Moose

Second Star to the Right and On’Til Morning

My baby is not a baby anymore. He’s starting to put two words together, he wears a size 8 ½ shoe, he runs and jumps, an d he can even throw a tantrum or two. The time has gone so fast. As a result, we’re getting rid of our baby things slowly but surely. Three will be it. So, the items we’re not keeping for mementos or any possible grandchildren are finding their way into the donation pile. So it’s time, before his room changes too much, to document it. It’s a bit narcissistic, but what about blogging isn’t?

I planned for years for this room. The blue is my favorite color, sort of a Wedgewood blue. The stars were in a Pottery Barn catalog years ago and I kept the clipping, for just the right time. The time finally came. However, I had tremendous carpel syndrome due to my pregnancy, that my incredible friend and my mother helped me paint the fine details of the stars. My daughter helped with Big Ben and I was able to paint Peter Pan and the Darlings. The wall decal was special ordered from Just Ad Words. Luckily, the bumper and valance that my incredibly talented mother made for my first child fit wonderfully in this room. All I had to buy was the quilt for our extra bed for guests.

After all that work, the room was complete and waiting for my little baby boy.  He’s so big and just ready and willing to go find some adventures with Peter.  So, here’s the snapshot of my baby’s nursery as he’s  headed for the second star to the right and on’til morning.

Shhh…Don’t Tell Anyone

It’s not as though I don’t love my kids and love being with them, but it’s just so rare that I’m by myself for any length of time during the day.  Then there was today.  My kids, all three of them were at my mother’s, so I could go to a Doctor’s appointment downtown.  Amazingly enough I was out of the office in 30 minutes.  That never happens, any pediatric appointment takes at least two hours, I have spent literally a total of weeks in the waiting room and examining room over the last 10 1/2 years, but not today.  I didn’t even have time to flip through a magazine. 

“So what do I do now?”  I thought sitting in my car at 10:45 on an absolutely gorgeous day. I could go get my kids, but you know they’re at Grandma’s the last thing they want to see is, well, ME.  There is some Easter shopping to do, yard work, and about a million and half other things I could be doing, but you know what I had in my wallet?  A membership to the Cleveland Botanical Garden,which is about a mile away from the parking lot.  Shhh, don’t tell anyone, I went to the garden and walked around looking at the daffodils and crocuses.  I even sat down on a bench and didn’t have to answer to Mom, Mom, Mom, MOM, or chase anyone, shhh, don’t tell anyone.  Then the church clock struck 12 and I had to go…

Sometimes life just hands you gifts.

Just Plain Fun

I thought I’d share this.  My daughter is looking for ideas for her school’s talent show, so we ended up on YouTube.  This video, the Evolution of Dance, just is plain silly fun.  I thought you guys would get a kick out of it.

Wordless Wednesday

So How Does a Dairy-Free Birthday Cake Work?

My little caboose turned one!  Can you believe it?   Xander is an entire year old!  As many of you know, he has been kicked off of dairy again!  That means some of life’s greatest pleasures are withheld: cheese, milk, yogurt, sour cream, are taboo, gone, struck down, not to be had.  Oh, the agony….  I digress.

We had to restart Xander’s dairy/soy free diet again, one week before his birthday.  A few days into the diet, it hit me, his cake!  How am I going to make him a dairy free cake?  There is no way I’m going to make this little guy a birthday cake that he can’t eat, NO WAY!  I’m crazy about birthday cakes, especially first birthday cakes.  Over the years I have made some horrible, ugly, birthday cakes (see an example below), but they have been made from the heart, except for one.  It’s one of my biggest guilts (ok, I know it’s trivial) is that I bought an ice-cream cake for Daniel’s first birthday.  So, there is no way that my caboose, is not going to have a homemade first birthday cake.

The research began and I settled on a Cherrybrook chocolate cake mix.  I know it was a mix, but it was dairy and soy free.  I then tried their frosting… it was awful.  I don’t know if it was the shortening that I used, but it was too sweet and had an awful texture.   After some goggling I found this recipe, it’s essentially a meringue frosting, and super easy to make.  I whipped up three batches of frosting and decorated the cake, and I must say it looked and tasted pretty darn good.  Yippee!!!

Now, on to my confessions.  Number one, I was so focused on making a successful dairy free/soy free cake, I didn’t make enough.  So pretty much only the kids got a taste of the cake, seriously only an idiot does something like that.  My second confession is that by the time I had the last quarter of the cake to cut, it just started falling apart.  The frosting became too warm and started slipping.  I sort of suspected this might happen, while I was decorating the cake.  I had a conundrum.  I have started freezing my cakes before I frost them, because it is so much easier to decorate them.  But now I have a frozen cake, that needed to thaw, but the frosting had to stay cold….why does stuff like this always happen to me?  Someone explain, I swear, I try to think things through.  At any rate, we left the cake in the garage overnight, and we took our chances and brought it in to defrost in the morning, and the cake started falling apart.  So next time I use this frosting the cake won’t be frozen.  I will use the frosting again, because it tasted pretty good and didn’t have any of the forbidden fruit dairy.  What matters, is in the end, Xander ate his homemade dairy/soy free cake, and loved it!

Check Off The List

I love my curtains, but they have had a major flaw.  The hem was not straight.  I took them apart and now the hems are straight, whew, that was harder than you would think with a plaid pattern.  Oh, well they are corrected ironed and hung up…on to the next project.

Did You See That One?

I HATE commercials, rarely in my life do I like to sit down and watch a commercial.  Then these commercials came around and I love them so much that I’m writing a blog about them.  There is something amiss in this world.

My family has really enjoyed the Olympics, and what can be funnier than grown-ups having a snowball fight.

Then there are the P & G Mom commercials.  Lately, as a Mom I think, I’m really gaining a deeper understanding what a marathon this is and how encompassing it is.  Don’t get me wrong, I got it when my little girl was born, but now that we are running to practices, dance lessons, piano lessons, working on homework, dealing with bullies, changing diapers, trying hard to fit in playtime, and make a nutritious meal every once in a while, I’m getting it on a much deeper level.  A commercial is successful when it connects to you and boy does this one get to me:

Then they had to go and make this one:

Where did I put that tissue?

One Last Hurrah!

As you know my son has been sick most of the winter. At his well appointment, my pediatrician and I decided that it coincided with the introduction of dairy to his diet.  As a result, we are now dairy free again.  I have to abstain, because I’m going to try and keep nursing until the end of winter, to boost his immunity.  It has just been so much easier to figure out what to feed the little, and enjoy some yogurt.  It’s come to an end, so this afternoon, I pretended that I had the appointment in the afternoon, and had a slice of coffee cake with a bit of butter (just like my Mormor used to have) and enjoyed my last dairy hurrah for a while.

 

Not to blame anyone…

Ok, I’ve been in a rut.  I just haven’t been able to bring myself to blogging lately.  I’m so sorry.  It may have been the five weeks of illness, winter sports leagues, other responsibilities pulling me left and right, but to be honest it wasn’t any of those excuses.  It was this little angel:

This little angel, despite having Roseola and RSV this winter, has decided to go on a developmental spurt.  He  has started walking, crawling only when needed and as a result do this:

and some more of this:

 

And on top of that, he’s only wanted to take his naps while picking up my kindergartner from school in the middle of the day or his sister in the afternoon.  Don’t tell anyone, I have resorted to letting him nap in the car.  If I run my errand remotely around 10:30 a.m he is guaranteed to be asleep wherever I’m going.  So, I have sat in my car trying to give him a few more minutes of sleep, I have even left him in the car parked in the garage, I do check in on him.

This has resulted in my free time being spent, picking up after him, rearranging my cabinets and placing locks on them, checking in on him and trying to get him to sleep in his crib.

I don’t want to jinx myself, but I think we have baby proofed the house fairly well, and best of all, I think he’s getting the idea that he needs to sleep in his crib.  That may possibly mean that I may have more than 20 minutes to get my head together in my house, not in my car.  Shhh, I didn’t just say that.  You’ll know if it works, if I start posting more.  Keep those fingers crossed if for no other reason for my sanity.

Look What My Dad Made

My father has been fascinated with glass blowing as long as I remember.  Any historical village that has a glass furnace our family would go and inspected it, any factory that we passed, we would take a “quick tour.”   So these days while my dad is “retired” and working more than ever, my brother and mother gave my father glass blowing lessons, and here is a vase he gave me.  Isn’t it cool?  I just love it!

 

Wordless Wednesday

Almost made it to the Epiphany

  

It used to be that decorations were put up closer to Christmas and stayed up past New Years until Epiphany I believe, unfotunatly that’s not the cast anymore.  Once Thanksgiving rolls around, the marathon starts and you hardly take a breath until Christmas.  At that point you are just TIRED of Christmas and can’t wait to put it all away.  Usually, I try to get everything packed up by the second or the third.  But since the kids are going back on the fourth I didn’t want to waste a day packing everything away.  This year I’m almost going to make it to the Epiphany.  Tomorrow, the fourth, the decorations go away for another year.  Tonight, I’m going to have a glass of glogg and enjoy the lights for one more night. 

Knitting Graffiti

I enjoy the act of knitting graffiti, it is just adds a piece of love or maybe comfort hidden behind an act of rebellion when something has been draped with a knitted piece of work.  Here is Medina’s latest knitting graffiti, it’s planned and not secret, but it is still fun.  You can find it on the square outside of Studio Knit.

 

Happy New Year

A couple of friends of mine did a summary of the last decade and the upcoming decade on Facebook, and I thought that would be a great post for my blog.

In the last 10 years, I partied like it was 1999, I have earned my graduate degree, had two children, that were joined by our third this year.  I lived in two houses, said good-bye to two kitties and hello to two more.  Have witnessed three children rolling over, and crawling.  Sent two children to preschool, kindergarten and one to elementary school, often with trepidation, but only to be won over by incredible teachers.  Witnessed these children develop into interesting, caring and wonderful human beings.  I’ve been blessed by good friends, a great family, and a terrific husband.

The next decade will bring one child to her freshman year in college (she says Stanford), one will be navigating his way through high school, and the baby will be in elementary school.  There will be two more drivers to insure, boyfriend and girlfriend dramas, some of our soccer days will be ceasing, only to start again with the baby.  My husband and I will be chip away at our 1,000 things to do list.  My friends and family will be healthy and joyous and there will be more peace and love in this world.

I wish you a happy and prosperous New Year!