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Six today

Posted on August 17, 2009 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

Today my big kid is six years old. I am in major denial. For some reason, NHL turning six has hit me harder than when I turned thirty. I am not sure why, but the fact that NHL is over half way to a double digit number is tough for me to swallow (Five).

Dear NHL,

Six years ago today the adventure began. You were born and our lives changed forever. Daddy and I became parents and we loved the challenges that came our way. Looking at our gorgeous little boy was worth every sleepless night.

Before we knew it you grew up before our eyes. Each year we would celebrate. . . one, two, three, four and, last year, five. This year has been quite the adventure with a five year old. It was a transition for not only us, but you as well. Soon after turning five, you went to full day kindergarten and began your adventure in elementary school.

Here is a look back at the last year of you life. After your fifth birthday, you were quite fascinated with croquet. Much time before kindergarten was spent outside with your new set from Nana and Papa. (August 2008)

With tears in our eyes we sent you, our kindergarten kid, off to school. (September 2008)

Dr. NHL had a lot of fun Trick-or-Treating on Halloween. To this day, we all joke that your fascination with all things medical may be a sign of a career in your future. (October 2008)

For Thanksgiving at school, you insisted that the Pilgrims try some matzoh balls made my Mommy. You gobbled them up and were so proud that JSL came to kindergarten to visit. (November 2008)

So many things happened at the end of 2008. We celebrated Chanukah, went to Disney on Ice and planned our first big family vacation. (December 2008)

During the cold winter months you, JSL and I had a lot of fun spending snow days home in our PJs. This was our time to catch up on watching different Disney movies before our trip in May. (January 2009)

For the third year in a row, you went to see Sesame Street Live. This time you were the pro and helped to show your little brother and cousin S the ropes. (February 2009)

As the spring arrived, you became excited about learning to ride your new bike (early birthday present from us), seeing your cousins for a weekend at the hotel/pool and getting ready for Disney World. You also showed your vulnerable side when you saw your brother taken away by ambulance to the hospital after another febrile seizure. (March 2009)

Along with kindergarten, this year began another part of your education. You went to Hebrew School and loved Israeli Dancing. Daddy went with you to your first big dance festival and you loved it. (April 2009)

When May finally arrived, you were beyond excited to take your first ride on an airplane and go to Disney World. You came home from that visit a new child. Not only did you love roller coasters/wild rides, you no longer were afraid of costumes at amusement parks. (may 2009)

In June, you rode a horse for the first time and graduated from kindergarten. At that moment, you were no longer my kindergarten kid and it was tough for Mommy. (June 2009)

This summer, we went back to Six Flags and you continued to show your love for rides galore. You had fun riding in the Big Red Cars with JSL, and of course the Bob Sled with Daddy and me. The best part, you wanted your photos taken with all of the characters at the park. Now if only you can get your little brother to be cool with them. (July 2009)

This month, you went to camp for the first time, tried a Super Soaker with Daddy, went to Home Depot and Lowes for kid building clinics, finished the summer library reading program (read over 60 books so far), and discovered your first wiggle tooth is almost ready to come out. (August 2009)

This year you have learned so much. You saw how important it is to take your medicine to control your allergies, even if you do not like it. Figuring out how to swallow a pill was much better than a lot of liquid medicine. Not only can you add and subtract, but you now write stories and can read books on your own. This was your number one goal that you told your teacher in September and you met it with flying colors!

You are my big kid and I am so proud of you. I can not wait to see what this year has in store for us as you turn six today. Know that I always love you, will be cheering you on, and will help you when you need me. I hope that you have a magical birthday today and know that I love you with all of my heart.

Mommy

Categories:
birthday Disney fun looking back milestone photos school Six Flags

Family birthday party – 6 yr August edition

Posted on August 16, 2009 9:28 am by TheAngelForever

Last year at this time I was fussing over a volcano cake for NHL’s 5th birthday party. He wanted a dinosaur theme party for the entire family. The problem was there were no decent cakes out there. I opted to make one for him. The end product was using my giant cupcake pan and sculpting the following:

It was not the best, but it was decent. This year we tossed together a quick party for family (still debating a friends party later on). His birthday kind of snuck up on us. Today is the day. NHL opted to have a Disney Car’s birthday theme. When we talked about different cakes he had several options: giant cupcake, regular cake, or cupcake cones. Care to guess which one he selected?

Last night we made the ones that he selected , and they (hint, hint) will be decorated after transport to Nana and Papa’s house. Here is what last year’s party looked like. Time to get ready to head out soon. More photos to come soon.

Categories:
baking birthday Disney looking back nhl

Wiggle tooth woes

Posted on August 13, 2009 10:06 am by TheAngelForever

It has now been a little over a month since NHL discovered his first two wiggly teeth. At first, he was scared of the tooth wiggling and was careful about the food that he ate. He refused to bite into anything like an apple or corn on the cob. If it was tough to chew, it was avoided.

During the last two weeks, we really tried to talk about how fun it can be when losing a tooth. We have read a lot of books on the subject, talked to NHL about wiggling the tooth more, and patiently waited for NHL to show less fear. This approach seems to have worked since, slowly, we have watched him with hands in his mouth moving the tooth. Last week, we noticed that one tooth in particular was pushed way out and not straight anymore.

Yesterday morning, I asked NHL if I could peek into his mouth and test how wiggly the tooth was. He let me check and I was a little shocked with what I saw. The tooth is definitely is moving nicely, but behind it I saw three little white dots. Sure enough, the new adult tooth is cutting behind the tiny wiggler. Oy!

When we went to the dentist about 4-5 months ago, I asked her what we should do if that happened. Of course, at the time, she told me not to worry because she doubted that NHL would even have a tooth that would be ready to wiggle before his next appointment at the end of September. Clearly, she was off on that one. I told her that I was worried because hubby only lost one tooth without the dentist having to pull them. JL’s teeth did not loosen up and all had to be extracted. I was the opposite. I lost my teeth easily and only had two teeth pulled when my upper eye teeth refused to budge.

I decided to call our pediatric dentist office yesterday. I explained the situation. The woman told me that this is quite common (which I knew) and said they do not pull teeth immediately. She explained that if he has any pain to call them immediately, but to really have NHL work on wiggling that tooth and try to get it out quickly. She suggested apples and other items that are tough to bite into and put force on the tooth in question. I also questioned how much time we should give before calling back again. She told me another week or two and then give them a call if the tooth is still being stubborn.

We are going to try a few more wiggling tactics today and add some foods to help expedite this process. When we tried to move the tooth as far forward as we could, NHL was able to do that and it moved quite a bit. When it was time to push it the opposite way, he complained that it hurt. My guess is that the tooth now coming in back there could be causing some discomfort.

So, to all of you out there: Do you have any suggestions on how to help that little tooth that has to move out? We need ideas for helping it along. Right now it is not wiggly enough to even think about pulling, so that is not a good option. JL and I would love any things that worked for you and/or your children.

Thanks so much in advance. With any luck we may have this tooth out in time for NHL’s 6th birthday on Monday. All I have to say is the Tooth Fairy is all ready here, so bring it on!

Categories:
doctor looking back milestone nhl photos

Tie-Dyed Cheesecake Results and B-day summary

Posted on August 6, 2009 8:31 pm by TheAngelForever

All day Monday, JL and I kept talking about how we could not wait to try the Tie-Dyed Cheesecake experiment that we made on Sunday. We were anxious to see if it would live up to our memories of the amazing cake that we had while at Disney’s Pop Century Resort in May. Monday evening finally arrived. JL and I dropped the boys off to have dinner with Nana and Papa. From here we drove to a new Chinese/Japanese/Thai restaurant to try. On our way we saw the fire engine that was mentioned on my Worldess Wednesday.

It was so nice having dinner together and not worrying about what the kids would eat. We quickly decided on some sushi rolls to share and ordered our meal. After a little while, our sushi appetizer arrived. Not only did it look amazing, it was absolutely delicious.

Just as we were finishing these up, our meals arrived. I decided to go with something safe, but not something that I typically get (beef and broccoli) and JL tried something quite different (spicy orange tofu).

Thanks to my digital camera being with us most of the time, we were able to capture the photos of our wonderful meal. Of course, taking photos during your meal gets you looks. Our waitress came over. Of course, I had to explain that we blog and take pictures to show JL’s birthday meal. A little while later, while waiting for our packaged leftovers, the waitress and another come over. The two of them were singing happy birthday to JL while carrying ice cream with a lit candle on top.

Once we were done with dinner, we went back to my parent’s house to have the much anticipated Tie-Dyed Cheesecake. I quickly opened up the spring form pan so we were able to see more of the colors.

Then it was time to sing Happy Birthday to JL and dig into the cake.

Finally, it was time to cut inside and see if it looked anything like the much loved cake from Disney’s Pop Century Resort. Here is a reminder of what the cake there looked like.

This is what we saw when we sliced inside the cake . . .

As you can imagine, we were all disappointed. It looked nothing like the cake of our dreams from the memories in May. This cake was 2/3 red velvet and only 1/3 cheesecake. NHL actually thought the cheesecake was frosting on top of the regular cake. Basically the proportions of the cake were flipped.

Don’t get me wrong, the recipe is not a bust. It was not horrible. However, as cheesecake fans we loved the cheesecake part, which was a mere blip in the cake. In the end, we figure we would try this recipe again. Next time we would likely use 1/3 of the cake mix, or possibly only 1/4 of it. Then we would at least double the cheesecake portion. We figure this would fix the proportions. In addition to this, we would not cook the red velvet all the way during the first time in the oven. We figure mostly baked would allow it not to dry out quite as much. Of course, we may also try this recipe that my friend who made this on Monday found after we had both made these cheesecakes. Certainly not going to be any complaints from the family about eating another cheesecake!

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Submitted as part of Grace’s Kitchen Friends on Feels Like Home.

Categories:
baking birthday Disney food glorious food jl looking back photos yummy

Spotlight on PR

Posted on August 5, 2009 7:19 pm by TheAngelForever

My online friend Tara from Feels Like Home and her friend at Adrienne’s House are reaching out to help fellow bloggers in our quest to reach out to PR professionals and build lasting relationships. A huge thank you to both of them for all of their hard work on this wonderful idea.

To those coming over from Spotlight on PR, hello and welcome to The Angel Forever. I started this blog back in February 2007 as a place to come and write about the happenings of my life. At the time, I was pregnant with my second child, teaching, a mother of a 3 year old son and blogging novice. My blog was a nice location to write down my thoughts, share with family/friends and capture cherished memories for my boys. So much has changed over the last two years. I am now a stay-at-home mother to my two sons (almost 6 and just 2). Over the past year, I have blogged almost every day . . . and I look forward to it.

The Angel Forever is not only a blog about my life as a mommy, it is about life in general. Some of the items I blog about these days:

Transition from teaching to being a stay-at-home mom
Life as the only girl in a house of boys
Jewish traditions/holidays
Books that we read
Items that we enjoy (toys, video games, execise DVDs, electronics, kitchen gadgets, and music just to name a few)
Disney World vacation planning with kids
Toddler tantrums and potty training (coming soon)
Being the parent at school and not the teacher
Review items sent in an honest voice where I give pros and even cons when I see them (see my blogging with Integrity button on the right)
Battles with doctors, allergies, fevers and other health related "fun"
Crafts, especially my knitting hobby
Meeting friends and becoming sisters with amazing women online
Keeping a kosher kitchen and mostly vegetarian household
Educational trips/visits
Baking and recipes

As you can see, it is quite the mix of items, but that is what my life is all about. My husband, boys and extended family are the most important aspect of my life. They help me to be creative and explore the wonderful and wacky world of blogging. Building relationships with people all over the blogosphere has been a wonderful opportunity that I have had thanks to The Angel Forever. Communication is key and if you would like to pitch an idea to me, know that I will respond quickly with my thoughts. I look forward to hearing from you.

For more information on me, please check out the About Moi section at the top of my blog. Feel free to contact me at the_angel_forever[at]yahoo[dot]com