DIG IN

I have it on good authority that we should all use two spoons when eating dessert.

A LITTLE THING CAN TURN YOUR WORLD UPSIDE DOWN

I was perusing blogs, which I do weekly on my laptop when suddenly Mr. Right's computer began talking to me. Well, not to me exactly, it was talking to The Pixie.

"If you'd like to continue press the space bar."

I thought, "What?" and looked to see something amiss.

"Pixie! What did you DO?"

Mr. Right is trying to fix it. Sadly, all the menu options are also upside down, as well as the mouse. He is getting a crick in his neck.

The Princess is sighing, "Just call Trevor."

Mr. Right, "Sshhhhh. No. I'll figure it out."

A long five minutes have passed.

Ha! Trevor, Mr. Right just picked up the phone and called you.

Now you are laughing and Mr. Right is saying, "Very funny."

You are telling Mr. Right something...Mr. Right is clicking three little buttons.

ctrl+alt+up arrow

Voila!

"It worked." He says, "How'd you know that. Wow, that was easy."

You are saying something. Mr. Right chuckles and says back to you,"Yeah, little things like The Pixie."

DON'T PICK ON ME

Mr. Right cuddled with The Pixie and asked, "Are you my Pixie Girl?"

She laughed, "No, ha ha ha, I am a lollipop and I'm going to pick your nose!! Ha ha ha ha."

QU'ILS MANGENT DE LA CAKE

Mr. Right let her skip school when she used me to beg him in her behalf.

I'm supposing there won't be any serious repercussions...honestly, missing two hours of Kindergarten?

We had important things to go do this afternoon.

Like go to Inkheart.

Which for our purposes, was simply perfect.

Then we went shopping where I was informed by my three foot tall companion that I simply had to buy the pretty, bright green blouse for $5. So I did. I shall be wearing it to church on Sunday even if it's cold.

Then we came home and made up a recipe for chocolate cake because, let's face it, it's winter and you simply have to have cake around the house to cheer you up.

With the cake in the oven I served the batter remnants to The Princess except on the way to her mouth a chocolaty glob was induced by gravity to leave the silver spoon and land on her pink corduroy shoe.

By the time I had wet a napkin and bent to retrieve the mess, The Princess had the shoe off and was licking it clean.

She simply nodded, "Hmmm...Chocolate tastes good. Shoes do not."

Are you needing a different reason to smile this winter day?

My friends, behold your inspiration...

Candy Cane Cake

Chocolate Pound Cake with Glaze

Coconut Cake (prepare to convert)

Chocolate Velvet Cake

Red Velvet Cake

IMPRESSIONS OF A SIX YEAR OLD

We were invited over, for the first time, to a friends' home for dinner.

After staying late we said our goodbye's and hustled thru the rain to our bug-mobile. Once we were all buckled up and backing out the driveway Mr. Right said of our hosts, "They are nice people. "

To which The Princess replied in true Queen style, "They wouldn't be if we were there longer. "

"Why?"

"They'd know us better. "

HAU 'OLI LA HANAU

It came and went and needless to say I am feeling utterly depleted of all creative energy as I inadequately describe the Hau'oli la.

With a shell covered sand castle cake, fruit-cabobs and Swedish fish to nibble...

With wooden pineapples to paint and tissue-paper flowers to craft...

With Hawaiian music drifting through the perfumed air...

With two Ibuprofen and one Excedrin in my blood anticipating my future needs...

With a friend at her house on-call, incase I should need another adult...

With three-year olds and their friend under Mr. Right's charge...

I was ready for the volary of little girls that descended off the bus with The Princess at 3:42pm Friday afternoon.

I was informed the next morning over oatmeal, and I paraphrase, the party was a swimming success!

And a few bites later, with a gasp and a smile as the idea occured, I was promptly informed of what next year's theme will be.

SIX

She popped into our room bright and early so we laid on the bed and reminded her of the day of her birth, in case she'd forgotten.

For breakfast some darling friends invited her over for French Toast. Afterwards they lavished her with a plethora of princess gifts.

Because of the occasion she only attended school for an hour and a half and then called it a day.

For lunch she dined at Red Robin where she ate pizza, french fries, lemonade and they brought her an icecream sundae with sprinkles.

When she came home she opened six and six presents...in honor of her age. Though half of them were clothes and that's "kind of weird."

After the excitement there was a general feeling of exhaustion so we all snuggled on the couch and got sticky with giant lollies while we traveled to Japan with the Little Travelers.

Then, with a renewed sense of enthusiasm for life, it was time to don her pink leotard. With her hair in an updo Mr. Right took her to ballet...her second favorite place on earth.

Because I am confident her first favorite place on earth is here ...with us.

*Stay tuned...Friday is the big Hoʻolauleʻa

A JOB REQUIREMENT

A visual of how I earn my keep.

Sure, sometimes I think I'm not so great of a Queen.

But apparently someone out there thinks I'm doing my job well because she has often told me so.

She doesn't say it exactly like that though.

She usually phrases it like, "You are SO mean."

Or, "Uhhggggg."

And then I know I must be earning my keep.

Mr. Right is known as the fun one.

I readily agree with those claims.

I try to enforce the idea that I am all rules and chores. If I crack a smile, it was an accident.

If you had fun with me, it was unintentional.

I am doing a very good job at this because this morning The Princess resolutely decreed that when she is a mom, "I am going to feed my children tomatoes."

Ahhh. Unnecessary cruelty.

Clever, clever girl.

She has learned from the master.

I must be doing my job.

And may I add that any job worth doing is worth doing well.

A Hoʻolauleʻa

Thaaaaat's right. Guess who's birthday is coming up?

And thaaaaaat's right

she's decided, again, on a location themed party.

She's been planning this since January 15th of last year.

WHILE MR. RIGHT TAKES THE PRINCESS TO THE BUS

The "pirate-cowboy".

The Pirate equipped himself with weapons and challenged me (with pleading eyes) to a duel.

He had a sword and a laser gun that could shoot arrows.

I had my bare hands.

I was no match and after receiving several wounds I transformed into a lion and stalked him while he jumped on the furniture and laughed and squealed.

Still I was susceptible to being wounded and I would whine like an injured cat when he slashed me with his machete.

About my distressing cry of pain he said, "I like dad noise."

But enough was enough so I abandoned my lion form and became a wrestler.

We rolled around on the floor - grunting like burly men would - but not doing much harm.

I landed the final move and pinned him.

The Pirate: Uggghh I'm tuck.

Ha ha ha

The Pirate, gasping: I can't breeeed.

What do you say?

Silence

What do you say?! I demand.

The Pirate: You da mom!

So I released him from my evil clutches and he promptly informed me I was his horse. He had transformed into a cowboy.

We plodded around the frontier for a while (he informed me I was a small horse which made me feel good) until he decided on a location for his homestead. Change that to his Fort.

He instructed me to go to a corner where he brought me feed and then got out his tools to build me a corral.

I think it was a corral.

It had one plastic bolt sticking up in the shaggy carpet, but I felt corralled.

While The Cowboy rustled up some Lego's the Pixie came in.

She came over to me. She looked down at the bolt. She pulled it out and tossed it aside. The cowboy called over his shoulder, "Mom's da horse."

She smiled and climbed on my back.

"No." the Cowboy called, "Mom's my horse."

She slid off and curled up next to me, "I da baby horse." She is the baby everything.

She was so close that I couldn't help myself, I kissed her little cheeks repeatedly with much noise. This disgusted the Cowboy so he claimed it was nighttime and provided us with a pillow and blanket.

He also decided horses must not wear headbands to bed so he removed mine and provided me with a teddy bear.

The lights went out.

I laid there under a blue blanket looking at The Baby Horse.

I heard The Cowboy snoring somewhere.

I heard a rooster vaguely calling "cock-a-doo-da-doo".

The lights turned on.

I heard someone inform me it was daytime and the pillow was pulled from under my head.

When I looked next The Baby Horse has disappeared and The Pixie was clamoring for some Lego's. The Cowboy had transformed back into The Pirate. And I was no longer a horse.

Or a lion.

Or a burly man.

I was, once again, the Queen.

*And lest you're under the impression that I am any fun, I will let you know that Mr. Right far surpasses me in that department. He just doesn't have a blog.

MAKE 'EM LAUGH

The Princess: What did Adam say to Eve the day before Christmas?

Me: What?

The Princess: It's Christmas Eve Eve!!!

The Pixie: Knock knock

The Princess: Who's there?

The Pixie: Banana

The Princess: Banana who?

The Pixie: Ba naaa-naaa-na-naa-naa. He he he he...

And if that didn't frost your candyhouse - maybe this will:

EN GUARDE SISTER WALKER

We recently met:

Grandma Mary

Grandma Princess

Grandma Baxter

Grandpa John

Grandpa Prince

Grandpa Baxter


Last week:

"Pirate, are you excited to go back to church tomorrow?"

"Yeah - I miss my Grandma Teacher."

This week:

"Pirate - Grandma Teacher isn't your church teacher anymore. What's the name of your new teacher?"

(Sister Walker)

"It's Skywalker!!" Immediately followed by an en guarde and several rakes with swooshing sounds.

THAT'S SO PIXIE

*Picture taken in Utah

Do you know the Pixie?

With her charm she pushes all limits.

Back when our septic tank wasn't working, and our world was covered with snow it was late one night, hours after bedtime, and she was still awake, trilling like a lark in her gilded bed.

Presently I heard the pitter-patter of little feet in footsie jammies.

She stood just inside the doorway while I refused to make eye contact.

She chirped, "I have to go potty."

"No."

"Yes." She chirped, "I have to go potty."

"Fine, then go in the baby potty downstairs."

(How did you think we managed to only flush once a day? Toilet lids were taped shut and a toddler toilet was provided so little bugs wouldn't be tempted to flush so often.)

"Ha, ha ha baby potty. Baby potty. That's funny." Pixie laughter is like little bells.

Then she turned around and walked smack into the wall.

Yeah I laughed too - that's so Pixie.

AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

You thought maybe, just maybe I lost the urge to keep you in the loop.

I did.

And now I am back from my self-induced holiday.

It was a holiday full of -

"Oh Christmas Tree" and "Which of you put all the candy canes on this one branch?"

It was full of -

"White Christmas" and a white, uh, Christmas.

It was full of -

"O Holy Night" and oh so expensive septic repair bill.

It was full of -

"Silent Night" and not enough sleep.

It was full of -

"What Child is this?" and "What child did this? And I promise you're not in trouble."

It was full of -

"All I Want for Christmas" and lots and lots of sugar.

It was also full of little, happy bugs like these: