Pi Day Ramblings

**If** I had any functional hacker/cracker skillzzz, I would judiciously employ them to crash all the foodie blogs in Blogland.   CRASH!  BOOM!  BAH!  Bring 'em to their knees.  No more stumbling on to them by accident (HOW does one search 'professional development' and end up on a Wisconsin mother-of-three's food blog?  Sometimes I think Google might be on crack).  No more getting sucked in by the delightfully Photoshopped images of cheesy bubbling enchiladas, sinful little cake pops, or the dreaded 'Bestsnickerdoodleever'.  Dang snickerdoodles.  

The first blog sucked me right in and had me whipping up a batch of THE best snickerdoodles ever!  Or so the blog claimed.  Turns out they were flat, crunchy, and less than stellar.  So of course I ate all 2 dozen in less than 24 hours threw them in the trash and went in search of the rightful heir to the Best Snickerdoodle throne.  And, SHAZAM!  I think I've got a winner!  Of course I won't really know until I've tested another few (dozen) recipes.  ahem.  Anyway.  Just look at these beauties!

And you know the pictures never really tell the whole story.  Oh my.  Can't you just FEEL how scrumdiddlyumptious they are?!  I'm quite sure this is how Heaven will taste.  I'd offer to share mine but....  Well, no I wouldn't offer.  Bake yer own. 


And speaking of snickerdoodles, look at this sweet thing...

We took a quick weekend trip back to Ruidoso to snowboard one more time before the season ended and I'm SO glad we did.  Papa Pat and Aunt Kyndra went with us and although the snow conditions were pitiful, it was nice to get a little more experience on the boards.  Jaden and I took a private lesson which was totally worth the money and I'm proud to say I came home with only one bruise this time!  Okay, that's a lie.  I actually acquired two bruises.  The first is totally expected when you fall on your posterior, but the second is more of an enigma.  Kyndra convinced me to get off the beginner slope and go down a really easy green with her.  The first part was crazy steep and scary until I figured out I could manage it and made it to the easy green part without incident.  The green slope was really flat and slow but I figured that was okay...I could just practice my switching from heel edge to toe edge.  Heel edge.  Toe edge.  Heel edge.  Toe edge KAWHACK!!!  Thank goodness I was wearing a helmet because I swear I would've knocked myself out otherwise.  The enigma part of the story is how I crashed backwards but managed to bruise my nose.  It turned blue and swelled up.  Lovely.  And so, the moral of the story is:  When you are snowboarding, commit to everything fully, because if you chicken out in the middle of a turn, you will eat it.  Hard.

Jaden did not have any nose related crashes, probably because he is a toe edge master.  Our lesson instructor worked with Jaden a lot on control and stopping and later on turning.  He is picking it up so crazy fast....it's amazing to watch.  I'm ready to buy our own gear and go back!


A few frenzied weeks after our mountain trip and Spring Break has arrived!  So naturally my children want to play....  School!!  Um, what??

Here's Jaden in archaeology class digging for dinosaur fossils in the super cool GeoSafari kit he got from Uncle Bubby and Aunt Kathy for Christmas.

And here's Grant constructing a Happy Ticket board and discipline chart (just like they use in his Kindergarten class).

Pax and Picasso are the cats.  Grant's an equal opportunity educator.

Grant used clothes pins with everybody's name written on them to chart behavior throughout the day.  Everyone mostly stays on green and blue except for the big brother.  Every time Jaden ticks Grant off, J's clip gets demoted to red.

I'm gonna go with a thumbs-up here for good coping skills.

Happy Spring and more importantly, Happy Pi Day!