7 Quick Takes- If you aren't hungry already...

1. As I start my Quick Takes for this week, the kids are watching Sesame Street. Today's word is "scrumptious." I find it hilarious that when Murray the monster asks people on the street what they think is scrumptious, everyone -except for the kid who said seaweed... really?- reply with something really, really unhealthy. In the celebrity segment, Jessica Alba discussed the scrumptiousness of cake with an actual cake. Cookie Monster is granted the power by a Fairy Cookie Person to turn everything he touches into cookies.

This is all, of course, sandwiched between friendly reminders to eat your fruits and vegetables regularly and that scrumptious foods are sometimes foods. I'm sure the kids are buying it. I know I am. Psh... seaweed shmee-weed. Bring on the cake.

2. Gabriel just handed me a memory card his brother apparently stole from the couch beside me. I'd been planning on transferring some pictures off it, but that won't be happening since it looks like Eli teethed it for awhile. Sigh... Which brings me to take #3:

3. I made chili last night! And it was SCRUMPTIOUS. It was bittersweet, though, since it was my first extended kitchen endeavor since Eli broke my BAM! ladle. (Is it Emeril who's famous for saying "Bam!"? I don't know.) But I received the ladle as a wedding present and had really built up some sentimental attachment to it. "Bam!" I'd whisper as I stirred a bubbling saucepan of Hamburger Helper during my first year of marriage (we pretty much lived off the stuff while I learned my way around the kitchen.) "BAM!" I'd yell triumphantly when I successfully duplicated one of my mother-in-law's famous recipes.

It's just not the same without the ladle being there to remind me that I am capable of cooking to amazing BAM! standards. I'm sorry for how you went, BAM ladle- I wouldn't want to be thrown on the ground by a 15-month-old either. I'm sure he didn't even apologize while the life seeped out of your scattered pieces. I dedicate last night's chili to you.

*4. Since we're talking about food -SCRUMPTIOUS food, remember!- I will also be taking a stab at making Almond Crescent cookies this weekend. My grandma -whom we all refer to as Avo (Portuguese for Grandmother)- always had stacks and stacks of cookies available to be plundered in her house. It was like a horrible, sick game, though; See, we were never allowed to touch the cookies. It was always close to meal time, or we were about to leave to go somewhere... The worst part? She hid them in the back bedroom, where there was plenty of space behind a guest bed to put all those jars and containers. Each of us had our favorites, and mine were the Almond Crescents. All you needed was a family member other than Avo, and the mission would begin: One would distract, and the other would run to the back bedroom and frantically cram as many cookies as possible into mouth and pocket simultaneously. Good times.

5. Note to self: Cornbread muffins are NOT a hold-and-enjoy-while-you-stroll snack. Gabriel was begging for "the yellow cake" this morning, and I thought, Why not? It's not really cake. The price for this unwise decision is about a million little cornbread pieces all over the main floor of my house.

6. The crumb dispersers woke with matching cowlicks. I'd try to snap a picture but whenever they hear the jingle that indicates I've turned the camera on, they run. And look for something to spill STAT. Nothing like a puddle of [something] to get her to forget about photo opp's.

7. Happy Friday! If you don't have back rooms of cookies to plunder, there are a plethora of Quick Takes available at Conversion Diary!

*Photo courtesy of yankeemagazine.com