Fake Valentine's

Allow me to open with the quote of the day, from Naomi, uttered as I was fetching various craft related items for her during her latest round of valentine crafting: "It's like you're my waitress!" Nice.

Tonight we went to our friends' house to celebrate Valentines Day a bit early, seeing as they will be out of town for the actual day. It was my job to bring dessert, so I pulled out all the stops (ha) and created a white trash masterpiece known as "dirt cake." This is a dessert made of pudding and cream cheese and cool whip and a bunch of Oreos food-processed until they look like dirt. The trick is to disguise the dessert as actual dirt, which of course works better when the tricked party consists of four-and-unders.

Naomi, Muriel, and I made some paper flowers, and I told them we were bringing a decoration for the party. We put the flowers in the bowl of dirt, which had been in the freezer for an hour or so. Here's the "centerpiece," in the foreground.

After a really tasty dinner of lasagna and salad, we told the kids I forgot to bring dessert (there was some dramatic acting with the hostess and myself), so we were going to have to eat the centerpiece. Naomi claims that she knew that it wasn't dirt all along, but the pictures don't lie.

Even Muriel looks, shall we say, skeptical over there.

The girls liked it after all. It's still a little early to say Happy Valentine's Day to you all, but Happy Fake Valentine's Day!