monster truck wheels | ice cream sandwiches

For our combo Father's Day-Birthday party last week, I made 'monster truck wheels' for dessert since I was making a birthday cake the next day. Though I knew Caleb would love them, it was also an excuse for me to make ice cream sandwiches, something I was hankering to do all last summer but never got around to actually doing. Caleb wanted chocolate cookies, but as I was thinking about which flavor of ice cream to put inside, I figured I'd make the ice cream for the Dads, and particularly the Dad I'm married to (and that pretty much means coffee or chocolate). I made Espresso-Cinnamon Gelato from my favorite dessert cookbook ever that I am always raving about. It has yet to fail me! Caleb & Maddie got the colored stars (yes, Caleb insisted on these despite them not being monster-truck-like), but I rolled the rest in chocolate chips. SO GOOD!!!

birthday kiss

second party

On the evening of Caleb's birthday we went to Braden's parents' house to celebrate because Aunt Shawny and the cousins were in town for the week.

Monster truck cake alert!

Birthday Boys!

Jezzy's birthday is also in June, so we celebrated his birthday too.Lighting the candles."Happy birthday dear Caleb and Jezzyyyy!"

This picture of McLaren cutting Jezzy's cake cracks me up!Caleb ate a monster truck wheel for the second day in a row!Jezzy and Caleb both got nerf swords from Gair. That set off some major sword fighting after cake time was over!Our swashbuckler...fireman's hat on, sword in 'sheath' (ahem), ready to save the day!

birthday breakfast

The morning of Caleb's birthday was our own little family's time to celebrate. We began with 'chunky monkey oatmeal', taken from Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Caleb had a little birthday crown fun. He's always been a little on the goofy side, but lately it seems to be coming out more and more.

Time for some presents!Aunt Xenia & Uncle Ali's gift: a large hardback reader full of tons of stories. Maddie gave Caleb a flying squirrel.Caleb loved this card from Nana & Grandpap because of the race car on the front and because he could 'read' the Ready Set Go part.

After his birthday breakfast and gifts, Daddy and Caleb went over to Chuck E Cheese to play a few games while Mommy and Maddie baked Caleb's birthday cake, a brown sugar pound cake, for his party later that night.

caleb's part of the party

Since I was already making a monster truck cake for his second party, I told Caleb I would make him 'monster truck wheels' (a.k.a. ice cream sandwiches) for this first birthday party/Fathers Day. They were a hit with both the Fathers and the Birthday Boy!

(Oh golly, don't I have a CUTE little boy!! Those ears get me every time.)

Me and my birthday boy (still eating). One of Caleb's first presents was a glider from my parents. Here he is getting instructions on how to put it together and how to fly it. He was so intent. And he had to give it a try right then!

Maddie helped Caleb open nearly every gift, despite our continual efforts to pull her out of the mix. She just gets so excited and jumps right in. She was particularly excited about this gift because she knew what it was. We saved 'the big one' for last.

Can you tell Caleb was excited? He was jumping up and down when he saw what he got. He has a nice little collection of Plan City toys, and at Christmas when he got another addition, a tiny catalog booklet came with it. He looked through the booklet many times and always came back to one particular item...this one.About once a month since Christmas, he's been asking me if he could get this particular Plan City set. One thing about Caleb is what he loves, he really loves...drums, drawing, fish with sharp teeth, dinosaurs and his Plan City tracks and toys. (What a ham!)Well, Daddy, can we put it together?And of course we did. Thank you, Auntie Jess & Uncle Dave & Devin, Auntie La, Tarrah and Granny for all contributing! Caleb's already had a lot of fun with this one, and I'm sure he'll have much more fun with it in the days to come. He loves setting up his car and train tracks and plays with them pretty much every day.

party central

Yep! Just call us Party Central. From last week's double birthday celebration, to this week's birthday-Father's day combo and another double birthday party to come, it's just party party over here! (I must say, no one seems to mind.)

Sunday morning came and Caleb dressed himself.

I would ordinarily never let him wear a t-shirt to church...but Braden saw him first, laughed and approved his Father's Day attire. :)

After church, my parents and La came over to celebrate Father's Day and Caleb's birthday.

My gifts this year were photos. A portrait of myself and the kids for my dad.

And for Braden, the same one my dad has, plus individual portraits of myself, Maddie and Caleb, plus this big one here.

Braden's office has been seriously lacking photos of the kids and me. He's mentioned this oh, a few times. Well, his office is empty no longer! Happy Father's Day! :)

* Coming up: Bobe's part of the party. *

our swashbuckler

Caleb is VERY into swords these days, and particularly wearing his swords.

Ordinarily, they go sliding through his belt loops, but sometimes there are no belt loops. But that is of no concern when you are a swashbuckler. Sir Bobe just slides them in wherever he can fit them, and still manages to save the day.

4 stars

Caleb's crown now has FOUR stars embroidered on it, awaiting his birthday weekend.

Last year he wasn't too keen on his party, and he tore of his crown and threw it to the ground. This year he's pretty excited about everything.

qotd

"Rudolph! Go get Robin Hood!!"

bouquet of summer flowers

Courtesy of Madeleine.

a dino dessert

Caleb is often pretending he is someone or something else, and while doing so refers to himself in the third person...as in: "Mommy, Wobin Hood has a sohhd!"

Well, last night he was eating an ice cream bar outside (or you could also say, dripping an ice cream bar down his shirt) and it was, "Mommy, the din'saw is eating dizzuht meat." A few minutes later he was thirsty. He bent over and lapped water out of his cup that was sitting on the front porch, "Mommy, the din'saw is dwinking fwom the wake."

long-delayed birthdays

Because of my parents' somewhat last minute nearly one month long trip out to see Jess & Dave, we had some birthdays to celebrate once they returned.

Happy birthday to us...again! Despite our birthdays only being 2 weeks apart, we'd never had a joint party before. This was a first.
La and I had both been hankering for cannoli. When you can have homemade cannoli, who needs cake?

While the candles burned we all sang, and Braden especially. He goes for it when it's my birthday.

We could barely blow out all of those many candles!

Good food, family, and a few more presents = a fun time!

blue

Caleb learned the hard way... ...that when you choose to thoroughly color your arms with blue sidewalk chalk, it doesn't come off with just soap and water. You remain blue.

It takes some really good mama-scrubbing with a rough cloth to get all that blue off!

dick & jane

When Maddie was born, her nursery was decorated with 'Dick & Jane' prints, and as a result, she received many 'Dick & Jane' books. Although the text is quite lacking, I have always loved the illustrations. And although I am a big proponent of phonics, the sight word text of 'Dick & Jane' can have its place when learning to read. So right along with her readers, Maddie is reading through her many 'Dick & Jane' volumes. And not surprisingly, she loves the pictures.

twenty-four pounds

Twenty-four pounds of strawberries picked. We froze a bunch. The rest? Eaten whole, sliced on oatmeal, blended in milkshakes, made into strawberry bread and heaped on shortcakes!

dear granny

Dear Granny,
We decided to draw pictures of you on our back patio. We hope you like them!
Love, Maddie + Caleb

happy eating

pasta pasta!

So Braden bought me a really good pasta maker for my birthday. I've been wanting one, but one that really works. This is it! I got to try it out on yesterday for the first time--the thing works like a dream! Maddie helped me, and I think she even had more fun than I did. Here we are rolling the dough thinner and yet still thinner.

Here's half of our pasta drying.

I cut this gorgeous head of escarole from our garden (it filled my kitchen sink!) and followed Nana's recipe {Mix breadcrumbs, parmesan, minced garlic, salt & pepper and olive oil together to form a ball; stuff in the center of the escarole; tie closed with twine; steam in a pan with some olive oil}. And so the fresh pasta, combined with green onions straight from the garden, and the escarole became...this!

Oh divine! Braden declared it to be one of my top 10 meals of all time, and I totally agreed. We took it outside on the patio and ate in the warm sunshine with a gentle breeze blowing. I felt like I was Under the Tuscan Sun, making fresh pasta and cooking straight from my garden. The meal was so good, and I think the weather just made it more delicious!