Vampire on the loose.

Our youngest and smallest child has developed a crude way of defending herself. She also uses this technique to prevent predators from stealing her prey. Sometimes she just does it out of pure joy. Brooke was the first to get teeth, has the most teeth, and uses them frequently.

Ryan will bite on occasion but mostly I see him go in for the kill, then his conscience takes over, and he turns to me for help instead. My son has developed empathy.

I have never seen Gaby even attempt to bite, at least not a human. Walls are a different story. "Gee, I don't know how my kid could have gotten lead poisoning?". She didn't care much for the taste and stopped after 3 bites. I would welcome any advice to curb Brooke's bad habit. Both Gaby and Ryan are peppered with the bite marks. If we catch her in the act, we tap her on the mouth and firmly say, "No biting". Most times though we don't actually see her do it. We just find one of the others screaming in pain. The other day, I actually punished Gaby by putting her in her crib after she wouldn't stop screaming for quite a long time (I was trying to comfort her but she was just plain angry). Then I undressed her for her bath and found 3 fresh bite marks on her back. I had thought she was just throwing a tantrum because Brooke took her toy.

Crazy Cake.

Here is the finished product. I will also include the recipe for those of you that have never had the pleasure of enjoying Crazy Cake. Not only is it easy but it is very moist and doesn't have a lot of fat.

Crazy Cake

3 cups Flour

2 cups Sugar

1/3 cup Cocoa

1 tsp Salt (optional)

2 tsp Baking Soda

2 tsp Vinegar

1 tsp Vanilla

3/4 cup Oil

2 cups cold Water

Sift dry ingredients into a 9X13 pan. Make 3 holes. Pour vinegar into one hole, vanilla in the second, and oil in the third. Pour water over everything. Mix until smooth( a fork or whisk works well). Bake at 350 degrees for 35 min.

This cake is good without frosting or even with a dusting of powdered sugar. My mom also made her own frosting by mixing peanut butter, powdered sugar, and a little water. My husband likes it with the Coconut Pecan frosting that is usually on German Chocolate Cake (which I buy at the store).

Often when I make this cake my mom reminds me that I once added too much vinegar for some reason and it tasted awful.

Ashlyn's singing debut.

Here she is singing Happy Birthday to me and baking my birthday cake. She is making a Crazy Cake which I grew up making. It's perfect for kids because you put all the dry ingredients in a 9X13 pan, and then make wells and add the wet ingredients. I also let her play in it with measuring cups (and her hands) until we added the wet ingredients. We love this cake.

Here is a photo my mom brought over of me on my first birthday.

Let there be LOVE.

This would have made a great Valentine's Day post but today is my birthday so I'll put it on now instead. Use your imagination and you'll see the word LOVE, spelled out by Ashlyn. We have a great day planned. Ashlyn is going to bake me a cake (with a little help), then I am scheduled for a massage this afternoon, and Lance is bringing home pizza tonight. What more can I ask for?

A cure for the winter-time blues.

I got this idea from the Parenting magazine and it was a huge hit at our house on a Sunday afternoon when it was too cold to go outside. It said to make forts out of your couch cushions and ball up socks to use as "snow balls", then have a snow ball fight. Ashlyn and I teamed up against Daddy and we kicked his butt. The babies mostly got caught in the cross fire but they giggled when a snow ball bounced off of their head. Anyone who knows Lance can guess how much he enjoyed this game. I had to set rules up from the get go that he was not to turn into Rambo and that he should go easy on Ashlyn, at least. Of course, I was his favorite target so I didn't need to worry too much. Eventually I just put the basket on my head so my face was protected. We will definitely play this again.

Then afterwards we took warm baths and had hot cocoa. The only downside is that we are still finding balled up socks throughout the house that got lost during the battle. Oh well, missing socks are a daily occurance at our house anyway.