Got Cake?

Pinterest. Had no clue what this was until my neighbor Ashley wrote a post about it. So I went, I browsed, I signed up to pin (whatever that means...I'm still not sure), and I left a little confused.But I did stumble upon this cake...of course leave it to a cake to catch my eye.

Now mine doesn't do justice to the picture I saw, but it did turn out way better than I was expecting and was a massive hit amongst all males in my household.

Behold the cake in pictures:

A certain toddler was CRAZY excited for cake time tonight. It was literally as if a magnetic field was drawing in his hands toward the icing.

(See the hand?)
But the part that won me major cool points was when it was cut open:

4 layers of sheer awesomeness (if you're a 2-year-old).

So back to Pinterest...is it for the not-so-creative (me) to glee amazing ideas from others?????

Almost Getting It

As parents we're suppose to instill morals, compassion for others, and an undying love for Jesus into our children's hearts. I think I both fail and succeed at this everyday. What a responsibility...what a challenge...but what a privilege.

After years of watching my friend Christine parent her 3 little ones, I've picked up on many things from her (cause she is an excellent mommy role-model), but one of the things I love that she does is talk about "happy hearts" with her kids.

I in turn use this language on a daily basis with mine. Lincoln knows that Jesus gives him a happy heart and when his heart is grumpy, we pray and ask Jesus to give him a happy heart. Sometimes it's a process to get the happy heart, but when he does, he'll run out to you and exclaim, "Mommy! I happy now! Jesus gave me happy heart!"

He gets it. It's great because all I have to do now is ask him where his happy heart is and he gets it. This language can often snap him out of a grumpy mood or lead him quickly to the path of getting there.

Another word he gets is "Obey."

I have found that when he's testing the limits, the only word that he really understands is obey. He knows this is a serious word because he knows the consequences of not obeying. We taught him the bible verse "Children obey mommy and daddy in the Lord for this is right." We taught it back when obeying was seeming to become a big issue. So a lot of times if he's not making a good choice, we use that word, and ask him what his Bible verse says about obeying. Amazingly, this works for him.

Now, we also work on a lot of "sorrys" and "I forgive you's".

Yesterday, Lincoln pee-ed his pants three times throughout the day. He started digressing some a few days ago, so when he does this (unless it was an accident from us tickling him or something) we immediately take away something fun he is playing with/watching.
When he did it yesterday, he happened to be watching one of his Veggie Tales movies.
So I turned it off and explained to him why.
He whined some and was upset, but was able to explain back to me why I turned it off.

Then he came and sat in my lap and snuggled and goes,
"Mommy, God will help me not pee-pee my pants!"
I told him he was right and asked him if he wanted to pray and ask God for some help. He said yes...we did...then he goes:

"Mommy, God will help me not pee-pee my pants AND he will help me watch a movie!!"
Hmmm....

He said this about 3 more times, then he goes (in the sweetest, tender voice):

"Mommy, I forgive you...I forgive you for that pee-pee..."

Ha! I wanted to bust out laughing he was so cute and I appreciate the effort of him trying to piece all of this together.

Success

Today we went swimming...twice. And in-between, we ate Popsicles, played outside (which is why we ended up going down to the pool again...that hot), took naps, made new friends, hung out with old ones, and literally wore out. I consider it a success. :)

A Story to Share

I know vacation's way gone but there was another story that about made me die of both laughter and embarrassment that I forgot to share.

On our insanely long drive home that Saturday, our three car loads all made a much needed joint stop at a huge gas station for snacks and drinks. Lincoln had picked out a package of Teddy Grahams and was quite proud of them.

We took them up to pay, and then he said he was going to hang on to them until we got to the car.

No big deal.

We rummage some more around the store...I pick out a nice looking roll of Sweettarts, and then my mom motions me over to the fountain drink isle, asking me if she can buy me a drink. Why sure.

As we're standing there getting drinks, I notice Lincoln has been standing in front of the microwave, just staring at it intently.

Mind you, the microwave was the height of a 2-year-old - right within his grasp...really???

Lincoln still wasn't moving from that microwave...just staring. I asked him what he was doing.

"Just cooking mommy!"

I thought, "Oh how sweet...he's playing pretend kitchen."

Then I noticed the microwave was on and he no longer had teddy grahams!

I quickly swung the microwave door open to a burning heap of what used to be teddy grahams! It smelled awful and the bag had literally burned up (those bags have foil in the wrapping!).

He never blinked. He reached in, grabbed it out and goes "Look mommy! I cooked it!"

Oh dear.

In Love.

(I wanna make this into a poster-type pic for their room they'll soon share )

Gluten-Free Pasta

So tonight I made my first gluten-free pasta dish.
I had made Jason chicken fettuccine last night (gluten-loaded), and since that's what he was also having again tonight (we're a leftover family), I decided to try the gluten-free noodles I bought a few days ago and share a pasta dinner with him.
It ended up being awesome. I seriously loved it. And both the kids ate three helpings of it - seriously. So I thought I'd share how I made it in case you wanted to try it out for yourself!

I kind of threw together things in the kitchen, so I'm sure tweaking could make it better depending on what you have but here it goes:

First, the noodles.

 Now these are the first I've tried, but my gluten-free pal Christine told me they're the best ones (got lucky on that one). The reason I bought them is because they were only $2 - only a dollar more than the others I usually buy. Other GF brands were at least 2x's that price.

The package says cook for 14 minutes, but Christine advised me to cook them longer. I did for 17 min. and they were perfect.

Next I cooked fresh asparagus, broccoli, and mushrooms in a skillet type pan with PAM olive oil spray, salt, pepper, BAM all-purpose seasoning, and an Italian seasoning blend. When the veggies were tender, I added about 1/2 cup of white cooking wine, and 1/2 cup of chicken broth. I let the veggies cook in the sauce for a bit, then dumped it all on the noodles.

That's it. :)

It really was super yummy and will be something I make often.

And it has been one complete week now doing strict GF, and I have experienced ZERO digestive problems. It's been amazing. I think I'm hooked. :)

It's Working

Guess what???
I got a new camera card. It's always nice when the camera card breaks and the problem is not your camera (makes the broken card much more bearable and reminds you how thankful you are that you back up your pictures).

So today I dusted off the old thing that has been used in a while (i.e a week) and snapped a few.

Lincoln and I have been busy putting together a new toy table that was given to us by one of his favorite B'ville players parents (Nick). They're super generous people and we've been blessed to get to know their whole family since we've been here.

So we cleaned out tons of toys that don't get much use anymore (sent them over to Tucker!) and made way for our new fun table:

The our Noah woke up just in time for his photoshoot. :)

This morning some of our friends came to play before we met up with the husbands at Chick-fil-a. I think they were ganging up together in this picture to fit bad guys or something of the sort. Silly guys.

So no deep thoughts today. The heat's draining anything deep out of me. And the stir craziness of not having a car for 2 weeks now :)

But I will leave you with a pee-pee story (Oh boy!):
Lincoln woke up this morning SOAKED for the first time. His bed was drenched and his entire shirt was absolutely soaked (as were, of course his pants). His pull-up was also saturated.
I asked him, "Lincoln, did you pee-pee your pants?"
To which he looked at me super serious with wide eyes and goes "No mama...it was just my milk."
Hmmmmm....nice try buddy.