Let them eat cake!

Well, perhaps not cake. (Too hot to bake.) But how about ice cream?

It was a lovely birthday weekend. Not the most exciting, as birthdays go, but we're not exactly thrills-a-minute people. (Shocker, huh?) The boys did bring out the surprise ice cream maker. Smidge feels vindicated, and none of us pointed out that he blew the "secret" twice since the last big spoiler. He's such a funny kid.

EmBaby is enthralled with it - carried it around everywhere. The biggest surprise was that all the pieces were still in the box by the time we got around to making ice cream. We used Aunt B's psychotically easy, yet rich and dreamy recipe: two quarts half-and-half, two cans sweetened condensed milk. Pour into ice cream maker. Turn on. Lick the milk cans clean while the ice cream blends. How easy can it be? (OK, we made up that last one. I don't know if Aunt B licks the cans clean. But we do. It's good stuff.)

Since we (a) procrastinate horribly, and (b) are impatient (yeah, talk about irony), we didn't have time to harden it before bed tonight, so we ate it like they serve at a certain expensive-yet-yummy ice cream parlour. I would mention the name, but after listing the recipe, there'd probably be a lawsuit for libel from associating the two. The boys had cookies folded into theirs. Zorak and I ate it straight up. This might make August bearable.

Since the big boys just couldn't shake the disappointment of my knowing what they got me, they talked Zorak into letting them get something else. Zorak warned me that it's not quite a bowling ball with "Homer" written on it, but it's close. They bought a DVD player for the little TV in our room. I can see what he meant, although I do think it's pretty cool, and it'll be nice to be able to watch movies back there, now.

The balcony is now, technically, if you aren't too concerned about the effects of gravity and siblings on your smallest children, usable. We promised Smidge we could have breakfast out there. After we put the kids to bed, Zorak showed me all the hot spots to keep Em away from - there are no stairs, for one. And other little details that won't stop us from wallowing in the piney goodness that is a non-scary balcony. (Yes, even with gaping maws leading to certain death at either end of it, it's now far less scary that it's previous incarnation. WOOHOO!) He plans to work on the side planks tomorrow, and we should be taking the baling wire off the kitchen door. Yeah, buddy, we're movin' on up in the world!

Tomorrow, we start back to school. I'll let you know how that goes.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy