Family Fun Night

Tonight at church mr. mil10 and EK were asked to participate in Family Fun Night. Five other parent/child teams competed in a Newlywed kind of game, where team members answered questions about the other while they were out of the room.

I knew we were headed for trouble when we were assigned to Team F. Immediately EK said "F is for failure."

The picture of our scoreboard shows an X for every time our answers did not match. Hey, fourth place out of six teams isn't too bad. Is it?

Cute Cupid Cake

Just before Valentine's our church sponsors an annual child/adult event called "Baking with a Buddy."  Last year we made a mailbox cake.  This year Edie found another great cake idea.  It was actually a cupcake design that we enlarged for a round cake.  The design won EK's approval.

This year we had several "buddies" to work on the cake.  Peeps always helps, but this year a friend from church joined us in the project as well.  We brought our cake and were soon ready with all of the materials to decorate.  EK and Sydney worked with Peeps to come up with a method for making and attaching the wings while JMM began the icing.  EK and Sydney took care of the hair with Rice Krispies cereal.  A few touches later and Cupid was ready to give away his heart! 

Peeps and EK work with marshmallows to make wings.

Working in gloves was not easy.

The cereal needed a little help sticking to the cake!

Three happy faces!

Snow Much Fun!

According to Dallas Morning News, we are in the midst of some record breaking weather.  It was a regular school day for all of the mil10s, not that it was easy.  Snow was already falling before we left the house in the morning. 

mrs. mil10 spent a significant amount of time outside with a coworker.  They even threw snowballs at fellow teachers as they arrived at school!  At the end of the school day, EK spent plenty of time outside at Modie's, visiting cousin Mackenzie, back at Modie's, and then back at home.

See how much snow is on the bushes now?  It snowed ALL day!

Baby Mac's first time in the snow.  Justin and Shannon were hoping to take her out once it stopped snowing, but that never happened.

Back at Modie's for a family meal.  EK tried sliding down the hill on cardboard and in a plastic tub.  Neither method really worked, but he still had fun.  It is getting darker now.

Back at our house the guys built a snowman after dark.  Who does that?  Our neighbors do--they were in their front yard building a snowman at the same time.

Our snowman didn't last long.  We tried putting him back together.  Let's see how long that lasts!

After all of the playtime in the snow, it was time for snow ice cream!  mr. mil10's family made it a few times (we don't get that much snow!) when he was a child.  If we were going to do it for EK, this was the time.  EK helped oversee the mixing of the ingredients.

Not my best handwriting!

Snow ice cream in progress.

EK sneaks some snow.

Ready to enjoy!  Yum!

The snow ice cream was delicious!  A first time experience for EK and mrs. mil10, but they must have liked it.  We have our bowl out to catch some more snow for tomorrow's sweet treat.  It was about this time that EK learned that there would be no school tomorrow!  The night was full of excitement.  Yeah!  We had to finish the evening with a breathing treatment.  While being read to, EK finally caved and gave into his exaustion.  It is a rare occasion that EK falls asleep early, much less while someone is reading to him.  It's ok.  I think it was because he had snow much fun today!

Not-So-Super Bowl Brownies

We made a few snacks as we prepared for the big night.  Nothing fancy or elaborate.  Just some munchies that we will enjoy along with some guests as we watch the big game. 

EK and mrs. mil10 thought he brownies were a little plain.  EK thought they needed to be decorated to resemble a football.  It is definately not my best work, but here it is anyway.  Maybe the next creation will be better?

Go Saints!

And the Nominees Are...

The list of Oscar nominees was released this week. It is always interesting to see the movies that make it onto this elite list. After all, these are the movies that are supposed to be the ‘best’ of the best. I thought it would be interesting to see how many of these films have been seen by the mil10s this year. First look at all of the movies that received any kind of nomination (best picture, music, performance, feature animated). I did not include short films or documentaries.

"A Serious Man"

"A Single Man"

"An Education"

"Avatar"

"Bright Star"

"Coco before Chanel"

"Coraline"

"Crazy Heart"

"District 9"

"Fantastic Mr. Fox"

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"

"Il Divo"

"In the Loop"

"Inglourious Basterds"

"Invictus"

"Julie & Julia"

"Nine"

"Paris 36"

"Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire"

"Sherlock Holmes"

"Star Trek"

"The Blind Side"

"The Hurt Locker"

"The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus"

"The Last Station"

"The Lovely Bones"

"The Messenger"

"The Princess and the Frog"

"The Secret of Kells"

"The White Ribbon"
"The Young Victoria"
"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen"
"Up in the Air"
"Up"

Of the thirty-four movies on the list, how many did the mil10s see? Ten. Only ten. Perhaps we aren’t Hollywood’s target audience. Maybe we have different ideas of what constitutes a good movie. Maybe we have seen more ‘fun’ movies than ‘artistic’ movies. Whatever the reason, you may be curious which movies made our list. Here they are: 

"Avatar"
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"
"Invictus"
"Julie & Julia"
"Sherlock Holmes"
"Star Trek"
"The Blind Side"
"The Lovely Bones"
"The Princess and the Frog"
"Up"

Come March 7 we will see which movies on the list move from nominees to winners!  It might be a movie on the mil10's list, our very short list.  See you at the movies!