Easy Bake Oven for boys too

A while back Will and his older brother Christian said, "Girls get everything!"
I know first-hand that is not true, but I sympathized with them when they explained they meant cool stuff .... like the Easy Bake Oven.
A trip through the toy section with the boys recently revealed the oven comes in a sea-foam green color. I had thought it was pink. Has it ever been pink?
I showed Will the oven and he perked up but then scoffed saying it wasn't blue enough, and there was a girl on the box.
Nonsense.
Boys can bake too.
So I told my mom and she bought him the oven for his birthday, which was earlier this month. Will is 9.
The "appliance" is still operated with one standard 100-watt light bulb - a bulb that CANNOT be long life, soft white or high efficiency - that really narrows it down!
I bought a pack of daylight bulbs.
Yesterday we baked two pans of brownies.
Will allowed his brothers to participate. The boys stirred the 1 1/2 teaspoons of water into the mix and "poured" it into the pan, which had been sprayed with non-stick spray.
The directions said to bake the brownies for 8 minutes. Maybe that daylight light bulb isn't as strong as a good old-fashioned regular 100 watt bulb. But since they apparently don't make those anymore the brownies went back in the oven for a few more minutes.
Now boys are not as attentive as girls and while the brownies baked they continued their horseplay in the living room building a fort using blankets draped across the sofa and loveseat.
When I announced the treats were done, not really to my liking - they were still gooey - they fussed and I caved and they wolfed down the first pan.
I doubled the cook time on the second pan and that seemed to help. The boys shared that pan with their dad at dinner. Mind you the round pans have a diameter of 3 1/2 inches and they cut the brownie into fourths so everyone got a bite.
I cleaned up and put the oven away thinking "Will really didn't enjoy that."
Today I read his Christmas list - which he revised after we baked the brownies - and he wants an Easy Bake Frosting Pen!

Rap sheet

It's unusual for me to post two blogs in one day but I just have to share this with you.
The boys stayed overnight at David's parents' house last night (see previous blog). Lee, in addition to a portfolio of several new drawings, came home with a rap sheet on his brothers today (see image).

Translated:

mom and dad
christian hit me in the nose
with a baseball
will gave me a sidewalk burn
christian dragged my face in the
grass
From Lee

God Bless Us, Everyone!

We celebrated our wedding anniversary this weekend, and for the 11th time it was during the famous Ohio State vs. Michigan football weekend!
We were married on a Friday late afternoon (so as to not interfere with the huge game on Saturday) in Mt. Ephraim, Noble County, at the United Methodist Church there, just around the bend from my late mother (Sandra Ellen Watson McDonald) homestead and across the road from the cemetery where she's buried.
More than a decade and three kids later, David and I are still learning how to raise a family. It's hard. We know we are blessed and we are glad our God is a forgiving God.
We had a nice dinner out on Saturday without the boys. They stayed overnight at grandma and grandpa's.
This morning I went Christmas shopping - online!
This afternoon we collected the children and went to the movie theatre in Zanesville (closest stadium seating theatre around) to see Disney's A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey (his first role in a Disney film).
Carrey stars in a multitude of roles including Ebenezer Scrooge as a young, middle-aged and old man and three of the ghosts who haunt Scrooge.
We saw the 3-D version and it was awesome!
David said he wanted to reach out and catch the snowflakes.
The boys looked so cute in their 3-D glasses. Lee is pictured here in his pair. He is going to draw a picture of Scrooge which I will post after he's finished.
What a nice kickoff to the holiday season.
God Bless Us, Everyone!

Courthouse holiday light show

The Guernsey County Courthouse holiday light show started running Thursday night and we've seen it twice already. We went back tonight to get some video to share and capture Lee conducting the "orchestra" and in this case "the choir" which he did last night too. An added element of excitement tonight was the cop car that zoomed up the Parkway. My kids love the light show. So do I. It's a great tourism tool for our tiny town. It brings bus loads of visitors to Cambridge in November and December. Oh, and did I mention the light show is secondary to the Dickens Victorian Village. But I'm not so much a fan of these heavily-clothed mannequins as I am the light show extravaganza. Unfortunately our camera (Nikon CoolPixL3) doesn't take very good video (video removed due to poor quality). Lee is conducting all the while but you can hardly see him there on the left. For more on Dickens and the light show, visit downtowncambridge.com

E-mail address

I've created a new e-mail address to allow readers to send correspondence. You can check out my profile and send an e-mail from that page under CONTACT, or add me to your address book: justasooprday@outlook.com.