A Little Lovin in the Oven

On the day before Valentine's Day, the kids and I participated in our third annual Valentine's Day cookie decorating extravaganza. But before we started rolling out the dough, Miss Bryn insisted on checking the quality of the flour. After making sufficient designs and doodles, she gave it her stamp of approval and the cookie making process began.

If there is one thing Brynlee loves, it would be helping me stir stuff. She loves to help out in the kitchen especially if the "helping" involves sampling. It doesn't really matter what it is, she always asks me if she can "have a taste" even if I tell her that she won't like it. Seriously, who wants to lick a stick of butter? However, being the little independent soul she is, I always follow up my admonitions with a, "if you insist." As it would turn out, Bryn isn't a fan of baking soda. Crazy, huh?

Always looking for those teachable moments, I have turned our baking sessions into impromptu shape discussions and math problems. She is great at counting and particularly enjoys arranging her hearts into descending order from biggest to smallest. 

After we have rolled and cut our cookies out, there is always extra dough leftover, which I typically allow Bryn to eat. Normally, there isn't very much, but today, Bryn had hid some dough about the size of her fist and asked if she could eat it all. I told her no and then she busted this little pout out of nowhere. I was taken off guard, and couldn't help but laugh and cave in to her demands. I have a sneaky suspicion her and her father have been working on this when I am not around.

Hudson, on the other hand, doesn't need to pout for extra treats. Those squishy cheeks beg for food and I am more than happy to oblige.

My Little Valentine

So the Sunday before Valentine's Day, I was feeling "the love" and decided to dress my kids in the colors of love, which according to every commercialized establishment in America, seems to be pink and red. Bryn looked beautiful in her pouffy pink princess dress. She was so excited that she wouldn't even sit still for some pictures. Every attempt of getting her to hold still resulted in a blurry picture. It wasn't long before "the love" started to slip into "minor annoyance," and so I told her she was finished and free to go play. 

She pranced away, glad to be done with the whole affair, which left her poor little brother all to myself and my ever-clicking camera. Hudson seemed to enjoy himself though, particularly when Bryn would rush into the room for a split second, to squeal at him, "Oh Hudson, you're so handsome!" This would cause him to giggle and smile, as though this is nothing he hasn't heard before. How I love this little heart-breaker. My little man. 

And then someday, in the not too distant future, this little man will become some other girl's valentine. But today, and every year after for that matter, he will always be my little valentine.

A Proud Moment

There are some moments that just make a mother happy. I am loving Miss Bryn's exertion of independence in the form of choosing her outfits each morning, but today, in particular, I love that after getting dressed she went straight into the bathroom to grab her toothbrush. I swear my little dental hygienist heart nearly burst with pride. She insisted on brushing her teeth until they "sparkled like jewels." She also has a weird fascination with floss. I tend to think she likes to just suck the mint flavoring off the floss rather than using proper flossing techniques. 

I personally believe that it is never too young to start good oral hygiene habits. Hudson, like most other little boys who are subjected to anything related to personal hygiene, typically chooses to close his eyes and pretends not to hear me when I mention that it is time to brush his teeth or take a bath. 

Unless, or course, it is his idea. Then he is all for brushing his teeth. And when I say brushing, what I really mean is gnawing and slobbering on the toothbrush much like a dog would do with a bone. I like it because all the chewing on the bristles must be cleaning something off the teeth. He likes it because it helps alleviate some of the discomfort caused by teething. Either way, I view it as a victory for Team Dental Hygiene. And when it comes to teeth, we take our wins very seriously in this house.

Papa's Birthday

We officially have a senior citizen in the family now. Mark celebrated his birthday and turned the big 6-0. Seeing how we are such a nice and supporting family, we wanted to make this transition as easy as possible. There were so many options as far as gift giving went. First, Nate and I debated about getting him a subscription to the AARP magazine. Once we deemed that too frivolous, we thought about going the more practical route by getting him a package of adult-sized Depends. However, with a move like that, Nate surely would have been written out of the will, so we ended up getting Mark a boring old gift card. Even though we ended up going the safe route, Nate and I had a lot of fun strolling the grocery aisles looking for inappropriate gag gifts for old people. Suffice it to say, growing old with Nate will be an adventure in and of itself. 

For his birthday treat, Mark chose a cake from Le Croissant. And when I say "a cake," what I really mean is "the cake." They make a delicious banana cake with cream cheese frosting that is absolutely amazing. This cake is so good that it is completely worth the six hours you have to spend at the gym running off the calories you will consume just by eating one piece. Charlene began placing the candles and once we realized we wouldn't have enough candles (seriously, who owns 60 candles?), we decided that each candle could represent 4-5 years.

We sang a quick rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" Burk-style, which typically involves a lot of off-key notes and shrieking, before all the smoke had a chance to set off the fire alarms. Thankfully, Mark isn't too picky and gave our efforts an "A-OK." He then enlisted the help of Brynlee and Liam to blow/spit out the candles. After all, I hear that once you hit 60 your lung capacity decreases by like fifty percent :)

We had a great time celebrating Mark and tried not to make too many "now you're old" jokes. He laughed along good-naturally for most of the comments being thrown at him by his sons and occasionally, his daughter-in-laws. But then again, since he is 60, maybe his hearing is leaving him and he was just laughing because everyone else was laughing. . . .