Birthdays and Bunnyville

So my birthday was this past weekend. Joel actually had off, so we spent it as he calls "a normal family". :)

What do "normal" families do?

• They don't accomplish ANYTHING on their to-do lists for the weekend.
• Most all of them sleep in until at least noon (the only one that doesn't is pregnant and wakes up to her husbands alarm clock that he set so he could be "productive").
• They decide on a whim to go to the zoo because it is a lovely day outside (71- God really does love me! :)
• They realize upon arriving at the zoo, that everyone else had the same idea, and thus they wait almost 15 minutes for parking... because not only is it a beautiful day, but it is also "Bunnyville" (meaning the zoo has also turned into a secular Easter carnival of sorts).
• They speed through the zoo, stopping at Liam's favorite animals- because the Daddy still has an agenda he wants to follow.
• They end up exploring the local cities near the zoo, after they discover that the bakery they wanted to pick up bread at had just closed for the day.
• They stop on a whim at a BR31, because the Daddy is determined to get the Mommy a free ice cream scoop for her birthday. Unfortunately, out of 31 (or however many flavors they have), not a single one is a sorbet or dairy free!
• They go home, put their son down for a nap (he doesn't take one), while the Daddy enjoys the weather some more with a run.
• They drop off Liam with relatives and head to a little downtown, where they mean to eat at Mommy's favorite little pizzeria, but seeing as how it is overly crowded, they walk a few restaurants down to Daddy's pub and go there instead.
• But Daddy has established a craving for pizza, so they order a pizza to go from the pizzeria.
• Then they return to pick up Liam, hang out for a couple hours more before heading home.

Definitely a "normal" family kind of day, right?! :)

Normal or not, I think I can chock this up to being one of my favorite birthdays! I love spending time with my boys!




 

At the Zoo...

"Sharing" Mommy's Free Ice Cream

An Easter Box sent by Nana in the Mail...

Bedmates, Part 3

I put Liam to bed tonight. And then sent my husband, who had been working on a presentation/studying in to say goodnight (normally Liam runs into the office to tell Joel goodnight, but he was too busy playing with his puzzles and looking for "fish" stories in his Bible) as I went off to go do something else. Five minutes later, I hear my son calling out to me. I head back to see what all the ruckus is...

... at a quick first glance everything looked innocent.

A little TOO innocent.

My child never lays down THAT quickly.

My curiosity beginning to get the best of me, I went in for a closer look.

I must say, out of graham crackers and diaper boxes, this would be my choice too :)

But I told Liam his Daddy was unfortunately too big to stay in his crib with him- not to mention they would goof off too much and their "slumber party" would have the usual result of no sleep.

So the search for the perfect bedmate will continue...

Springtime Snow

So it snowed yesterday. But praise the Lord, it had all pretty much melted by this morning.

Apparently my son wasn't as thrilled with this discovery as I was.

So he took some styrofoam that he found in the recycle bag...

...and created his own snow. Indoors.

Who wouldn't want some of that?!

After spreading it throughout the house though, he realized that unlike the outdoor snow that melts, this "snow" likes to cling to anything...

Thankfully, he is such a big helper, that he helped me sweep and vacuum up the mess he created throughout the whole first floor of our house!

And just like being outdoors, after playing and cleaning, snow can make us all tuckered out! :)

Bedmates, Part 2

After our snow adventures outdoors, I put Liam down for a nap.

Two hours later, he was still chatting away, but not bouncing around as much as is usual.

I went to peek in on him and tell him that he "really did need to take a nap".

He on the other hand, wanted to show me his newest choice of sleeping companion.

Allow me to introduce you to...

 

the DIAPER BOX.

Now you must understand, the diaper box is a far superior bedmate then the graham cracker. First of all, it will (I would hope) withstand rolling and beatings without crumbling.

Next, not only is the diaper box a perfect sleeping friend (can't you see my son is all smiles with his choice?!)...

... BUT it also can store all other bedtime objects within it (ie blanket, pillow, book, teddy bear, spare pacis, etc)

... AND it is the perfect play toy for a toddler who doesn't want to take a nap, because he can even fit inside the box, sit down in it, jump up and down, etc etc!

Who wouldn't want such a fun companion with them... even if it does take up at least a quarter of the sleeping space?!


Don't ask me how the diaper box got into his crib. I'd rather not think about how that happened, as I don't have one good scenario...

Hibernation

I woke up this morning with different thoughts running through my head of what I wanted to accomplish today, and small errands I wanted to run. And then I looked out the window.

And saw this.

Needless to say, if I had my way, we would've stayed indoors today...

I didn't.

Joel wanted us to come eat lunch with him at the hospital. Liam was game, especially since it meant that once bundled up, I was more likely to let him play a bit outdoors after we returned.

So my dear son was able to once again pull out his snow shovel (besides his Daddy and oatmeal, it was pretty much the topic of conversation this morning in the Virkler household as soon as he saw the snow).

And make snowballs, and run around the backyard while his mother lamented about actually planting her garden EARLY this year and checked her spring bulbs to see if they would weather the snow ok. Liam helped too. :)

 I think they will survive, especially since it is supposed to get to the 40s today (unless Liam decides to strip all the bulbs of their blossoms). As for my garden... there is always flower day in downtown Detroit!

And thankfully, I don't think we will get the 3-5inches forecasted for today...

Lazy Saturday Mornings & Cheesecake

First of all, praise the Lord that it didn't get down to the 40s today! Yay! (The high was 52, lol... :)

But it was kind of dreary and rainy... so I decided it was time for a lazy Saturday, and I left Liam in his pajamas. And then we just spent the morning together eating my most recent craving- spinach, ham and cheese omelettes, and applesauce. And then we got to baking... you see, I've been craving cheesecake. Probably because it is just about my favorite dessert, and I can never make it at home, because it would mean eating it all myself. Tempting, but my guilty conscious has always stopped me. Until now.

Why did it not stop me this morning? Well, I had offered to bake for a friend for this Sunday's lunch. And my initial recipe (gluten-free, dairy-free, peanut butter chocolate cookies) did not turn out well. You know it's bad when the husband, who has only criticized my food rarely (I can count on one hand) in the 4.5 years I've been experimenting on him says...

"Well, the taste is good, and having been gluten-free for a while, the texture is familiar".

Me: "What's that supposed to mean?"

Him: "It's ok"

Me: "So is it worthy of a church lunch tray?"

Him: "I think the people would be in for a surprise if they ate it. It tastes fine, but the texture is definitely not what people think of a normal cookie. Why don't you make something else?"

So back to the drawing board I was. But you see, this time, I was a depressed baker. Actually, depression started after I baked the first batch and my conclusion on tasting a sample was exactly like his... the evidence of this depression is the half empty container of ice cream...

Note: don't start eating from an ice cream container if you are depressed... scoop some out into a bowl, or you may will get carried away).

Well, ice cream, or really anything sweet has always been a comfort food. But all of a sudden I was longing for cheesecake.

 (enter nostalgically, sad music here as I lament that the nearest cheesecake factory is only 3 hours away...)

So I was wondering what I could do to ease my craving before it turned lustful. And then I remembered cheesecake bars. Doable for a church lunch, but messy. And then I one-upped it... mini cheesecakes!

So Liam and I made some mini cheesecakes this morning.

Notice the bulge in his cheek...
more then a few nilla wafers made a permanent detour into my little guy's mouth!

 But the recipe was hideously off when it comes to how much cheesecake it would make... I think they accidentally threw the word "mini" in front of "cupcake liners". And to quote my favorite Bible verse, I was left with "exceeding abundantly more then I could ever ask or think" of cheesecake mix. So this left me with another decision after I ran out of my mini cupcake liners and nilla wafers...

what do I do with what's left?

So experimentation set in (what really did I have to lose??) and I decided I'd make cookies :)

And due to an oh-so-generous Secret Sister, and leftover candy from when we stuffed eggs, I had the perfect filler... snickers and reese's cups!

I threw in some butter, flour, baking powder and chopped snickers bars and then chilled the dough for a wee bit before popping them in the oven. To make it more "cheesecake"-like, I also rolled some of them in crushed graham crackers, until I ran out (remember, they are the snack/sleepmate of choice for my son, so there weren't too many around!). I must say, they turned out fairly well. Good thing too, since I ended up with almost 5 dozen of them (I told you I had an abundance of extra cheesecake mixture)!!

And after being in the kitchen all day, Liam and I decorated our little cheesecakes- to go along with the Easter theme... it's what keeps us going when Joel is gone ALL DAY at the hospital. After seeing my son literally scarf down half of the coconut we toasted though, I decided to wait til after he went to bed before I put the eggs in their nests. :)

Joel said that these looked better then the original gf/df cookies. But since he didn't try one (due to all the dairy involved), I guess we will never know for sure... ;)

Thomas

One of the MAs gave Joel some tickets to the Thomas the Train Musical that was being performed near Detroit this weekend. He was able to get off of work at a decent time, and after catching a bite to eat, we headed upto the Palace where the show was being performed. I was kind of hesitant at how well Liam would do, especially since this would be the longest he would have had to sit still (90 minutes) and not move around at all... and since he had been talking about trains ALL. DAY. LONG. (That's what we get for telling him yesterday that he was going to see some "choo choos" manana.)

Let's just say that he loved it. :) He clapped his hands, shouted "yay" when the conductor was happy, danced to the music in my lap, and said "choo choo" whenever they had the audience interact. It was so fun watching him light up especially when he saw the trains or the helicopter. I still don't think he knows exactly who "Thomas" is, only that he's a train, which is a good thing, because it means he is still content with the plain jane Ikea trains he currently has.

What a fun evening it turned out to be as a family! And what a blessing moments like these are :)

Milk Baths

Apparently someone must have told my child that milk baths are good for the skin. He wanted cereal for a snack last night, and I've discovered that he will actually *shock* drink the milk when I give him that cinnamon oatmeal squares brand. :)

Well, he also discovered that a bowl full of milk is almost like one full of water... and that in can be fun to play with as well. And unfortunately this Mama was busy unloading dishes- that is until she heard an "uh oh". The classic uh oh. Last afternoon it was said after I was busy (a reoccurring theme) and he went into the office and found my stash of salt and pepper potato chips (my latest craving), and when I went upstairs to check on his exclamation, found a trail of potato chips from the office down the hall to the top of the stairs, where he was waiting to point me out his latest mishap, and informing me we needed to "va-uum".

Anyhow, this is what I saw when I turned around to see what caused him to announce "uh oh".

FYI: If you are ever out of hair styling products, cinnamon sugar flavored milk does a great job of styling your hair as well... :)

Counting to Ten

... and for the record, my husband and I were not abusing him, even though it may look that way from the first half of the video. He's known how to count to five for a couple of months now, but today while we were looking at books together, he did six through ten by himself multiple times... and then did it in the car (without bugs to count!) for Joel as we drove to a resident dinner tonight.

But of course, in typical Liam fashion, he didn't want to do it for the camera. This was the best I could get of him. Sigh. He vainly loves to watch himself perform after I've videoed or taken a picture, but doesn't want to do the performing first! Maybe someday... :)

Spring has Sprung :)

I think I can officially declare the arrival of spring...

... maybe that is due to the fact that my husband had the weekend off and it was a gloriously delightful one at that!

... maybe it's because I can turn on the sink water now, and not have my hands get goosebumps the minute the water hits them...

...maybe it's because they cleared the hill of the sledding hay and fences.

... maybe it's because it was 80 degrees yesterday. Yes, you read that right.  80 degrees. Which meant that it was officially warmer up here then in Phoenix. (We'll forget the fact that it is only supposed to reach the mid 60s today, be in the 50s the rest of the week and 40s by the weekend).

... which meant that my crocuses decided to finally open up, and my daffodils look like they are ready to burst with life too... yay!

So what do we do on a free, lovely, warm weekend?

We do lawn work outside...

One of us plays with random pieces of trash that blow into our drive or we find in our jogging stroller...

Or a "bubble ball" which another one has to run after every time it starts rolling down the hill to the end of the street...

 One of us shatters the Murano's rear windshield with an aerator. And another one of us spends the afternoon making calls to see who can fix it and how soon it can get fixed...

We buy Easter eggs, and while one of us works on remodeling the bathroom, the other two stuff them with goodies and egg a friend's house that night with them...

One of us thoroughly enjoys the gift that his Mommy received from her secret sister at church, and she is thankful that he was so engrossed with his new duck, 4-wheeler and truck that he didn't see the candy...

We go out as a family and enjoy a nice meal out on the patio...

 

... followed by a lovely walk downtown...

... And culminating with a trip to Target to buy a "boo-ball"!

It was our last free weekend in April, but we felt so blessed by the end of it, and are looking forward to some free weekends in May :)