Girltalkers

Not the Ace of Cakes

It’s birthday weekend here—Caly turns 4 on Saturday and Jack turns 7 on Sunday. (Funny fact: all three of our “oldests” were born in February—Andrew turned 10 just two weeks ago.)
 
Speaking of birthdays, I recently discovered that I’m one of the only moms in America who does not know how to make elaborate, theme cakes for her children’s birthdays.
 
I really thought it was just my super-artsy friends (and Chef Duff on the Food Network) who made Cinderella’s castle with turrets and a drawbridge or a life-sized Washington Redskins football helmet. But apparently, most moms can design, bake, and decorate their child’s cake of choice, no problem.
 
This was news to me! You see, I never had a fancy cake growing up. Mom—God bless her—tried her best. She even took a cake decorating class. But as she laughingly says—“it just didn’t take.”
 
So, like her mother before her, she decorated our cakes with edible candy letters that said “Happy Birthday!” with extra letters for the name, and little stars you could put candles in. We thought it was great. We didn’t know we were missing anything.
 
Being less artistic than my mother, I never even thought about making a fancy cake for my children--until last year when my son overheard that another kid was getting a “Thomas the Train” cake for his birthday (the things they pick up at church!).
 
So, I went to the grocery store bakery and blew half the birthday budget on a cake with an icing track and real trains. It was beautiful. And easy. And expensive.
 
This year I’m actually going to try this Lego cake. That’s because all I have to do is cut some big marshmallows in half, ice them, and stick them on top. I can handle that. I think. (I hope Jack still likes legos when he’s eighteen!)
 
But if the lego thing doesn’t work out, I can always rely on the edible candy letters, like my mother and grandmother before me. Because really, do I harbor deep-seated regret that my mom never made me a Strawberry Shortcake cake for my birthday? Not a bit.

Snow and More…Snow

We had a record snowfall here in the Washington, DC area this weekend. Two feet of snow fell from Friday to Saturday. Just look at my vending machine! They are saying that we haven't had this much since 1922.

The plow didn't make it to our neighborhood until last night so we have been hibernating since Friday. Other than the 12 hours when our power went out, we had tons of fun. Eating was our chief activity. I'm so glad we live in an age where we know the snow is coming beforehand: plenty of time to stockpile good food!

Even when the power was out, we made the best of it--trying to imagine that we were camping (without heat, electricity or running water, that's practically what it was!). We used snow to boil water on the gas grill for coffee and huddled around in blankets laughing and talking. It was a fun memory (especially now that the heat is back on!).

Crazy thing is,  they are calling for more snow tomorrow. I’m just grateful that our street is plowed so that I can get to the grocery store and restock before it hits.

We’ll be back tomorrow with more talk on the new clubs.

Tale of Two Christmas Cookies

Recently, a myth has arisen about Grandma Mahaney’s Christmas cookies. Dad thinks—believes with all his heart, actually—that the cookies with green icing taste better than the cookies with red icing.
 
That’s absurd, since the only difference is the food coloring. But try telling Dad that. You won’t get anywhere. Common sense reason doesn’t penetrate this illusion.
 
After many exasperated explanations as to how it is not by any means possible for the red and green cookies to taste different; even after Grandma (his own mother!) told him the truth to no effect, we changed tactics.
 
He doesn’t believe us? Fine. We’ll prove it to him.
 
Time for a taste test.
 
Last Christmas, we all crowded around the kitchen table, set a plate of Grandma Mahaney’s Christmas cookies in front of Dad, and blindfolded him.
 
We fed him the first cookie.
 
“Red,” he said.
 
He was right. Lucky guess.
 
Next cookie.
 
“Green,” he said.
 
Right again. Oh, this isn’t good.
 
Third cookie.
 
“Red,” he said.
 
“Gotcha!” we cried. The cookie was green.
 
Finally, we thought, proof they taste the same.
 
Not so fast. We forgot this is Dad we were dealing with. This is the boy who, as permanent quarterback for all the pick-up football games on Hodges Lane, long ago honed the skill of spinning every defeat into a victory.
 
Two out of three, he insisted, is a win.
 
So, here we are, another Christmas, and Dad still insists the green ones are the best.
 
And some kids still believe in Santa Claus.

Shopping Trip Conclusion

Well, the shopping trip is over. It was a blast! In between stores we managed to stuff in plenty of laughter and conversation, which is really what the shopping trip is all about anyways. But we're so happy to be back with our husbands and children and grateful to our men for holding down the fort while we were gone.

See you back here, tomorrow!

Shopping Trip

Today was day two of our shopping trip. Here are a few fuzzy pics from our camera phones.

Nicole enjoying her cranberry juice at our pre-shopping breakfast

Heading to the store...

Shopping success....

Bring Girltalk Home

We warned you from the get-go that this blog would never be cutting edge. (Our new site makes us look more professional than we are.) So it shouldn’t surprise you that it’s taken us four and a half years—but you can finally subscribe to girltalk via email.

To subscribe, click on the RSS button at the top of the page, choose “Get girltalk delivered by email” and follow the directions.

Of course you can also follow girltalk via facebook, twitter, or RSS feed.

Still don’t know how to use an RSS reader? That’s OK, neither did Mom until I showed her this little video.

Mom's inspired to set up her own reader and subscribe to her favorite blogs today!

You too can bring girltalk home to your computer. But be sure to keep visiting us here to see our ever-changing decor. We’ll keep a seat for ya!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

We love you,

Big Bee, Little Bee, and Wee Bee

A Public Service Announcement

Today I want to tell you about our newly improved search engine. It has a unique feature that I think you’re really gonna like. When you search for something, you most likely will find it.

Amazing. I know.

As many of you remember, the search engine on our previous site was worthless. You couldn’t find a thing. It became a family joke: we couldn’t even find our own posts on our own blog!

Then in June we got this beautiful new site and a search engine that worked; but it was only good for searching post titles, which was not a huge improvement.

But it’s a new day here at girltalk. Today we have a search engine that actually works and searches the entire site. You can search by topic or keyword. By name, number, or favorite food.

For example, I’m sure a lot of you have been waiting to search “Janelle.” Now you can! I tried and I got 593 results.

I also tried searching “candy.” Hmmm…only 24 results. I can see that I’m going to have to work on getting more candy-related material for the site.

See what fun you can have with our new search engine? In all seriousness, we hope it serves you and helps you find what you are looking for.

And stay tuned. We’ve got more exciting new features in the works!

Shopping for Time: Free Kindle Edition

We’ve got a freebie for you today!

Each month our dear friends at Crossway Books make one title available for free for the Kindle e-book reader. This month, they’ve selected our book, Shopping for Time: How to Do It All and NOT Be Overwhelmed. So, if you own a Kindle, or an iPhone or iPod touch, you can download it here.

I think Janelle’s working on a Friday Funny for later so be sure to come back!

Future Girltalkers

Littlest Vacationer

One, Two Three, JUMP!

Rainy Day Fun

Free Fall from the Rope Swing

Off to Shop