Death to Sam

So I started a new job on Monday. Go me! Not only is it a kickass role, but I get to talk to grown-ups, have regular lunch breaks, and use the bathroom by myself. This awesomeness occurs three days a week, which means I still get to spend the other two hanging with my two best dudes.

Anyway, this - plus rapidly approaching final exams - have prevented me from bringing you another episode of Spot: More Than Meets the Eye. Before, I thought their nudity was just an amusing quirk, but now a far more sinister side of the family has been revealed...ATTEMPTED MURDER. (Cue the dun dun DUNNNNN!)

Btw, before we get started, does anyone else think it's weird that the only pets in these stories are cats? All of the other animals are anthropomorphized. Eric Hill must regard cats as mentally deficient. Or slaves.

Totally different book to the rest of this post, btw. Just happens to also mention cake baking.

Anyway - the book starts out innocently enough, with Spot suggesting that they bake a cake for his father's birthday:

Aww. Bonding through cookery. Cute!

Sally agrees, which at first seems like a pleasant way to spend time with her son. Then they hit the grocery store, and her true intentions are revealed:

WTF, Sally?

YES. Sally is making Sam a chocolate cake. This is a family of dogs. Clearly she is trying to poison her husband.

Sally then cheerfully tricks her son into aiding and abetting by getting him to help make the deadly dessert:

"WE"? Way to keep your paws clean, Sal.

She continues to psychologically groom her son through the rest of the baking and decorating:

"Nice surprise"? SURE IT WILL BE.

And in the end, she even brainwashes poor Spot into taking most of the credit for his father's inevitable death:

Mmmm. Poison.

Note that Sam is the only dog who is actually eating the cake? Guess Sally didn't want her fall-pup to keel over and leave her holding the bag.

I love these books. After reading them five million times, they are truly the gift that keeps on giving.

The Castle

While tooling around in the backyard today, I noticed that one of my neighbors has a castle turret on the back of their house:

Best shot I could get, sorry.

How awesome is that?!? From the street, their house is very normal - it's all business in the front, medieval fortress in the back. I may need to get to know these people.

Three things

Little free libraries! Look! Look at the cuteness!

This piece is fascinating, even if you have no interest in wine. (Allow me to lure you in with a snippet: "Rare-wine collectors are savvy, competitive guys with a taste for impossible finds. The biggest hoax in history took place right under their noses.")

I would totally eat all of these dishes. Including the live shrimp.

This is my new favorite thing in the world

 

 {Type Connection}

That is all.

Essay due in two days

So naturally I'm browsing through old folders of photos, and finding shots I'd forgotten I'd even taken - like so:

P.S. Why yes, Project 365 DID go up in flames the moment the new semester started. Didn't even make it into February this year. Go me!

The Pirates turn two

Yeah I know, the birthday trip to the zoo trip was two weeks ago and I'm only just now posting photos. This is why I'll never be a mommy blogger. Well, this and the fact that all my photos are blah since I was too busy holding up the boys so they could see instead of taking pictures. Anyway - on with the photos!

 For my Dad, who complains I don't appear in many photos.

This may be my new favorite photo of the three men in my life.

 

 They kept yelling "Yee-haw!" while riding the baby rhino statue. Alrighty, then!

Me: Hey look boys - an elephant!

Pirates: Sticks! Rocks! BIG sticks!

Priorities, man. Priorities. 

 There's a tiger in this photo, I swear. And no, that's not a nickname for Ben.

When your child falls alseep within two minutes of getting in the car for the return drive home, you know it's been a successful trip.

Yup, that's right. No DVD player in the car. We make 'em read books for entertainment. We're THOSE parents.

It was gift time when we got home:

I wanted to get them toy zoo animals, but all the store had was dinosaurs and farm animals. So they have a prehistoric farmyard zoo.

Zoo themed Duplo. See that car on the box? It has been the source of more fighting than almost any other toy they own. Also, yes those ARE new pajamas scattered all over the floor. Lame, but they were totally stoked (Will tried to undress so he could put them on right away).

Due to technical difficulties, we didn't have a cake until the next day - just makes the fun last longer, right?

Yup, they shared a cake again this year. They'll start getting separate ones next year, when they're old enough to say what they want (this year they got The World's Best Banana Cake).

Mmmmm. Cake.

Caaaaaaaaaaake!

Only 11.5 months until we do it all again!

Three things

Have you seen this bathroom? Can you imagine staggering in there every morning? I'm not afraid of heights, but still... *faints*

We've started watching Sherlock (BBC). I was a bit suspicious about how well it would translate to a modern setting, but it's surprisingly awesome! Also awesome: the black shooting jacket that Watson wears - which, sadly, is no longer for sale (and cost £725 when it was, so it's not like Ben was going to get it anyway):

Is this Tolkien luggage tag a little too on the nose? Regardless, I kinda want it anyway:

Four years

Today was our four year wedding anniversary, and while we agreed not to do gifts this year, I still brainstormed a bit to come up with the perfect Ben Meal for dinner.

I started with this:

I am now master of the bacon weave.

Which turned into this:

The infamous bacon placemat.

And was topped with this:

Bacon-wrapped steak and chunky steak fries (he's not a baked/mashed kind of guy).

Lest you think it was all carbs and meat, there were tomatoes on hand:

And a shitload of sliced mozzarella, but that's beside the point.

My dear friend Jaime recommended that I give these Gooey Chocolate Cakes a try for dessert, swearing that even someone as legendarily baking-challenged as I am would be able to make them. I was stoked when they came out looking so pretty:

I just dropped a few plain chocolate chips on the tops, since I was too lazy to finely chop the chocolate. 
This kind of wishy washy attitude towards baking instructions just might be the root of my problems...

But when I cut it open for the gooey center money shot - cue the "wah wah waaaaaaaah" trombone:

The half-assed focus here could use a little "wah wah waaaaaaaah" of it's own.

Australian muffin tins are more shallow than American ones and I ended up making nine cakes instead of six. Since I hadn't reduced the baking time to adjust for that, my gooey centers were just regular cakey centers. Oh well. They still tasted good, especially with caramel ice cream and frozen raspberries!

Yup, I still love this photo.

Happy anniversary, hon. I love you.