The Calorie Police (Richness and Decadence Division) swarmed on her kitchen when she completed this cake.  And then of course, because she published the recipe, they also got her for intent to distribute.  Poor gal.  Never saw it coming.

But seriously.  Look at this thing.  This cake is ridiculous.  It is 5 layers of 8 inch round chocolate chip cookies, with cream cheese frosting in between.  Do not make this cake.  And if for some strange reason, you find that somehow the cake has made itself and is just sitting there on your kitchen counter, for Heaven’s sake DON’T eat it!  You don’t want to end up like Martha.

This against-the-laws-of-the-calorie-police cake was commissioned by my husband for his birthday.  I made this thing once before…several years back.  I can’t remember the occasion…when is there ever an occasion for such decadence?  Anyhow, my hubby has a weak spot for cookies, so this is a fun choice for his birthday.

And speaking of birthdays, a very important one slipped past without a blog post from yours truly!  I think I put off adding a post about it because it feels like such a huge milestone to me that I really don’t have words for it.  On July 18, my precious baby boy turned ONE.  I am completely in awe of at God’s grace to us this past year.  Just thinking back to those H A R D first few days and months, worrying myself sick about Simon’s health…and now here he is…a silly, rambunctious and HEALTHY little boy.  God is so good.  We have truly felt His goodness FOLLOW us this year.  Psalm 23:6 says that “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.”  And Charles Spurgeon expounds, “Goodness supplies our needs, and mercy blots out our sins.”  I mean…what else could we possibly need?  God is so, so, so good.

Here are some highlights from Simon’s birthday.  And a couple more cakes.  Simon’s birthday was Dr. Seuss-themed.  We had such a good time hanging out with friends.  It was an incredibly special time.

This is Simon’s “smash” cake.  I was aiming for a Cat in the Hat cake.

This was the cake for everyone else.  Terrible picture…sorry.  I missed getting a picture of it before it was sliced.  It’s a Lime Icebox Cake…I LOVE this cake.  It is so refreshing!  And that’s Dr. Seuss’ “The Birthday Book” in the background…that’s the Great Birthday Bird in the picture.

Here are some highlights…

Happy Birthday, Simon.  You bring me so much joy.

A lot has been happening in the Mixer household.  Well, a lot and nothing at all at the same time.  Just normal, busy life.  There have been several bouts of sickness, actually.  Simon has had one thing after another.  I think it’s because we’ve been going to the Maryland Farms YMCA a lot recently, and he’s just bound to get more junk being around all those kiddos.  The worst thing he got (and then proceeded to pass to me) was Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease.  Gross.  Adults aren’t supposed to get it.  I got it.  No details here, I promise.  I will just say that my mouth was so sore that I was talking with a lisp for several days.  Ouch.  But I think we’re both finally over it.

I had a hunch that he was going to spread it to me, though.  He has started giving “kisses” much more frequently!  A Simon kiss is a big, wide-mouthed, dripping-in-slobber bite out of your cheek!  Sounds nasty, but my heart melts into a puddle when he grabs my face and plants one of those on me.  I decided that HFMD is a small price to pay for such sweet affection!

So…the YMCA.  It is fabulous to be a member again!  And it is really fun to take Simon to the pool.  Here are a few pics of his first trip.  I took him to the indoor pool for his first swim.  Considerably less overstimulating than the outdoor pool.  Whew!  Lots of action out there.

Hee hee!  That’s all for today.

Here are a few pics of them earlier today.

“Hey Simon, let’s play some ball!”

“Sweet catch!  Wait…you’re not supposed to eat it, dude!”

“Man…Aiden really knows what he’s doing!”

I think Simon looks so grown up in this one… *sniff sniff*

“Hey Aiden…pass it to me!  I’m open!”

“Hey Aiden…you’re running away with the ball!”

“I’ll bring it back…no worries!”

“Hey Simon, whaddaya’ say we ditch this joint and hit the swings?”

“Oh yeeeeaaah…”

Even though my daily tasks sound mundane, there is a higher purpose to all of them.  I am home so that I can “do good for my husband.”   “She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.” – Proverbs 31:12    If you’ve never seen the “Girl Talk” blog by Carolyn Mahaney and her daughters, stop reading this silly blog immediately and go check it out.  It is a fantastic source of daily inspiration, and it is deep.  Here a while back, they did a series on that verse, and they broke it down word by word…”She DOES him good,” meaning she is a woman of action.  ”She does HIM good,” she is not self-serving.  ”She does him GOOD,” not harm…what does it mean to do GOOD?  This is my highest calling.  To serve my husband.  Practically speaking, right now that means making sure there are tee shirts in the top drawer, and enough granola bars for his lunches.  That’s what I do.

My next highest calling is to mother.  I am home with my son so that I can train him.  Not just colors, shapes and basic obedience, but in the ways of God.  I am so motivated by this quote:  

“That she has trained her children for heaven, rather than for earth, for God, rather than for man–she is the parent that will be considered wise at last. Train with an eye to my children’s souls. We are made what we are by training. Our character takes the form of what mold into which our first years were cast. The path of obedience is the way in which He gives blessing. Determine to make your children obey you, though it cost you much trouble, and cost them many tears. Obedience is the only reality. The mark of well-trained children is that they do whatsoever their parents command them – cheerfully, willingly and at once.”  – John Ryle 

Also this quote from Charles Spurgeon:

“I cannot tell how much I owe to the solemn words of my good mother….I remember on one occasion her praying thus: ‘Now, Lord, if my children go on in their sins, it will not be from ignorance that they perish, and my soul must bear a swift witness against them at the day of judgment if they lay not hold of Christ.’”

Whew.  This is what I do.  

Here’s what I’ve been doing lately.

I’ve been “walking” with Simon.

I’ve been giggling because I found a sweet potato that looks like a butt.  Hee hee hee!

…And by the way…here is the recipe I was making.  It has a unique side dish, and I love it!

I’ve been working on a little gift for my mom for Mother’s Day.

I fought my cheap, falling-apart pepper grinder and won!  Although neither of us came away unscathed.

I’m teaching Simon to catch this big blue ball.  He LOVES it.

I’m watering my seeds, most of which are coming along.  These are the Sweet Peas.  I can’t wait ’til they look like this!

And last but certainly not least, I have glued Super Pickle’s nose back on.  Do not underestimate the importance of this act.

No exaggerating here:  I had the best Easter weekend ever.  Daniel finished his album project and consequently, got to spend his first full weekend at home in over two months.  We had a blast.

On Saturday, Daniel and I made homemade tacos.  Just like I wasn’t exaggerating about this weekend being the best, I’m not exaggerating about this either:  These were the best tacos we’ve ever had.  So I want to share with you the secrets we learned to excellent tacos.  There are several things that I’ve decided made them amazing.  1) We used ground turkey instead of beef.  Now, I’m not a beef eater anyway, so I may just be partial here, but something about the ground turkey made them taste less…bitter?  2)  We used no pre-seasoned packet garbage.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for seasoning packets, but using fresh spices changed everything.  3)  We shredded our own cheese.  It only added an extra minute or two and was made easier with the help of the Pampered Chef Cheese Grater.  4)  And this is the most important…we made homemade tortillas.  This may sound like a lot of work, but in reality it is embarrassingly easy.  

Here’s how ya’ do it.

Before you start on the tortillas, brown 2 lbs of ground turkey.  Add 1 1/2 T. chili powder, 1/2 t. salt, 1/2 t. ground cumin, 1/2 C. chopped onions.  This was one of Daniel’s jobs.  See what a great job he did?

Okay.  Now.  Here are the recipes for the tortillas:

Corn Tortillas (Tortillas de Maiz!)

2 C. corn tortilla flour

1/4 t. salt

1 1/4 C. warm water

oil for handling

Mix ingredients together and add enough water to make the dough soft.  It’s a lot like play dough, actually.

Then roll into a ball and use a fancy-schmancy tortilla press to mash them flat…

Then fry for about 45 seconds on each side in a DRY, UNGREASED skillet.

If you want hard-shell tacos, take the corn tortillas you just fried in a dry skillet, and  fry them in a little oil like this…

See!  Pretty, right?

Now for the flour tortillas.

Flour Tortillas (Tortillas de Harina!)

4 C. all-purpose flour

2 t. salt

1 t. baking powder

3/4 C. shortening

1 1/2 C warm water

Mix together…

Knead like bread dough.  Then roll them out in the size you want them.  I found that rolling them out between two pieces of saran wrap worked best.  And roll them VERY thin.  Roll them until you think you have gone way too far, and then roll a little more.  When you fry them, they will plump up a little bit because of the baking powder.

Fry them in a dry skillet, just like the corn tortillas.  See…nice, right?

Here is the finished product.  It is AMAZING.  And it really doesn’t take that long.  Especially if you have a cute guy in the kitchen helping you.  ;)

I had the best time at the Andrew Peterson concert Monday night.  I enjoyed myself on so many levels.  Most of my enjoyment came from this realization that I had about young parents getting out of the house and doing something.  Let me explain.

When I was in college at Belmont, there were reasons to be out of the dorm practically every night of the week.  Most of these were musical reasons.  My particular social group had our fellow student musicians that we kept up with and went to see on a fairly regular basis.  I felt like I was always going out to Cafe Coco or 3rd and Lindsley to hear someone play.  I remember sincerely enjoying those singer-songwriter type shows and feeling like I was a part of a community that was privy to some higher artistic experience.  …But there is not a great deal of art in the first year of mothering.

On Monday night, I looked around at the crowd.  I was not alone.  There were many, many young parents who had brought their small children out to this laid-back, impromptu concert.  Without getting too cheesey here – I once again felt a sense of community:  I am a part of a new community, this time young parents who still appreciate good music/songwriting/art.  Even the subject matter of some of the songs touched on parenthood.  This was the crowd that used to be out all evening at 3rd and Lindsley — we had just grown up.  

Another level of my enjoyment was the music itself.  I so appreciate this group of musicians.  Andrew Peterson, Ben Shive, Andy Gullahorn and Jill Phillips are all outstanding artists and musicians, and their music is…I don’t even know which ending to this sentence to choose.  Here are the phrases I’ve tried inserting here, but have deleted due to their inadequacy:  ”…genius.”  ”…weighty and powerful.”  ”…complex enough for the music alone and the lyrics alone to stand confidently by themselves; the combination of the two is magic.”

Don’t take my word for this.  Go check them out for yourself:

http://andrew-peterson.com/index.php?s=gl&nid=76657

http://www.christianitytoday.com/music/reviews/2008/illtemperedklavier.html

http://andygullahorn.com/music/music.html

http://www.jillphillips.com/albums

The other levels on which I enjoyed myself are all grossly superficial.  Most involve things like getting “dressed up,” which these days means that I put on make-up and a few funky pieces of jewelry that I rarely wear.  I won’t bore you with those observations, but I will say that it all added up to a real gift of an evening.

This is Simon and me right before we left the house:

The digital camera is a forbidden, “No touch!” and therefore a source of desperate fascination:

But here is a project I can show you.  I’m not proud of this because of its beauty or complexity, but rather its thrift and speed.  I found this fabric in the clearance bin at Joann Fabrics…

It’s vinyl tablecloth-like material.  I got about 2 yards for $0.68.  So I made little cusion-thingys for these old, defective IKEA chairs.  Not very pretty , I know.  BUT I am on a little bit of a mission to make my porch liveable for next to nothing.  15 minutes of work and $0.68…now that I can do!

For me, the only downside to this new technology is that it makes me dangerously curious!  Yesterday evening, I kept watching the TV, then walking out on the porch looking to the sky to see if I could find what the radar was picking up.  I was about as thrilled as the meteorologists when I saw little pink blobs moving over my street on the screen, and then watching the wall of rain hit my windows right when they said it would…amazing!  For all my curiosity, though, there was not a total abandonment of caution.  I was about 99% sure that our area was perfectly safe, but I decided to get a few little things together just in case I needed to grab Simon and go to my “safe place,” or in case the power went out.  I have to say, the “tornado kit” looks a little different when you have a baby:

Simon and I mostly just sat on the floor playing with the lid to his Gerber snacks — eating a few here and there, but mainly just chewing on the lid — watching the news and “talking” to each other.

The funny thing about this weather is that earlier in the day, it was almost 70 degrees and simply beautiful.  We sat out on the porch playing and enjoying the sun.  I took my book and coffee and brought books and toys for Simon as well.  He was more interested in what I was reading than any of his books!  

And switching gears entirely, while we were out on the porch, I noticed that my seeds are beginning to pop up!

Check out my ultra-classy pots:

See my milk jug tomato planter?  Ha!  I have to say, planting seeds is a very good way to cultivate not only vegetables and flowers, but patience also.  “You need patience to be a good gardener. If you don’t have patience, and you stick with gardening, it will teach you patience.” –Bill Turull Jr.

There was simply no time in WV for me to blog.  Too many people to see and projects to do.  So I’m starting fresh!

I’m trying to plant a few things from seed on my porch this year.  Just some low-maintenance flowers and an interesting tomato project.  Ever seen these?  My grandma told me that you can make them out of a milk jug.  Here is pic of what I’m shooting for:  

Real classy, I know.  :)  But the whole project is going to set me back about $3, so I’m game.  I got out all my little mismatched pots and had a lot of fun getting dirty.  I held out a few packets of seeds and asked Simon which we should plant first.  This was his response:

That’s my boy!

More pics to come from my planting adventures.  :)