Number:12 Part II- OR Adventures In Painting With A Toddler

(Plate 2 of 8)

Over the weekend I painted the second plate in my series! I went to Hands On (my favorite ceramics place EVER) with my sister-in-law, Alyssa, and we took my daughter Lilly. Lilly just started walking a few weeks ago, so I let her hold my hand and walk around with me in the ceramics place while I chose a plate to paint. A woman there, who also brought her much older kids in to paint, saw Lilly and said to her in a baby talk kind of voice, “What was your mommy thinking bringing you here?” 

WHAT!? LADY I KNOW MY OWN KID. MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS! I just ignored her.

Let me explain. I have a weird 15 month old child. She is generally in a pretty good mood. Quiet when she is focused on something and easy to handle. She also sleeps 12 hours a night and takes not one, but TWO naps a day. I have been trying to get her down to one nap, but she simply can’t make it. So I use that time to do stuff around the house, or relax. It’s pretty nice… We know we are LUCKY. Most toddlers couldn’t handle a quiet place where you need to sit still for an hour, so I guess I can understand why that lady thought I was nuts. Even so, that was pretty rude for her to say. Also, Hands On Ceramics is very accommodating of any age.

So, anyway, I figured we could get started and if Lilly couldn’t handle it we would play while Alyssa finished up her picture frame (which turned out awesome by the way) and I would just come back some other time to finish. Lilly stood on the chair next to me, I took off her shirt so she wouldn’t get it dirty, and she helped me paint the underside of the plate. We also put her hand print on there! It's so cute!

I decided since Lilly was with me, to paint the Lilly plate. It doesn’t really look like her. I mean you can tell it’s supposed to be her, but it looks how I expected the Andy plate to turn out. Even so I love it! Can’t wait to see how it turns out after it’s fired in the kiln!

Lilly did a fabulous job. That dumb rude lady even complimented her behavior admitting that she had a child the same age at home that she would never bring to a place like that because he couldn’t sit still for 2 seconds. HAHAHA. My child is way more awesome than yours. HA.

I gave Lilly dry brushes with no paint so she could “help” me and that kept her occupied for about 30 minutes (an eternity in kid-time). I also gave her a coloring page and some crayons. I watched her very closely the entire time. Then I began painting the plate-Lilly’s eyes and took my attention away from her for about 1.5 minutes. In kid-time that’s like 45 minutes of amazing time for a kid to repaint your house or crash your car into a McDonalds. BIG MISTAKE. She stepped right off the edge of the chair and crashed right into a McDonalds. No, but she did fall onto the floor. She was totally fine, but cried for a very embarrassing 5 minutes while the rude lady glared at me probably thinking, "TOLD YOU SO!" That witch. Then all Lilly wanted to do was dump crayons on the floor. So I finished up the plate while Alyssa held her for a couple of minutes and then we played while Alyssa finished up.

All in all, we had a great time! We didn't let the man (I mean rude lady) get us down! I would definitely bring Lilly back. There are a lot of fun things for little ones to do at Hands On Ceramics. Lilly loves painting. She also loves eating paint, but that’s another story for another day.


Hey guys!!! Read this: 
 "Just to let your loyal readers know.... the MEAN lady was NOT the owner of Hands On Ceramics.... in fact.... the OWNER loves to see all ages of kids painting and tried to keep the cutie occupied. FYI !!" - Lisa Gromer, owner and operator of Hands On Ceramics . It's true! Lisa helped us out by helping me get Lilly's hand print on the back of the plate (and suggesting it) and bringing us crayons and books! She is SUPER awesome! 

Above: Lilly Plate Before Kiln

Below: Lilly Out Shopping

Why My Mom Is More Awesome Than Yours.

I am not really a super mushy emotional person. Unless a Disney World commercial comes on or a commercial with a dog. Then I bawl like a baby.  I am incapable of love. No, not really, but I have a hard time expressing how I feel.  But, for this Mother's day I am going to tell you why my mom is super awesome in a super mushy way. It won't really be that bad, I promise. So here goes...

When Mrs. Berman, my first grade teacher was being unfair, my mom went down to that school to talk it out with the teachers. She didn’t take a “my child can do no wrong” approach to anything. I was always held accountable and for that I am grateful. When I had a difficult time learning to read, she worked with me every night. Through all of the tears and the tantrums, she remained patient and calm. 

She taught me how to French braid and make lanyards, how to play softball and jump rope. She saw my potential even when I didn’t and showed me that with a lot of hard work I could succeed. She taught me patience and teaching a girl with ADHD patience is not an easy feat. 

She taught me it’s ok to laugh at myself. She once made a little tiny curtain for what you'd think was a super tiny window. She asked me if I needed it for anything and then said, in her punny way, "Are you sure? Because the window of opportunity is closing..." She then hung the little tiny curtain on the microwave with a little sign that said "The Window of Opportunity". I laughed so hard when I found it. 

She taught me not just to treat everyone with respect and kindness, but HOW to treat people with respect and kindness. She taught me how to admit I was wrong and how to apologize. She taught me how to stand my ground and when to just let things go. She taught me how to be a mom. If I am a fraction of the awesome my mom was than I know my daughter will grow up a lucky girl.

I was a very difficult child and I don’t know if my mom knows just how grateful I am for all of her patience and support, but I am more grateful than she will ever know. Thanks, Mom!

It also must be mentioned that I have the most amazing mother-in-law a girl could ever ask for. She is my mom when my mom can't be there and I am so grateful to have the love and support of such a wonderful mother and person. Andy is very lucky to have a mom like her. And I am so lucky to have two awesome moms!

And that is why my mom (and my mother-in-law) is more awesome than yours. I am just kidding. I am sure your mom is awesome too, but you'll have to prove it. I'll give a prize to the person with the most awesome mom (well, the the way I see it, the second most awesome mom, no wait the third). 

Please, if you have a moment, comment and tell me why your mom is awesome. Or why your Mother-in-law is awesome. Or why you yourself are awesome. Just spread some awesomeness and the best one will get a prize that I don't know what it is yet. I mean a surprise prize. Yeah... I am of course the judge on this. You have till Tuesday. If no one comments I'll know you didn't read this all the way through. And then I won't be your friend anymore.

Above: My mom with me, age 1, 1985

Below: My mom with the cake at my firetruck birthday, probably 1988.

Above: My mom is also the best Nana!

Below: My mom with her mommy and my daughter

Below: 3 generations of awesomeness.

Number 4: “Learn To Use/Make Fondant/Modeling Chocolate”

To start: What is Modeling Chocolate? and What is Fondant?


I am a product of America and generation Y or X or Q (or whatever, I have no idea actually, which generation I am a “product of” I just liked the way that sounded). being American and of this generation (whichever one it was) we were always told (and I believed) "you can do anything!" And for some reason one of those things I believed was that I was a dessert decorating wizard. This of course was never true. My little sister is way better at it than me, at both baking and decorating. I am pretty mediocre. I don’t know just when it was that I became so delusional. In my mind baking was MY thing that she so rudely ripped out from under me by being so suddenly awesome at it. In reality, aside from her natural talents (she is naturally quite talented at this sort of thing), she took months and months of Wilton cake decorating classes, majored in food sciences in college, and even studied cooking in Florence, Italy for a few months. I was really just jealous when my little sister surpassed my mediocre cake decorating abilities and became more awesome than me at something (She is actually more awesome than me at a lot of things). But looking back on our childhood and teenage years, she was always cooking and baking (hence her choice to study it in college). I can count on one hand the number of cakes I baked and decorated. I think I made 3. THREE. Yup that’s it. I really admire my sister’s abilities and am so impressed by all the cakes she makes. If I could learn to be half as awesome as her, my cakes and cupcakes would seriously ROCK. So I have a lot of baking related goals on my list. Some are things that sounded cool to me. Some things I just like to eat or want to taste. This particular goal is just the beginning of my baking and decorating adventures!

So the modeling chocolate thing was not going well already. Well the cupcake part was not going as planned anyway. I had baked the cupcakes on Tuesday night so they would be ready when my friend, KC, came over to teach me how to make and use the modeling chocolate on Wednesday. Why is it no one sells regular cake mix anymore? Only extra moist or moist? Those are NOT good for decorating cupcakes or cakes. Before I baked the cupcakes, KC had suggested I also make a pound cake mix and add a little bit of that in there because that would solve the moist gooey problem that occurs when using the moist or extra moist cake mixes. I looked everywhere for pound cake mix and I couldn’t find any. So I just baked the cupcakes without it. I went home to have some lunch on Wednesday. While I was there I decided to check on the cupcakes. I had put them in a container before they even had a chance to cool so that I could go to bed. Well, they were all moist and gooey on top which is the WORST THING EVER for icing cupcakes. The icing just sticks and pulls the top layer of cupcake off and it is stupid. Just plain stupid. I decided to leave the cupcakes out of the box and hopefully the moistness would dry or go away or something.


The moistness did not completely go away by the time I got home form work so I took the baby (I guess she would be a toddler now) and we went out in search of pound cake mix. I ended up finding the most expensive cake mix I had ever seen, a box of Duff Goldman's white cake mix for $7.99. Yup, $7.99. I thought, This stuff had better be good! Well, I got home and baked it and turns out if was perfect for what I needed it for. I still haven't tasted it yet though... 

KC was running a little late, but when she arrived I was totally ready to go. It turns out modeling chocolate is not as difficult as I had originally anticipated and it’s totally fun! It tastes like tootsie rolls and is as fun as playdough! It’s made from corn syrup and chocolate. We colored it lime green, neon yellow, neon, blue, and neon pink because those were the colors we had. I decided I wanted to make little flower shapes because I wanted to keep it simple on my first attempt and I found these cute little flower shaped cookie type cutters that are used for fondant and modeling chocolate.

We also made icing. Which, again, was even easier than I thought. I don’t know if I’ll be buying store bought icing anymore. Unless I am in a hurry I guess.  

The cupcakes turned out pretty and cute! Thanks KC for all your help!!! I hope they taste good. I am a little nervous about the taste since I have never used that cake mix before, never made icing before, and obviously never made modeling chocolate before either. I guess we shall see tonight…

Here is a pic of the cupcakes and a little of the "process":

So, Ilyssa, How are my cupcakes? Did I do a good job?

25 Things in 2011

This year instead of a New Years resolution, I decided to come up with a list of primarily simple goals I'd like to accomplish before the year is out. Here they are.

25 things I will accomplish this year 

1. Take a Yoga Class at the gym
2. Learn to swim
3. Bake Petit Fours
4. Learn how to use fondant/Modeling Chocolate
5. Submit a film into a film festival
6. Learn to knit
7. Do cornrows in someones hair
8. Shop at the local farmers market
9. Audition for a musical
10. Have a lemonade stand
11. Do something crazy (or just very different) with my hair
12. Paint a set of 8 dishes at Hands On Ceramics 
13. Go to Arkansas
14. Bowl a 200 (real bowling, not on the Wii)
15. Learn to sew 
16. Sew a dress for Lilly
17. Shop and eat at more local places I’ve never been to
18. Ride a horse and not be scared (and not fall off and suffer a fatal head injury… no, stop it, Sara, I said I wouldn’t be scared!)
19. Take a craft or cake decorating class
20. Take a cooking class
21. Try Sushi
22. Ride my Bike to work
23. Plan a big surprise for someone!
24. Tie Dye some stuff
25. Make pop rocks cupcakes

So far, of this list, I have accomplished 3 of my goals! The first being number 5. "Submit A Film Into A Film Festival". I made a short film for the True/False Film Festival's "Gimme Truth" competition about a fictional musical chairs team. Not only did I submit, but my film got in and I won second place in the competition! Each film is a 2-minute-or-less profile of a Missourian that is 100% true or 100% false. Then there are three judges who guess if your submission is true or false.

The next goal I accomplished is 9. "Audition For A Musical". I auditioned for a local production of "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee". I actually got a  callback! I am so proud of myself for just getting up there and doing it. I was SO nervous, but I just told myself that not doing it was not an option. I didn't get the part, but I am not even the least bit disappointed. I was by far the least experienced one there. The dance part of the audition was a nightmare! I was terrible!!! I was not doing the same thing as everyone else, I couldn't keep up and I even made up stuff that wasn't part of the routine as I went because I couldn't do the steps the choreographer had showed us. I just kept on going with a smile on my face. When the director called to let me know I hadn't gotten the part, she said the choreographer thought I did a wonderful job in the dance audition. I asked her if she was sure she had the right person.  

The third goal I have "accomplished" is number 11. "Do Something Crazy  (Or Very Different) With My Hair". I got bangs and highlights. Definitely different, but not so crazy. 

Tonight I accomplish number 4. "Learn How To Use Fondant/Modeling Chocolate" by learning how to make and decorate cupcakes with modeling chocolate. I will learn fondant at a later date, so I guess it will only be half accomplished. I'll post pics.

Above is the short film from the T/F film Festival's Gimme Truth competition which I made with the help of Matt Davis, Ben Poland, Logan Lemmon, Andy Neitzert, Jan Neitzert, Val Davis, Monica Senecal, Rob Bartel, Elaine Martin, and Gabe Senecal.

New Hair: