The Ghosts of Halloween Past

Posted on October 13, 2026 by lexicolton

I missed September! Noooooo. I was insanely overwhelmed and stressed. Weirdly, even though October is my busiest month with Halloween and birthday planning, I’m more in the groove of things now. I set a deadline (family photos) to have our costume done (this Friday) and I’m nearly there! Then I’ll have a whole month to prep for the kids’ birthdays! Right now I’m watching the kids play house at Davis Farmland which is rather cute.

Patricia has been very stressed out lately. At school and at home. They left 2 kids behind in her classroom and now she freaks out when she is the second to last kid at extended day (or anywhere). Her fuse is also getting shorter. Combine this with her not having accountability for anything (despite us working on that for years) and it means it’s been a really rough month. She’s working on it though.

Julius and Patricia are also both starting to learn Mandarin. Which means I’m also starting to learn Mandarin. I guess I’m trying to disprove that phrase you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Or maybe I’m just trying to prove I’m not an old dog. Either way, I’m trying to dust off the cobwebs. Meanwhile the kids are little sponges which is awesome!

Julius is doing 10,000 activities. Even though he dropped down to the rec gymnastics his entire week is packed. Everyday he has at least one activity, frequently two. I’m exhausted everytime I open the calendar.

The kids have been making dinner for us once a month. It started out because Julius missed his 2nd grade field trip to Wegman’s. His teacher gave us the activities they did and we did them all at home. One of them was to plan a $10 meal with all the food groups. Julius managed to do that planning a meal for the whole family! Since then we’ve upped it to a $20 meal but he plans the meal shops for everything and then makes it! It’s amazing.

I realized the last several years I’ve been slacking on the costume how tos. I owe you: an m&m, Wills vampire costume, and a bat costume. Let me get the m&m out of the way! Julius was an m&m two years ago for Halloween. It was pretty much the easiest costume ever. If you can make a pillow you can make an M&M.

M&M costume

  • 1.5 yards of blue cotton
  • white fabric paint
  • scrap fabric
  • stuffing

1. Using scrap paper cut an 18″ circle. (Use a protractor.)

    2. Take your scrap fabric and cut 4 pieces using the circle as the pattern without seam allowance (add .5″)

    3. Place 2 circles together and stitch around the edge leaving a 3″ gap. Stuff. Stitch closed.

    4. Take your blue fabric and use your 18″ pattern to draw 4 circles and repeat step 2.

    5. Create an m on scrap paper or sticky paper using the m&m font. Cut out with an x acto knife.

    6. Place ‘m’ template on one blue circle.

    7. Using a foam spouncer or roller, press white paint over the stencil to add a white ‘m’ to the blue circle.

    8. Make straps by cutting two 12″x 4″ strips of blue fabric.

    9. Fold each in half the long way and stitch. Then turn inside out. Iron flat.

    10. Pin one side of the straps to the front of the circle with the white ‘m’ as shown, above the top of the ‘m’.

    11. Pin a second blue circle on top. Stitch (backstitch over the straps), leaving a 6” gap at the bottom.

    12. Turn inside out. Pin other end of straps to the top of another blue circle, like you did in step 10.

    13. Repeat step 11.

    14. Turn inside out. Stuff each side of the m&m with the pillows you made in step 3.

    15. Hand sew closed using a ladder stitch.

      Posted in Crafts & Sewing | Leave a comment

      Tuckered Out

      Posted on August 31, 2026 by lexicolton

      Well, it’s the last day of the month again… this is becoming a trend. Let me try to catch everyone up. Costa Rica was a blast! I had fun hanging out with friends and coworkers, working on some fun debug problems, trying tons of great food (gallo pinto, casado, chifrijo, ceviche, tortillas de queso, this awesome string cheese that I can’t remember the name of) and drinks (chili guarro, maracuya fresca, coffee). I ate way too much to say the least. Everyone was so amazing and friendly and I got to speak a bunch of Spanglish (they were kind enough to humor me) and soak in all the beautiful scenery. Multiple of my coworkers talk about how they have “wildlife” in their backyard like scarlet and green macaws, toucans, poison dart frogs, leaf cutter ants… SO COOL. The last day I stayed there my coworkers spent a whole day taking us to some amazing sites – a hike to the Poas volcano in a cloud forest. We stopped for amazing strawberries and that string cheese on the way back and then went to La Paz waterfall gardens where we hung out with a bunch of animals (including toucans!) and hiked to a series of several waterfalls. It was all so beautiful!

      I left Costa Rica earlier than Mike and Delaney so I could head back and see Mandy and Bailey who were visiting from Colorado! I was lucky enough to catch them for the last couple days of their trip where we stayed with my parents and did a whole boatload (pun intended) of skiing. Mandy even convinced me to try barefooting on the boom. I got up for maybe .2 seconds (not sure that counts) but Mandy legit got up for a long time! She definitely had the hang of it. I gave it my all… and it seems tore something in the process since my left tricep still hurts (I’m seeing the orthopedic tomorrow). Julius and Patricia also both tried water skiing! Julius got up but then let go! And they both loved tubing – an activity we haven’t done in AGES.

      Then we were home for a week… and then went to Block Island! We had a great time – did lots of biking, hiking, swimming, exploring. It’s so relaxing! Will’s bike tire blew 3 times though so he ended up giving up and renting a bike. I got to cook and bake a bunch, which I honestly love to do when I’m not crunched for time during the work week. We had some good meals including, of course, my one meal a year of sustainably harvested bivalves (in paella). We also picked wild blackberries on one of our hikes and made a delicious wild blackberry scone with lemon drizzle. We went to 5 different beaches this time – its so crazy how they all have different vibes. If I were a writer (a real one, not a fake blogger one) I’d love to spend all the seasons there and see how the island changes through the year.

      And then last week… my kids started school! Wow. Both my kids are now in school! Patricia is having a great time it seems, though she’s having some moments of embarrassment or sadness. The first day of school Patricia said was great, but when recounting it she told me about how great lunch was and then remembered, “except they gave me a lemon” (note: she loves lemons) “and I couldn’t peel it! And then Mrs. Gragen made me throw it out!” And she commenced sobbing. Julius told us it was “an orange” and it was in fact “delicious” despite being yellow. Julius is happy because most of his buddies are in his class this year!

      We are planning to do one last car camping adventure this weekend! So in honor of that let me show you the sleeping bags I made for the kids’ stuffies! They were Christmas presents I made last year – and they were a hit!

      Stuffy Sleeping Bags

      • Quilt batting
      • Lightweight fabric for inner
      • Lightweight fabric for outer
      • A small zipper (I used a 6″ zipper)
      • a foot of 1/4″ elastic

      Cut one inner and one outer fabric to 18×13.

      Pin right sides together and pin 3 sides, leaving one short end opened. Stitch.

      Turn right sides out, and stuff with 17″x12″ piece of batting.

      Tuck the open end inside, and then pin.

      Mark out 3 17″ horizontal lines, spaced 3″ apart.

      Stitch along these lines.

      Pin one side of zipper (face down) on the outside fabric. Make sure the opening aligns with the edge of the fabric. Fold under the end of the zipper so it will not show when you turn it right side out. Stitch all the way down the bag.

      Fold sleeping back in half, right sides together, and align the other side of the zipper up with the inside of the bag, much like you did in the previous step. Stitch.

      Still wrong side out (sorry for the color switch here, dark pink is the lining fabric, light pink is the outer), insert two elastics, 6″ each. Each should be folded in half and the loop should be placed inside the bag. They should be placed at around 1.5″ and 3″.

      Stitch the bottom opened end (catching the elastic) up the side to the bottom of the zipper. Turn right side out

      You can roll them up like a normal sleeping bag too!

      Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 4 Comments

      Woof Ems

      Posted on July 31, 2026 by lexicolton

      Hello Friends!  I’ve barely been able to keep up with the once a month posts!  And, despite the summer, I haven’t had time to do very many crafts or hobbies.  Where has the time gone?! 

      Since school has gotten out the kids have been busy with daycare and summer camps.  Last Friday was Patricia’s last day of daycare!  Insane, I know!  She’s my big lady now.  The rest of this summer has been full of lots of trips and weekend activities. 

      The beginning of summer my brother and sister in law and niece and nephew flew in and we all stayed with my parents in Maine to go to Santa’s village and Storyland.  What a blast.  The kids loved it too.  It went by too fast but it was so much fun!  As the kids get older, everything has gotten easier.  We have to cut less things up, they entertain themselves, we worry less about keeping an eye on them 24/7 because we trust them to make good decisions (within reason).  It’s the same traveling with Finn and Ari because they’re the same ages.  And they are all happy to do big kid things with us.  It’s great.  

      The following weekend we spent the 4th of July with my parents in RI on the lake.  It was great!  The kids have some friends they met down there across the lake that they spend hours playing with – shuttling people back and forth on paddle boards, paddle boats and all other manner of self-propelled watercraft. Patricia is the youngest by far but they are all very sweet to her and include her in their games.  Despite the multi year age gap she really still keeps up!  She is also really good at advocating for herself or speaking up when she’s not being included which is something I always struggled with as a child.  It makes me quite proud. 

      The next weekend we left town for our next adventure – a trip to Lake Lure, NC.  My in laws booked an Airbnb down there and we decided to save money and drive down.  On the way we stayed overnight at Shenandoah National Park which is in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  It was beautiful!  And there was tons of wildlife.  The kids once again wanted to sleep in the microcamper (be still my heart) so we did!  Shenandoah apparently has a lot of bears (we didn’t see any) so they have bear boxes at most of the campsites – we were able to put all our stuff in there which was great for the microcamper!  For dinner this time we roasted hotdogs over the fire with a side of broccoli and I finally tried my new home made woof-em sticks!  They worked great!  Since the kids are into video games now we let them play games and watch a few pokemon movies on the way there and back, in between the silly games I packed for them.  The only really new thing I packed from last time was this sew your own monster craft that we actually already had in the basement.  It’s been sitting around for a while.  Let me tell you it was a hit!  The kids did really well putting the kits together with limited help.  I of course also packed snackle boxes again for the way there and back with paint your own sugar cookies, but I only did one new design, a jigglypuff. 

      We had a blast in Lake Lure with Will’s entire family.  The views were gorgeous from the huge screen porch.  Our days were filled with swimming, boating, (I drove the pontoon boat!  We even went to a dock and dine spot!) hiking and hanging out.  The kids had fun with our niece and nephew even though this time they were the big kids!  It was a beautiful trip and again I didn’t want it to end.  For our drive back home we had planned another camping trip in Maryland, stopping to visit my friend Danielle for lunch along the way since we pass right by her!  We got to meet Andrew finally too and we had a great short visit with them over lunch before we had to check out the cool retro arcade in town then hit the road again.  Unfortunately when we got on the road again we discovered there was a tornado watch for the area we were camping in, so we made a game time decision to just drive straight back home.  The kids and I were disappointed we didn’t get to have another fun camping adventure, but relieved to have basically an extra day!

      Last weekend we dropped the kiddos off at my parents’ house for “Camp Meemah” (something my in laws have volunteered to do for us too when we are ready to put the kids on a plane by themselves – I’m just not ready yet even if the kids say they are!)  I thought Will and I were going to have a fun week to ourselves to do adult things… but I had a work trip come up with travel to Costa Rica!  I probably could have said no, especially since it’s right over when Mandy and Bailey are in town, but I feel like I will probably never get the chance again!  When making a list of who I need to say hi to in Costa Rica there were nearly 40 people on my list, all but one of which I’ve never met in person.  Even though I’m not directly on this project my manager thought it was good for me to go.  I told Will he should join me but his passport is expired! Ugh! So I guess he gets to have a fun bachelor weekend instead! 

      Woof Em Sticks

      What you’ll need:

      • 1” dowel (larger would be better but I couldn’t find any)
      • 3/8” dowel

      Cut 3/8” dowel down to 3 feet each.  Cut 1” dowel down to a 3” section.  Sand everything very well.

      Drill a 3/8” wide hole into the bottom of the 1” dowel, about 1.5 inches deep.  I did this by first using a 1/4” drill bit first to prevent the dowel from cracking. 

      Shove the 3/8” dowel into the hole as far as it will go.  Mine were snug so I didn’t add anything else to hold it in place.

      Finally, let the 1” dowel section of the sticks sit in cooking oil for a few days to absorb the oil. 

      The first time we used the woof em sticks the fully cooked woof ems pulled right off the stick.  I am going to re-season them again though just in case. 

      Edit: wow! I forgot to tell you how to use it?! Flatten a biscuit’s worth of biscuit dough over the top of the wide dowel (you can also use crescent roll dough). Then gently roast over the coals of a fire, turning frequently. Your goal is to make a bowl to fill with chocolate pudding and top with whipped cream. I find that after the outside is done you can pop it off the woof em stick and then place it on the fire pit grate, open side down, to fully cool the inside. Then you woof ’em down!

      Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 6 Comments

      Launch

      Posted on June 27, 2026 by lexicolton

      Whew! So much stuff again. More school committee, cub scout campout, gymnastics and soccer end of year celebrations and Patricia’s preK graduation. Busy, busy, busy! This is Julius’ last week of school. Today he was allowed to bring in a stuffie so he chose his giant Totoro that I made for his 2yo birthday! I’m happy to report that he still sleeps with it every night.

      For the campout I ended up building a couple giant catapults that I guess I’ll tell you about today. Right now I’m watching my kids in swim lessons and for the first time ever they are in lanes right next to each other. Patricia and Julius keep high fiving each other after each lap it is really cute.

      The catapult was a replacement for an activity that was way too risky for a group of k thru 5s (but I of course do at my own medieval parties outside of scouts). I figured I could build some catapults and if they end up violating the cub scout rules down the road (they change every 5 minutes) I can just use it for the medieval party. When I ran the event the catapults met all the specs for Scouting America rules (to my knowledge). Disclaimer: if you’re using these plans for scouts give the range rules a gander yourself because I am not the authority here just a scout leader trying to do her best.

      I nearly completely used the design here but I doubled all the dimensions. For elastics I used 3 foot bungees but they vary wildly in strength. I think it’s best to mess around and test this. The main adjustments I made to the design (other than doubling the side) were to use 2x4s, and make it possible to disassemble and reassemble using bolts. This meant instead of having one main post to hold up the stopper, I used two, held thru the main post by bolts into the frame. Ultimately it comes apart into 6 pieces (though I left the throwing arm attached to the frame for the scouts) that can be transported more easily. The whole thing is assembled by 10 bolts.

      The idea was to have a large number of scouts (6 to 8 per catapult) divided into two teams. Half would race to build the catapult using my instructions below, the other half would race to build a structure with cardboard bricks as tall as possible. Then we’d have the first team storm the castle and then swap. We in reality had half the number of kids I was expecting so it took the small teams much too long to assemble the catapults. I think in theory the design is pretty good because you can choose how much they have to setup, but unfortunately I hadn’t really tested it with a group of kids to judge speed.

      So I think the catapult is pretty safe. The worst thing that could happen is the bungee snaps or the arm hits you in the face. For that reason we have eye protection (as per Scouting America guidelines). It doesn’t hurt at all to get hit with the balls so while it is run as a ranged sport, the stakes are far lower if someone were to cross the boundaries.

      The real problem now is trying to figure out where to store it…

      Posted in Crafts & Sewing | Leave a comment

      Spicey

      Posted on June 10, 2026 by lexicolton

      Well life has been chaotic to say the least!  I had my first school committee meeting last night and it was very interesting.  I have so much to learn.  It is going to be a lot for a while I imagine!  But I’m going to do my best!

      Meanwhile we’ve also been busy with scouts and other regular life activities.  Julius has been working so hard at gymnastics that his coach said he made the fall team!  But the hours are such (9 hours a week, not even counting the weekend tournaments) that he is going to drop back to recreational gymnastics and ninja.  It’s bittersweet.  He’s been doing such a good job and improving, but it also already takes up so much of his time and is hard to schedule around.  He’ll have more time to play during the week which is something he’s always complaining about!  And we’ll have time to actually eat dinner at a reasonable hour more days of the week (maybe). 

      Patricia decided she wanted to start piano lessons so this will be her first week.  I’m proud that she’s interested in trying something new.  She’s very good at advocating for herself, which is something as a child (and to this day) that I struggled with.  She’ll be starting kindergarten in just a few short months and she’s very excited!  She rode the bus and had a blast, she keeps repeating all the rules of the bus to us.  I can’t wait for her to get somewhere that will actually challenge her!  I just hope she is motivated!

      Will has gone all in on AI and is building his own RAG for board games, I’m sure those of you who care will learn of that when he releases it.  Meanwhile I’m behind on crafts.  Our last scout meeting was yesterday so I’m hopeful that I can start getting home stuff done!  I spent the last several weeks cleaning out spice containers to use for cub scout crafts.  I used vinegar, baking soda, the dishwasher and the sun to get the smell out.  I think the sun worked the best… Yesterday the scouts decorated the cannisters and then filled them with 5 of the six essentials. The only one that didn’t fit was a water bottle, so we clipped that to the side with a carabiner.  I used some jewelry floss, a square knot and a bowline hitch to tie a loop onto each bottle for the carabiner.  The exact versions of everything I bought to fit in the container are below:

      Flashlights that fit!

      Suntan lotion that fits!

      But that was just a silly side project!  Let me tell you what lead to the surplus of bottles. I reorganized my spice cabinet!  It’s always such a disaster to find everything.   I have a cabinet up top where I store extra spices I buy but it’s so cluttered sometimes I forget I have an extra already.  So I took everything out (I should have taken a picture it was insane), then alphabetized them all, consolidated them into these nice glass spice containers I have been collecting and then made a spreadsheet.  In my spreadsheet I ranked everything by the order I used everything (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, less). Then I sorted the spreadsheet by most used and alphabetical order and was able to fit 24 (with one empty space) jars in the new rack I built. The rest I sorted by alphabetical order and put in my top shelf so I could easily find them later. Let me tell you it has been life changing.

      Quick anecdote before I give you the details – I overheard this conversation last week:

                    Patricia (to Julius):  Who’s your BFF Julius?

                    Julius:  Probably you.

      Patricia learned what BFF meant and this conversation ensued. Be still my heart.

      Spice rack

      I measured my cabinet and figured out that I could fit a 5×5 grid of glass spice bottles. I’ve been collecting the glass bottles from Morton and Bassett products for the last couple years. I originally wanted to make something more complicated than this, but I settled on the method of just effectively little tiny shelves.

      First I cut two boards slightly smaller than the height of the jar just below the cap and as tall as the diameter of 5 jar caps stacked together.

      Then I glued small 1/4″ wide trim on each side board, spacing 1/8″ larger than the jar lid diameter.

      Finally, and this part needed to be pretty exact, from 1/8″ MDF I cut 3″ deep boards that were as long as the cabinet minus the width of the side shelves that you used (ours were 1/4″).

      Slide these onto each shelf and fill with spices!

      Posted in Home Improvement | 6 Comments

      Danycon 2026

      Posted on April 29, 2026 by lexicolton

      Oh my gosh. It is APRIL. This is atrocious! I apologize for leaving you hanging for TWO MONTHS. Life has just gotten SO BUSY and my motivation is completely in the tubes (though I may have turned that around!) I also decided to run for School Committee which is, apparently, a legit elected position. Luckily I’m running unopposed, but still, vote for me on May 11th! Some of my friends in town were joking they were going to write in Will on the ballot and see how that played out since most people don’t bother filling in the unopposed boxes… I know he’d love to wake up to find out he was on school committee /s.

      Gosh what to even tell you from the last couple months?! Well, I guess I’ll start recent. Last week was Danycon! We somehow missed Danycon last year due to pushing the last one back a bit and then no one being able to make it! Instead Erin and Mark had KatieCon with Will because everyone else was too absorbed in their own lives (read: busy with work and wallowing in existential dread – okay wait that was just me). But we DID have Danycon this year and it was a blast! Erin had a conflict with a mother-daughter tea party with Ari but even she was able to get in in the wee hours of Sunday for a full day of Danycon. Everyone (except Erin) flew in Friday and then flew out Monday afternoon so we had a SOLID TWO DAYS to play games. IT WAS A BLAST.

      Theme

      The theme this year was paranormal. Unfortunately we recently got rid of a bunch of our paranormal games… so our paranormal games were somewhat slim pickings. We still managed to play quite a few. And we kept with the theme for our goodie bags which contained mini ouiji boards, tea reading books with loose leaf tea, a ghost in a jar, danycon paranormal society pins and danycon shirts with a fun surprise.

      Will made an epic paranormal themed scavenger hunt this year that I really wanted to help with. Unfortunately I ran out of time making shirts and other stuff for the goodie bags so Will made the whole thing SOLO. I was incredibly impressed. I basically only imparted a few ideas. Claude also helped…

      We had a very cranky participant last year for DnD that honestly ruined the entire experience for me so Will and I decided to take a year off. It’s just no fun to DM someone who is actively disinterested. Surprisingly everyone else was deeply saddened by this and said they look forward to it every year! So we will be doing it again next year! We just will let people decide in advance if they want to opt out. We also didn’t have a murder mystery dinner because we weren’t sure if Erin was going to make it and didn’t want to risk 7 players when we needed 8. Next year we’ll have another one. Instead we did this new RPG Alice is Missing that Will and I played at PAX. It’s silent, done all over text messages and after setup it is 90 minutes total. I think everyone enjoyed it but Mark went to pick Erin up from the airport so neither of them got to play it (I’ve got a session set up with them tomorrow instead!)

      As usual Will made his online board game itinerary. Erin and Mark made fun sporkle challenges for us to play every morning which were a blast! Including what year is the Danycon shirt from which everyone but me were stumped about. We also played Bingo again and Mary Elizabeth won! No one was able to get full card bingo…

      As for games we played a bunch! I think the only paranormal games we played were Spectral and Mysterium… though I could be mistaken.

      Food

      Dinners

      For food we ordered from our favorite local Mediterranean place on Friday which was amazing as usual AND they whipped together a huge order for us in only 40 minutes. We had tons of leftovers.

      The next day I made a pasta bake with beyond sausage served with a salad. We also had way too many leftovers that night… which meant Sunday’s dinner was either Mediterranean or pasta bake… (I planned to make Shepherd’s pie with impossible meat…)

      Lunches

      We bought tons of sandwich ingredients for lunches along with wraps and rolls and served them with apples, clementines and chips.

      Sorry Jesse for cutting your head off! This is the only picture I have of lunch!

      Breakfast

      We went to the cub scout pancake breakfast on Saturday! Convenient! So I didn’t have to make breakfast and I got to show off my family to the pack and vice versa. Sunday I made sourdough bagels for breakfast (though everyone ate them for lunch)…

      Surprise our shirts glow in the dark!
      Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 6 Comments

      Whirlwind February

      Posted on February 25, 2026 by lexicolton

      Wow what a busy past few weeks! We had a great time visiting Mark and Erin and the kids and seeing their great house and community. I even got to join for a cub scout meeting to see how things are done in Texas! (Spoilers the same as here.) We got to join for my niece’s birthday party which was a fun pokemon themed bash at a local playground! All the kids were super excited about the pokemon activity Erin had planned and I got to help Marko with the pokeball cake. Will got to eat Mexican food all weekend, and we played many board games. Okay mostly just one, but we played it a lot of times. Everyone had a blast!

      We got home (4am on Monday) after a long night in airport. I spent the next evening prepping dinner and chocolate ingredients for Galentine’s day. We had a blast making chocolates (more on that later) and chatting. The rest of the week was spent prepping for Valentine’s day itself, working with the kids on their Valentines. They almost independently addressed and signed them though! Even Patricia! I was so proud. And then on top of that I somehow managed to finish some crochet animals that I made originally from Woobles kits that Amy got me for my birthday! (Oh and did I tell you I also wrote them little love notes in their Valentine backpacks nightly?)

      The following weekend we went to Great Wolf Lodge! Which I haven’t been to but the kids went to with my parents for Julius’s friend’s birthday party several months ago. It was a blast. We did lots of water slides, rode the lazy river about 1000 times, had a sleepover in the hotel room, did some crafts and yoga and played on a playground. Next time I’d add a second night! It was a fun little vacation 20 minutes from home.

      We came home from the lodge just in time for dinner on Saturday and made Valentine’s fondue! Will’s mom and her best friend Janet were in town for the evening so they got to join us! Since there were a couple more people than usual I used my induction cooktop with my enameled dutch oven in the center of the table for the cheese course and then used my hand me down fondue pot for the chocolate dessert course! It worked pretty well.

      Then the next day we headed up to Maine to go visit my parents and go skiing. We skied all day presidents day and then drove back home. But we left Julius there! He got to spend the rest of the week hanging with my parents and skiing! Lucky! Patricia was heartbroken. She missed Julius a lot. Julius told me the first day he called that he missed us which broke my heart. And he told my mom that he missed Patricia several times. We were so glad to have him back home. We spent the weekend at the library, tapping maple trees with the scouts and vegging at home with movies and homemade pizza and treats. Then we had a snowpacolypse which lead to two days of cancelled school… (sidenote: I hate having to work on snow days). That brings us to today! Hooray!

      I’m going to show you ladies’ night then next week I promise to show you the Valentines that the kids and I came up with this year…

      So we made A LOT of truffles this year. Karoline brought key lime filling and oreo filling (my favorite) and I made chocolate, mint (sidenote I used “mint” instead of “peppermint” extract and I disliked it), peanut butter and lavender. The lavender and key lime were white chocolate and were total disasters! We couldn’t figure out why both mine and Karolines both came out bad until Amy discovered that due to chocolate supply issues they have been swapping cocoa butter with vegetable oil… which does not work for truffles. The centers never set! It was awful! The worst part was we both used tried and true Ghiradelli white chocolate, confirmation Ghiradelli is using inferior emulsifiers. There should be some warning their recipe has changed!

      We did the same thing we did last year which was roll all the truffles centers before we ate and them placed them in the freezer (or this year the porch covered in snow) to set. After dinner we dipped them in chocolate that I melted in a double boiler over the portable induction cooktop in the center of the counter. And I got a new double boiler from the thrift shop a few weeks ago that fits right in my existing pans! This is great because the last one I owned was not induction friendly and I donated it.

      This year for food I went with my vegetarian cassoulet that I usually serve at Solstice, plus French bread and a spinach salad with onions, apples and pecans that Amy threw together for me while I put everything else on the table. I did remember to take pictures of the ladies this time though so you’ll have to enjoy these instead. I need to have ladies’ nights more often they always bring me joy (and hopefully they bring everyone else joy).

      Truffles!
      Emmie’s amazing Galentine’s outfit
      Dipping!
      Finished truffles!
      The one picture I got of the food. Plus Amy modeling the bread.
      After rolling out truffles!
      I stuck my head in here too
      Posted in Culinary Delights, Parties | 2 Comments

      Tea-rrific Birthday

      Posted on February 3, 2026 by lexicolton

      Hello friends. Last week was not ideal. Two snowdays, lice, frozen then busted pipes, double vision issues and the worst TMJ I’ve ever had (probably from stress?!) Good news is, it’s a whole new week! I know a lot of you had it far worse with no power and heat for weeks! Much more stressful. So I really can’t compare but it was not a great week for me.

      This weekend we are visiting my brother and sister in law and finally seeing their (not so) new house that they bought 2 years ago! The kids are excited to see their cousins and because of postponement due to weather across the South a couple weeks back we even get to be there for Ari’s birthday party. We are looking forward to it.

      Speaking of birthdays I realized I didn’t even show you Patricia’s party! Patricia asked for an “animal tea party” this year and as you know I’m rather a tea party afficionado so I didn’t need to do much to make that happen. Because she wanted to invite her whole class (20 kids) plus a couple others and I knew parents would ask to bring siblings, I rented out the community center cafe for the party! It worked great.

      This is the one party where I did not have too many crafts, in fact I ran out of crafts. It is so kid dependent how long they spend on something that I totally stand by my usual inclination to have twice as many activities than they need. Luckily it was unseasonably warm out and my mom suggested we play some outdoor games with the kids like farmer and the dell and what time is it Mr fox. They seemed to enjoy that.

      Theme & Invites

      I don’t know the emails of most of the people in Patricia’s class so I did old fashioned paper invites! I made these on MS Word… they did the trick.

      Decor

      From past parties, you’ll know I have a collection of tea cups. I added a few more this time around from the thrift shop, and also bought a bunch of pretty plates that I turned into tea party tiered trays for cheap! I wanted there to be one per table, and ended up with a few extras that I used for cupcakes. I bought sheets from the thrift store that I turned into tablecloths and splurged on some paper plates from Michaels that look like real china. But the real pièce de résistance? A streamer chandelier that covered the ceiling and had a (I know I went against my rules) golden 5 balloon. Will gets full credit for putting that up exactly to spec. I never would have been able to reach the ceiling and he did a marvelous job.

      Activities

      I bought these cute little “aqua puff” animals. Basically they are dry flattened sponges you color with marker and then paint with water to get them to puff up. I figured it would be a good activity as kids arrived. Unfortunately kids arrived in varying amounts of time and some kids took wildly varying amounts of time to make them.

      Next I bought a bunch of mini wild animal stuffies (made from 100% recycled materials). I made adoption certificates and little bow ties and hair bows for them to decorate then with as well as little capes for them to decorate and put on. Again, varying amounts of time for these.

      Finally I had kids make tea party hats by picking out flowers and bows to put on their hats. I helped them with the bows, they decorated with the flowers using tacky glue and then my mom glued them all down for the kids with hot glue. This worked well and most kids’ hats stayed together!

      High Tea

      After this we had the actual tea party, described below. All the kids liked the tea choices I picked with many asking for seconds.

      Games

      After lunch we went outside for a few games, and then back inside for cupcakes and singing.

      Food

      We had a couple kids with different food allergies so I did not put any questionable items with allergens on the tables with the kids (honestly I wasn’t even going to serve anything with any known allergens but my friend, whose child has an egg allergy, convinced me she wanted to eat egg salad so I made an exception… Plus it’s Patricia’s favorite). Frustratingly some parents didn’t tell me their kids had food allergies (partially my fault because I usually put it on the invite and didn’t this time). Luckily it was an allergy I had accommodated for as a “just in case” (and I’d taken pictures of the things I had purchased instead of making from scratch so the parent could double check). As for food prep, I brought a toaster oven to heat up the crumpets but everything else was prepared in the morning and put in the fridge until we served it. The labels made it easy to remember where everything should go.

      Menu

      • Mini Crumpets served with jam and flower shaped butter (these were a huge hit)
      • Egg Salad on Sourdough Rolls
      • Sunbutter and Jelly sandwiches (store bought bread)
      • Turkey and Cheese sandwiches on rolls (no mayo, store bought rolls)
      • Cucumber and Cream Cheese sandwiches (bread not homemade)
      • Fruit Salad
      • Teacup Cupcakes
      • Raspberry Herbal tea
      • Paris Herbal tea
      • Assorted seltzers
      Posted in Culinary Delights, Thrift Finds | 2 Comments

      Moxie Boxy

      Posted on January 27, 2026 by lexicolton

      Well I really meant to post last week. I really did but I started reading Manacled and physically and mentally could not do anything else until I finished that. It was a struggle to live life last week with the knowledge that if it weren’t for <playing with the children/working/eating/sleeping> I could be reading that book. Man I loved it. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a book that much since ACOTAR. Suffice it to say I’m now in a reading slump because nothing else compares.

      Julius has been baking for us every weekend in his easy bake oven. It’s really cute. He seems to really enjoy it, even more than I did as a child. We got him a cookbook that has a bunch of recipes so you don’t have to make the kits and he’s been cruising thru it. I think he’s made a dozen recipes. Patricia has been playing with her easel almost daily as well, which means I’m greeted to a new assortment of colors decorating the floor. (But at least it’s not on the carpet anymore!) I’m glad she’s so creative and it’s fun to watch her paint. The kids have also been doing a really good job picking up after themselves a bit more. We did a huge clean up after Christmas because we literally had too many toys to fit in the house. We got rid of a bunch before Christmas too, but seeing what they got for Christmas made the kids realize there were a lot of things they were just never going to play with again (read: Will donated and threw everything away while they protested.)

      In all honesty though I was at my wit’s end with the state of the house on a day to day basis and my therapist suggested having a quick family clean up time in the evenings, and try to make it fun. So we dubbed it the ten minute tidy (anyone remember The Big Comfy Couch?) and each kid picks a song to add to our tidying playlist and then we work on an area that mom dubs the most messy. We’ve been doing it daily since before Thanksgiving and I really think it has improved my sanity! It also holds the children a bit more accountable for their messes. Yesterday they surprised me by doing TWO ten minute tidies themselves (they set up Alexa to play songs for them and count down a timer). Today they did another 10 minute tidy before dinner without me asking! Of course they’re not perfect, but it is a relief to have them even notice the disaster.

      Speaking of organized I want to show you the silly thing I made for Will for Christmas. So for a while I’ve been wanting to make Will a board game carrying case. The idea is for him to take a bunch of games out of their boxes and bring them in a hard sided carrying case. Will usually brings a bunch of boxes of games and the boxes get all crushed. He’s tried bringing just the components in his backpack but then the cards and boards get bent. This, in theory would solve those problems! The key dimension is that it had to be carry on size. I bought a box at the thrift shop before I realized that it would be too big to fit in the overhead or under the seat in front of him. I eventually found a utensil box at Savers that fit the bill: it was small enough for a carry on in all dimensions, and it had a cover with some depth to hold game boards. I would use the bottom to hold cards. If I’d made the box myself completely I would have made the bottom a bit taller so I could fit cards on their side.

      The first step I did was removing all the gross interior fabric, and fabric on the bottom of the box. It was in pretty bad shape. I then added a clasp mechanism (taken from the first box I bought, and added a handle for carrying like a suitcase. I added felt to the bottom again, and inside the box I added a strap and pouch to the top area to store game boards and instructions. On the bottom I added a couple slots the width of a standard deck of cards and used balsa wood strips to create dividers. On the outside I added some gilding. (though I realized afterwards that I put the gold meeple the wrong side up in my opinion!)

      Ripping out al the gross velvet.
      Stitching in an elastic band for the
      Adding a meeple using gold foil.
      Adding felt to the bottom.
      Finished inside
      Finished outside.

      We took it to Nashville for it’s maiden voyage and it fit A LOT of games; especially card games. It’s not going to fit Dark Tower or Fireball Island, but it will fit a bunch of fun favorites. Check out everything we took:

      Posted in Crafts & Sewing, Thrift Finds | Leave a comment

      Reindeer Dreams

      Posted on January 13, 2026 by lexicolton

      Happy New Year everyone! We had quite the holiday season! We started Christmas Eve off with my parents joining us for dinner… And Patricia had a really high fever! She tucked herself into bed before my parents arrived and slept thru dinner. She did eventually wake up and we played some games, put cookies out for Santa and sent the kids off to bed.

      That night Santa came! I was a bit worried he might pass us by because Will and I ended up staying up way too late… The kids this year wrote Santa a note and left out their autograph books which Santa signed! They must have been very good kiddos because they got way too many toys this Christmas. I have no idea where we are going to put everything. I nearly forgot to mention that Julius woke up at 5am Christmas morning with a high fever! So we gave him some Tylenol and sent him back to bed and luckily he felt well enough to open presents at 8am. Then he immediately tucked himself into bed for a nap… My parents came over later in the afternoon with MORE presents before they headed out. Julius seemed to like the easy bake oven the most… and Patricia loved this weighted stuffed cow she got from aunt Mary Elizabeth (fun fact, we got stopped both there and back for the cow. They had to test every seam for explosives…)

      We were supposed to leave early on the 26th to fly to Nashville but the family requested we stay home until our kids were 24 hours fever free. We were able to move our flight (for exorbitant prices) to the 27th. Then we woke up on the 26th to find both kids were fever free (yay!) and our flight on the 27th had been cancelled and there were no available flights out on JetBlue for 5 days (boo!). We then scrambled to rebook flights on a different airline for even more exorbitant prices while I waited on hold with JetBlue for over 3 hours before they hung up on me. I was not happy. We had gotten reasonable prices in April and we ended up paying triple the cost for these last minute flights. Luckily we were able to stay for longer because it was the “cheapest” option. I’m grateful that we have enough means to do this (even if it really pisses me off) but I can’t imagine what happened to those folks whose flights were cancelled who don’t have the means to rebook. I hope they were able to have happy holidays wherever they got stuck.

      Once we made it to Nashville we had a blast with the Coltons celebrating Xmas part 2, seeing friends and family, going to lots of outings like ice sculptures, the car museum, the pancake pantry, several favorite restaurants and of course playing lots of board games! It was fun to see the whole family and we were lucky that we only had to work one day while we were there!

      I have a couple things to show you that a made as presents for Christmas this year, but this week I wanted to show you something silly the kids and I did. Patricia came home before Christmas with reindeer food that she was supposed to sprinkle on the lawn to attract Santa’s reindeer to make sure they didn’t miss our house. They were really excited about it but to me it looked like oats mixed with silver glitter… and I’m going to guess the glitter would not be ideal for animals to eat (though I guess we all have a plastic spoon work of microplastics in our brain already… but I want to avoid contributing…) I told the kids that I was worried about the glitter being made of plastic and that we could definitely make our own. Julius was pretty convinced that it wouldn’t work without the glitter because it was reflective to attract the reindeer. Luckily I have a stash of sprinkles (read this as: I have a whole cabinet of sprinkles because I’m a crazy person.) We were able to find a suitable substitute! We used the Sweetapolita Flight of the Unicorn sprinkles with silver edible glitter stars and small silver dragees. (Yes I know these are no longer considered edible by the FDA but Canada still thinks they are and under this regime I’d trust Canada more with my life than the US. Just don’t eat a bucketful!)

      We can confirm it works! The kids sprinkled it all over the lawn and woke up to presents and our cookies and carrots gone!

      Teamwork
      Here’s the finished product
      Fevers didn’t stop them from sprinkling magic reindeer food on the lawn.
      Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 4 Comments