The Land of the Free & the Home of the Brave (expats)... All Those in the US!

[UnderRated]

I just finished the old thread by accident

My DS is too young for school but I'll be glad when we get back into some sort of routine with regular stuff to do. It's been fun going to the beach and the park but it'll be good to be able to go to the playrooms again.

Dooney (or anyone else, I just know she is a vanilla snob), where do you buy your vanilla? Do you only use beans or do you use extract too?

Have you ever played Scrabble using only daft American names?

It's amazing how quickly you can fill the board up with names like 'Zeke' 'Tonio' 'Chip' 'Elvis' 'Nancy' 'Rizzo' 'Walt' 'Bart' 'Jeremiah'...etc etc. And it's really good fun.

Swati Ghangooli is a fabulous name. Nimrod Ping is qute good too. Are Knowledge and Sincere African? They sound like African names. I worked with a Darling and her sister was Precious. They were from Liberia.

My friend worked in a call centre and they had to say the customer's name 3 times during each call. He could hardly contain himself when Mrs Dickshitt rang him.

It's yonks since I've seena lovespoon - we had a collection above the piano when I was growing up

Teacher sounds fab. And you are being lovely to her.

Anorak, that sounds like a good game!

I love the spoons out of pews story. That's so lovely.

Thats a lovely website Cali.

Penzeys. Don't know if there is one by you or you can go to penzeys.com. I use both. Love the beans, but just too expensive to use all the time. Penzeys is priced better than Costco here for the beans. There's some sort of something Bourbon Madagascar Free-Trade Vanilla recommended by this pastry chef person that is supposed to be the end-all and be-all of vanillas, but it is just too expensive for me to even try. I'm not sure if it is good that I am known as a snob, though.

Confession time. FIL left before Colin's birthday. Before he left, Colin took his suitcase and hid it in his room, and said now Grandpa can't go. I told him to go put it back. He did. I then took a shower, and right after FIL left. Colin came out of his room an hour later, saying uh oh, and had FIL's suitcase. FIL called and wanted to know if he left it there, and I said yes. He couldn't believe he forgot it. I didn't tell him it was mostly Colin's fault.

We had his birthday tonight. It went well. Every present he opened, he said he really way super wanted it. I felt good.

It has been about 30 degrees cooler here today than the past 3 days. It was supposed to be about 40 degrees cooler. My mood has improved immensely.

I quite like to toadstools too. Your mum did well!

We do have a Penzey's on the northside and I get their catalogue. Will check out their vanilla next time one arrives, thanks. No costco round here (not that I can get to) so that;s not an option

LOL @ COlin. Poor boy. Am glad he had a lovely birthday.

Hi everyone, sorry to be such a stranger. I'm working six days a week although only 4 - 6 hours on some days so not too bad. It's keeping me very busy tho!

the lovespoon link is wonderful cali, thanks for posting.

will do a proper catch up soon! I miss you all

Ooo, hello there Jabber

Cali - I need help with a Lego cake. I think cupcakes might be the way forward but am not sure yet. How do I make the lego bits for the top? Did you say you shoved fondant icing into lego icetrays? And they just popped out again easily? Where did you get the icetrays? Or did I make that up?

DS really wants me to do the Thomas cake I did last year but I don't want to do the same one again and he isn't as interested in Thomas as he used to be. It'd be dull to do it again, wouldn't it?

Also thought I could do a D since he can now write it and spots them everywhere. I hate making decisions

Look at this cake!

Stuff like that makes me jealous. I get my kids' birthday cakes from the store. I can easily make a cake that tastes better, but can't even frost a plain, one-colored frosting cake without messing it up, much less make a decorated, multi-colored one.

I could make one that looked like that. I can decorate them but they look decidedly homemade!

Homemade is great!! Giant ugly blob, not so much.

Maybe I'll subject you to something 'homemade' when you visit, Dooney. You may not think it quite so great then!

I love the words 2ers and 4ers etc. DS uses them too now

Looks like I need to go to the Lego shop again.

Cali, (and any other cake makers) I need advice on what kind of cake to do for ds1's party. We are doing a special theme party at the local children's museum centered around a cave exhibit that he loves.

I'd do a Cave shaped one - a rectangular base and a pudding bowl shaped one on top with a bit cut out to make it cave-like.

Here's one

You could do it better than this

I wouldn't copy either of those but I think a cave would be fairly straightforward.

Use crushed oreos for dirt.

Hello everyone

Not been around for a while. Am now a car owner and totally am in love with the freedom of driving. Even the gas prices don't bother me as I just keep comparing them to UK ones LOL.

Other than that, life is crazy busy. I'm back at uni in 2 weeks. My twins are starting preschool in 3 weeks (boohoo my babies are growing up!) I've now been their very lucky nanny for over 2.5yrs!!!! (Only another 15.5yrs to go lololol)

Hope everyone else is ok, and enjoying the summer

Was wondering how you are Mananny. Glad you are enjoying your new wheels.

I spent the afternoon with a 6 week old baby [broody]