Tuesday May 29, 2012
Liam celebrated his fourth birthday! I love, love this stage with the boys. Independent. Fun play time (bat and ball beats pushing trucks on the floor any day). Easy to buckle boosters. Funny stories. The other day when I told someone (in her fifties), I love this stage she said, “I’m so glad to be done with all of that.” It was like one of those moments of clarity. I knew I enjoyed this stage of life; but hearing her say that made me realize how MUCH I am loving it. They can stay this age for two more years as far as I’m concerned.
I really wanted to invite all our family over one last time before we moved. At that point, we still didn’t know when or even IF we’d get to move; but we were moving in faith. Liam’s birthday seemed like a great time for a get together. It’s always fun to celebrate with lots of cousins!
I love that we’ve found a gluten and dairy free carnita recipe. It tastes aMAZing and no one would ever guess it’s allergy friendly. Liam was just thrilled to have cake! I made the top layer gluten free and let him cheat with cream cheese frosting. Sometime I’d like to have a frosting recipe that works like decorator frosting, but doesn’t make you gag when you eat it. Seriously, whoever came up with mixing crisco and powdered sugar together and called it frosting …………
Smooth or not … and in this case not …. at least cream cheese icing is like vacation for your taste buds.
Liam has been strumming an air guitar for months. He is so obsessed with music that if something started playing while he was eating his breakfast, he would jump off his chair and strum for a few minutes. How could we not get him a toy guitar? I wouldn’t know either. He plays and plays and plays and Adam tries to get a few minutes in whenever he can.
Love that little boy who is so little, yet so grown up.
Liam the night of his birthday: “I fink it’s birfday take dat makes you turn one year older.”
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Carnitas
Mix together:
1 cup salt
4 tbsp garlic powder
4 tbsp onion powder
2 tbsp ground thyme
2 tbsp ground bay leaves
2 tbsp black pepper
2 tbsp celery seed
2 tbsp Hungarian paprika (I used regular)
Rub onto a Boston Butt roast and let it sit for a few hours. Or if you’re like me, rub it in minutes before your husband throws it on the grill. Grill until finished.
Shred.
Put it in the crock pot with:
beans
garlic
onions
cumin
a little hot sauce
and some broth (chicken or beef, I used both) to keep it moist.
Simmer it all day.
Layer corn tortillas with meat, cabbage (or better yet, cabbage slaw, but I don’t have time to post the recipe), cilantro, avocado (cheese and sour cream, if you’re dairy free).
Inhale. Well, not literally.
cute party for a cute little boy! I love the age of 4- it’s a fun, fun age!
Oh, he will remember this special event for days, months, maybe years! How fun!~ And you look smashing in your spring colors!
love the pictures of liam with his guitar. great party!
awesome party! cute little Liam with his guitar.
Thats neat that you got to enjoy his party before your world started whirling with moving plans! Liam is such a cute, healthy, little boy, I’d never guess him to have been that very sick fussy baby you had 3 1/2 years ago!
@sewhappymomma – Isn’t it just amazing? He feels like a miracle in so many ways!
He is looking SO grown up. Its cool, cuz I think I have been following your blog since he was just a baby. He is looking more and more like Adam. And he looks SO cute with that guitar. That expression on his face when he saw what his gift was (I am assuming that is what was going on, anyway) kind of says it all!!
I have been looking for a good recipe for carnitas for a long long time! Michelle to the rescue. Thanks, I’m going to pin this post–just watch it spread over at pinterest. Hee hee.
CUTE cake!! looks like a fun party for your little boy growing up! your outfit is adorable too. 🙂
and carnitas! they sound wonderful!!
Oh, good. This is one of the things I wanted to ask you about on our snippets of phone calls. So very cute. The cake is really cute. And Liam is cuter. I can’t believe he’s 4 already! I hardly know him. 🙁 I’ll have to get him to strum for me sometime. 🙂
I’m with you on on the to-gag-over regular icing. never could say that i liked it very much, and then when you learn what crisco is . . . gross! i love your little party, cute little boy {love what he said about the cake making him older}, and the carnitas! never had this exact combo of mexican stuff and will HAVE to try it with the roast still in the freezer. thanks and God bless as you move {i keep up with your little moving snippets on FB}.
Liam looks so happy and healthy! So glad for that!! I, too, am enjoying our four year old. We had no plans to adopt more children after the girls, but I’m so glad God had a different opinion.
I use cream cheese/cool whip like you do for a delight for my birthday cake frosting, because yeah, the other stuff is too sweet and gross. It colors and decorates ok, but not quite like buttercream. I use it all the time. However, Liam probably can’t have cool whip either.