Happy Birthday Andy!

It's my Cinco de Mayo baby and today, he is 5 years old on the 5th day of the 5th month of the year. It only happens once in your lifetime and today is Andy's special day.

I still remember his birth and everyone waiting to find out whether the baby was a boy or girl. Mike walking out to the waiting room to continue the torture to the family and telling them we had a baby. It goes by so fast.

Andy loves taking pictures with mom's camera and his favorite subject is himself, so I find many self portraits and interesting life photographs waiting for mom. He loves music and baseball, his brothers Aaron and Jacob, wrestling with his dad and cooking with mom.

He is a joy, blessing and gift from God and I am truly thankful for him everyday. His personality is his mom's, but he is a miniature Michael complete with glasses.

Since we had celebrated his birthday a few days earlier, I thought we would have a nice family dinner at home with Andy's favorite meal. When I asked him what he wanted to eat, his response was chicken and rice. Um, okay, chicken and rice. What kind of chicken exactly, I did not know, so I thought I would try again another time. I mentioned the conversation with Mike and he informed me that Andy was talking about the orange chicken from Trader Joe's. Well, that's easy. I even bought a raspberry tart and called it good. It was a great night celebrating Andy's birthday and yes, he even got to blow out 5 candles on his tart.

I Don't Eat Grass

The other night, I fixed a new pasta recipe with the yummy items we picked up at the farmer's market. The boys and I make our weekly trek up the hill with grandma to the Sammamish Farmer's Market to pick up what is fresh, local and in season. The boys love this weekly event as grandma purchases them a cookie before dinner. I'm not the annal mom and am pretty relaxed about certain things and if grandma wants to buy the boys a cookie at 5 in the evening, then so be it.
We had some dill, tarragon, parsley and thyme, so I made a goat cheese and herb pasta side dish to go along side our grilled chicken. When Barb and I were making dinner, Andy wondered into the kitchen to see if he could snack on anything. I want my boys to be curious about the food they eat and have a diverse palate, so I like to show the boys what I am doing and how the dinner is put together. Andy took one look at the dill and promptly informed us he was not eating grass. Barb and I died laughing and continued on with dinner. Once we were all at the table, Andy once again told us he was not eating grass and wanted it off his pasta. He was very adamant about the pasta being free of anything green, but he did eat the goat cheese, so I call that a successful dinner.
Aaron on the other hand, ate his entire dinner and proceeded to eat off my plate. He had a plate full of food and kept stabbing my pasta with his fork. It was almost funny how many times he kept trying to eat off my plate.