1 Week + 3 Parties = 4 Year Old Boy (Making the Simple Complicated – It’s What I Do)

I always enjoy planning Kyle's birthday parties. I love making lists, looking for ideas, finding just the right decorations, and the general anticipation of it all. The past 3 years his parties included beautiful, professionally decorated cakes. This year I was feeling creative and thrifty so I decided to bake and decorate his cakes myself.

The first celebration was simple, I made these yummy and addictive cookies for his Bible study class. (Do yourself a favor and don't try these - unless you have some larger clothes set aside you've been hoping to fit into.)

For his next party, I was a little more ambitious. We had decided a few weeks ago that I would make him a Little Bear cake. (If you have kids and don't have this sweet book, you're missing out! It -- along with several other books from a (retired?) teacher -- was one of my favorite garage sale finds.)

I thought about buying a special cake pan, but that went against my thrifty inclination. I also had visions of part of the cake sticking to the pan (yes, it has happened to me before and I had to take a mangled-should-have-been-a-bundt cake to a family dinner -- at least it tasted good which is more than I can say for my crunchy non-boiled noodle lasagna I once served at a family function, but I digress) so I decided to be homespun and just bake the cake in my glass pyrex dish and let it stay in there.

I worked from a printed image of Little Bear which I laminated. I frosted the sky and grass background first, then I traced around my cut-out Little Bear with a cake tester and filled him in with frosting. I then went back and smoothed it all out with my fingers which I kept wet by dipping in a bowl of water. (For those of you who ate the cake, no worries, I am meticulous about hand washing. :-) )

I had no faith in my ability to neatly letter in frosting, so I printed the Happy Birthday message and got out Kyle's watercolor paints, then I laminated it and put it on the cake. Here is the result:

Little Bear looks a little sad, I discovered it's not easy to convey wistful happiness with frosting.

I had not done any planning for his next party, which is totally not like me. But once his party on Friday was over I started looking for inspiration. He has always loved playing Little People, but we felt like he was outgrowing them. Some of his friends have a castle and some knights that Kyle really likes and we thought it would be neat to tie that in with talking about the armor of God from Ephesians 6. So we packed the Little People away until Cade is older and we got Kyle this castle for his birthday (we found a great deal on one!).

I tossed around ideas for a castle cake, but it was more than I wanted to tackle, then when I was playing castle and knights with Kyle I came up with the idea of doing a shield cake.

I thought a cookie would be easy to do in the shape of a shield and it was. I anticipated needing to trim the big cookie by hand after baking, but it held it's shape really well during baking so I didn't need to mess with it at all.

I wanted a deep blue frosting for the background, but bakers must have some special, more intense food coloring than what I have because the darkest I could get was turquoise. I have always liked the fleur-de-lis symbol and found out while planning the cake/cookie that one of it's meanings has to do with the trinity which is a neat bonus.

I thought I could melt white chocolate to just the right temperature so that I could trace an image of the fleur-de-lis I had cut out and laminated, but try as I might this method did not work!

I didn't give up though. After much trial and error and close to two hours later, I had three fleur-de-lis. The method that ended up working was painting the melted chocolate onto the back of the laminated image with a silicone pastry brush, then freezing that and peeling the image off. This was pretty tedious, but it worked well.

Then I needed a way to display the shield. I wanted it to be silvery-shiny like armor so I covered my rectangular stoneware with white freezer paper and colored it gray. I wasn't quite satisfied so I got out some never-used metallic silver eye shadow and rubbed it all over the paper with my fingers. Then I covered that with plastic wrap. I had room around the edge of the shield for the birthday message. (It just occurred to me that foil is silver and shiny - duh! Oh well, my method was more fun.) This is the final result:

I started almost every paragraph with "I" that probably isn't good.

I don't know why there isn't a line between my paragraphs toward the end of the post. Probably because posts aren't supposed to be this long. Anyone who is actually reading down to this last sentence deserves some kind of prize.

Why Our Sled is Moonlighting

“Mike, honey, seriously. When will you learn it doesn’t do any good to worry about these things. I told you and told you, God is in control and we’ve done all we can do. I really think it will be okay.”

That is a real conversation. Seriously. Except that I was being sarcastic because, as usual, it was Mike who should have been saying that to moi. Argh. I’m really never going to learn, am I?

Thank You, God, that Your mercies are new every morning.

If you have driven by our house lately and seen a yellow sled on our roof, I’ll explain: that is not our idea of preparing for extreme winter sports. It is an attempt to keep out any additional rain that might find its way into our closet, which incidentally is inside our house, where (call me picky) rain most certainly is not welcome.

“Why a child’s toy?” you may ask. Well, we paid a roofer $500 (a portion of the job) to do something a little more, what is the word I’m looking for? – professional? – permanent? – roof-like?? Yes, all of those things.

Funny thing though, ha ha ha. Once we paid him, he stopped returning calls and emails. Ha, ha, hee, hee, grrrr.

The deadline for the roof to be repaired came and went along with several rain showers.

But finally one week later, all my worrying paid off (erhuh, clearing throat, eyes darting upward).

Our would-be roofer emailed with an excuse, but thankfully (oh the mercy of God!) agreed to give us our money back so we can get someone else to replace the yellow sled with oh, maybe some boards, shingles and waterproof material. Anyone know a good roofer?

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and
petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4:6

Cliché

I know it is totally cliché to say how fast children grow up, but people say it so much because it is true. I can hardly fathom that my little man just turned 4.

My littler man just turned 7 months. I have found that the time flies by doubly fast when you add a second child – more milestones to mark the passing of time.

It is also cliché, but true, how bittersweet it is to watch your children grow up. I love, love, love who my little men are becoming and I wouldn’t go back and make them younger again if I could, but I do wish I could slow things down. I want to treasure each step of the way, but I am far too prone to get caught up in the everyday tasks.

My mom used to always tell me, “Don’t wish your life away,” because I would be wishing it were summer vacation, or Christmas break, or my birthday, or Friday, or anything besides the particular day it actually was. I didn’t really appreciate the value of that advice until just a few years ago. I try not to, but I still do it, just in smaller chunks of time. Looking at the clock to see how long until lunch? naptime? Mike gets home? bedtime?

Tick, tick, ticking the time away.

Too often I choose having the house perfectly straight over just being with my babies. I know there is a balance to these things and I am working on finding it. I want to look back one day with Jesus and see I chose to spend my time on things of eternal value rather than temporal.

This week as we celebrate milestones: Kyle turning 4 years, Cade turning 7 months, me turning, uh, older than that, I want to remind myself of the cliché: “Be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet.” We are works in progress, being lovingly molded in The Potter’s hands and He is showing me just how precious and fleeting these days are and how valuable my well-spent time is in the lives of the ones He has placed in my care.

So teach us to number our days,
That we may present to You a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

Random-ness

1) Ten minutes before we needed to leave the house for soccer this morning:

Kyle and I were still in our p.j.’s;
Cade was asleep;
My darling husband was at work;
I hadn't brushed my teeth or so much as looked in the mirror;
My darling husband called to say that I needed to pick up soccer snacks on my way to the game (from friends nearby).
Amazingly the boys, the snacks and I were on time (dressed, teeth brushed, shin guards on, etc.)!

2) Cade was fussing a little bit and Kyle motioned to some legos and said, “I think he’s longing for those.”

He also used the word “necessarily” today and called me "honey" a couple of times; I love this smart, funny little boy.

3) We had some fun new friends over for dinner tonight. (Thanks for bringing the yummy dessert!)

Café au Lait

Last Saturday I noticed a light brown mark on Cade’s tummy when I was changing his diaper. I called Mike in to check it out and he was puzzled by it too. I got out my handy baby manuals and diagnosed the patch as Café au Lait. (I totally should have been a doctor.)

The description said these marks can appear during the first year; sometimes they get bigger and they usually don’t go away. They get their name because they can either look like coffee with a little milk or coffee with a lot of milk. Cade’s was pretty light-colored – so mostly milk.

I wasn’t too distressed.

As it happened we saw his pediatrician at church the next day. I was calculating how much trouble it would be to take off Cade’s pants and undo his onesie so I could show Dr. D the mark on Cade's tummy and ask for a confirmation of my diagnosis. Dr. D seemed kind of hurried though and I decided not to bother him.

So, so glad for that.

Fast forward to another diaper change – this one was post-bath. The “café au lait” patch was gone.

Note to self: bathe child more often.

Additional note to self: always bathe child prior to seeking doctor’s advice on sudden-appearing skin discolorations.

Ack!

You know that expression, "I know just enough to be dangerous" ? Well, that is me with blogging (and probably several other things I won't go into right now. Okay, focus, focus).

I designed the new header you see and am playing around with the background design and now some of the text is not aligned how I would like it. It is going to drive me crazy until I can figure out how to fix it.

Hopefully, I'll figure it out soon and hopefully it isn't even more messed up on your screen than it is on mine. I can either get the toothpicks out for my eyes and try to fix it now or go climb in bed next to my darling (snoring) husband. Since I have young children who will insist on little rituals like being fed and played with in the morning, I better opt for the latter.

Practicing to be Wilderness Family Robinson

Does anyone know what I’m talking about when I say the Wilderness Family? It was a trilogy on Showtime or HBO when I was kindergarten-ish. (It also happens to be a weird fact about me.) Skip, Pat, Jen and Toby, along with their faithful dog give up the smog and traffic of city life and move out to live off the land in the mountains. They build their own cabin and have to fend off wolves, bears, mountain lions, and more. High quality entertainment, I’m telling ya. The Academy Awards totally robbed them.

Whenever we hear or read about crazy stuff happening, Mike and I say to each other, “Okay, are you ready to build our cabin in the mountains?” Even if we never go and live off the land, I’m starting to get used to the idea that since I’m in a family full of boys I’ll have to suck it up and go camping. For the record, I have already offered several times to go camping at Big Cedar Lodge.

My darling husband chose the perfect weekend for a trial run at camping. He and Kyle set up a tent and built a campfire in the backyard while I put Cade to bed inside. Then I headed down the hill, baby monitor and skewers in hand, and we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. So fun! Kyle said the marshmallows weren't what he expected - they were stickier and his hot dog was "smoky" i.e., burned, but he ate it.

I left them with a hodge-podge of blankets and pillows, bid them good night and headed up the hill to a quiet, non-smoky house, where I slept soundly until 5 a.m. when little Cade woke me. I lost the bet and my manly-men campers didn't come inside until around 7:30 a.m. I am thoroughly impressed!

Here is a picture of our sad little campfire. The flames in that picture are actually enhanced by some paper plates we had just thrown in. Pretend you don’t see the lighter fluid in the background.

Big Brother to the Rescue!

Six-month-old Cade learned to sit up about a month ago, but yesterday he started a new trick. When I sit him down, he throws himself forward to get on his belly.

Obviously I don’t catch on quickly, because this morning I sat him on the couch so I could demonstrate the moves to “Father Abraham” for Kyle. Can you guess where this is going?

I had barely walked away when I turned around to see Cade diving forward off of the couch! Three-year-old big brother to the rescue! With his superfast reflexes, Kyle caught Cade by the pants! Cade was dangling upside down off the couch and probably about one second after his head touched the ground I scooped him up. He didn’t shed a single tear! Phew!

Tagged! 7 Random/Weird Facts About Me

Thanks for the tag, Brooke!

Here are 7 random and/or weird facts about me (Fourgiven Momma):

1) I once caught my hair on fire trying to light our gas-starter fireplace. That was about 10 years ago and we haven’t had a fire in our fireplace since.

2) I’d like to be Wilderness Family Robinson. (I own the trilogy if anyone wants to borrow it!) The only glitch in this dream is that we don’t hunt, fish, garden, make our own clothes, or know how to build a cabin. Aside from that, we are there!

3) I wait until K is napping, then I eat sweets. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream calls to me from the freezer!

4) I have a photographic memory.

5) One reason I want to have a little girl is that I really, really want an Easy Bake Oven.

6) I can’t whistle, but if I want to crack up DH (darling hubby) I do my version of whistling and pretend to think I sound really good.

7) I won’t ever set anything on top of my Bible. For me, it’s a visual reminder not to put anything in my life ahead of God.

I think everyone I know who blogs has been tagged already except for Kara and Mitzi. Go girls!

Trash Talk

Let me preface this by admitting what will be become apparent, I am a freak. So no need to feel bad when you think it because I am aware of the fact.

Week 1: We recycle faithfully, but don’t typically put out more than what fits in our recycle bin. So I was pretty surprised to see boxes and boxes and boxes at our curb on trash day. I called my darling husband (DH) at work and expressed my surprise about the massive amount of recycling we had that day. He was silent. So when I pressed him on it, he said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. All I put out was our normal recycle bin.”

A mystery to solve! I went out to investigate. Some of the boxes had an address - a house down the street. I was totally befuddled (first time I’ve ever used that word!) as to why someone would bring all of their trash to our house. I called DH back to report my discovery. Being the level-headed and godly man that he is, he assured me that I was making a big deal out of nothing. So I prayed about it and was able to let it go. (Okay, I was mostly able to let it go, refer to aforementioned freak disclosure.)

Week 2: I opened the blinds on trash day the following week and saw another huge pile of trash on our curb! I was more than befuddled (handy word today!), I was seriously annoyed! Here I was with this ginormous pile of trash that would be staring me down all day and I’m thinking, 'This guy has some nerve to bring his trash down to my house!' Again, I called DH at work, he was also a little baffled, but being the non-freak half of our marriage he responded, “At least he’s recycling.”

Week 3: I was watching on trash morning, waiting to see the guy who had the nerve to bring his trash to our house without even checking with us. That’s when I saw our trash man throw some cardboard boxes next to our recycle bin before taking our trash. It was then apparent that since the recycle truck doesn't stop at every house, our kind trash man was going the extra mile to see that the boxes would get recycled rather than put in a landfill.

In an instant I was humbled and repentant. I had known all along that I was being petty, concerning myself with things that have no eternal significance, and harboring unforgiveness in my heart, but I indulged myself in my sin. I was trying to convince myself that my indignation was reasonable and ignore the conviction I was feeling.

I am humbled and I am thankful for I know it was for these sins of mine that Jesus hung, willingly on the cross.

Sometimes God uses a pile of trash to remind me how desperately I need Him.

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a
slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

Romans 7:24,25

A Little Panic Gets the Heart Pumping

In my new-blogger excitement, I was innocently tweaking the title of a possible future post. I hit 'enter' and to my surprise and horror, a message popped up offering me a chance to view my JUST PUBLISHED POST!

"NO! WAIT! STOP!" I pleaded with my computer, but to no avail. (In the midst of my panic, my darling husband sat mere feet away from the mayhem, completely unfazed by my frantic cries and activity. What can I say? He knows me well.) Hoping I was misunderstanding the phrase "your post has been published," I clicked the button to view my blog and there, in all of its utter non-glory, was my unfinished, very rough draft, staring at me from the top of my homepage.

If, like my darling husband, you aren't given to perfectionism or over-reacting, you may not see how posting an incomplete, unedited story is worthy of panic, so let me attempt to illustrate. Have you ever composed an email complaining about work, hit send, and then all of the sudden you aren't absolutely sure whose name was in the 'To:' box. Was it your best friend or was it your boss?? Still no sense of panic? Teach me.

The quickest remedy I could figure out was to delete the accidental post and pry the 'enter' key off of my keyboard. That post is gone, but now I have a blogging story to share. Anyone else have a share-able embarrassing blog or email moment?