Doing the Splits

I was in an innovative cooking mood last night and managed to concoct a dessert that was pretty darn good! It happened quite by accident and I wanted to pass it along... 

I had a little of this and that but not enough of any one thing to make a whole dessert. I thought about doing strawberry shortcake but I didn't have enough strawberries, or any cake-like thing to put the strawberries on. So that was out. 

What I DID have was this cake mix, and it had a pound cake recipe on the side of the box.  

The recipe called for a box of vanilla pudding - but of course - I didn't have any. What I DID have was a box of banana cream pudding. So a banana pound cake was born. 

And guess what? 

Banana pound cake + chopped strawberries + drizzled chocolate sauce + dollop of whipped cream = BANANA SPLIT CAKE! 

If you need a tutorial on putting it all together, I suggest you try this one:

But whatever you do, don't try this one:

Samurai Eli

My Soon-To-Be THREE Year-Old...

In less than two weeks the baby of the family will have his third birthday. As usual, I'll probably greet the happy occasion with a little bit of sadness mixed in... how time flies, my baby's not a baby anymore, yaddayaddayadda. 

In the meantime, Eli is pumped UP for a par-tay! Every year I make a clumsy-but-sincere birthday cake in the theme of the birthday boy's choice. Last year, Eli was into airplanes, so he got an aviation-themed cake. This year, there is no question as to the kind of cake he wants. 

For six months he has requested Samurai Jack. 

What's that? You're not familiar with this mysterious Emmy-winning samurai that has NOT been on television since 2004? You aren't alone. Eli discovered Jack DVDs on the shelves of our local library and fell instantly in love. Hotwheel Hubs and I were thrilled - we watched SJ as married childfree adults back when it first debuted, and we were sad when it went off the air. 

So imagine making a cake that embodies all of this: 

 

(I'll be sure to post some photos of THAT hot mess when it's time for the party.)

I found a Samurai Jack shirt in Eli's size online and lots of SJ party stuff like napkins, thank-you notes, and party horns on clearance. We're just going to do a small family party at home with a sprinkler & kiddie pool for the cousins. For favors we got foam samurai swords to pass out to all the kids & if I have time I might make this adorable candy sushi recipe. 

I also made the mistake of asking said Soon-To-Be-Three-Year-Old what he might like as a present. At the time, I thought he needed to build a little excitement, because he didn't seem to grasp that his birthday was in the near future. Now he makes sure I see each toy commercial that features a desired birthday item... every time it appears on television. 

Such as:

"MAMA! MOM! LOOK! A TWUCK.... I need dat for my birfday!"

"OH MOMMY! LOOK DERE! ROBOTS! I need dat for my birfday!"

"OH MOMMY! WHAT'S DAT?? A MONSTER! A YUCKY MONSTER! 

I need dat for my birfday!"

"MOM, MOM!! A CY-SICLE LIKE DAD! I can go fast! 

I need dat for my birfday!"

Guess I need to go out to the money tree in the backyard and start the harvest.

(OR... We could just get him some Ben 10 action figures and call it a day.)

No matter what, I'll be sure to report birthday fun here at the HH! 

Sisters Take Chicago!

Sisters & Blue Man
Originally uploaded by BookMamma

So... hi there! Remember me? I'm the one on the far left that has been sorely neglecting her blog lately. Internet burnout has hit me hard - between the blog, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Kaboodle, and all the work stuff I've ben doing I'm kind of sick of myself. That and it's been nice just being with my kids and not worrying about blogging about them. (Guilt-free bloggers, unite!)

Back to Chicago.
My littlest sister graduated high school a few weeks ago, and I've been telling her for a whole year now I would like to provide a special senior trip in honor of the occasion. As the planning progressed, all the sisters got excited and Laura suggested we ALL go, So we all did! It was the first time we ever did something like this - no kids, no parents, no spouses/significant others - and we all shared a hotel room. Chicago will never be the same...

Click HERE to see our whole album!