Little on the Market
Little bit map it
Alan socket,
Yellow cards and light;
Ireland in the spider
Batman forever
And write it was not back away.

Can you guess what that one was?

I’ve been working ALOT the past week and a half while I covered for a very important vacationing coworker. And my arms and wrists are starting to ache. Imagine my relief when I accidentally discovered that Vista has built in speech recognition software! And my surprise when, at least according to the tutorial, it worked quite well!

After inviting my kids to come witness my first attempts at having the computer type whatever I wanted to say, I quickly discovered the tutorial was a total sham; I should have taken a clue from the fact that it had a hard time understanding me when I said “Next” or “OKAYYYY!!”

But the rest of the text SEEMED so amazingly accurate! At least compared to the time we had Grandpa B try Dragon Naturally Speaking a decade ago. As I recall, the only thing it recorded accurately were his curses of frustration. He didn’t think it was nearly as funny as we did.

Anyway, I was amazed at the progress made in speech recognition over the past ten years, till I realized the tutorial knew exactly what I was going to say. I mean, it TOLD me what to say. Then it just typed what it expected to make itself look smart, or maybe to make me look stupid when I tried to wow the kids.

But that’s not to say it was a total waste of an evening. The kids and I decided to try its skills against Mother Goose. And here’s what turned out..

Continual Battle
Nobel! The tart and it all,
That are jumped over the Moon;
The little dart last
To the docs sports,
And the DS ran away with this bill.

Donald Byrd in its Ruling
That unless we’re in a tree,
Townsend and see what might be.
One foresaw a row
Super joint
Three were girl
Work for a blade;
The silver
Exportable
Don Boris secret
That never been told

But I’d Like Steve
I’m not black sea,
Annual anymore?
Dexter, the answer,
Three banks will:

One woman master,
One woman team,
One of the little boy
Liz Donnelly

Littler Rule
Little Whitman, and will your horn;
The sheets and meadow, the council are worn.
Where will the way to look back and see?
In the event that, that that we.

Put the paparazzi that
But the bat was that when an event?
I’ve been to lending some of the queen.
20 that, but that, what you there?
I’ve written a little now under the care.

Say what?
Whoever guesses all these first should get a prize. Because as Vista would put it, “Vulcan fortunes, and I’m looking man, corn with these Poland’s back together again.”

If you know of a whoville hairstyle trick, please drop your how-to on this page. And in the meanwhile I’ll be trying to figure something out, and will post what I did if it works out

Another closer pic of the who-hair from last year. Didn't turn out fabulous, but it did work...

Easiest idea, IMHO, came from my friend Jen: wrap the hair up over a pantyhose egg and add a fake-hair clip in a fun color. Easy peasy and there’s no mess of hairspray or hair paint to wash out.

This is what else I noticed:

I would say most of the moms actually put a plastic drinking cup on top of their daughters head, then pulled the hair up and around it. Some of them curled the ends, some fluffed them out, and some braided them with pipe cleaners and ribbons to make funky shapes.

Mary’s hair was a bit too fine and thin for all that, but I did want the grinch-movie type height on her head. So instead of a cup, I used the taller half of a large plastic easter egg, and made a top-of-the-head pontyail just above that. Her hair covered that easily — well, I did have to use lots of thinned-out spiking glue to make it hold up.

I tried, really, to braid a pipe cleaner into her hair because I wanted to make a spiral with it. Alas and alack, my sister is so talented with braiding, I’ve never really learned how to do it well for myself. So I tried curling mary’s ends with my curling iron, and I learned that very fine smooth and shiny hair like mary’s does not cooperate with a curling iron.

Mary with her who-hair being shy for the camera (Shy is OK for the web)

Still, the egg under her hair gave her head sortof a hershy’s kiss shape, and it was cute. A teacher added a bow for her (something I couldn’t find in my craft box at home) and she ended up looking very cute. If only she weren’t so petrified about the performance. Here she is singing her song. hee hee… (too bad my camera’s built-in video left much to be desired!)

1 8 oz brick of cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup of Milk
1 graham cracker crust
Ripe banana + a few tablespoons of lemon juice (Or some other fruit if you’d like for another variation)
1 pkg instant pudding (Banana flavor for this variation)
Sweetened Whipped Cream

1) Blend the cream cheese until it’s smooth. Slowly add the milk and continue blending until it’s creamy and not quite as thick.
2) Slice your banana and dip the pieces in lemon juice to keep them from turning brown, and put them on the bottom of a graham cracker crust.
3) Slowly add the pudding mix to the milk and cream cheese. Blend just till smooth and spread/pour it into the crust ASAP (It will get really thick, really fast, so work quickly).

Put that in the fridge until you are ready to serve it. And when you are ready, cover the top with whipped cream, and that’s that.

Her design is alot more complex than the ones I did, but she still whipped it up in a weekend, by working on the fish-shapes individually and then merging them all together with ripples for water. Every fish needs a friend, so Eva made her copies by first drawing out her fish design, then stapling a few pieces of black paper together where the cutouts would be. That way, she could cu two of her fishies out at once. Here’s Eva’s awesome work of art:

A work in progress - here

The finished under-water themed

If anyone wants to send her a comment, just drop it in the contact form and I’ll forward it along. She rocks And if you’ve created a design using this technique, by all means, please send in a photograph and your story!

If you’re looking for insect / ladybug / bug related birthday items, you can find some here and support this article at the same time!

We just had a Buggy Birthday Party for my now five-year-old. I can only hope the kids had fun, but I was so busy trying to keep things running, I honestly don’t know. Thankfully a few other moms were there and were kindly willing to help. But my main gague of how it went are my husband’s comments, and if his view is accurate, it was a total flop. I tried so hard to make it fun, and I’m a bit sad to know I spent all that energy for something that didn’t turn out well.

However, the caterpillar CAKE did turn out well. So that idea I will share, plus the other ideas I had and whether or not they worked.

Going with the theme of Bugs, and loosely defining bugs as arthropods, a caterpillar cake was fitting. And it was easy. Actually, now that I think about it, the first attempt at at the caterpillar cake flopped too, but I happened to have just enough time to correct it. I am hoping anyone who googles across this looking for bug birthday parties can learn from my mistakes, correct what went wrong, and have a better party than mine.

The first time I made the cake, I failed to account for the fact that I was at a much higher elevation than I’d been used to, and it came out full of gigantic bubbles that made it fall apart. Luckily, once I decided on a do-over, it went together very quickly.

By the way, to those of you complaining that I lifted this idea, I came up with it myself or I would have said otherwise. Someone copied it almost word for word and posted it to Family Fun, only their cake looked scary. This is the original. Consider the source sited.

The ingredients:
White chocolate chips
“Special Dark” chocolate chips
Lemon Frosting
Lemon Cake Mix (plus required ingredients)
Just a little green and yellow food coloring
Nestle Crunch “Stixx” (Sticks)

You also need a bundt pan, a wire rack, waxed paper, a pastry brush, shortening, flour, and a sharp serrated knife. If you’ve got a leaf-shaped serving tray, PERFECT, otherwise you’ll also need some green paper leaves to set on a regular tray.

This caterpillar cake looks ADORABLE on a table set all in green, or you can mix up a few favorite colors like green and blue, depending on your party them. You can find some inexpensive colorful plasticware / table settings here

Make a cake following the recipe, baking in a greased and floured bundt pan. Let the cake cool for 15 minutes then turn it onto a wire rack that is over some waxed paper.

Cut a section out of the cake, and turn it around on itself so it is curvy like a caterpillar. Level off the bottom if you have to.

Mix the frosting with a little food coloring to make a lovely chartruse. Heat it up in the microwave for about 10 seconds, to the point where it is easily poured but still somewhat thick.

Drizzle a spoonful of the frosting at a time over the cake. It is not going to look smooth, but when's the last time you saw a smooth looking catapillar? A side thought -- this shape would make a lovely cake for anyone who is turning 29 for the umpteenth time.

UPDATE: Try adding a little vegetable oil to the melted chips. This things out the chocolate and makes it easier to drizzle at cooler temps. Melt the white chocolate chips and dark chocolate chips in the microwave as well. Only microwave them for ten seconds at a time, stirring quite a bit in between. You don’t want to over-melt the chips, since you’ll need to temper them anyway. Cool them off to the point where they’re still melted but no longer hot. Two things happen if you leave it too hot: the dark chocolate blooms and you’ll make the green frosting melt right off the cake.

Spoon the white chocolate over the cake. You might need to ease it down the edges just a little. Then do the same with the dark chocolate.

Transfer the entire cake to the serving tray, and add the Nestle Crunch Stixx for antennae. You can add chocolate chip eyes if you would like to. My picture here might be a little TOO close to see the whole effect, but, it was very cute.

One thing that didn’t turn out so cute, however, were the bug-pizzas. I can’t call them “lady bugs” because they were for a boy. Whatever But the real reason I can’t call them that, is by the time they were baked, they didn’t look like bugs at all.

Prior to baking, they looked somewhat like bugs. Not so much afterward.

Several well meaning people told me they looked like tadpoles. Other, more honest people, admitted that the “tails” (originally the divider lines for the backs of the lady bugs, which shriveled in the oven, to my dismay) were too thin for tadpole tails, but they did look like little swimmers of a sort. All that said, they still tasted good, but no one knew it. They were eating the Little Ceasars pizza my husband brought. When we got home he said, “Those bug pizzas were a waste of time. No one even tasted them. Good thing I brought the other pizzas!” Yep, thanks.

The insect invitations were cute, but difficult to make.

The games we were to play, were “six legged” races (three kids would link arms in the back and run that way), a bug treasure hunt – where the kids were to find 96 bugs from Oriental Trading Catlogue, and a craft of buggy-visors (visors with pipe-cleaners through the holes, threaded with beads to complete the antennae). We were going to play at the park too, but the park turned out to be too crowded that day.

Each child got a balloon and a bag of favors: magnifying glasses, pop rocks, a tiny chico-stick, smarties, laffy-taffy, sour-straws, and a booklet I’d made about bugs. The printer got the margins all wrong, but other than that they were cute, and I met a nice girl at OfficeMax who helped me put them together.

Now all that’s left to do are the thank-you cards. Ethan will need to help with those. The kids brought so many fun toys, and the adults who stayed there were lifesavers. The party should have been fun, and I’m a bit disappointed that it wasn’t as much fun as it could have been. I think if I were to give it another go it would be better, but, no need. Ethan was happy, and that’s what matters most to me.

This is a great trick to do with “managers special” cheese – the 50% off kind … … that’s nearing (but not over) it’s expiration date. Yes I hear your “EWwwwws!” but trust me on this. If you buy it from the bargain bin you can get the NICE brands of cheese for less than generic. Generic cheeses are so hit and miss. Nice-though-nearly-expired cheese tastes consistently better. Mind you, depending on the store you shop at, “Managers Special” cheddar may be a bit sharper than what it says on the label. It’s not going to get any sharper in your freezer though, as long as you use it within four months or so. When you do thaw it, just use it up soon. A slightly sharper flavor is especially tasty when using it for salad toppings, casseroles, and yummy barbecued cheeseburgers – anywhere you need a kick of cheesy flavor.

Should you wish to bring your cheese back to sliceability, wrap it in damp cheesecloth (see? You knew they called it cheesecloth for a reason!) and keep it at room temperature for a while, then pop it back in the fridge.

Castle in the Clouds Birthday Cake.

For this cake, you’ll need

- A cake mix (I used betty crocker lemon)
- A can of frosting (Again, I used lemon; you can use strawberry or food color your frosting according to your princess’s tastes!)
- Ice-cream cups
- Ice cream cones
- Pink icing that comes in a tube (or whatever color your princess likes)
- Cotton Candy for the clouds
- Pillow mints for the castle “stones” – you could also do grey frosting and chocolate rocks!
- Sugar glitter (optional)
- Toothpicks
- Paper or pink fondant for the windows, castle door, and flags

- You’ll need a tiny doll for this cake. There are some adorable polly-pocket style Disney princesses you can get here . Thesedolls come with flexible rubber clothes and tiny removable shoes and crowns, so for a younger princess, you can find some Disney princess figurines here.

I’ve never been talented in the birthday cake decorating arena, so maybe you can imagine my surprise when this cake turned out as cute as it did, especially since it was so easy.

If you’ve got a little princess in need of a castle cake, start by dividing your favorite cake recipe (mine’s Better Crocker Lemon) between a loaf pan and a square pan. To make it easy to get the cakes out whole, you might want to line the bottoms of the pan with cut-to-size parchment paper. We actually used regular paper and just greased it.

After giving both cakes a good crumb coating (How? Microwave about 1/3 cup frosting for 5 seconds & spread a thin layer over everything to keep crumbs at bay) put the square cake on the serving tray and the loaf cake on top, right across the center. If your loaf was a little too long for the square you can safely take a slice right out of the middle, push the ends together, and hold them in place with toothpicks.

I cut most of my decorations out of pink paper. The “trickiest” cut was the castle door, and really that was pretty easy. I took a 3 inch wide strip of paper, folded it in half twice to make guides, took the edges of the paper toward the center, then folded again at the center. Then I just cut the arch out. Check out the picture & this will make more sense. Of course, if you have a different idea for the door you can use it, this was just one easy way…

Then cut out out windows and flags. Be sure the flags are cut on the fold so they’ll wrap around a toothpick. You can “glue” them onto the top of a toothpick using a little icing. To mount the flags, you’ll need to slice the ends off 5 sugar cones, making a hole just wide enough to hold a toothpick.

A few photos of some of the steps - these probably make a lot more sense than the paragraphs explaining them!

Take four ice cream cups and flank them on each side of the loaf cake. Secure them by sticking a toothpick through the bottom of each one. Put one cup upside down, front and center on the loaf. Take your 5 sugar cones and put them upside down on each cup, using a little icing to glue them into place. Thank you LJC (http://ljcfyi.com) for this idea!

Now you just need to mount your flags and add your windows and doors. Add pillow-mint key stones and whatever other decorations you like.

Moments before serving, add clouds by fluffing up some cotton candy with two forks and tucking it around the cake; just note that if you do this step too early, the clouds will melt and look really nasty. I added a tiny doll — this one’s a polly pocket style Cinderella , and candles pointed away from the paper flags… voila! A cake fit for my little princess.

And for the rest of the party, you can find a huge selection of Princess birthday party supplies here… including 99 cent tiaras, pretty princess plates, princess stickers, cello-bags with crowns on them, balloons, costumes, Princess wall-stickers, and even life-size stand up Disney princesses. They even have a stand-up Princess Peach, and a Royal Strawberry Shortcake. Seriously. Every Princess birthday party supply imaginable. Enjoy!

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

1/2 teaspoon vinegar

1/2 teaspoon prepared mustard

1-2 slices of ham lunch-meat, chopped finely

Green Food Coloring

Dill Weed

Slice the eggs in half lengthwise. Place the egg whites on a serving plate. Take out the yolks and use a fork to smash them thoroughly in a small bowl. Blend in the mustard, vinegar, mayonnaise, and then add a few drops of food coloring to make the yolks a lovely bright green. Add the ham.

Spoon the yolk mixture into each egg slice (or for a party, pipe into the eggs using an icing bag and a large star tip), and garnish with a sprig of dill weed.

Batter Up!

Home Run!

UPDATE: She got the job and LOVES it!