Hey, Y'all!

Disney...On Ice!

Last night was a very worthwhile splurge for our little family.  A couple of weeks ago, Marcus heard a radio ad for Disney On Ice and decided we should take Dean.  Never one to turn down a night out or anything with the word DISNEY in the title, I wholeheartedly agreed.  He poked around online a bit and found that there was a 20% opening night discount.  Then he bought front row tickets, declaring, "If we're gonna do it, let's do it right." And boy howdy, did we.

"Mama, what's gonna HAPPEN?"

(Also, LOOK! Actual photographic evidence that I go places with my family! Who knew you could just hand the camera to your husband and make that happen?)

Dean really didn't understand what we were going to see prior to the event.  He just knew he was wearing special clothes, big boy shoes and getting to eat dinner in a restaurant.  He enjoyed his cheesey pizza, declaring it "kinda good."  In true Disney form, you were immediately bombarded with souvenier options, most of which were astronomical in price.  We settled for the least expensive, but definitely the cutest, option:

Flounder hat and cotton candy combo for the win!

When the show started, Dean was very quiet.  He didn't really react at first, unless you count the fact that his eyes grew to the size of saucers when Mickey and Minnie entered the rink.  However, even Mr. Cool couldn't resist a squeal of delight when these guys appeared:

TIMON AND PUMBA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dean said, "Daddy, you see that?"  We enjoyed the Lion King portion of the show, except for the fact that adult Simba looked more like a Jellicle Cat than a lion.  We loved The Little Mermaid and Lilo and Stitch.  I realized around 3pm the day of the show that Dean had no idea who Lilo and Stitch were, so we watched some YouTube clips so he would recognize him.  Their rendition of "Burning Love" brought the house down. 

At intermission, we watched the zamboni:

I'm a sucker for a zamboni.  When I was in college, we hosted a Russian production of Swan Lake on ice, for which our students served as crew.  One thing they asked for were volunteers to stay overnight and make the ice stage.  I was ALL OVER that, mostly because I thought the job would involve driving a zamboni in the wee hours of the morning. Imagine my surprise when I was handed a pair of rubber boots and a garden hose and told to "walk the ice" every half hour. LAME. But I digress.

The second act was all Peter Pan.  Dean absolutely loves Captain Hook and Mr. Smee, so it was nice that they happened to spend a lot of their time addressing our side of the arena.

Overall, it was an awesome night and certainly money well-spent. I hope he remembers it forever.

Comfort Food Saturday: Blueberry Cupcakes with Cream Cheese and Lime Frosting

 

BLUEBERRY CUPCAKES

1 cup white sugar

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup milk

 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

LIME CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

8 oz. cream cheese
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon lime juice
Zest of 1 lime

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix dry ingredients for cupcakes together in a large mixing bowl. Add eggs, milk, vanilla and softened butter.  Mix with hand or stand mixer on low for 30 seconds, then increase speed to medium.  Mix for approximately 2 minutes, until well-blended and smooth.  Fold in blueberries with wooden spoon.  Drop batter into lined muffin tin, using an ice cream scoop.  Bake 18-22 minutes, until toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Cool completely.

For frosting, allow cream cheese to soften on counter for about 10 minutes.  Combine butter and cream cheese with mixer until well-blended, about 3 minutes.  Add lime juice and zest and mix.  Add confectioners' sugar 1/2 cup at a time and mix well.  Spread or pipe onto cupcakes.



Enjoy!

 

DC in a Nutshell

 
We were there for three weeks. We did a LOT. The boys had a blast.

 
My nephews are huge.

 
This water park? Was the bomb!

 
The water park was the ultimate place for Dean.  He could climb things AND get sprayed by hoses. SCORE.

 
Dean, Adam, Uncle Mike, Marcus and I went to the movies twice, on rainy days. We saw RIO and Kung Fu Panda 2 (again). It was great, great fun.

 
This little cutie pie is Lukas. Here, he seems to be doing his best Elvis impersonation.  It took him a bit to warm up, but by the end of our trip, he loved his Aunt Jen, especially when we'd sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" together.  Dean and I babysat him one morning and Dean kept asking, "Baby Lukey, you okaaaaaaaay?  Are you okaaaaaaaay?  He's okay, Mama."

 
Marcus turned 41 while we were there. We celebrated with ice cream cake, complete with blue icing.  He and I also went on a real! live! date! to see INXS.  Marcus was very bent out of shape because Berlin was opening for them.  I was actually excited because my inner-seventh-grader wanted to geek out when they sang "Take My Breath Away."  Marcus actually enjoyed them a lot in spite of himself.  He walked all the way over to the aisle when Terri Nunn walked through the audience so he could hi-5 her and get some phone pics.  INXS was great.  We are not huge fans of the new lead singer, but I mean, no one is going to replace Michael Hutchence, you know?  The highlight of the evening for me was watching the Farris brothers sing a beautiful accoustic version of "Don't Change." It was a blast to be out with my husband listening to some great music.

 
Pop Pop made bamboo cane poles for the boys. Neither was very good at fishing, but I think they appreciated the sentiment. They also had a really good time playing in all the mud on the bank.

 
My favorite thing we did was the Potomac Pirate Adventure. They load you up on a boat and sail you around the Potomac for 40 minutes while a mildly scary man teaches you to be a pirate. Dean The Dangerous was REALLY into it. We all had a blast being pirates and seeing the sites from the River.

 
The photo above was taken on what definitely qualifies as one of the top five hottest days of my life. So what did we do? Took the little fair-skinned children to the park!  They were pretty much done within an hour of our arrival. We did get them to hold out long enough to ride the carousel, which Lukas HATED because he had to ride with me instead of his daddy. But the park was pretty awesome, complete with tons of bridges, things to climb on and a really nice maze.

 
When it was time to come back home, Dean was a great travel buddy, doing a little light reading at the airport and taking a good nap on the plane.  We just barely made our connection in ATL and had our plane not landed at the next gate over from where we needed to catch our connection, we would have been stuck in ATL for SIX HOURS. Thank God for small favors.

When we got home, this had happened:

 
The good news is that it didn't fall on the house.  Dean is very concerned and keeps suggesting we attach the tree to Marcus's truck and pull.  Marcus cut a lot of the small branches off with his chainsaw today, but said he needs a bigger chainsaw to get the larger ones. He is seriously contemplating renting a chainsaw from Home Depot. (Raise your hand if you think THAT is a bad idea!) But we'll get it handled.  More than anything right now, we're happy to be home in our own beds with our own toys.  Chainsaws and all.

Preparing to Peace Out

We're gearing up for our annual trip to the DC area to visit Marcus's side of the family.  This year, we've decided to fly and Dean is beside himself with excitement.  Every morning he tells me, "We got to go to the airport, get some juice (I love his priorities), take off our shoes (security), get on the airplane, buckle the seat belt and take off!"  Whenever we ask who we're going to see he yells "Uncle Mikey!!!!!!!!" (That's Marcus's brother. He's a lot of fun.) This will be the  first time since last August that we've seen our nephews, Adam and Lukas.  We're looking forward to trips to the park and nature reserve, riding the merry go round at the lake and playing in G-Mama's basement, which is absolutely packed with cool toys. 

I feel like the boys are finally old enough to go and see some of the sights of DC this year.  Dean, of course, would be happy to spend every day in a museum looking at dinosaur fossils.  Adam is obsessed with camping, so there might be a front yard campout with sons and dads.  (I"ll be inside eating pie with my mother in law.)  Pop Pop is making the boys cane poles out of bamboo from their backyard, so there will definitely be fishing. (As if there were any doubt about that.)  Marcus and I have a few new dishes in our repertoire that we want to make for everyone.

Mostly this visit will be just that--a visit, a time for us all to get reacquainted, to see how much the boys have grown, and to play. Oh, my mercy, will we play.

 

Easter

 Admit it.  It's my catchy titles that keep you coming back.

It's been a while since my little family of three had (more or less) an entire weekend with just the three of us.  We had originally planned to go out of town for Easter, but those plans fell through, so I got to work filling our Saturday and Sunday with fun activities to do as a famiy.

Saturday morning, we headed to our favorite park for our town's Easter Egg Hunt.  Dean had a great time hunting eggs, seeing the extremely creepy life-sized Easter Bunny and playing on the playground.

 

 
After the egg hunt, we stopped by Panera to grab a quick lunch.  Dean was in kids' meal Heaven. He ordered macaroni and cheese (which is GREAT there), a fruit cup and juice and they threw in a yogurt as part of his meal. He ate and ate and ate.  After lunch, we headed to the movies to see HOP. This was only Dean's second time at the movies and he did pretty well.

 
Our movie theatre provides these dreamy booster seats. Dean tolerated it during the previews while he was enjoying his gummi bears, then stood up (on my foot) the second the movie started. He only tried to escape once, which I counted as Success!  The movie was cute, but had a bit too much live action and not enough bunny rabbit for Dean's liking.

Saturday night, Marcus grilled some amazingly good ribs and we played outside until the sun went down.

Sunday morning, Dean woke up and we went down to check out his loot from the Easter Bunny.

 
Kid racked up!  Not all that is from the bunny, though.  Some of it was sent by his Nana and Pop Pop, some by his GG. He also got a pre-Easter basket from my mom and dad last weekend when we visited them.  (Forgive the clutter behind the table.  It's our old pack n play and a Huggies box full of baby stuff for a friend who's having a little boy next month.)

Dean LOVED everything in his basket, with the dinosaurs taking a slight edge for first place in his heart.  We read all the books, stuck stickers all over ourselves and sorted through the edible things.  Then this happened:

 
This child done decided he LOVES the chocolate bunnies.  In fact, he talked about this one (which he devoured before breakfast) so much that Marcus bought him another one on Tuesday.

The rest of Easter Sunday was spent around the house painting, playing outside and eating a tasty brunch.  That evening, we went out on the boat. This was Dean's first trip out and he had an absolute blast!  He grabbed the little emergency paddle that you use if your motor gives out, declared it his Diego paddle and proceeded to sing the "rescue pack" song from Go Diego Go. Then he let the paddle go in the water and that was pretty much the end of that.

 
Marcus caught a couple of small bass while we were out and, as usual, Dean was stoked. He held the fish and told them they were cute.

 

All was dandy until we had to let the fish go back to his watery home.

 
Tears. GIANT SAD TEARS.  Marcus tried to gently explain how the fish couldn't breathe if he was out of the water and that he probably needed to get home for dinner anyway or his fish mom would worry about him, but still. Tears.  We had to go home shortly after this picture was taken.

Once everyone got home and calmed down, we spread out on the hood of my car, looked at the stars and talked about our favorite things we'd done over the weekend.  If it wasn't a perfect weekend, it was pretty darn close.

 

The Golden Girls

I went to Mississippi this weekend, Dean in tow, to see my parents perform in their church's Easter Passion Play.  It was a great show, complete with live animals! The donkey was a total pro--he's been doing these plays for years.  The little lamb was a bit spooked, though.  He Baaaaaa'd loudly and his handler told him it was ok. Then he licked the handler in the face.  There were rumors of live chickens in the marketplace scene, but, alas, they were cut.  My guess is someone remembered what chickens smell like and thought it better to leave them out.  My dad had 2 solos and did a great job.

Part of my job this weekend was wrangling the old ladies. My grandma's sister and their friend, Diane, came up for the play.  On Friday, Dean and I took my grandma out on a date to the Mexican restaurant where she and I were served the biggest portion of fajitas I've ever seen. We ate until we thought we'd pop, yet the platter looked like we hadn't touched it.  The next day, my great-aunt and Diane showed up.  They all spent the day shopping and such, then I picked them up at FOUR FIFTEEN for dinner.  I threatened to bring a rope for everyone to hold onto while we were out so no one would wander, but they all promised to behave.  We went to McAllister's Deli and had baked potatoes loaded with good stuff, then headed for the church.  We arrived at 5:20.  The play started at 7.  The doors opened at 6.  Around 5:35, an usher  took mercy on me said it would be ok if we went in and found a seat. My grandma can't see so well, so she HAD to be up close.  (As she announced many, many times in the lobby...hence the early seating.)  We enjoyed the play a lot. When we got in the car to go home, I heard my aunt exclaim from the backseat "Lord, I can't wait to get home and get these teeth out!"

Good times with the over-70 crowd.

Another Christmas Miracle

Mid-December is a great time for our family. Three years ago (on Dec. 19), my mom received a kidney from her friend Bradley.  On Monday, her youngest brother Mark received a kidney from his wife Michelle. Both of  them are sore but doing well. Mark's polycystic kidney disease was very advanced. Each of his kidneys weighed over 20 pounds and was the size  of a football. He was in constant pain, unable to work or enjoy life at all. The surgery took over 9 hours, as Mark had both his native kidneys removed before receiving the donor organ from Michelle. But it's over now and everyone's on the mend. Just one more blessing for us to count this year.

 
Mark and Michelle the morning of the transplant.

4th of July: A picture post

We spent the weekend with my parents in Mississippi and had a great time.  My dad grilled some of the best steaks EVER and we had lots of time to enjoy each other's company.  Dean was his usual charming self.

He entertained himself on the trip over by unpacking  his entire diaper bag, then trying to put on his swim trunks upside down. 

Mom and I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, making everything from salad to cherry cheesecake.

Grammylicious.

On Sunday morning, we went to a very cool park in town. It's got a mini-replica of the famous Oxford Town Square along with a ton of nooks and crannies for little ones to climb through.  There are glockenspiels and xylophones to play and even a giant wooden monopoly board. I took a ton of pictures of this place because it was just too cool. If you'd like to see more, let me know and I'll send you a link to my snapfish album. (Or look on Facebook)

Dean got to run on the Ole Miss football field while we waited for the fireworks to begin. It was pretty cool, if I do say so myself. (Roll Tide, though.)

Victory dance.

He loved the fireworks.

And now we're home again, enjoying the newest member of our family:

Name suggestions welcome. 

Days like yesterday

Days like yesterday make me extra-nostalgic for NYC.  You see, the Tony Awards were last night.  I remember the excitement felt by the Broadway community during Tony time, the buzz around town about who the winners would be, and watching several of my actor friends get dolled up to present awards.  Watching that ceremony made me want to walk through backstage at Lincoln Center, taste a hotdog from a street vendor and sit under a tree in Central Park.

But if I were still living in NYC, I would have missed a day like yesterday.

Meredith's sweet baby Henry was baptized yesterday. I was fortunate enough to spend some quality snuggle time with him before the service.  I was also there when his grandma dressed him in his christening gown, an heirloom worn by his grandpa, his great-aunt, his mom and uncle and all their cousins.  I was standing next to his family when he was baptized.  I"m so happy I was able to be a part of that special day.

This weekend, my parents will come visit and we'll go pick our own berries at a farm up the road.  My parents would not have visted NYC. My mom would have liked it once she got into a rhythm, but my dad probably wouldn't have made it out of the airport. (He doesn't like big cities and crowds much. He also doesn't like petting zoos, but that's another post altogether.)

Even though it's approximately 4000 degrees outside and only getting hotter, relocating to the south definitely has its perks.

I could still go for a vendor hotdog, though.

(Lucky for me, BlogHer 10 is in NYC!  I'm going to eat 8 meals a day while I'm there.)

Guess where I've been?

Visiting the fam in DC!  We're home and happy to be here, but we had an awesome time.  It was our first time meeting this guy:

That's our new nephew, Lukas.  He was born February 23, making him just over 3 months old.  He is GINORMOUS. That's a 9 month size outfit he's wearing there. I have never seen sweeter baby fat rolls than on this guy.  His belly is perfectly round and great for blowing raspberries.  He is quite the smiler and loved it when I'd sing to him.  It was fun to be around a little baby again, but it did make me a little sad because Dean looks like an absolute giant person compared to Lukas.  (Even though Lukas is only about 10 pounds lighter than Dean.) 

Here's one of his face:

Totally cute.

We squeezed every drop of fun and activity we could get into our ten-day visit. I'd say we spent about  70% of our time outside.  We visited a really cool farm/zoo, complete with petting area where you  could feed a pig and give a lamb a bottle.  Dean spent 30 minutes chasing this rooster, screaming "Cocka-DOO!" Poor rooster.

We also visited the National Zoo, which was not as great as last time we were there. The elephant house is closed and it was so hot that a lot of the animals were not out where we could look at them.  We did get a free, um, biology lesson from some lions who chose the exact moment Dean looked at them to consumate their love.  Marcus and I tend to have an aphrodisiac-like effect on animals, as we have seen some sort of creatures copulating every single time we have ever been to a zoo or aquarium together.  The most memorable were the turtles.  That is not a good thing.

We spent a lot of time in the wading pool and sandbox where, naturally, Dean took off his pants. (Hence the lack of photo.)  The best was the day there was an open house next door for the neighbor who's trying to sell his house. Sidenote:  My MIL and I totally went to the open house, mostly so we could see the inside, which we'd heard hadn't been updated since the 70s.  I have one word:  GROOVY.  Anyway, a nice young couple was touring the backyard when suddenly they turned to their right just in time to see Dean streak by.  (Spoiler:  They didn't buy the house.)

Marcus's mom and dad re-did their basement a couple of years ago in time for Adam's first birthday party.  It is a toy mecca. There is an awesome play kitchen, a tent, tons of Little People toys, a workbench with tools and tons more stuff.  Dean and Adam had a blast down there.  There is a fantastic park with a nature center, playground and pond just down the road from the house, so we took many, many walks over there.  Know what we learned?  Dean is fearless.  He shimmied up one of those rope climbing things like it was nothing and went down the tallest curly slide.  He's so fast and so dextrous that he's hard to keep up with.  I'm so glad he's not scared to try things--he had a blast on everything from the swinging bridge to the monkey bars, with my hand never a few feet away, of course.

On Friday night, we took advantage of the park's free concert series and saw a fun Rockabilly group.  All three boys had a great time dancing and eating all the snacks we brought and the adults enjoyed listening to songs that didn't center around things on a bus going round and round. 

Marcus and I always try to squeeze in a date when we visit either set of grandparents. We usually go shopping, see a movie or go fishing.  This time, we had lunch at PF Chang's, which was hands-down the best Chinese food I've ever had in my life.  I had almond-cashew chicken and it was divine.  Marcus got crispy Sechuan beef that was sooooo spicy, but soooo delicious.  After our giant meal, we drove to the outlet mall and found a few deals.

One of my favorite things we did was visit Costco. (I know. I'm easy.)  Dean took a liking to a pineapple, which he carried with him for the entirety of our shopping trip.  I ate my way through the store, sampling smoked salmon, salsa, coffee, egg rolls and cereal bars.  Then we had lunch at the snack bar.  A hot dog and a drink is only $1.55. You can't beat that with a stick.

Speaking of food (Oh, come on, you knew it was coming), we ate our fill of favorites like breakfast gravy, French toast, flank steak, pork shoulder with sauerkraut, tacos and chicken with dressing.  I even made meatloaf for everyone one night.  Dean survived for nearly 2 days on 1/2 a scrambled egg, a mango and some craisins, which are his new favorite thing ever. 

One of my favorite things to do in DC is visit Airport Park at Reagan Int'l Airport.  It's situated right at the end of the jetway, so the planes head right for you, then take off right over your head. It's way cool.  The boys had a blast playing in the dirt, clapping for the planes and having a picnic with their Nana.

We also celebrated my mother-in-law's birthday and retirement!  She's been counting the days to retirement for about 3 years now, so it was fun to be there for her last official day on the clock.  We celebrated her birthday at home with a yummy cake from Wegman's.  Dean discovered blue icing and him am in luv.

It was a super fun trip, packed full of fresh air, calorie-burning outdoor activities, laughs and sweaty little boys.  It's nice to be home, but Dean certainly misses his partner in crime.