough.

Going Overboard on a Retirement Cake

It all started with a simple, but silly comment I made at a PTA board meeting. One of the other moms there mentioned ordering a bridge for our new teaching garden...right after my update on the "Spring Celebration", which was a low-key retirement party for our principal in addition to a garden dedication. I chirped up, "We could call it the Bridge to Retirement!" I was kinda kidding, but the PTA president loved the idea and so it happened.

Of course, being a cakey kind of person, I volunteered to make a cake for said Spring Celebration, which I was also co-chairing. Silly me. 'Cause you know what happened, right? Well, actually you probably couldn't imagine the insanity that occurred after that, which included having to reschedule the whole event because of the swine flu...rescheduling it to the weekend Daddy and I were supposed to go away without the children for the first time ever! For a minute, I was off the hook for the cake because suddenly no one was interested in eating home-baked goods. But that was when the swine flu panic was still going full force. If you didn't notice, it became a back-burner issue very quickly.

And then I made the mistake of suggesting that I make a replica of the Bridge to Retirement for the cake. Then I went and visited a bunch of aquarium stores hoping to make my job little easier. No simple aquarium bridges to be found. Turns out I should've gone this route to begin with:Not bad and not altogether difficult. It was a passable chocolate replica of the sturdy redwood bridge they'd installed.

Next, I needed to try and replicate the dry creek bed that runs under the bridge. A trip to my favorite cake supplies store provided not only some really killer cake mix for the 16" cake, but some fantastic "chocolate rocks" that were just what I needed.As soon as I got all the creekbed done, I knew I'd made a mistake frosting the whole thing white. It's a garden. It's dirt! Nothing a package of Oreos (stuffing removed) and a rolling pin couldn't handle!

I had a little bit of white fondant left over from Smunch's birthday cake and used that to fashion a green water pump. I also had some colored fondant I used to make more flowers to make everything more garden like.In a final act of decorating inspiration, I decided to try and make it look like water was coming out of the pump. To my astonishment, it worked...really well!I also used the green fondant for the stars on the side of the cake. I know they look kind of odd on this garden cake, but they are a take on the school logo and were actually more appropriate than you'd think.

The worst part of this cake was trying to write on top of Oreo crumbs. They're somewhat loose, so it's crazy difficult to pipe letters onto the top and make them look neat. In a way, that was good. It meant I couldn't get too creative with the message. It had to be short and simple. Now you have to imagine that I took this giant cake to a school-wide event. The kids were very impressed...so impressed that I ended up having to post Daddy as a sentry to make sure no fingers ended up in the frosting before it was presented to the honoree. He fielded a number of questions. Who made that? Are those real rocks? Is that real dirt? What did you use for the water? And he did it all with good humor...especially considering we'd had to reschedule our trip for this shindig.I'd say it was a grand success. Of course, it wasn't big enough for everyone. And the potluck portion of the event didn't go particularly well. We totally ran out of food. I hid the cake away until the end and those whole helped out or stuck around for a long time got to eat it. That seemed fair, considering. I sent the bridge and a big chunk of cake home with Mr. Celeste. It was yummy...which was fortunate since I never got any dinner!

Bugs!

As room mom for Smunch's class, I wanted to make something fun and festive, but fairly healthy, as a snack for their Halloween party later this week. I made these last week as a practice run. These were so easy and so cute. Who can resist a herd of creepy cheese and chow mein noodle bugs?

Splitting up

What seems like a long, long time ago, I remember having a conversation with a friend (yes, you, MommieN) about how with a girl and a boy it seems like weekends would often be relegated to Mommy going with the little girl to do one thing and Daddy taking the little boy to do something else. I wasn't sure I bought into this idea and for the most part, we don't do that very often, but last weekend was an exception.

Mam had a birthday party to attend at a pumpkin patch on the coast. And because I really wanted to go, but knew there wasn't a chance, I talked Daddy into buying tickets for the last Giants game of the season and taking Smunch to see his idol, Tim Lincecum, pitch for the last time this year against the rival Dodgers. Something about Smunch's love of baseball has sort of rekindled my own love of the game. Let's just say I was jealous and leave it at that. I was thrilled that Smuch was getting to go.

Daddy and Smunch set off early, leaving Mam and me to run a few errands. Coincidentally, we even saw their train go by as we waited at the train tracks on our way to Costco. Cool.

Before we left for the party, Daddy sent us some photos of their vantage point in the stadium.And Smunch's opinion of said vantage point.A beautiful day at the ballpark. Jealous.

Shortly after lunch, Mam and I left for the coast. It was lovely here, but about halfway there, I could tell it was going to be socked in. I crossed my fingers, hoping that my propensity for being a slob and having a car full of crap would serve me well. My slovenly ways would keep us from freezing to death in a coastal pumpkin patch.

Naturally, I listened to the game on the radio. And when the traffic slowed to a crawl with at least 10 miles to go, I became a rabid Giants fan...the kind who screams in the car and hits the roof with her fist. I wanted so badly for Smunch to see his team win for a change. Doesn't seem like watching the Padres win should really count. And he really does love Lincecum. I wanted Lincecum to pitch well and have a chance at the Cy Young award that would really send Smunch over the moon. And I'm sure I had PMS because when the Giants finally scored the go-ahead run in the 8th inning...and we still hadn't reached the pumpkin patch...I was in tears.

Mam is doubtlessly scarred for life by this experience.

Fortunately, we finally made it to the birthday party, although we were half an hour late. We were still some of the first guests to arrive. Daddy forgot to take the new camera with him and the party included not only pumpkins, but pony rides, a bouncy house, train rides and run of the whole patch. So I took lots of cute photos. Although Mam had several friends there who she talked with and rode ponies with, she mostly did her own thing with Mommy.I admit to going back to the mommymobile for an extra sweater. I was cold. But I'll bashfully admit I also stuck the key in the ignition and turned on the radio just to make sure the Giants had won. So we had a fun day and met Smunch and Daddy for pizza on the way home.

Now that I think about it, we may have split up for the day. Mam was certainly into her party and I was definitely there with her, chatting and taking photos. But in the end, I'm not sure I wasn't there with the boys too...

Park Daze

Around here, probably as in many school districts around the country, it's tradition (apparently) to end the school year with a day in the park. Both kids had a day in the park. Turns out it was the same park, just two days apart. Mam's "park day" was first. Her preschool always puts on a spectacular event for all the little kids...complete with a bouncy house, a bouncy caterpillar to crawl around in, face painting, fishing for prizes, a "snack walk", bean bag toss, treasure hunt, bubble, popcorn, ice cream. You name it. I had to take Smunch this year since he wasn't in school 'til the afternoon, but we all had a good time...despite Mam just having recovered from her miserable stomach thing.Here's our Mam with one of her favorite teachers, Mrs. P, doing the treasure hunt.She came home with lots of crap loot. I loved Mam's teachers this year. They were truly fantastic. I was really excited to find out she'll be having one of them again next year. She was thrilled too.

Smunch's park day happened on Wednesday, which was also his last day of kindergarten. It's hard to believe it was over so fast. It was a similar kind of event, also featuring bubbles and face painting, but adding more snacks, spin art... and the most fantastic game ever - the donut eating "contest". The only prize for eating your donut was that you got to eat a donut, but that was reward enough. This was the best photo op ever!It was sort of a bittersweet day, at the end. Without a year-long teacher to show for all the effort, the class took happy photos with their "long-term" sub, who was with them for a week and a half. I give her a lot of credit for taking over. She did a really good job, working with very little other than 17 kindergarteners who had gotten awfully squirrelly before she showed up. Did I mention the face painting?

So, it's over. Wow. It feels more momentous than I'd imagined. Despite all the difficulties with speech, with hearing, with just sitting still...Smunch got a glowing literacy report to go with his pretty, new diploma. You would have thought he'd just graduated from med school with how fast I ran out and bought a frame for him. I'm proud of the little guy and it turns out...he's pretty proud of himself too!