Noah's 4th birthday

Noah had a great birthday, COMPLETE with a cake just for him. I was so worried about him getting a cake, and I was very emotional about the whole thing. With the diet he is on for celiac, I have taken him off of dairy and gluten(wheat). So that makes a birthday cake pretty hard to come by. Well, THANK YOU ANGELA, I got a recipe for dairy free icing, and used Red Mill gluten free cake mix. The icing turned out kind of like a fondant so I just rolled it out and cut out the batman shapes. Noah was so excited, and mommy is pretty darn proud of herself. It was the best part of the whole day for me!!!

Trip to the Z-O-O

For Noah's birthday we took him to the zoo. It is actually his 2nd time going to the zoo, but he was just a baby the first time. He was sooooooo excited. We told him that for his birthday we were going to the Z-O-O, but he didn't know that z-o-o was the zoo till we got there. We saw all his favorites, elephants, giraffes, monkeys, and his all time favorite... the tiger. On the way out we got him a book about the zoo and a tiger mask. It was a great trip. And we are so glad that Jaime and her little ones were able to join us.

PM's 3rd Birthday Luau

This is the mom's group I am with. It is called PeninsulaMommies. I am the one of the co-events managers for this group, the other manager, Liz, is sitting beside me on the right side of the picture. This is our 3rd Birthday Party for PeninsulaMommies.

We had an awesome birthday party this year. It was a luau theme. We had a hula hoop contest, best dressed contest, hang ten photo op, lei making, and LOTS AND LOTS of door prizes. We had leis for all our newer members and gave away beach balls as a take home gift.
We made 64.50 for PM with our 50/50 drawing, and gathered 15 grocery bags full of food for the food bank.

We had...
44 Peninsula Mommies
15 Guests
69 Children... at the party

My KitchenAid Mixer

For our Anniversary Jason got me a KitchenAid Mixer. I have wanted one forever, it is one of those things I am always oggle-eyed at everytime we go to the mall. So I finally got one!!! I had to try it out and what better reason to try it out than to learn a new recipe for Noah's diet. Well, after looking at all those complicated recipes I decided to just try something on my own using his Gluten Free Pancake Mix.
Abby and I made Gluten Free/Casein Free Banana Nut Bread and it turned out SOOOOO yummy. I am extremely proud of myself, and it was a great first experience with my new mixer.

So here is the recipe:

1 cup of brown Sugar
1/2 cup of virgin Coconut oil (this is to replace the shortening)
2 eggs
2 cups of Red Mill Gluten Free Pancake Mix
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 tsp of baking soda
3 soft ripe bananas

Cream brown sugar and coconut oil: then add eggs, pancake mix, walnuts, baking soda. Then Chop up the bananas and add them gradually to the mixer.

Add to greased (canola oil) loaf pan, bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Upwards Soccer

Last week Gabriel attended Upwards Soccer Camp. Upwards is a sports program done thru the church. They have fun learning and playing soccer with their chuch friends and spend time praying together and learning about God too.

This picture was taken by one of church members who is a photographer, Will King. Thank You Will!!

Mom's Night OUT with McGraw

Last Saturday My friend Denise took me out with her to a Tim McGraw concert. Her sweet sweet hubby bought her two tickets so that she could take a friend with her. And I got to be the lucky one that got to go :) I felt like a teenager again. We laughed, danced, and sang all night. I love my children dearly but it was wonderful to have a night off!!! Thank you to my hubby for staying up late with the babe when he had duty to look forward to the next day :)

Waterbaby

Last week the boys and I took Abby for her first swimming experiences. We went to the pool one day. It is so much fun now, because the boys aren't afraid of the water like they were last year. They are still cautious but they have fun. And Abby enjoyed it too. We also spent one morning at Yorktown Beach. That was the best, Abby and I just sat right at the edge of the water and let the "waves"(it is a harbor area, waves are pretty small, sometimes non existent) splash over us. Abby learned how to splash while we were there. She splashed and splashed and splashed. But just kept that sweet little content smile the whole time. She is gonna be a serious little one.

BOYS DAY OUT

On Memorial day Jason's command did a family day at the ballgame. So Jason took the boys to their very first ballgame. It was an all day event. A 4 hour bus ride up there and back. Mommy tried to pack their bags well, snacks, crayons, juice, coloring books, books to read.... but daddy says I didn't give them enough to do on the long bus ride. Nevertheless I think overall it was a great experience. And there very first of many...BOYS DAY OUT!! Oh yea, and the girls had fun too.... lounging by ourselves for the day in a very quiet house!

Isabel's birthday

Last weekend we went to a birthday party for one of the boy's friends, Isabel. And boy did her mommy set the bar high. Isabel had a pony at her party!! I can just hear it now, "mommy... pleeeeaaaaaase why can't I have a pony????" They also had great fun with the pinata... I don't know about the pony, but a pinata for the next birthday I can do!!

Abby's first Cloth Diaper

"Mommy, why do I have a pillow on my butt" That's what Abby would be asking if she could talk, hehe!! I decided that I would give cloth diapers a try last week. I am only using them during the day when we are at home, and right now that is working great for us. But she did give me a few strange looks with the first few she had on. They are really soft and fluffy!! The main idea is just to save some money. And right now it is working, but mommy has to really watch herself, lol. There are a lot of different styles of cloth dipes and some are just REALLY cute... and REALLY expensive. Right now I am just sticking with some I bought from another mommy. "save money, save money, save money" maybe if I just keep repeating it to myself I won't be swayed by all the pretties...