Christmas 2013, the highlights, and other random information

Christmas 2013 is officially in the books.  It was a wonderful Christmas filled with things the that Christmas should be.

 The kids and I jammed out to some fun Christmas music while we baked and decorated cookies on Monday morning.

We went to church on Christmas Eve (Yay for our new music director who picked all my favorite hymns!).

We had our fill of goodies at the in-law's house and exchanged simple gifts.  This included our new baby niece, who we got to share in her first Christmas.  

Santa came.

We had a "quiet" morning on Christmas morning and opened gifts here at home with our kids.

My dad and his girlfriend along with my brother, sister-in-law and nephew came for ham dinner later in the day.  The kids played in the snow and ate too many cookies.  We had a lot of laughs.

Now its all over.  The Griswold-ish Christmas tree that shed bucket fulls of needles is outside and will be filled up with assorted things the kids find to feed the birds.  The furniture is back in place and we can see each other without peeking through the branches of that enormous thing.

Now the living room is back together and thoroughly vacuumed and sap scrubbed off the walls.  I only have to return my laundry and dining room to their pre-holiday states.  Oh and find a home for the 1,001 toy kits my kids got for Christmas.  Their aunts and uncles hit the mark this year by getting them things they can build (oh and dinosaur stuff for Joey.  That kid is a nut about dinosaurs!) and I kind of want to hang onto some of those things for the next 4-5 months of cold/snow/mud/rain.  That means I need a place to put them, you know that's not on top of the laundry hamper.

Maybe today some of it will get done.  Today is a rare day when we all have the whole day off to just hang out together.  I'd hate to waste it on laundry.

I do know that we're going to town later this morning to see if we can find any artificial trees left on clearance (reference the above statements about buckets full of needles and gargantuan size trees) and to take the kids to the movies.  Movies at the theater are a pretty big treat around here.  Come to think of it, we've never gone to a movie as a family.  I have taken the kids a few times with some friends, but never all four of us together.  The last one we saw was Toy Story 3 in 3D.   There are a few good family shows playing so it should be a good adventure.

 The rest of the gang is still sound asleep at the moment. So, I think I'm going to curl up with my library book until they all wake up, which should be 30 seconds after I get comfortable.

Happy Christmas Vacation Everyone!

Why I'm With Phil

Every time I go online, there's another blurb about Phil Robertson and will "Duck Dynasty" survive after his scandalous interview with GQ Magazine.  Our family does watch this show.  We love this show.  It has no swearing, no nudity, and frankly, we identify with the goofy redneck characters.  That said, if I were in the Robertson family right now, I'd be hard pressed to want to continue with the show.

Here's why.  The article that started this whole mess was written by someone who clearly does not respect their beliefs.  I can say that positively just because of how many swear words are in the article.  Now, those words didn't offend me and I can see where the author was trying to be funny, but that kind of language is strictly forbidden in their family and on the show.  Who knows what was written that is out of context?

The whole thing is a train wreck.  First of all, let's take a southern Evangelical Christian and ask him point blank what he considers to be a sin.  Then let's make some leaps from there about what he "really means" by his statements.  And by all means, let's not draw any attention to his bottom line, that no matter what sins anybody is committing, we all need to love each other.

That is where I think the magazine and leftist media is missing the point.  Every denomination of Christianity has a different idea of what constitutes sin.  If we didn't then we'd all be Catholics.  His personal religious beliefs of what is a sin are not uncommon.  Are they 100% accurate? I don't know.  I am not theologically educated enough to make that call.  Even if I was, there would be a line of equally educated people waiting to disagree with me.  The two things all Christians believe is that we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves and that we are all created in the image of God and therefore are all worthy of love.

That is the point I feel he is trying to make and why I agree with him.  Beyond the Ten Commandments, definitions of sin get a little sketchy for me.  I really hope I'm not going to burn for eternity because I cut my hair and wear pants.  I'm pretty sure that the Lord has bigger fish to fry with all of us.  

I believe that we are all created by God.  That said, who am I to say that He didn't make people homosexual?  I  know that I could not call myself a Christian and knowingly mistreat someone who is different than me.  God loves us all. Period.  What happens when we leave this earth is anybody's guess.  I believe in heaven and that's what I'm shooting for.  Will I make it?  That's up to Him.

I do not completely agree with Phil's definition of sinful behavior, but I do believe strongly that this is what it boils down to: we are never to judge someone on who's going to heaven or to hell.  That is the Lord's job.  We are just supposed to love each other and let God sort it all out later.  The world would be a better place if we all treated each other better.

Any Day Now

Any day now, winter could come to stay.  So far we are enjoying the late fall weather. The air feels crisp and clean. Waiting for the bus in the morning is frosty and just barely daylight.  Colorful leaves have gone and trees are bare.  The only remaining color is the tamaracks with their golden yellow-y orange needles.  Birds are starting to flock to the feeders.  Today I saw our female Pileated Woodpecker for the first time since spring. (Joey calls them "fluffyated woodpeckers").

This knowing that the weather could turn any day has me feeling the rush to get projects done inside and out.  The gardens are all cleaned out and mulched for the winter, leaves have been mowed and mulched.  The last of the garden has been harvested and canned.  (My garden didn't amount to much, but thankfully I have unlimited access to another huge garden, a co-worker's mom who shares her excess veggies and a dandy farmer's market to find my treasures.)

Just for kicks, I took out all the jars I have canned this summer and fall.
This is about 2/3 of the total jars I canned in 2013.  

More canning than I have ever done by far.  I still have a little bit more to do, as my selection is a bit light on protein.  So, beans and turkey are still on the "to-can" list.  Preserving the harvest has been a major part of my weekly schedule for several months now.  I've expanded my selection away from just jams and jellies and included pickles, relish, tomato sauces, apple pie filling, and pumpkin. 

Isn't that pretty?

We have been making steady progress on our fall to-do list over the last month or so, being grateful for every clear, dry day.  We finally cut down a dead birch tree that has been threatening to fall over near our house, along with a few other standing dead trees and got the wood stacked by our fire pit.  The garage and shed have been tidied up, recycling has been brought in and the yard cleaned up (We even made a long overdue trip to the dump on our anniversary.  Try not to be jealous.).

Soon the gourds and jack-o-lanterns will be fed to the chickens, autumn scarecrows replaced with winter snowmen.  Rakes traded in for snow shovels.  Any day now.

Until that day comes, the kids will be waiting as patiently as they know how to get out their sleds and Matt and I will be enjoying these last mild days before winter sets in.

Summer, The Highlights

Looks like its been a while since I've visited my own blog.  Apologies to my adoring fans.  Summer is coming to an end and so many things are changing in our household.  Since the peach canning wrapped up, we've celebrated birthdays, had a few visits from the tooth fairy, went to our county fair, welcomed a new niece, and started school.  In between there were lots of hot days spent swimming with friends, the building of a bird trap, a fish hook firmly embedded in the hand of our boy and our usual berry picking & canning sessions.  

Natalie swimming at her cousin's birthday party

Joey admiring his selection of tackle

Joey & Dad with the bird trap they built together

Close up of the bird trap and all its features.  The metal latch on the top is the trigger for when birds come.  The marshmallows are the bait.  The gator grabs the birds so they can't get away and the jumper cable thing is to shock any raccoons that try to get in.

Joey fishing with the Pocket Fisherman.  These are great for kids, by the way.

Natalie lost her first tooth!

Joey made friends with a goat at the fair

Natalie is a fan of the roller coaster

Our new niece.

Natalie's first day of First Grade!  Joey is really excited too!

Next week Joey starts preschool.  With both kids in school, I will hopefully have a bit of time to better keep up on things, like my poor neglected blog....

Peaches!

A few jars each of my canned peach slices and peach preserves
and the few remaining peaches left from the  1/2 bushel I started out with.

Have you ever wondered why I make my own jam?  Because I can.  Get it, I can. Heh heh  OK, I'm done now.

Anyway, on with the story.  Every summer, a vendor comes to one of our local hotels and sells Georgia peaches out of a semi trailer.  They are fresh and juicy and just plain delicious.  I bought a case this year.

My friend Erin is always canning something or another.  She and her mother and sisters have given me so many wonderful ideas about canning beyond basic jam.  She has canned fruit every which way possible for years.  Every summer, she does tons of peaches.  This year I decided it was time to give it a whirl.  So, I blanched the requisite ten pounds of fruit and put the kids to work peeling it.  We have the neighbor kids over today, so I took advantage of my expanded labor force.  They made short work of the peeling and before long, we had them all pitted and sliced and ready to go in jars.  I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.  I used the recipe out of my handy canning book "Put 'Em Up!" by Sherri Brooks Vinton.  I love this book.  It is a great companion to the standard "Ball Blue Book" canning guide.

One cool thing about this recipe is that it calls for 1/2 cup honey.  Just so happens that the aforementioned wonderful Erin sent me a QUART of raw honey for Christmas.  That worked nicely in the peach syrup.  Thank you :)

A closer look at the sliced peaches

Last year, my friend Amanda got a case of peaches from this same vendor and she made the most beautiful peach preserves I have ever seen.  After the sliced peaches were canned, I still had quite a few left, so I decided to make a batch of this too.  It tastes as pretty as it looks.  As my Aunt Iris would say "Oh my heavenly days."  I'm so glad she shared her recipe!  You can find it here.  Her blog is really spiffy.  I hope you like it.

Up close and personal with peach preserves

Thanks to my canning gals for all your ideas, inspiration and trusted recipes!  Oh, and thanks to my teenage neighbor girl for showing me how to work Instagram on my phone  and to Dion for telling me how to get the pictures off my phone :)

Treasure Hunting

  It is full on rummage sale season around here.  The not so great part is that the big rummage sale days in my town are days that I work.  Fortunately, I wind up with a few hours to kill in town each week.  And sometimes when I'm really lucky, there is a sale close to my work that I can check out on my lunch break.  It has been a good couple of weeks of thrifting.

There are so many things I love about rummaging/thrifting.  I love to look for unique things.  Maybe they were very average household items in their day, maybe they're a one of a kind creation..  I like to take these things and give them another life in our home.

While overly theme-y canned decor isn't my thing, I think I have come to have a more defined style.  I know what I like and what I don't.  This is a huge help when trying to find an item for a certain function. I like certain styles of things, so I no longer buy the first cheap thing I find.  I wait until I find one that I'm going to want to look at every day. As you can see, I kind of have a thing for enamelware and vintage linens.

I've been wanting a vintage kitchen scale for quite a while.  Every so often, I need to measure produce by weight, and it would be nice to have a measurement when packaging meat, instead of just eyeballing what is a pound.  I found this snazzy one for $15.  This is the highest ticket item I've bought in a long time, but so worth it.  I got the cute little beehive that is sitting up on it for $1.25 at the same shop.  I just love that place. 

Sorry this isn't the best picture.  Oddly,
this was a hard thing to photograph.

The purchase of the scale led to a total revamp of my kitchen storage situation.  See, it didn't really fit on my counter like I had hoped it would, so I had to come up with plan B.  Plan B turned into clearing the top of our fridge, cleaning it (you know how they get that weird gunk on them), and putting out some of my other items that had been stored in a cabinet and moving the other stuff to the cabinet.  The top of the fridge has been a real eyesore forever.  I have no idea why I didn't do this about five years ago.  This concept isn't original.  Obviously I'm not the only person who decorates the top of their fridge with this kind of stuff, but it is actually very functional.  And, it looks a lot better than having our lunch pails and electric griddle up there.  This just makes me smile when I walk by it.  Best of all, I spent next to nothing to put this together.  All this stuff was either a gift or was purchased at rummage sales or thrift shops. Oh wait, I lied.  See that wooden jobbie the squirrel basket is sitting on, that's from The Pampered Chef.  It is a stand for mounting an apple peeler.  It was taking up space in the cabinet, so I decided it could be a stool for Matt's squirrel basket (yes it is my husband's basket.  It was a cheeky birthday gift from his sister).  Even though its all pretty up there, it is still the place where our bread goes and where we stash the candy away from little hands.

This nifty little dish is a piece of vintage Pyrex.  It originally had a ribbed glass top and was part of their refrigerator collection.   I found it at Goodwill.  No lid, but I liked the size and color of it so I got it anyway.  It is a great place to keep the plug for my sink and my scrubbies.

This apron was too cute to pass up.  It was 99 cents at Goodwill.  I bought it a while ago and wasn't sure what to do with it.  Lucky for me, Dion gave me a great idea to hang it on a vintage hanger.  We found this gem the on the same treasure hunt as the scale.  It has an advertisement on it for the E.R. Moore Company in Chicago and set me back a buck and a half.  They hang in the laundry room.  Don't they look cheerful?

It has been great to have all my little treasures find homes. Finding cool stuff is only part of the fun.  Figuring out just how its going to fit in the house is the real adventure.  Its even better when one item brings together a display of stuff that has otherwise gone unseen.

Have you found any treasures lately?

The Runaway Rooster

Friday night I went to shut the chicken coop and noticed that our rooster was missing.  I looked all over thinking that he was accidentally locked up in the garage or something. When I couldn't find him, I started to feel guilty that I left the door open too long and turned my  chickens into a drive through meal for a hungry critter.  Thinking that he had come to an untimely end, I went to bed feeling a bit sad.

I woke up Saturday morning hoping to see him pecking around in the yard.  I didn't see him, but I did hear him.   Looking like some kind of vagrant, I set out in yesterday's clothes rattling a bucket of corn.   I walked down the road and came up our back trail and still hadn't seen him.  Then I heard him again and followed the sound to the neighbor's boat shed.  With the T-Roy the rooster located and safe, I headed home to get Matt and some tools.

A bit later, we set off down the road.  Natalie on her bike, Joey wearing his "fire tiger" boots (Natalie's old neon rainbow cheetah print rubber boots which he is positive are really boys boots), me pulling the wagon with a cat carrier and a fishing net in it and Matt walking along beside me with his big gloves on, we really were a sight to behold.  It was a regular parade.

It felt a bit like being in a Ray Stevens song.  "So there I was" with a fish net in my hands, chasin' a runaway rooster around the neighbor's yard.  Two adults and two small children running around in circles after a ten pound chicken for the better part of an hour.  At one point, he hid under the porch and needed the persuasion of a water hose to come out.  I bet the neighbor felt like he got front row seats at the circus.

In the end, we gave a wet rooster a wagon ride home and returned him to his coop full of waiting hens.  The story has a happy ending, but I have to say that this really not how I expected to start my long weekend.

Potato Salad, The Official Food of Summer Potlucks

I like potato salad.  More specifically, I like home made potato salad.  The way my mom makes it.  No pimentos, no vinegar, nothing weird.  The most exotic thing about it is the paprika sprinkled over the top. 

Some will say that its not worth the hassle to make potato salad when you can walk into any store and buy it by the bucketful.  It is a fussy dish, I will agree.  Lots of chopping.  Other than that, its not hard.  Just a little time consuming.  But so worth the time.  Trust me.  The ingredients are simple and easy to come by.  This recipe makes a big bowl full.  Enough for about 16 man size servings.

Potato Salad:

5 lbs. potatoes

3 ribs celery

1 sm. onion

2 big dill pickles (plus a little juice, optional)

half a jar mayonnaise

yellow mustard

3 boiled eggs

paprika

fresh chives (optional)

Boil potatoes with the skins on until just tender.  You can use whatever kind you like, but just plain old white russets work the best.  When they're done, drain and let cool completely.  Stick them in the fridge if you like. I usually do this the night before I'm going to do the salad.

Here comes the tedious part.   Finely chop the onions, celery and pickles.  Once potatoes are cold, peel and roughly chop them into bite size pieces.

Dump all your chopped stuff in a bowl and add enough mayo to coat.  Then add a good size squirt of plain yellow mustard. If you like, you can add a bit of pickle juice here.  Stir it up and smooth out the top.

Slice or roughly chop boiled eggs and put on top for garnish.  Three is enough for my bowl, but you might want another one, depending on the size of your dish.  Don't skimp on the eggs.  Sprinkle with paprika.  If you really want to get fancy, snip a few fresh chives and add over the top.

Refrigerate for a few hours before serving.

Take it to your potluck and don't plan on bringing home leftovers :)

Hello Sunshine!

As I mentioned in my last post, we've been spending more time outside now that the weather is nice.  These mild, sunny days seem like a reward for making it through the long snowy winter.

The seeds Natalie and I planted a few months ago have done remarkably well.  As in, they GREW!  This has never happened for me before.  A few days ago, I moved them out to a makeshift cold frame to harden off.  Some of the biggest ones were ready to plant, so they went into Natalie's little barrel garden.  The big garden isn't ready yet.

Natalie's little barrel garden with grape tomatoes,
cucumbers, peppers, nasturtiums , zinnias and creeping  jenny (on the left).

The chicks are completely feathered out and have moved into the coop with the big chickens.  Egg production is up.  Probably as high as we've ever had.  We've been getting about  6-8 eggs every day and we have twelve adult hens.  I'm pretty sure that my dear little Peg doesn't lay anymore, so I figure eleven layers.  Some of them are pretty old too. So, not too bad.

Our little ladies peeking out into the yard.  The one in front is a Rhode Island  Red
and the stripey one is a Marans.  They are roughly half grown.

The flowers are coming up.   A cluster of yellow mini daffodils bloomed all last week, and the regular daffodils are in bloom at the moment and I think there will be bleeding hearts very soon.  The real treat is going to be when the crab apples and lilacs bloom.  They make the whole neighborhood smell wonderful.

I even found ants already hard at work on peony buds this morning.  I love peonies.  Maybe even as much as  Matt loves them, and I'm so happy to have them again after so long.  (We used to have peonies growing all along the side of the house and they got ruined by a careless contractor).

If you look closely, you can see tiny red ants working their way around the bud.  Yay, peonies!

Wanderings- The Frog Hunt

With the arrival of spring we've been spending a lot more time outside.  Every day it seems there is something new to see.

One evening last week, we took the kids for a "frog hunt" down a nearby logging/hunting trail.  We had been hearing the frogs singing for a few days by this time and the kids were dying to catch some.  With nets and buckets in hand, we set out to see what we could see.  We did catch one wood frog (thanks to a daddy with sharp eyes and quick reflexes).  

But, we saw so much more.  Water spiders, fiddlehead fern shoots, deer scat, frog eggs, a female wood duck, tiny white flowers, wild strawberry plants, a buck scrape and a funny daddy climbing a tree like a monkey. 

The evening started out as a search for the elusive singing frogs and ended as a game of being Grizzly bears.  For some reason, this particular area had seemingly hundreds of dry poles from two feet to eight feet tall.  The kids got the biggest kick out of pretending to be bears knocking down trees.  Naturally, the batteries died in my camera before we got to that part of the trip.

We were only out for about an hour and a half, but we covered a lot of ground.  For me, the best part is always watching Matt in his element, teaching the kids what he knows about nature.

Spring at Last

I think I can safely say that it is finally Spring.  Since I last posted, a few feet of snow have melted, fallen, and melted again.  We have lots of bare ground in our yard and experienced our first rainfall of the Spring this morning.  The birds are slowly returning.  I saw this confused looking robin from our living room window last week.  I like to think it was asking the red squirrel what's going on.

In my head, their conversation goes something like this:
Robin says to squirrel "What's with the snow?  I heard it was all melted?"
Squirrel says to Robin "That was last week.  You missed it."

We've been busy during this time of waiting for green grass and sunshine.  We got an invite from some friends of my Dad's to go see their newborn calves.  A visit to a farm is always fun for us. We met a day old calf and her ornery mama, two big dogs, some bunnies, a flock of chickens and a duck.  The kids had a blast!  And, I asked them a million questions about their chicken and rabbit setups.

The General leads Matt and the kids into the birthing pen.

She does not look happy to see us.

We celebrated Easter.  The kids dyed eggs, we went to Easter Mass and out to brunch with Matt's family.

We've had a few birthdays in the family.  Joey turned 4 and had a party at the local bowling alley the same weekend as Matt's sister, Tina celebrated her birthday.  Their birthdays are two days apart and both of them were born on Good Friday.

We got our spring chicks. We added five Rhode Island Red pullets, five Marans pullets, one Buff Orpington, and one Brown Leghorn to the flock this year.  I am especially excited for the Marans because we've never had them before and they lay eggs that are very dark brown.  We've lost a few hens since the last time we bought chicks and a few more are getting pretty old and rickety and may not make the year, so its time to add some new ones.  I hope to add two more chicks this year also.  If I can get to L&M when they have them, I'd like to get a couple of Buckeye pullets.  They are a reddish brown chicken that looks much like a Rhode Island Red, but they were developed in Ohio and have a "propensity for catching mice."  I'm all for anything that eats mice.

One little Rhode Island struck a pose for me.  She kind of looks like Paris Hilton.

We have begun cleaning up from the winter both indoors and out.  Matt finally took down the deer bones that have been making our front yard look like a scene from a horror movie and I've been organizing.  We've finally taken down the Christmas/winter decorations from the porch and replaced them with more colorful cheery warm weather things.

Thrifted buckets, crate and flower art.  The chicken and silk flowers are from Walmart.
The red thing is a piece of sidewalk chalk that happened to be laying there.

  

The spring flowers are starting to peek up through their blanket of leaf mulch.  Seeing the peonies coming up always makes me smile.

I see a few more crowns than last year.  This is promising!

I've tried several new recipes.  Cinnamon Roll Cake is heavenly.  The recipe says to serve it warm, but I think it tastes better the next day.  Chicken and Dumpling Casserole got mixed reviews.  We'll see how the Rutabaga and Carrot Mash goes over tonight.  It looks tasty and Joey informed me this morning that he just loves rutabagases, they're from Canaba you know.

I've been doing some thrifting.  In my travels, I've found some clothes for the kids, a few more vintage bowls for me,  toss pillows for the living room, some metal and ceramic containers to serve as planters and several books for me to read.  I also picked up a family size George Foreman grill and a waffle iron for very reasonable prices.

I hosted my card swap group over the weekend. There are five of us in the group and we meet every other month to share cards.  We each take a turn hosting, have a potluck lunch, stamp and gab.  Its nice relaxing girl time.  And, the cards are always beautiful.  I'm very happy with this last bunch.

We've also checked out the new Cherry Berry frozen yogurt place in town, (it was ok, but over priced and not enough tables), been to the public library, had some play dates and a sleepover with the neighbor kids.  

Springtime is getting off to a good start.  I just hope it doesn't decide to be winter again until about mid-December.

Here's to Sunshine! :)

Thinking Spring

We've all been getting a little antsy for spring to come.  Layers of bulky coats and boots are getting old and we're ready for bare feet and t-shirts.  It is looking like a long wait still.  We have snowbanks about 8 feet high all along the edges of our driveway/parking area with paths to bird feeders and the critter houses.  The rest of the yard is pretty much inaccessible.  

But, we're being positive.  We're thinking Spring.  We're sorting seeds and making plans.  Last weekend Natalie and I started some seeds.  

I just love these little yellow pots.

We've never had very good luck with starting our own plants, but this is going to be my year.  By the way, I say that every year.  I just know this is really going to be the year that my seeds turn into healthy little plants by the time all this ever loving snow goes away.  

Natalie watering the seeds

After we had the seeds all planted and watered, I was talking to my father-in-law on the phone and he advised that I cover the pots loosely with plastic wrap and set them on top of the fridge until they sprout.  The top of the fridge is always a little above room temperature and will help the soil warm up.  The plastic wrap keeps things from drying out.  That way, I only had to water them when they were first planted, then not again until after they come up.  He was right as he always is about these things. Unbelievably within a few days we already had zinnias, bachelor's buttons, pansies and cucumbers sprouting. Now we're starting to move seedlings to the windowsills during the day (putting them on top of the fridge at night since it gets cold still.).

My tomatoes and Natalie's flowers all lined up in the sun.

Keeping my fingers crossed that spring will indeed come.  Soon.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Heroes in a half shell. Turtle Power!

The Daddy of the house had a birthday last week.  He generally prefers this to be a non-event.  However, when your kids are at the age where birthdays cannot exist without cake and parties, you get a party whether you want it or not.

This was the case for Matt.  The kids heard us talking about his upcoming birthday and decided that they needed to take action.  Natalie is positive that her dad just absolutely loves Hello Kitty, so it was only fitting that he had a Hello Kitty cake.  Joey has recently discovered the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and really thought that we needed party hats.  He and I went shopping the day before the party and he put quite a lot of thought into picking out paper products and favors  We ended up with Ninja Turtle plates, cups and masks, Toy Story napkins, rubber bugs and party blowers for everyone. 

Party blowers and rubber bugs.  It doesn't get any better than that!

The event itself was small and brief.  The guest list consisted of Matt's parents and my dad and the whole party took about an hour and a half.  It was the best party I can remember.  Simple, laid back and fun.  Even the grandparents got in on the masks and everyone enjoyed a nice piece of kitty cake from a local bakery.  

Who is that masked man?

Big Ron as Leonardo

Mayno & Dennis as Raphael & Michelangelo

Happy Birthday, Daddy!