Odds and Ends

Last week was Drug Awareness Week with a different theme each day at the boys' school.  Tuesday was crazy sock day.  Do you know how hard it is to find crazy socks for boys?  These are actually from the ladies' "holiday accessory" section at Target, but shhhhh, let's not tell them. (The orange socks had tiny bows at the cuffs which I cut off before showing them to my boys):

 


Lavella and I had our very first Girls' Day Out.  We met up with our next door neighbors Alex and her three-year-old daughter, and went to see the Rogers and Hammerstein production of Cinderella, as acted out by our local theater.

 

Lavella could have really used a nap before we went, but overall, it was a great time together.


Making dessert for Greg is always a challenging endeavor -- he's not really a "dessert sort of guy", but he does enjoy the occasional sweet...it just can't involve chocolate, pie crust, nuts, cooked fruit, or dark caramel.  I think he's trying to stretch my creative genius.  For his birthday this year (Oct. 19th -- happy 33rd birthday, my love!), I made the old fashioned and elegant Floating Islands dessert: meringue "islands" poached in milk, "floating" in Creme Anglaise sauce.

 
(Recipe from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan -- my baking hero)

It was delicious, but we both agreed that the caramel drizzled on top should probably have been caramel sauce and not brittle threads.  I kind of enjoyed the crunch, but it was a little difficult to avoid getting stabbed in the mouth.


I recently came across a recipe for Caramel Macchiato Popcorn Balls and modified it to clusters instead.

 

Instead of using store bought caramel cubes, as the coating, I made my own caramel (are you surprised?) from this one on Allrecipes.com.  Instead of fussing with forming popcorn balls, I spread the sticky popcorn on baking sheets and baked them as directed in the Allrecipes version.  I wanted the chocolate and caramel to maintain their distinct flavors, so I opted to drizzle the chocolate (shot through with espresso powder and Saigon cinnamon) on top after baking instead of mixing it in to the caramel. 

 


Sharp darts are not often introduced at such a tender age, but Greg recently bought a dart board with the boys, and they were showing Jonah how to throw them a few days ago.

 


 


 


Andrew was presented with a Citizen Of The Month award for October, as well as Perfect Attendance, and the Hustle Award for Physical Education.

 
(With friends Clara and JT)


 

Elijah would have gotten a Perfect Attendance award as well, but the poor little guy was down with a fever one day, and even though I got a Dr's excuse for him, they still marked him as absent.  This ended with a melt-down at the end of his classes' awards ceremony.  I felt terrible for him; we're going to do our best to at least help him earn his perfect attendance this next 9-week period.

Last week ended with a Scare Away Drugs/Halloween parade at their school.  Our boys dressed as Thing 1 and Thing 2.  Sadly I didn't get any pictures of them together, but here's the parade.


 
(Elijah's teacher)


 
(Our friend Aby)


 
(Elijah)


 
(Our friend Kelly)


 
(Pretending To Be Reluctant Andrew)


Two days ago, I went from Fiery Redhead to Plastic Rockstar Blond.

 

It's the most artificial blond I've probably ever achieved.  I'm totally infatuated with this look.  I'm sure it'll pass quickly and we'll be back to red in no time.  Or purple.


So there you go -- a Random Friday Wrap-up!  Next blog post with have pics of one of Elijah's soccer games, but right now, I have some cookies to bake.  Have a lovely weekend!