Turkey, Flakes, and Cake

The Turkey (currently, he is known by said name... otherwise he is known as Blessing #5) gave me three frustrating days of car travel... which led to much groaning and growling, as his antics left me pulling over to deal with his orneriness.

After dropping off the older girls at school on Tuesday, we were driving to the library to return a few books. I hear a proud, joyous "YAY!!" from the little guy and catch sight of his blond 'shroom in the rearview.

Which means he is not in his seat.

Yes, the little booger had figured out how to slide down the buckle, shrug his arms out of the straps, and shimmy his little booty right on out of his carseat. And from that point on, it was constant.

Discipline? Yeah. And, yeah, he'd cry and fuss and holler. And then he'd get over it, wiggle out, and proudly "hip hip hooray" all over again. And I'd grunt and growl again.

He was happy. I was tired.

We got to school to pick up the girls and parked on the street to wait. No sooner had the car been parked than Mr. Gobble Gobble looked out the window and got excited to see the kids milling around.

In a matter of seconds, he was out the window, waving and hollering "HI! HI! HI!"

Quickly grabbing the camera, I snapped a succession of pictures. They tell the story.

So Thursday after I put the little stinker down for a nap, I headed to the driveway to swap around carseats. B#4 got promoted to the booster, and B#5 got her seat.

There's still the same problem of him being able to slide down the buckle, but since he can't get himself out now (because the belt goes snugly around his waist instead of being apart of a shield), the fascination to get my moma-goat has dwindled. Which is good because my car supply of moma-sanity-chocolate dwindled away in direct proportion to his orneriness.

Friday we got several hours of an early April Fool's.

Through the front window, I spied B#3 sporting a Santa hat and sticking out his tongue. And check out that winter coat!

Yep, that boy was catching snowflakes.

I tried to get a picture of all the snow, but when it's just falling and not sticking it's a little harder to capture. Click to enlarge and you should be able to see all the white spots.

While the snow (and the temperature!) was falling, I busied myself in my warm, cozy kitchen making B#2's birthday cake for today. (More pictures of birthday excitement to come!) She told me she wanted a Strawberry Shortcake birthday cake.

And those are capital S's. Not a strawberry shortcake, but a Strawberry Shortcake cake. Knowing that it would definitely not look like Miss Shortcake if I attempted to actually decorate Strawberry herself, I got B#2 excited about the idea of a Strawberry Shortcake hat. I thought I could probably handle that.

I put part of the batter in a big pan to make the bottom of the hat and put the rest of the batter in a glass bowl to make the top of the hat. (B#3 kept talking about my "potty cake." Sounds insulting, but he was referring to the pot part... the bowl part.) I even got a little creative and made the bow 3-D... I found some Airheads candy in the cabinet, nuked 'em, cut 'em, and dough-rollered 'em together to make the stripey ribbon. (Though B#3 tells me it's not stripey enough... not like Strawberry's bow.)

The cake turned out well, I think. And, most importantly, she seems really excited and happy about it!

.............................................................................