Birthday weekend wishes

My husband got his birthday wishes granted this past weekend. He got the BBQ, homemade cookies and the next morning, he got his pancake breakfast. It was completed with a trip to an inventor's event. Big deal, you say? Read on.

Day One - Friday Evening

Firstly, we grilled Australian lamb on Friday (The meat had been marinating all morning in a mix of grated garlic and onion, lemon, rosemary and thyme, and freshly ground black pepper. I also brought the meat almost to room temperature before grilling to ensure tenderness. The salt was added just before grilling so as to not toughen up the meat.). I served it with succotash on the side. Odd pairing, but tasty combo.

I made the succotash from grilled veggies: corn, zucchini, red bell pepper, onion, unsalted butter, salt and pepper. It was adapted from a R.R. recipe I found in this month's magazine.

We had Star Wars themed cookies for dessert.

The dough was terribly sticky and I'm pretty sure I followed the recipe exactly (actually I halved it). It felt like it needed more flour. Decorating them was tricky. It required time, the right equipment, and much needed common sense, all of which I didn't have. I made a glaze instead of icing because I didn't want to use raw egg whites. That's probably where I first when wrong.

 They were meant to look like this. I cannot show you my finished product for fear of embarrassment. Hence the stock pic of the cookies.

These were, by far, the best ones of the lot.

Day Two - Saturday Morning

 On Saturday, we had a pancake breakfast with Star Wars themed pancakes. Again, I cannot show you the finished product for fear of embarrassment. Apparently, I can't even make pancakes right. The batter stuck to the molds making them difficult to come off and the temperature was too high, so they turned out a little too brown. So, stock pic here. Next time, I will spray them down with some oil spray for baking, even though the molds already claim to be nonstick.

Day Three - Sunday Afternoon

 Then on Sunday we took a drive over to Williamsburg in Brooklyn for the Red Bull Creation event.

It was an event where inventors had to produce a motorized vehicle of some sort (without using fossil fuels) in just 72 hours. Bill was in geek heaven. The winner was this enormous one-word text message printer (think dot-matrix printer). One of my favorites was an adult-sized see-saw or teeter-totter that spun around.

This was Liam's favorite.
You could drive while lying on a hammock!

Another favorite of ours was this 3D printer! Here Liam is holding a blue guy that was produced by this printer. Also available in red, orange and yellow. Each sold separately. Around $1,600

Taking in the sights and sounds of the event.

Did I mention how uncomfortably hot it was this past Sunday?

Here, with the Empire State Building in the background.

At this point, Liam was pretty much begging to go home...

...until he saw this big truck!

Liam and mama danced to the audio-visual mixings of these guys, Eclectic Method.

Liam and mama also stayed in the shade most of the time by this mural... 

 ...where he created this piece (with a little help from mama)...

...and I created this one.

Here he is hammering out the last details. There's even a you tube video of Liam at the mural! He is seen in the beginning at 16 seconds and then again at 21 seconds. He's the cutie in the red shirt, of course. 

 In the end, my husband and I both agreed that this little boy is our favorite creation.

Thanks be to God for our miracle baby boy!

 We ended that weekend with a brief visit with some old friends, the Herreras.

We stood in front of the door to our old apartment and reminisced for a few minutes.

Oh yeah, we also needed to pick up a package that was wrongly delivered to our old address.

All in all, it was a fun birthday weekend. Here's to many, many more birthday celebrations.

Chillin' and grillin' poolside

While trying to keep my cool about the incident with the noxious weeds (see previous post), we still managed to show our son a good time. This is how we beat the mini heatwave last week.

 
He got a kiddie pool in January as a birthday present. I didn't think it would be so large, but I wasn't about to let ourselves sit around and stew during that mini Spring heatwave, not while we knew we had a pool. (Yes, it's kind of deep, but I would be sitting no more than two feet away the whole time.) Liam was excited about it, so despite the uneasiness, we decided to fill her up. Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, that is the same swimsuit Grandma Bette bought him three years ago. Liam is so slender that it still fits! I wouldn't be surprised if he could still squeeze into it next summer.

"Ha! Goggles!" (Russell from UP!)

 So happy!

 "5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Hit it!" (The Count at Sesame Place, Langhorne, PA)

 Push ups!

 Daddy's turn!

 So funny!

So cold!

Time for grilling!

 
It brings me such joy to be able to use our backyard for things like a kiddie pool, a garden, and a grill. Yippee! We get to grill! These are things I never had growing up as an apartment dweller.

Last week, we got super excited about our teeny, tiny barbecue grill. We picked it up (unused!) from the recycling room at the old apartment building in Brooklyn where we lived before. (Can't tell you how many times we scored great stuff from that room!) We bought "natural" charcoal briquettes and a charcoal chimney (great tool for only $16 at the H.D.) to light them up naturally, instead of using the toxic, smelly lighter fluid. Once they were lit, we poured them into the bottom of the grill and we were good to go. On the menu was organic beef burgers, organic hot dogs (Nature's Promise organic brand from the Stop & Shop), corn on the cob, vegetable kabobs, and grilled peaches. It didn't even occur to us to take a couple of pictures of our barbecuing debut. We were so hungry and busy stuffing our faces.

One evening, we even had some background music from a block party on the other side of our block. So, after our little family pool party, we grilled and danced as we feasted. Liam sure does love dancing with his mama (ala Dancing With the Stars)!

Such enjoyable evenings! Hoping to have many this summer!