State MathCounts!

There's really not a lot of action at a MathCounts competition. The kids do math, the parents & coaches sit and wait. Then, the kids get a break. Then they do more math. The only action is really the scratch of pencils as the best mathletes in the State compete for one of 4 slots on Michigan's team for National MathCounts.

Here's my favorite Mathlete, playing with his toys before the Target & Sprint rounds. Seriously--look at what's in front of him. Gum. Rubik's Cube. Rubik's Cube. Rubik's cube. Cartoon calc book. Water. Sheesh!

And Brendan's BFF, Z. Z brought most of the toys. His toys, combined with Brendan's toys, were really a lot of toys. They were cool as cucumbers before the competition began. I honestly don't know where he gets that--I was a nervous nelly!

Once they pulled the timer up onto the big screen, it was time to let them fly their math flag. We left--and both boys kicked some major math bootie!!

Brendan is now ranked #14 in Michigan, out of approximately 1,200 Mathletes. His best buddy Z is ranked #5.

So proud of my kid!

Let's Go Red Wings!

yep. the photo is blurry-it's not your eyes!

This is Hockeytown, and in Hockeytown, we love our Red Wings. So much so that I just hafta grow Red Wing onions. Yep. I am the ultimate gardening hockey fan.

Oh, and in case you've not grown these little gems, they are of course RED.

Quotable Kids

I know the blog's been quiet this week--with temps in the 80's it's been more fun to be outside!

Scene: yesterday at the dinner table. Bryce was upset about something, so in an attempt to make him laugh, I started saying silly phrases to him.

Bryce: (crying)
Me: Bryce, go take a long walk off a short pier.
Bryce: (Crying)
Me: Go jump in a lake
Bryce: (crying)
Me: There's no "i" in "team"
Bryce: (crying)
Me: Go fly a kite.
Bryce: But I don't have a kite! Can we go get a kite at Meijer?

gotta love kids!

Tuesday Garden Update

It's a beautiful Tuesday in March here in Hockeytown. Temps are unseasonably warm (it's mid 60's here today) and we've had very little snow and cold temps. My perennials are up much earlier than normal and it's so exciting to see what's growing.

First up is my lone crocus. Yep. Just one. What kind of person only plants one crocus? Believe me, I'm not that person---I actually planted 100 or so of the giant species crocus the fall we moved into this house (so, ah, 14+ years ago) and one year the moles/voles/groundhogs/squirrels got to the bulbs. Whatever bulbs managed to survive and come up were then forced to endure death by nibbling rabbit. So it's just this lone crocus left after all these years. I'm not planting more, that's for sure.

Next up I see my lovely hyacinths starting to poke their noses up. They pop up in this location earlier than anywhere else because they are just a few inches away from my concrete driveway AND they have a perfect southern exposure. The blooms are a little gangly looking because, yep, they are 14+ years old, too, but I'm not one to rip out bulbs! So they stay.

And finally, all of my sedum (variety is similar to "Autumn Joy" but predates it) is coming up. I like sedum. I don't have to really do much of anything to it and it always looks nice. It's a major bee attractor and looks pretty in the winter with snow piled on top of it. Well it looks good in all the other winters, this winter was a bit of a disappointment. I'm pretty sure all of my plants of this variety originate as cuttings from a sedum my Dad bought in the 70's.

Hopefully next week I'll have some vegetable garden action to show off. I'm just itching to get in the soil and plant some food!

Transforming A Plain-Jane Stairway

We have 17 steps leading upstairs. 17 steps of ugliness. They were built with the intention of laying carpet on top of them, but when we found out it would be--gulp--$1,000 to have carpet installed on those 17 stairs we said, "NO WAY!"

So, we painted them. First try with the paint, we painted them navy blue. We used porch paint and added the little anti-slip granules (think sand!) to keep the treads safe for the kids. I also put wallpaper on their fronts. This was pre-digital photography era and the thought of rummaging though my scrapbooks to find a photo and scan it is making my head hurt. So just imagine it.

Then I got tired of the navy blue and we painted the stairs black.

Pardon the horrible photo. There is a window at the top of the stairs and I'm really quite an amateur with photography, so no matter what I did, I couldn't get rid of the glow up at the landing.  You'll note that the walls are a beige-y cream color and there is a lovely patchwork of drywall mud along the sides of the stairs. My littlest boy did that damage.

So, along comes Pinterest. I see stairs, previously ugly stairs, transformed into gorgeousness by a simple sanding and painting. How hard is it to sand and paint? Well, turns out this project is a paint in the BOO-tay. Big ol' pain, actually. It's been going on for several months now.

First, I just painted the face of the steps with white Kilz, just to see how that would look. Hey, even with the crappy paint job, I think it looks GREAT!

The base of our stairs are wacky. This house is a remodeled 1947 cottage...and our remodel was actually the 4th addition put on the house. So here we have new stairs meeting 1947 oak and 2000 vinyl. BUT, the white face looks GOOD! I do have an idea for that bottom step, which might include putting a new tread on it and lengthening it to extend over the wall...and then wrapping the base moulding around the front. But first thing first.

So then, we sanded everything. I do mean we--I sanded, Brad sanded, and Brendan sanded. Turns out Brendan is some sort of freak with the sander. I mean freak in a good way-he ended up with the best technique, so LUCKY BRENDAN got to sand all 17 stairs. (I mean "lucky me, b/c Brendan sanded all 17 stairs.")

Next came the drywall mud to fix all the problems on the stairs. Too many problems to list here, but let's just say that these bad boys were supposed to be covered by carpet, after all! They are warped, cracked, pitted, uneven, and gappy. Yes, gappy is a word. I just made it up.

If you look closely, you can see the blue peeking through on the tread. You can clearly see the drywall mud that is everywhere. Blech. 

Here's another look at the stairs...this is what you can see pretty much from our front door.

Isn't that awesome?! Work in progress, people, a work in progress.

Here's my original inspiration for the stairs, as found on Pinterest:

Source: google.ca via Dorothy on Pinterest

ORIGINAL source: Centsational Girl
(someone please help me source this photo...I would like to properly credit the owner)  Thank you, D'arcy, for pointing me in the right direction! Centsational Girl did this sweet stairway redo.


Even the "before" in the inspiration photo looks better than my before. And better than my "during". Will my "after" prove to have been worth all the work? Stay tuned...

It's All Gone!

It seems I made too many of my hot peppers (jalepeno and anaheim) into pepper jelly (which nobody in my family eats....but that's another story) because I just today used up the last of my diced & frozen peppers in a sausage muffin recipe we like.

WAAAH!!!!!

I had been using the peppers sparingly, even though when the plants are producing out back I seem to find a way to dice up a nice slightly spicy pepper and throw it into whatever I'm cooking. I only had a few cups frozen and obviously, since I've now run out in March (and early March, at that!) I clearly need to make less pepper jelly and freeze more in dice form.

Here's what I made this morning:

That is about 2C of diced onion and about 1/2C of diced mixed spicy peppers, cooked until soft to go into the sausage muffins.

So, my apologies in advance to those of you on the receiving end of the pepper jelly in the past...there will be MUCH less of it to go around this summer!

How To Make A (Girlie) Pinewood Derby Car.

Behold the power of glitter!
Feast your eyes on the amazing pink Pinewood Derby cars!
Stun the menfolk in the Cub Pack with a Barbie and Hello Kitty car!

These are the Pinewood entries for myself (the Hello Kitty car, complete with glittered wheels) and my girlfriend R (the Barbie head car, complete with sail-like ponytail).

Warning--this is not technical. This is so that any Pinewood Derby novice (cough cough...or MOM) can build a Pinewood car of her very own. Why should the boys get all the fun???

Here's what you do:

Start with a Pinewood Derby car kit. Cut car down to a classic wedge shape. Buy  weights,  Hello Kitty stickers, and rhinestone stickers. Sand liberally. 

Buy spray paint in a girlie color. I chose Valspar Frosty Berry. Oh-buy glitter. 

close up of the stickers and rhinestones. 

Sand the classic wedge shape smooth, spray paint it.  It will take a few coats. 

Tape off the "tread" portion of the wheels. Spray paint them pink and sprinkle on copious amounts of glitter while the paint is wet. Giggle to yourself because your Pack has never seen glittered wheels before!

Add rhinestone BLING and stickers to car. 

Pink sparkly wheels waiting  for the axles to be graphited. Yes, that's a word. 

Et VOILA!  My lovely Hello Kitty car, which I've named "Pretty in Pink." And yes, that's an 80's reference if you're paying attention. The fact that I got eyerolls from several of the men-folk of the Pack is really my reward. If R's Barbie car or my Hello Kitty car should win the adult race? The icing on the cake. The PINK cake.

This post linked to A Bowl Full of Lemons

I see food!

This is a lovely photo of a home that has taken out the lawn to plant perennials. I found it on Better Homes & Gardens website. I look at this--but I see FOOD. What I  mean is that I see a gorgeous front lawn that would be even more gorgeous were it converted to raising food instead of perennials. Don't get me wrong, I totally LOVE when people rip out most of their lawn in favor of a nice perennial bed. But my paradigm is shifting. Bye bye suburban lawn-hello FOOD.

What do you think?

Source: bhg.com via Dorothy on Pinterest

You can follow me on Pinterest...I pin all sorts of cool things for the garden.

Cast Iron...it's what cooks dinner.

Do you have a cast iron pan you love? I do. I have 2-a teeny 6" and a nice12" skillet. I feel mucho guilt about having used non-stick teflon-coated cookware for my family's food, but hey, live and learn! Sometimes what's old is what's best!  For our other cooking pan needs, we have switched to stainless steel.

Check out this awesome article which explains the merits of cast iron.
Live Green - Top 5 Reasons Why Cast Iron Is The Greenest Choice For Non-Stick Cooking

Pinewood Derby Car!

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

I'm building my own Pinewood Derby car this year. I'm going with the classic wedge design--keepin' that weight at the back of the car.

Here's my rough cut car:

It needs a little tweaking, but that's the basic concept.

Oh-and for the decorating? Here's my inspiration:

Source: google.com via Dorothy on Pinterest

Whatcha think? Hello Kitty at a Pinewood Derby race? Any of you ladies ever make a Pinewood car?

Food Allergy Lying.

Something that's popped up in the past couple of weeks with Bryce is his (crafty) use of food allergy to try to manipulate what he will and won't eat for dinner. I know, I know, many kids lie, but this latest round of lying has us wondering exactly what we should do to handle it.

At the dinner table, Bryce has begun to tell us that if he eats food x, "it gives me hives." Obviously, we aren't feeding him things that would actually give him hives. He's telling us he'll get hives because he doesn't want to eat it! Crafty? Yes, very much so. Manipulative? Very much so. Potentially problematic? Very much so. How do you correct this clear misuse of his allergies?

Let's back up We have spent the past 3 years of his life trying to teach him about what he's allergic to, which is quite a daunting list. We don't make it into big lessons, it's more like spur of the moment as we're cooking or baking or even shopping. "Can Bryce eat eggs?" we ask him when we're buying eggs at the store. "Can Bryce drink milk?" we ask when the kids pour milk on their cereal. We point out that we eat different noodles than he eats. Or that the frosting I make is safe to eat, but he can't eat other frosting. Little teachable moments. We've talked about what happens when he eats foods that he's allergic to-he gets hives, he gets a scratchy throat, we have to give him Benadryl. We have never said that certain foods will make him "sick" or anything generic like that. We've taught him the symptoms of anaphylaxis as much as a preschooler can understand anaphylaxis.

He has enough understanding of what hives are to know that when we look intently at his face and ask one another, "Is that a hive on his cheek?" he will start crying and say that he doesn't need any Benadryl. He knows that once the hive word pops out, the Benadryl is sure to follow.

So it's interesting that he's using the "it will give me hives" excuse to avoid eating things he doesn't want to eat. He's used it on noodles (quinoa or corn only). He's used it on meat (mostly on hamburger, there's very little in the pork world that he WON'T eat). He's used it on various fruit/veggies. We tell him that no, that food won't give him hives. We stress that Mom/Dad/Brendan/Brett would never give him the wrong food. We want to make sure he understands that WE understand what will and will not cause hives. We have also told him he has to eat "x" (which usually prompts crying-but we tough that out.) I've also gone so far as to say that maybe he needs to be skin tested for that food--which he absolutely doesn't want to do. I hate to do that, though because I don't want him to start freaking out about just going to the allergist.

Where do we go from here? Aside from correcting him-what else can we do? We don't want him to use food allergy as a means to avoid trying new (safe) things. We don't want him going to school and telling his first grade teacher he can't do activity X because it'll "give him hives." But we also don't want him to just put anything in his mouth without thinking about it or reading the label (when he's older) or asking us if it's ok.

It's a fine line-trying to get him to understand that he can't eat certain things while not letting him become AFRAID of eating in general.

This food allergy life sure is tricky. They just don't make manuals for this!


Linked up at:

Quotable Kids.

The new shoes the boys got the other day have prompted quite a bit of discussion. Brendan was putting on his new shoes gunboats aircraft carriers this morning (a pair of athletic-type shoes in a size 13) and we joked about how they could serve a small child as a life boat. I should add that because these new shoes aren't all broken down destroyed, they make him taller than me. (umm, i'm pretty tall)

Brendan: Mom, I noticed at the store there were no size 14's.
Me: Yeah, I think (store name) really only carries up to a 13.
Brendan: (slightly worried look on face)
Me: Don't freak out about it-they make shoes in a 14 and larger, we'll just have to go to the Nike store or the New Balance store to get them. Think about how big some of those basketball players are--they make shoes much larger than 14.
Brendan: I was worried I'd have to learn how to make shoes.
(he was serious, people.)
Me: Naw, you don't have to add "cobbler" to your college entrance forms.

=)

Quotable Kids

The kids got new shoes yesterday. Brendan is now wearing a men's size 13. THIRTEEN, people. Sheesh.

Anyhow, Brett and I were talking about his new shoes while we were waiting for his bus this morning. His are black and green (his favorite color) and they have a velcro strap for fastening.

Brett: My new shoes will really help me get a better education.
(seriously? Where does this kid come up with this stuff?)
Me: How will shoes help you get a better education?
Brett: Well, I won't have to stop and retie them 2 minutes into the 4 minute run in gym class. And I won't have to retie them when I'm in reading group with K. And then I won't have to retie them during recess. So less retying means more learning.
(what do you say to that? Most kids think new shoes make you run faster. My kid thinks they'll make him smarter.)
Me: Cool Brett! Have a great day!