When Kids Get the Camera a.k.a. Skydiving Hamster

Found this on my Flip Video after a night out with Robert. The girl sitting on the bed is the Babysitter.

A House that Looks Good Enough to Eat

Not my house. C'mon, you know that's not true. Decorating skillz, I lack.

I'll be making my gingerbread house next week.

It's one of those traditions that I sort of dread, but the reality is always better than I expect it to be. I just hope I don't have to sit here and make it all by myself. That would be depressing.

Here is the recipe for gingerbread, in case anyone who doesn't already have it is interested:

Gingerbread Recipe:

2 3/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp ginger powder

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves

3 tsp baking powder

2/3 cup molasses

3 egg yolks (save the whites for the icing)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

line two large size cookie sheets with foil and spray with cooking spray. set aside

mix all ingredients together to form a dough. divide dough in half. press each half into a cookie sheet. (it helps to coat your hands with crisco so the dough sticks less to them.) bake at 300º for 20 minutes. place pattern pieces on the cookie sheets and use a knife to cut around the pieces as soon as the gingerbread comes out of the oven. pull the negative pieces of the gingerbread (the pieces you are not using for your house) off the cookie sheet and allow the house pieces to cool. Separate the foil from your house pieces before they are completely cool, though, because the foil sticks to the gingerbread like an obsessed ex-boyfriend who can't seem to move on.

Royal Icing

3 egg whites

1 lb of powdered sugar

1/2 tsp cream of tarter

Mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Cover portion not being used with a wet towel to keep it from drying out.

I don't have a scanner to scan the pattern for the pieces, but here is a photograph of them, if that helps anyone who is actually going to make one of these beauties.

Side: cut two

roof: cut two

front and back: cut one with all the windows for the front, then use a cookie cutter or freehand a big window on the back piece.

You can't get one of these, he's one of a kind and he's all mine.

That's my mom's handwriting on those pattern pieces. If your little heart is desperate to make a House of Gingerbread, send me your address and I'll mail you a pattern. You could also use pieces of cardboard to make a mock-up of a house and use those for a pattern.

We use hot glue to stick it all together and then we use icing to cover the hot glue. We stick it to a piece of cardboard with a hole big enough to put a nightlight through and covered in tin foil.

Then we do our best to make it look like the candy aisle at Wal-Mart vomited all over it.

Maybe I'll photograph the step by step next week and post more complete instructions.

Would it be alright . . .

. . . to mail last year's Christmas cards as though they were this year's?

Look what I discovered when I opened my box of holiday clutter, ahem, decorations.

All of my Christmas cards from last year, addressed, sealed, and not delivered.

Awesome.

It's not a Misnomer . . .

. . . Mr. Fox truly is fantastic. We saw Fantastic Mr. Fox over Thanksgiving weekend, and our family is united in our adoration of the flick. I thought it was the perfect blend of old and new. The audio track for the movie was filmed on location. The filmmakers dragged the actors out of the studio and had them deliver their lines in places like open fields and barns. Each character was a handmade puppet, not animated digitally. We are all inspired and we want to make puppets of our own. We all keep quoting it in our conversations. I will purchase this one when it is available on DVD.

I am looking forward to watching Everybody's Fine. Ten years ago Robert and I watched the Italian version of this movie and it has been on our list of favorites ever since. As we watched the preview for the Hollywood version, Robert leaned over to me and (without realizing what the title of the movie was) whispered "looks like somebody's ripping off Everybody's Fine." Imagine our surprise at the end of the trailer when, in fact, that was exactly what the movie was called. I hope they didn't mess it up too bad.

Also, this movie looks awesome. I cannot wait. Some people may have no desire to watch a movie about babies, but I am not one of those people. I may or may not have been all choked up during the preview. Please watch the trailer for it and then tell me you will go see it with me. (I may even be willing to drive to your town and make a weekend out of it.)

Let's see, what else. Modern Family makes me laugh out loud. (The stepmother character . . . the amazingly gorgeous one . . . yeah, that's what my sisters in law look like. I'm not kidding. We're talking random people stop them on the street and ask them to be in commercials. Bee Eee AaaaYoutiful.)

And Finally, a few weeks ago, I discovered something else. After the kids went to school, I sat down to fold some laundry and turned on the television. (Recently, we rearranged our furniture and our television loves its new home. We get, like, FOUR stations now. Livin' the lap o' luxury, I tells ya.) So, I discovered Bernie Mac. America, how long have you been keeping this gem of a comedian to yourself? He's funny. Oh, wait, when I googled him so that I could link to him, I found out that he's no longer with us. As in he's dead. He died of a massive heart attack. That's sad. I wonder why so many great comedians die early deaths? John Belushi, John Candy, Chris Farley, Gilda Radner, Mitch Hedberg, Richard Pryor, and that's only what I could come up with off the top of my head.

(When I asked Robert for the name of the actress on Modern Family, he said Julie Bowen and named a bunch of other stuff she's done. I corrected him and asked for the name of the gorgeous actress. And he said "She is the gorgeous actress on that show." He's so cool.)