One Special Kid

When we were expecting Austin, we found out pretty quick he was a mighty special kid.  He had a whole slew of obstacles  to over come even before he made it out of my belly.  The first time we saw a ultra sound of him, we weren't even quite sure what the medical language was they used...Justin was a firefighter instructor at the time and we lived in west Texas.   Rather quickly though we learned about Omphalocele and Gastroscesis.  Thankfully and a bit miraculously, we had the omphalocele to deal with and not the other, much more serious condition of gastroscesis.  His intestines and possibly his liver were stuck in his umbilical cord.  We got into a quick routine of weekend check ups with a specialist in Ft. Worth, we stayed in the same hotel so often the gal at the desk remembered us.  When he was born he was 6 weeks early, emergency C-Section, on a sunny Sabbath morning.  And now, 8 years later he has overcome pneumonias, surgeries, reactive airway disease and heterotaxia syndrome.  He is AMAZING.  Happy Birthday Austin!!

 

 

 

Not only did we have a heck of a party with friends and all the brothers, we had a baptism a couple of months later.  Austin wanted to have grandparents come for his special day and September 16th worked out pretty nicely.  It was also the weekend Justin and Jeremy ran in the Air Force marathon weekend event.  The 5k for Jer and the 1/2 for Justin.

 

 

 

Can you really blame poor Ethan right here?  I bet we took at least 20 pictures and that was just right here in the entry way!  I really love this shot though, getting a candid one like this is pretty sweet.

 

Our "Poppa" came up from Texas for the whole hoopla, we call him poppa because we have multiple grandpas to keep track of.  My dad is Grandpa and we also have a Grandpa Mike, he's married to our Mimi, who also goes by Mammi ( but only to our Texas family), Poppa's wife is Grand Ma Debbie and of course Grandma is my mom.

 

My dad is always like this!  We have words in my family he created that would describe exactly his behavior right here in this picture....boogerhead, snydekki, hawnyauck, to name a few.  My poor mom, she just wants a good shot, she was probably thinking something like "Brent Larsen!" or "For heaven's sake".

 

The reason Austin decided to with crazy eyes I just don't know, but hey, it was his day, we were all just along for the ride.  His road of life has been a bumpy one so far, it seems that we cruise along for awhile and all is well.  Then out of no where, we land in the hospital and a week or two later the docs get things figured out, which also adds another quirk or condition we didn't know he had!

 

Little, pretty and yummy.

For everyone who has known me longer than 4 years, you know that we lived a pretty simple existence while Justin was a firefighter, firefighter instructor and PA student.  The Air Force pays for the basics in life, nothing fancy going on in the first 12 years or so of our married life.  And darn it, THAT IS OKAY!!!! our simple life was a great one. 

Well, don't get the idea we are living large on the Captain pay scale.  We get to say yes to a few more things though.  Yes, we can take a trip to a water park, yes we can go to the Zoo in Columbus, yes we can save, save, save and go to Washington D.C. as a family....our very first family trip.  That might seem confusing to our family since we took trips out west to visit every so often through the years.  Well it was the very first vacation that had nothing to do with a trip to visit any family. 

So this little post today is about how a jump in the pay scale has upped my opportunity to flex my feminine muscles in the kitchen and create some darling, yummy treats for friends and family. 


For example...Princess Cupcakes in house full of BOYS!!  Why you may ask?  Ethan has a darling little friend that asked to come over and make them with me.  She had a book that we picked out the recipes from and it is a fancy little book indeed.  All the Disney cup-cakery you can handle.

 

 

These ones down below here were pink lemonade people! They tasted delicious and then funny part was that my boys just ate them up, no problem with the cup cakes being too girly.  My boys are awesome that way.  If I remember right there wasn't a single one left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These little Olympic cookies were made especially for Cooper's tenth birthday.  Since we were looking for ward to the London Olympics, he chose the Games for his birthday theme.

 

 

This was the crazy crew that inhaled the cookies after participating in their own games.  Races, archery, etc, etc,  I painted the nifty tees as well.

 

 

 

 

These  next pretty little babies I found in a fabulous book from the library.  It was all about what you can do with cookie dough, eggless of course. 

I love it when things turn out just like the pictures, the hubbie is learning to love this quirk of mine.  But really, they were perfect!!!

 





Who wouldn't love to have one of these bad boys?  Did I mention they hade a cookie dough flavored buttercream and a cookie dough filling hiding inside?  YUM.
  








I love when my Birthday boys get exactly the  happy reaction I want when they see their cakes!  this baby I have made a couple of times, this time was for Austin's 9th birthday.  It looks like a giant Oreo and tastes even better.