Smoke alarm.

Just to start this off right, I hate smoke detectors.  Seriously.  They are the bane of my existence.  Every place that I have lived since moving to CO I have had issues with the smoke detectors.  I've had them start chirping in the middle of the night in all the places that I live, and that chirp is nothing you can sleep through.  I'd just like to note that growing up, our 1 smoke detector never had batteries in it - thus, we never had any issues with it!  ha ha!

We've had the usual issues in our house with the smoke detectors since moving in 2.5 years ago.  We've had them start chirping in the middle of the night, which thankfully Matt has always been home when it happens.  He IMMEDIATELY hears it, and then says something on the lines of  "That's driving me CRAZY", which wakes me up saying "Huh, what, what is it?".  One night Matt's sister was spending the night with us, and all of our smoke detectors went off at once, we ran out to the hallway, and when she opened her bedroom door the alarms quit.  Mind you, we have 8 of them, and they're all 'hard wired', so all 8 go of at the same time, and it is VERY LOUD and scary.  We chalked it up to her using some fingernail polish remover and a sensitive smoke detector...although looking back, it doesn't hardly seem possible, but it did stop alarming as soon as she opened the door.

Last week at 4 am our smoke alarms went off again.  I was in a dead sleep, so the sound was VERY VERY scary for me.  After an initial scream from Matt, I continued to scream - not like a high pitched "eeee", but more like a tired there's a monster in my room "aaahhhhhhh!!!!"....Matt knew what was happening immediately but it took a few seconds for him to help me register what was happening...in the form of putting his arms on me yelling "Angie, it's ok!  It's ok!!".

So the first thing I think is "OMG.  The house is burning down.  I need to get Miss Muffet".  So we both go racing out into the hallway, and still very disoriented, I decide that maybe our house isn't burning down after all - remember, we've done this before...  So Matt immediately goes into Miss Muffet's room and rips her smoke alarm off the ceiling, and then heads down stairs.  I in the mean time am standing in the middle of the hallway with my hands over my ears just wishing the alarming would stop.  I think Matt started in the basement, and by the time he got to ripping the one down in the main floor hallway, the alarming stopped.  Then he came back upstairs and took the one down in the hallway and our bedroom.  BTW, through all of this, the munch didn't make a peep.  When I went to check on her, she was out cold.  Thank goodness.

We laid down on the bed for a few minutes trying to decide what to do, and decided we should to a walk around the house together to make sure we didn't smell any smoke or see any flame.  So we did the smell and lights off check in every room, didn't find anything, and went back to bed, only to lay there until about 6 before we both fell asleep.  I'm still mystified as to why it happened.  I've gotten a few recommendations from people that apparently smoke detectors can get dusty and that will cause them to alarm?  And they need cleaned out now and then.  If that's the case, that pisses.me.off.  They should make sure those damn things DON'T false alarm because of DUST...otherwise why the hell would anyone ever want to put them back up?!  Which btw, 4 of our 8 are still sitting down on the dining room table with us trying to figure out what to do with them.

Have any of my readers had this happen?  Is it worth buying all new detectors and having them installed?  Our house is only 5 years old, I just can't imagine alarms wearing out in that amount of time.  Grr!

Great Wedding.

I just decided I had to write another quick post after reading my husband's latest blog: http://firstand20.blogspot.com/  He mentions a couple weddings that we attended in April.  I have to admit,  the wedding that we attended in Montana for my cousin and his beautiful bride was off the hook.

Now, I wouldn't say I'm all gaga over weddings.  I get tired of the cheesy music, the throwing of the bouquet, and all that...but I have to say that my cousin's bride's family really know how to throw a party!  It was held in Winifred, MT, and I swear, everyone from Turner, MT (groom's hometown) and Winifred showed up for the reception, and what a reception it was!  The biggest I had ever been to; they planned to feed around 300, used leftovers from the rehearsal dinner and ran out of food around 350 people.  The bride commented on facebook that 515 people signed their guest book!!  It was incredible.

We didn't get too stay long, since we now have a curfew that revolves around the littlest one, although she was ready to stay up and PARTY.  She was having a great time dancing to the music with her bigger cousins, who were SO nice to her, and had to drag her out of there screaming and crying!

My mom later told us that they went through 9 kegs that night.  My brother, who was the best man, said "Well, that explains everything." when I told him about the 9 kegs.  It also may explain one of my brother's friends giving my mom a lap dance entitled "The Wipe My Butt Dance".  Awesome.

Elmo.

My baby turned two a couple of weeks ago, and since I used to post my cakes on this blog, I figure I shouldn't miss out on the chance to post her birthday cake.  I baked it the night before and actually froze it for the night, which turned out to be a brilliant idea, since the frozen cake was much easier to work with than a freshly baked one.

I also decided to go for fondant on the nose, eyes and mouth, and I think it turned out great.  I was worried about how hard it would be to cut those shapes, until a light bulb turned on and I just layed the fondant right on the elmo cake pan and basically traced it right there.  And then a little trimming once it was placed, and it looked fantastic!  I did the fur with a grass tip after all the fondant was placed...and it took about a 1/2 hour to pipe once I finally got the red mixed.  I'd say, in total, including bake time, the entire cake probably took about 3 hours.  Not too bad - although I wonder how much I could charge for 3 hours work on a birthday cake?