BMOC

Mitchell has a tshirt that reads "BMOC" on the back and he has taken quite a liking to it. It is his favorite jammy shirt and often ends up sneaking back out of the laundry and back on him after I have already put something else on him. I am not sure why he likes it, other than it is soft and comfy, but he likes to have me remind him quite often what the letters stand for "Big Man On Campus." Who knows why Mitchell is what he is and likes what he likes. He just is :)

I have been thinking about his love of this shirt today as I reflect on the fact that he is almost five now! This doesn't shock me or make me wonder where the time has gone. In fact, he has seemed five for some time now to me. He just has an "oldness" and a "coolness" about him, I think. Five suits him well. It's a good age for him.

In true "cool" Mitchell style, he easily accepted and dealt with the fact that I would not be able to be here on his actual birthday. Perhaps it was so easy to accept because it meant he got to have his party a few days early.

Although we have all been battling sickness all week long, we went ahead with the party and everyone had fun. We made our own ice cream sundaes with more toppings than ice cream, painted robots (and the floor and the walls, and Jack's tummy, and dad's shoes...), and, of course, opened presents! He even got to get up early and go out with dad and pick out his own new bike!

Happy birthday, my Middle Boy! You bring humor and laughter and joy to my life every day! You are truly my "Dude-style" dude and I love you!

As cool as he was with me being gone on the real birthdate, I'm pretty sure he is holding out for some special "dude time" on his actual birthday. What that will consist of, I can only hazard a guess...

We'll Just Ignore Him For A While

Sometimes, Jack just doesn't want to cooperate with the family. Last weekend, we were celebrating Matt's birthday, enjoying a nice BBQ out on the patio - well, I should say, attempting to enjoy the BBQ. Jack was not happy about something and once he was told "no" one too many times for his liking, he lost it.

Now what do you do when your baby won't stop crying, simply because he isn't getting his way? Well, I don't know what you do with yours, but after attempting appropriate distraction without giving in to his demands, I knew we were just in for a little fit.

Now, as he was sitting right next to Matt this evening and he was being quite loud, Matt had the great idea to just turn his chair around to face away from us and ignore him until he could calm himself down and stop his silliness.

Once again, my blogging obsession took over and rather than being heartbroken that my poor baby was upset or annoyed that my child is acting embarrassingly and never admitting to such things in my own children, I ran for my camera. Seeing Jack turned backwards at the table, facing away from the action while the rest of us went on with dinner as usual, pretending we could not hear him was just too funny to leave unrecorded. So.... I snapped a few shots.

(I will admit that I felt a little badly taking pictures of him in this state; not out of embarrassment, but out of fear of what my little guy must be thinking of his evil mother for making a joke out of his ordeal.)

As you can see from that last shot, his dislike over being excluded from the action dried his eyes and he just stopped the crying. After a minute or so of peaking over his shoulder at us, we turned him back around and he was ready to rejoin us! Of course, the arrival of birthday cake may have had something to do with his change of mood...

Did You Eat That?

Matt's family made a birthday dinner for me with chocolate cupcakes for dessert last night. It was all quite delicious, but no one thought it more delicious than Mitchell, apparently.

Today, Grandma gave him a leftover cupcake for a snack. When I saw Jack wandering around with the cupcake, leaving a trail of chocolate crumbs in his wake, I had to check with Mitchell to find out why he had given it away.

When I asked him why he gave it to Jack, he said, "Oh, I ate the yummy part and gave Jack the rest! I ate that paper part around it!"

I didn't quite believe him at first, but I searched for some time and could not find the wrapper. He actually ate the paper wrapper and gave away the cake! Oh, he makes me chuckle...

Sent from my iPhone

Daddy's Ice Cream Cake

I'm not sure who to give credit to for this yummy ice cream cake recipe, but is delicious and very simple to make!  We call it "Daddy's Ice Cream Cake" because he is the one who came up with the recipe (or maybe got it from someone else) and also the one who usually makes it.  The boys and I made it this time though because it was Daddy's birthday!

It has 4 ingredients - ice cream, Oreos, a little milk, and chocolate syrup (optional.)

1. Crush up most of the pack of Oreos into the bottom of a baking dish.  Add a little milk (about 1/4 of a cup little by little) until the Oreos are wet and clumpy and will smash down into a crust.

2.  Scoop a whole container of your favorite ice cream on top of the Oreos.  This works best if you let the ice cream melt a little first so that it will smooth out nicely.

3.  Squirt chocolate syrup all over and crumble up the remaining Oreos on the top.

4.  Put it in the freezer so the crust can harden and then eat it!  You can do it Norquist boy style and just dig it right out of the dish, or you can do it the more traditional and civilized way and use bowls and spoons.  Either way, it is delicious and pretty tough to stop eating until it's gone!

 

 

This is a really fun cake to make with kids because, well, it is yummy to eat while making it mostly, but also because it is fun and easy for them to crush and scoop and squirt.  Ben and Mitchell were so excited to tell Matt that they actually made his cake for him - almost as excited as they were to eat it!