Totally unconventional

A while ago, in the mail I received a coupon for a new ice cream establishment here in Naperville called Maggie Moo's. However, the picture on the coupon was of a pizza. Yes, people they have discovered a way of combining my family's two favorite foods, pizza and ice cream. So, since my beloved brother-in-law had a birthday in March and my sweet Emma's birthday was going to be occurring while I was away from her (I'm still whittling away at the guilt complex), we decided to celebrate with a different kind of birthday cake.....and it looked like this!!!

I know... I, too, am amazed that I allowed a store-bought novelty to take the place of a homemade cake, but it has happened. This "supreme" pizza has a chocolate brownie crust, Maggie Moos signature vanilla ice cream, red frosting, white chocolate curls for the cheese, M&Ms, chocolate cherry discs (pepperoni), Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and toffee bits. It was fun and delicious. Definitely, not something you want to eat every day, but honestly, next to Dove Dark chocolate, is there really anything else you would want to eat every day?

Emma said it was perfect!

Ryan, the birthday boy, spoke a few "mmm"s and "yum"s.

Lorilyn, my gorgeous niece, enjoyed the toppings, but more importantly, looked cute in her new hat I got her for HER birthday.

My boys never complain when ice cream is involved.

And Braxton...he nearly licked his plate!

Here comes the sun!

Spring has finally arrived! The girls begged for a picnic on a blanket at a park with a teeter-totter. How can I resist such a request? Luckily, we have one close by. As expected, they hardly ate anything; however, they had a great time soaking in the sun, climbing, swinging, jumping, and even making new friends. I had a great time watching them run from one thing to the next and encouraging them (while spotting) to try the big-kid stuff. How I wish I could bottle their energy!

Emma has finally learned how to pump herself. (Hallelujah!) However, my "underdogs" are still too awesome to not request them every 2 minutes or so.

"Anything you can do, I can do better" is Lizzie's motto.

I just love seeing that belly button!

Emma is quite proficient on all kinds of monkey bars now--and she has the callouses on her palms to prove it! I love it!


Here's Lizzie loving her teeter-totter!

Carter's poetry

Today, as I was driving Carter home, he was explaining to me how he has the ability to make teachers laugh and not get in trouble for it. I guess it happened twice today--once in his classroom, and once in music. Nice. My son is the class clown. He also came home with his poetry book. I have to share his creativity.

Can flip his eye lids
A big eater when eating steak
Rocks at swimming
Talks a lot
Expert at crossing his eyes
Runs a quarter mile

Here are excerpts from his "Orange is..." poem:

Orange is...

Orange is the shine of the sunset behind a mountain

Orange is the dripping smear of honey on my face

Orange is the crunch of a Cheese-It in your mouth

Orange is the snuggling tiger cub cuddling with its mom

Orange is the spray of an orange after you eat two pieces at a time.

I love this kids. He pushes me to be a better, but "funner" mom.

He told me that he'd rather not have me wear red lipstick to his school because it embarrasses him a few weeks ago. He then apologized if he hurt my feelings with that request.

He is observant, social, and entertaining.

When I don't know what to do with him, I've started telling him I love him.

Sometimes that's all you can say.

Evan's state championship

Little did we know that our Evan would acquire such a love of competitive swimming. Once he figured out that he was good enough to make certain time requirements, his mind has been quite focused. He has a beautiful breast stroke. He made regionals in the 50 breast and J.O.'s (junior olympics) in the 100 Breast. His coach also was able to qualify him for 2 relay teams : 200 IM and 200 Freestyle. Evan's team (Fox) was very well represented. He has a friend and teammate who has broken at least 4 of the state records this year and the relay team he is on is ranked #2 in the nation!!! Evan didn't swim as well as he had hoped in his individual race; however, we kept emphasizing what a privilege it was just to be able to MAKE it into the race! He got to miss school on Friday since warm-ups were at 1:00pm and see the GREEN river in downtown Chicago. The meet happened to be at University of Illinois-Chicago the weekend before St. Patrick's Day. I'm so proud of him and look forward to this summer as he continues to improve.


Check out the abs on this kid! Oh! The tattoo was a team thing. It was definitely better than the mohawks the team sported last year!
Evan's so excited giving us the thumbs-up as his coach, Jason (unbelievable!), is ready to advise him.

Go, Evan!

Emma's Spring Musical

I love preschool musicals! Emma attends Wheatland Salem Academy and one of the reasons why I love it is their music curriculum. It's excellent! I love how they take common songs and change up the words. Steve's favorite lyric mix-up is to the tune of "Davy, Davy Crocket...King of the Wild Frontier." Emma knows the tune to "Baby, Baby Jesus...born on Christmas day." He can't hear it without cracking up. Well, Emma's class with another class put on a 20-30 minute concert. A few of the songs we heard were "Jesus Loves Me", "Days of the Week"--to the Adams' family tune, "Old McDonald had a Band"--Emma's favorite, "Mother Goose Rap", and "Jesus Said to Love Everybody."

Here she's singing "Jesus loves me from the top of my head down to my belly button all the way to my toes."

My shinging star!

And yes, she's the tallest one out there! I don't realize how tall she is until she's surrounded by children her same age. Prepare for a life of flats, Emma. :)
xoxoxox

Good riddance

Lizzie is now officially potty-trained. I can't believe that I am done with diapers. Oh, what will I devote that budgeted money to now? Hmmmm. I had tried twice before, but gave up because I HATE potty-training. It's gross, stressful, frustrating, and a power struggle. This time, we finally figured out what worked for Lizzie. In February, I was trying to reward her with Valentine hearts. Apparently, Sweethearts are not good enough for my Lizzie. We discovered Hershey Kisses to do the job. I bought a few bags on sale after Valentine's Day in different flavors. Did you know they make a Butter cream Kiss? Well, she loved picking out the color of the wrapper (pink-Raspberry Chocolate, purple-Dark Chocolate, yellow-butter cream, Red-caramel Kisses) after she'd performed successfully. I am so proud of her and must have told her numerous times because now she keeps confirming it, "My family is so proud of me, right?" "Yes," I always reply. She likes to name every member of the family who is proud of her and have me agree. What a girl. Plus, I will never tire seeing that cute bum covered in Tinkerbell undies. She's such a cutie!

Taste a Rainbow

In this month's Family Fun, there is a page with a recipe for Rainbow cupcakes. When Emma saw them, she just HAD to have them for our Family Home Evening treat. After the persistent and sweet pleading (along with her getting her sister and brothers to gang up on me), I caved. Yes, it is an artifical coloring nightmare, but is it not beautiful? Everyone must understand I've always had an affinity for rainbows. I love the variety of colors, the organization, the promise associated with them, etc. I had one on my wall above my bed, etched into my glasses, decorating my folders, an entire page devoted to them in my sticker collection book, and yes, my shirts are hung in rainbow order. I know this is too much information, but now you know why I couldn't pass up the chance to cap my rainbow fetish with the baking of these beautiful cakes. Plus, my children were literally jumping in their begging, jumping as they waited for their turn to build them, and jumping as they anxiously awaited the finished product. It was a very exciting night!!!

This is the finished product cut in half so that you can see this gorgeous baked delicacy. :)

I'm opening it up to see the layered colors inside. Yep! They're in there!



Well, you start out with a white cake mix, prepared according to directions on the box. Then divide the batter among 6 bowls. Add food coloring in each bowl so that all 6 colors are represented--red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. Then put a nice sized dollop (I love that word) in a muffin cup. Now, I used the large Reynolds foil cups that don't need to be put in a muffin tin. You just put them on a cookie sheet to bake. I am glad I did because 6 tablespoons of batter +- the kid factor makes for a lot of batter that could easily spill out of a normal sized cupcake liner.

Each child "called" which color was theirs to assemble. Having 5 kids and myself, it worked out perfectly! My eye is twitching as I am recalling the scraping of the batter into the cups by my children. It was a bit nerve-wrecking, but with quite a bit of help from mom and some training on how to scrape the batter off of the spoon the most efficiently (apparrently, this is not a skill people are born with), we got the batter in the cups. Hallelujah!

Ahh! It took so much control for the kids not to lick their finger after every dollop! Pure relief when they (and even I) could lick that finger!!!

Stick them in the oven until they're done. Let them cool and enjoy heaven in all of its most vivid colors. :)

Enjoy the smiles!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

FYI: to those who know me, I honestly did NOT match my tablecloth to the dessert. It just happened that way. I promise! But still, isn't that awesome?!