Trying to get creative....

So yesterday we had our first "Family Dinner" in a long time! It was at my parents house, and everyone was there. Grandparents from both sides, all of my aunts and uncles, all of the cousins (excepts for Lindsay). It was a great day of catching up and building relationships. I have really been blessed with a wonderful family.
SO, I was in charge of desserts. I of course made the usual peanut butter marshmallow bars, and I made a Triple Berry Pie (that to my surprise was the first thing gone, since it was so well liked, I thought it would be nice to share the recipe with everyone).
Pie Crust Recipe
2 cups of all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup shortening
7 tblsp cold water
*put flour & butter & shortening in a mixing bowl
*blend w/ pastry blender
*add salt & water
*roll on flat surface
(this should be enough for bottom and top crust)
Triple Berry Pie
2 1/2 cups strawberries
1 cup blueberries
1 cup raspberries
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup dry tapioca
*mix berries, sugar & tapioca in large bowl. Let stand for 15 min
*preheat oven to 400 (i did 375 , because the crust recipe says 350)
*fill bottom crust with fruit
*cover with top crust, seal and flute edge
*cut slits & milk top
*bake 45-50 min



Then with the leftover crust (i actually made the crust recipe twice) I made pinwheels. Just rolled out the dough, buttered it and covered with sugar and cinnamon and baked for about 20 min. Everyone said they tasted just like cinnabon :)
It was also a little graduation ceremony for my dad, who got his college degree this spring. SO I made these cute little graduation hats out of chocolate. Ignore my silly attempt at a fondant graduate! lol Sometimes my intentions are much better than the final product :)

Passing it down

So I have learned that my parents were great at holding onto things of ours when my brother and I were little. Since Aaron was born my mom has passed down somethings to him that belonged to either my brother or I when we were his age and it has amazed me! When we learned we were pregnant and started preparing the nursery my mom passed down our changing table, ok seriously it definitely looked like something from the 80's, but I was amazed that it was still in good condition and , hey it saved us money! :)


Then she passed down some of Jason's old clothes! I seriously thought.... REALLY??? I mean I will be amazed if Aaron's clothes make it through him and another child (if we are blessed enough to have more) , let alone look good 27 yrs later!



When I was about 5 my dad made me a table and 2 benches for me to do my coloring on and have craft time and so on. I loved this table, I used it all the time. Well this past weekend my parents brought it over to pass down to Aaron. Again I was amazed at the great condition it was in. And its been a blessing, Aaron loves it and I find him in his room all the time sitting at his table, coloring or playing with his play doh.



And amongst all these other things, my parents still have my brothers old tricycle, they have our Power Wheels and a few other things that Aaron just loves playing with when we go over there. So what this all has me wondering is, are things now just made worse or do we not take care of things as well as our parents did. I just dont see most of Aaron's things lasting all those years. I think we take pretty good care of things, so I am leaning towards not made as well.....

A Good Morning call & a new recipe

So last night a sweet friend emailed me telling me how you can set it up for your child to receive a phone call from Mickey! So this morning I got online and scheduled a 9:00 call from Mickey Mouse to Aaron. (it was a good morning wake up call... .however my child loves to be up and moving at 6:30 so he had been up for quite awhile at this point, but 9 was the earliest you can schedule it for). So I set up the call, paid some bills, cleaned the kitchen (catching up from yesterday) and was vacuuming when I looked at the clock and it was 8:50, I planned to stop cleaning at 8:55 to get my camera lighting right and all situated for the call. Well Mickey was a little early, and the phone rang at 8:54, so excuse the lighting in my pictures as I was soooo not ready. :)
Aaron's grin on his face while Mickey was talking to him was priceless. The call (recording, but atleast it is personalized) lasted about a minute and when it ended Aaron wanted to talk to Mickey again (i might just have to set up another call). All day he has been talking about his phone call from Mickey, even when we stopped at the bank he told the teller "Mickey Mouse called me today!"
So here's the link http://disney.go.com/partners/piccolinismiles/ go check it out and schedule a call from Mickey, Minnie, Donald or Goofy for your little one :)




And here's a new recipe for a dessert I got off of another blog site bakerella.com (check it out, so cute) there called Congo Bars and they are yummy!

2 3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup butter, softened
1 lb. light brown sugar (Oh my and thank you!)
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
11.5 ounce package milk chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans (optional) Isaac isnt a fan of nuts, so I used heath bar bits
By hand:

Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Set aside.
Stir brown sugar into softened (not melted) butter in another large bowl until butter disappears. You can use the back of your spoon to help incorporate the two together.
Add eggs one at a time to butter mixture and stir well after each egg.
Add vanilla, chocolate chips and nuts. Mix well.
Add dry flour mixture and stir until well combined.

Coat a 13 X 9 pan with non-stick spray and spread batter evenly into dish.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until top is golden brown. Make sure you don’t over bake.

Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy!

Somethings can wait

I know we all have them (atleast I hope we do) , days where we look at our house and see DISASTER!!! The floors need vacuumed or mopped, the dishes need done, the laundry needs folded, the toilets and tubs need scrubbed and dinner needs to be planned out. Today was that day for me. At the beginning of the day I had determined to get all of the above done, and it started out good. Aaron and I woke up a little before 7, I made breakfast and had it in the oven baking by 7:15 I cleaned up the dishes right away, while breakfast baked I got my first load of laundry started, and dinner planned. Then it was time to eat, after eating I did up the dishes again and folded the first load of laundry and got the second started. By this time I am feeling pretty productive, but I also have a little boy looking for something fun to get into. He played in his room for awhile and watched an episode of Super why. I was a little stressed at everything that I needed to get done , but I knew this little boy needed me more! So we went to his room, and looked for something to get into.
This is what we decided on:

I took an old Olive Garden carry out bag, cut a strip off of it. Grabbed some "sticky tape" as Aaron calls it. We gathered his rocks that he "mined" yesterday and the paper telling us what the different rocks were called. We spent the next 45 minutes or so matching up these rocks and labeling and taping them to the paper bag. Aaron loved it!!! He colored on the bag a little bit and had a blast looking at his rocks and telling me where to put them. When we were finished it was time for me to get our lunch ready. When I got up from the table he looked up at me and said "thanks, I love you mom". That was enough for me.
My laundry and my dirty bathrooms will be here tomorrow, in 30 yrs I will still be cleaning toilets and planning meals, Lord willing.... but in a lot less than 30 yrs from now my little guy will be off on his own and won't really need me so much. So... who cares if my house isn't in perfect order, as long as my little guy knows how much I love him I am happy! :)

Being sifted

Luke 22: 31 “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. 32 But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.”

~ I love , love, love this verse of scripture. Christ knew that Peter would deny Him even before it happened and He still encouraged him by telling him that he would be used to strengthen others. There have been times in my life where I have failed God in ways that I could have never imagined, but ya know what? God knew! Did my failings break His heart? Of course they did, but was He shocked? NO!
My heart breaks when I think of the ways I have failed him, but I rejoice in the fact that He forgives me , loves me and still calls me beautiful! I am His and that will never change.
Today , Isaac had off and we(my mom, Isaac and I) took Aaron for a train ride and to sift for some "gold". We bought a bag of "dirt and rocks" and we dumped it into a little sifter , we ran this mixture of dirt and rocks in some water, the water quickly became brown and nasty and it was some work to get all the dirt away without loosing the rocks, but in the end we had some pretty little rocks. It reminded me of life and the process that we go through. Sometimes God needs to sift us, our hearts are so ugly and He needs to cleanse them. The process most of the time is ugly and hard, but in the end there is something amazingly beautiful that flows out from us. When people can see the love of Christ in us, it is all worth it! If we let Him, he will use our failings to bring others to Him, & that is amazing, He really can make all things beautiful :)

Helping those less fortunate

About a month ago Isaac & I decided to sponsor a child through World Vision after being encouraged to do so by our friend David. We chose a little boy who was born on March 21st, 2008 ... the same day as Aaron.
Today at lunch I pulled out our little packet of information on Osvaldo and showed his picture to Aaron and told him the little boy was 2 just like him, but he didn't have enough money to live in a house like we do and he didn't have a lot of toys to play with. At the age of 2 I sometimes wonder how much he understands, but the mixed expression of sadness and shock on his face showed me he really did get it.
So after nap time, we got ready and headed to Target. I asked Aaron "so what do you want to buy for this little boy Osvaldo?" he said "he's bald?" ha ha I said "no, his name is Osvaldo" "oooohhhh!" I said "do you know how old he is?" he said "he's 2, like me!" I said "thats right, so what should we buy him?" he said "a book!!" So off to the books we went! Aaron picked out a Diego coloring book and some cool little colored pencils and sharpener to send him. I said "ok, now we need to go home and put this in the mail for Osvaldo" he said "we mail it to him, and he be my friend!" So we came home and got the package ready and Aaron said "I want to color him Mickey" so we went and colored a picture to add the package. It warms my heart that at 2, he is getting the importance of giving. I love that little boy!

When the clouds disappear

So yesterday was a crazy day in our house. I know that I have a good child, I mean really he is good, he always has been a pretty easy kid from day one! We have been really blessed. But... let's be honest, there are days where I feel like I have no idea who this kid is! There are days that from the time he wakes up until he goes to bed that he tells me "no" over and over again, he is just flat out a grump and I spend my whole day trying to correct his behavior! These days are sooo incredibly stressful. When the end of the day comes it is extremely nice just to breath! Then morning comes.... and he is back to his normal self again! Smiling, laughing and happily obeying! It makes the hard days so worthwhile! I guess thats how it is with life... we have to get through the hard times to experience God's goodness.
Yesterday we had thunderstorms, the sky was dark and it was just ugly outside... but then a few hours later there was a beautiful rainbow and the sunset was amazing! Isn't that so like God's love for us! Sometimes we find ourselves in places we swore we would never be, and sometimes it hurts like crazy!!! But, if we let God have full control , the end result is amazingly beautiful!!!

Boys vs Girls

So, I find it amusing ... the differences in girls and guys that seem to be there from the beginning of life. Aaron is now a little over 2 and I am amazed at what a boy he is! His favorite things :

1) playing blocks, but playing with him means building a tower and him kicking it down! He thinks knocking it over is the greatest part!

2) playing play-doh, he always makes FOOD!!! And doesn't yet realize that me pretending to eat it, is very different than really sticking it in your mouth!

3) playing baseball, and he is good! Every time we have friends over and they see him play they say "wow, he really has a good arm" and its true, he can throw better than me! (ok maybe he's not that good, but you get my point, hes 2 and he can throw GOOD!) and he tells me "I hit hard and run fast!"

4) being outside, it doesn't matter what he is doing, he just likes to be outside, getting all sweaty! (thankfully he is one who knows the need of a bath after this)

5) finding bugs! We can be outside and I just mention the word bug and everything must stop until he locates that bug!

.... so those are just some of my boys favorite things, those of you that have little girls, I bet her favorite things are pretty different and I think thats a really cool thing, that God created us so differently! And it doesn't change. Last night we had two friends from Word Of Life come visit us and "bonding" is so different! Isaac and John Lovely had a grand time cutting down a huge tree (until both of them got hurt in some way, they arent as young as they used to be). While Dayna and I just enjoyed chatting it up and making a late night run to Wal Mart for black flip flops.
So in realizing this, I have also really come to realize why marriage is work! Yes , Isaac and I have been married for almost 6 yrs now so maybe I am a little slow to realize this, and we could have had some better times in the past had I realized this a little sooner, but we both know it now and because we realize it we are more in love than ever before, because we are both stepping out and doing things the other person loves, and you know what? We are discovering that we actually enjoy those things too.... no camping wouldn't be my first choice of something to do on a long weekend, and Isaac wouldn't choose to go shopping when we have an extra $50 .... but because the other person loves those things we are choosing to do them and having the time of our lives!

There's only one way......

There really is only one way to eat an Oreo. I know... really deep, huh? Well that was the big moment in our house today! Aaron had his first Oreo... I know maybe we are really mean parents, he is 2 yrs old and 2 months old and we just gave him his first Oreo..... but he loved it! And after telling him once "no, no, you can not take a bite until you dunk it in milk" he dunked before every single bite! :)
hm.... maybe our next life lesson will be "you can not go outside naked!" as he just got out of the bath and followed Isaac outside....