Happy Belated Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving from Dee, Melissa, Emily, and Ty! We hope everyone had a great day with food, family, and fun!





Emily and Ty are dressed in support of the Roos! We play tomorrow in round 3 of the playoffs.

Very Funny Blog

For the past few months, I have been reading probably the funniest blog that is on the 'net. It is called Cakewrecks. People send in pictures of PROFESSIONALLY decorated cakes that are awful. Sometimes, the decorations are just ugly. Sometimes, they are distasteful, and sometimes, the bakers make humorous grammar/spelling mistakes. When I first stumbled upon it, I ended up reading nearly all the archives. I was laughing so hard that I was in pain! The author has a great sense of humor, and I really enjoy her comments on the cakes. I also enjoy the readers' comments.

Today's post was about turkey cakes, so in the spirit of Thanksgiving, you should check them out!Turkey Cakes.

Whenever you need a good laugh, get comfy and read through the posts! To get you started on the right track, here are some of my faves!

Clicky, Clicky

I'd love to hear what you think! Have a great weekend!

Birthdays, New Stuff, and Elections...You WILL Laugh

This post is a sort of hodgepodge of what's been happening lately with us. I hope it doesn't seem too chopped up!

BIRTHDAYS
We've been busy around here with birthdays. Dee's birthday was on election day. This is the cake I made for him. It's a playstation 3 controller. I feel bad for him because he never has time to play his PS3 during football season. He could, but he helps me out around the house and watches TV with me instead of playing video games. What a sweetie! So I thought if he can't play it, maybe he'd want to eat it!

I made my own fondant, colored it black, and covered the cake. I love using fondant on cakes. It's so much easier than you would think, and my recipe actually tastes good (I do put buttercream underneath too). Since it was dark and I had to use my on-camera flash, the photo doesn't do it justice (it looks sort of blotchy). In real life, it looked perfect--it was so cute I wanted to pick it up and start playing video games....



Emily is singing to her Dad here. Emily's favorite part of any birthday celebration is singing Happy Birthday! She also really likes the part where her Daddy let her blow out the candles and open his gifts.



My bday is exactly one week after Dee's. When we first got married, we used to alternate celebrating our birthdays together. For example, one year, we'd both celebrate on his, and the next year, we'd both celebrate on mine. It was really fun to open our gifts together and share a bday dessert. But after having kids, we lost track of which day we were supposed to celebrate on. And I also think it's more fun for the kids to have 2 separate "celebrations."

So for my bday, we had the day off. Dee had practice in the morning, and the kids went to school, so I enjoyed a blissful morning in my PJs.... All. By. My. Self. (YAY!) Dee and I went to lunch together at Olive Garden and picked up the kids after their naps. He made his awesome lasagna (Yes, we had Italian twice in one day), and he helped me take Emily to ballet. This was a blessing because I do not enjoy entertaining an 18 m/o while Emily attends her weekly dance lesson. After ballet, we headed home for cookie cake and candles. It was a really fun day.

NEW STUFF
I did a Southern Living at Home catalog party, and a few gals at work made some purchases. Then, Dee bought me some birthday presents on the sly which were added to the party. SOOOO I was able to get this (free) stuff with relatively little effort....



I think the olive jars look adorable on my piano--they make me happy.

ELECTION
So...are you ready to laugh??? If you are, please keep reading....







On election day, I picked Emily up from school. I checked her folder and found this artwork that she had done earlier in the day...her teacher recorded Emily's description of the drawing....



Click the picture to enlarge if you can't read the writing; trust me, it's worth it!

I just find it completely hilarious that she could have drawn anything, but on this particular day, politics were on her mind.
Apparently, her teacher thought this was so funny that she showed it to all of the other teachers and workers at the school. Thankfully, our kids go to a conservative Baptist school, so no one was upset by it ;-) I'm sure she's not the first Fox News watching, Bill O'Reilly lovin' 3 year old they've ever seen!

On a side note, don't you love how she writes the "E" in her name? And on another side note, after re-reading my post, I realized I used an excessive number of ellipsis. Sorry...if...it...was...annoying...

One Word Meme

Thanks for the tag Becky and Rebecca! I need to post this already--I've been trying since last week, but unfortunately, last Thursday-Saturday, the stomach virus visited the Trcka household. Thankfully, the germs are gone and everyone’s tummy is back to normal. These were answered yesterday but are not getting posted until now.

TYPE ONLY ONE WORD FOR EACH ANSWER. OH MY HEAVENS...IT'S HARDER THAN YOU THINK!!!

1. Where is your cell phone? chair
2. Your significant other? football
3. Your hair? wet
4. Your mother? example
5. Your father? preacher
6. Your favorite thing? family
7. Your dream last night? forgotten
8. Your favorite drink? tea
9. Your dream/goal? Heaven
10. The room you're in? den
11. Your fear? rodents
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Texas
13. Where were you last night? Waco
14. What you're not? stupid
15. Muffins/donuts? muffins
16. One of your wish list items? lens
17. Where you grew up? Mesquite
18. The last thing you did? shower
19. What are you wearing? jeans
20. Your TV? flat
21. Your pet? Skittles
22. Your computer? necessity
23. Your life? crazy
24. Your mood? happy
25. Missing someone? husband
26. Favorite pastime? photography
27. Something you're not wearing? jewelry
28. Favorite Store? Target
29. Your summer? bliss
30. Your favorite color? pink
31. When is the last time you laughed? today
32. Last time you cried? October
33. Who will/would re-post this? Angela
34. Four places I go over and over? Work, daycare, church, Wal-Mart
35. Four people who e-mail me? Principal, Mom, Trisha, Dawn
36. Four of my favorite foods? Chocolate, shrimp, cantaloupe, enchiladas
37. Four places I would like to be right now? Mexico, date, sleeping, Arkansas
38. Four people I tag? If you haven't done this one yet, I tag YOU...you know who you are :-)

Meet the Flintstones

Well, our Halloween week is over, and boy, was it exhausting. Now, onto Thanksgiving! I want to warn you in advance that there are lots of pictures below because as usual, I could not narrow my choices.



Emily and Ty were Pebbles and Bamm Bamm for Halloween. I came up with this idea this summer when Ty's hair turned really blond and when we saw how much he likes to hit things with bats, sticks, and even magic wands. The problem would be convincing Emily that she didn't want to be Princess Aurora but Pebbles Flintstone (from a show she's never seen) instead. Well, after lots of youtube Flintstone cartoons, I finally got her excited about the prospect of dressing up like Pebbles. I think her costume turned out really cute. I decorated her shirt, and my MIL made the bone bow. MIL also made Ty's Bamm Bamm costume, but I do have to give myself credit for putting the elastic in!

Pay close attention to Emily's hand in the following photo...



For the first time in his life, he refused to carry his baseball bat. He insisted on bringing his sister's Leap Pad book instead. Don't worry, all is well, he is back to his old bat-toting self now. In fact, the threw a tantrum this morning when I didn't let him take his bat to church.



Since she was such a good sport with not being a princess for Halloween (she dresses up like a princess every day anyway), I let her carry a princess bucket for her goodies.



Don't you LOVE this? What a sweet moment. And yes, I know, Bamm Bamm is losing his strap. And yes, they are also barefoot. Hey, I'm a football widow, I need to simplify my life as much as possible. So if authentic caveman attire means no shoes, that works for me!



We attended a party with our class at church, and we took the kids trick-or-treating together. This is one of Emily's friends dressed as Dorothy. She's following the gray asphalt road...Hee Hee!



The next set of pictures was taken Wednesday night before/during Funival at church. This is before we left, and Emily was SOOOO excited about Funival.



My 2 sweeties. I'm really glad I thought to bring the wagon. Random trivia--a wagon does fit in the trunk of a Camry.



Emily racing another little boy up a climbing wall. And she won (she keeps reminding me).



Ty decorating cookies or should I say licking icing...



And our friend "Dorothy" was decorating cookies, too.



Emily was definitely concentrating on the perfect design.



And Ty was enjoying the fruit of his labor.



What's a Funival without cotton candy???



I sure enjoyed sharing our Halloween adventures; I hope you enjoyed looking. It was lots of fun this year with Ty being old enough to participate!

By the way, I will be a football widow for a few more weeks. We're definitely in the playoffs! Go Roos!