Anniversary

Happy 6th Anniversary to hubby. You're still the one I'd fight zombies with!

NOT a bitter blog post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/25/AR2010052504396.html

So THAT'S how I became a Socialist

Ken just sent this to me thinking it would it make a good "bitter blog post":

http://heraldextra.com/news/local/education/article_7bccc151-cb34-5dd2-ae52-fab607b81b17.html

Screw you, Death Eaters....I mean Jan Brewer!

This is all I have to say on the whole Arizona immigration thing: I know two people who wanted to round up and tag people who were different. The Nazis and Voldemort. I refuse to carry around my passport (which 80% of Americans don't have) to prove that me and my kids are American citizens just because we're not white.

In sickness and in health

I've spent a good portion of this last week wishing I was dying. Liam started to get sick sometime last week and gave it to Alana. I thought the worst of it was over before we hit the weekend. Then I got REALLY sick on Sunday, Justin followed on Monday. We finally caved and took the whole family to the doctor on Tuesday. He looked at both the kids, told me both of their ears were looking inflamed (4 ears total) and prescribed amoxicillin. Justin got a drug that effectively numbed him from the nose down and I got codeine. Because I'm still nursing, they prescribed me.....a narcotic? Mostly, it didn't affect me badly except that I feel like my nose isn't attached to my face. Anyway, most everyone else is feeling better, I feel like my head and ears are about to explode. If it does, I'll do it over at my neighbour's who not-really-so-subtly told me she thought I needed to mow our lawn.

I'm sorry if anyone got it from me on Saturday!

Look how spoiled my kids are

Couple of weeks ago, I got it in to my head to count, clean and search for all my kids's toys. I told Justin to think of it as a census to find out what was missing. I threw all of them in to the study at which I was impressed by the MOUNTAIN:

That is all my kids's toys. No, not all OF my kids toys. There were several that are not pictured here like the kitchen and wagon. So what's missing: 1 train, 4 mini cars, 3 fish finger puppets, 5 animal finger puppets, and a bunch of duplos, and a V-tech baby blackberry. If I've been to your house recently and you've seen any of these, could you please call me? I managed to whittle the toys down about a third, which I will be donating to the Family Support Center in Salt Lake City. If you have anything you'd like to donate, please call me.

Dim Sum and New Moon mockage

On Saturday, I hosted a party/blogger meetup. It was fun. The attendees were Risa, Nikki, Shelly, Brooke and my new internet friend, Di. We stuffed ourselves with dim sum for dinner. If you don't know, dim sum literally translates to "little bit of heart" which sounds absolutely disgusting, but in reality just means little treats from leftovers in the kitchen. Afterwards, we watched New Moon without the rifftrax because we came up with plenty of our own witty diatribes. It convinced Nikki to never read the books, and Risa, the queen of corny terrible movies, to NEVER trust my bad movie night choices again.

Char siu bao, breading around pork filling

Pork potstickers, mandu, gyoza, whatever you want to call them

Scallion pancakes

Ha gow, shrimp and bamboo shoots

Hazelnut ravioli (recipe link on the right)

Not pictured: spring rolls

Mother's Day Cake

This weekend I did my first foray into fondant frosting. I made a cake for my mother-in-law.I used the marshmallow fondant recipe from Wilton. It was pretty easy. My neighbour suggested that since we live in a dry climate to only add half the powdered sugar and add the rest slowly. It worked out much better for me (thanks Jenny!). It was okay to eat; edible unlike real fondant, but I think I still indefinitely prefer cream cheese frosting. I had a little bit of trouble trimming the fondant off, which you can see at the bottom of the cake. I used the rest of the fondant to attempt cherry blossoms. I followed the tutorial off of this blog, but my flowers didn't end up looking very realistic. I ended up with my own type of stylized cherry blossoms, but I was still pleased.

Strawberry cream filling with sliced strawberries. 

Should have added more filling but was afraid the cake would slide around.

Internet games

I'm a sucker for arcade-type games. The thing is that I'm good at them. Tetris? I'm an expert. Zuma? I should be a some sort of hall of fame. Bejeweled? Bow to me, mortal!

So I found this funny game called Sushi Cat. It combines two awesome things, cats and sushi. I think it's hilarious to watch this gelatinous cat bounce around, going "nom". It's oddly addicting, but Justin now worries about my sense of humour.

Winner!

And the winner is Di! Email me so I can get it to you. I'll probably have giveaways in the future too, but I'm planning on selling these necklaces soon if you'd like one.