Baby, Baby, Baby - Oh!!

Oh, Justin Bieber, to think that just a few short months ago, I was only vaguely aware of you. Now, I rarely go more than a day without your songs running through my head.

Mace loves Justin Bieber. We don't know why - we think maybe Justin is his first realization that the music on the radio or his mp3 player is being sung by people, and one who's just a kid - wow! Anyway, we made sure Santa brought Mace Justin's CD to load onto his new mp3 player, and right away all the kiddos were in full Bieber-mania. Most times I send the boys to their room to clean, they plug their player into their speakers, crank up Justin and end up dancing instead of cleaning. Exercise, I guess?

Anyway, I couldn't resist getting some footage of Mr. Mace singing along. I kept trying to be stealthy, thinking he might be embarrassed, but just couldn't manage it. So I came right out and asked him to sing it for the camera, and wouldn't you know - the others wanted to perform, too. Mace knew the most lyrics correctly, Tiana put the most "funk" into it, and Tristen totally cheated by listening as he sang. :-)

So here they are (watching these is one of Miss E's favorite pasttimes):

Just Dance! Kidz

Many thanks to Auntie Rae Rae for going to great lengths to make sure Monster received this for Christmas. The kids really love Just Dance Kids, and I love watching them. I think they'd like Just Dance 2, but for now, I'm happy with this, the more innocent version. Soon enough, they'll be too cool for it. As you can see, it is well loved by every kid in the family (especially Mr. T - yay! I love watching him not being self-conscious).

Yep, I'm THAT mom

All my life, I've struggled with an unending quest for perfection. As a child and teen, I wanted everything to look perfect, I needed to be perfect, and suffered mightily each time I didn't achieve said perfection. This lasted into my mid-twenties, at which point, I decided I would happily settle for having the "perception of perfection". As long as it appeared to the world that I had it together, that the world would never see my naked face or grubby clothes, my kids would never be a mess, visitors would always find a clean house (or living area, at least!), I would get everything done on time with apparent ease - I could live with that. I had seen and knew people who certainly seemed to have this perceived perfection, so darn it, I could too!

Well, since having children, I have finally come to accept that it just ain't going to happen. Much as it kills me, my children are actual people - can you imagine! Once past babyhood, the boys only want to wear clothes with their favorite cartoon characters on them, and they're in "play" condition almost the moment the tags come off. I finally have a little girl, and - wouldn't you know it - her hair absolutely refuses to stay brushed! And now she loves to wear these crazy combinations of clothes. But I simply cannot expend the time and effort to keep them looking and acting in a way that meets my personal expectations - nor is that fair to them. My house (and life, to be completely honest) are what I call "controlled chaos". I try my best to keep us functional and limit the uncontrolled chaos until I can take care of it.

This school year, I've struggled even more. It must be the addition of a 4th child (who loves me so much she can't stand to be separated for even a moment), plus having a baby with others in school (new to me, and wow! it's difficult!), but I am just so barely able to keep up these days, therefore apparently unable to hide that fact from the general public. In my quiet moments, I have this dream of people's perception of me. The one where I serenely walk down the school sidewalk with my 4 kids and the other moms say, "Wow! She has 4 kids! With all she does? I never would have thought!" The reality is this: I am frequently excused for my a) lateness, b) unpreparedness/forgetfulness, c) untidyness (home and/or personal), d) everything else, with some variation of: "Hey, you've got 4 kids. It's OK."

I don't want it to be OK. I don't want people to lower the standards for me and my constant insanity. I want to rise to the occasion, not continually just "make do". What makes it worse is that I know it's possible. I personally know women with multiple children whose hair and clothes are always tidy, fashionable and clean; their homes are always organized and tidy, even when I drop by unannounced; and they never appear frazzled and crazy or lose their cool in public. But here I am. I do have 4 kids. I am so busy and time-crunched and frazzled that I'm amazed I manage to function at all some days. So now I will stand tall, mismatched, messy-haired kids yelling, laughing and fighting around me, dirty-kneed baby clinging to my hip, with who-knows-what spilling from my (*sob*) filthy minivan, and say, "Yes. I am that mom."

Fun with Fondant

This past year I rediscovered an old lost love: the Food Network. And there are all these awesome new shows on - many of which are now safely recording away on my DVR for the rare moments I get to watch one of my shows (generally late at night when Miss E refuses to go quietly into the night).

One of the biggest developments in food? Fondant! This stuff is so cool! The cakes that can be made with fondant are truly spectacular. I was always intrigued by cake designing, but although I tried many times, I'm just not too talented with piping. But the more I watched shows like Ace of Cakes and Challenge, the more I wondered: Hmmm, maybe I could do this? Which led to a bit of research (yes, my name is Melanie and I'm an online research addict. Deal with it.), which led to discovering Marshmallow Fondant (or MMF), and the idea that I could make this glorious stuff with items I already had on hand was simply too enticing to ignore. So, with the idea that this would be fun for the kids and me to play with on a day off school in December, I whipped up a batch, made a couple of 6" rounds, and started playing! Fun, fun, fun stuff, let me tell you - they don't call it PlayDoh for grown-ups for nothing! And actually quite yummy - the kids' favorite part was definitely Quality Control.

et voila! one perfectly fondanted cake! :)

I started with dots - seemed safest.

The kids' masterpiece!

This early trial set fire to my kindling interest, so with my Christmas money from my Momma, I bought the basic tools necessary to make some "real" cakes.

In our family, December, January and February have 8 birthdays, so I have plenty of cake-making opportunities coming up. My niece Tiana's was the next birthday, and she was super excited to help me make her cake. She requested red and blue flowers, with purple polka dots. It took a bit of coercion, but I finally convinced her to leave the polka dots off. It turned out pretty well, and I learned even more about what to do differently and better.

And since I'm such a glutton for punishment, instead of just making Mace whatever cake I could reasonably make, I ask him. He first wants the Hylian shield, but I had to refuse. He settled on the Ultimatrix from Ben 10, so it looked like I was making my first sculpted cake! Whoopee! And after several hours, one botched batch of MMF, a lot of angst (and maybe a little swearing), it was done! I'm no Cake Boss, and - contrary to my wonderful children's enthusiastic suggestion - I will not be the next Ace of Cakes, but it resembles what it was supposed to, is pretty cleanly done, and I am satisfied.

Miss E's birthday is next, and I'm full of ideas!!

Mace is 7!

So my little Mace Mace is 7 now. I can't believe he's getting so old, so big, and ever smarter - he's already out-thinking me at times. Mace is a great friend to his buddies, a wild and wacky basketball and soccer player, a willing participant to MaraJade's plans (rather - orders) and pretend games, a devoted big brother/entertainer for Miss E, a lover of anything funny or goofy (or gross - his favorite), an absolutely useless room-cleaner (sorry, Mace, the truth hurts), and an all-around information sponge.

We love you, Mace, and how you constantly show us how to live each day to its fullest, imagine anything and everything, and play our hearts out.