I'm in Washington D.C.

It's hard to think of a better place for an American History teacher to be!  For the past four years I've been part of an AMAZING grant out of my local office of education, the Teaching American History Grant.  It is federally funded to provide teachers with a solid content of American history in low socio-economic regions.   I've spent countless hours dedicated to this grant and have savored every nerdy moment of local, state, and national history that has been imparted on me.   So here I am in D.C. loving every minute but it is bittersweet because I've been doing my part to raise good nerdy children who are so sad that they couldn't come with me.  Of course, as is my fashion I had to leave a book behind for them for Mr. Rogers to read while I was gone.

Written in the 50's and 60's, I've been collecting this series of books from M. Sasek for the kids.  Always with a meaningful inscription they capture the time and place of our family at that moment.

One thing I never thought I'd ground my son from....

Jack is passionate about his skinny jeans but those darn jeans have resulted in what I'm sure culminates into hours of whining.  Why the whining when he loves them so much?  He thinks it is just completely unreasonable that he cannot wear them EVERY DAY.   We had to limit him to only wearing them 2-3 school days, depending on if they got washed, and even then it was still a battle before school on the days when his skinny jeans were not available.  If it was not for the fact that I paid full price for them at the GAP, which I rarely do but he wanted them so badly, we would have just thrown them away.

Again last night he was whining about what to wear.  This time he wanted to wear his baseball uniform to bed, then all day today, play a game in it, and then wear it to bed for all we know!  He is only slightly less passionate about wearing his baseball uniform than he is his skinny jeans.  After receiving a warning and then continuing to whine we resulted to the "grounding" ultimatum, regardless, he kept whining resulting in a week grounding.  I don't know about you but I like to select something that is already a pain or inconvenience for us that the kids love, to kill two birds with one stone, being grounded shouldn't be punishment for me.  The usual suspects are sweets, Wii, or t.v. but now we got a new one.  As Mr. Rogers and I contemplated a just punishment, Lincoln piped in, "Ground him from his skinny jeans!"  It took everything within me not to crack up and Mr. Rogers and I immediately agreed.  In hindsight we should not make it a habit of letting siblings select punishments but Lincoln hit the nail on the head!

Eating A Grapefruit

Picked fresh from the in-laws grapefruit tree and I plan on eating them ALL over the next few weeks!

It is a rather torturous fruit to eat because with each bite one experiences an array of emotions.  This is what it is like eating a grapefruit: as teeth break into the first slice, it is overwhelmingly sour, then overwhelmingly bitter, then an onslaught of acidity feels as if the enamel is being eaten off your teeth.  After that you begin to adjust and the taste settles in your mouth and is somewhat enjoyable but not completely enjoyable.  Finally, the sweetness emerges just as the slice is nearly consumed and that is really the only delightful part of eating a grapefruit.  Then, like a gluten for punishment, you eat the next slice.  Perhaps more than the grapefruit itself, I just really like eating it cut in half using a grapefruit spoon with those little serrated tips.

Another school cupcake delivery...mmmm, yum!

The whole family had the good fortune of being able to drop off birthday cupcakes for Jack's class.  I've sort of been a little obsessed with baking and decorating cupcakes lately and my heart was almost broken when Jack told me he wanted store bought cupcakes, "...because that's what the other mom's bring!"  Thankfully, I was able to convince him to break status quo and be a non-conformist.  He was ecstatic at the way his cupcakes came out...the best part, we made them together!

SillyMeDesigns put together these wonderful cake toppers per Jack's Mario and Toad request.  Jack and I made chocolate cupcakes for the yellow/red toppers and blue cupcakes, thanks to a ton of Wilton's blue dye, for the vanilla Mario cupcakes.  Slightly chilled whipped cream cheese frosting (I use Duncan Hines) is always the easiest to work with, although it would be pretty awesome to say that I made my own frosting.  On another batch of cupcakes I also discovered that the Wilton's sugar crystals on the edges do not bleed into the whipped cream cheese frosting if made the day before.