Hiding In My Closet Crying

Prom has come and gone, and with no incidents thank goodness.

It’s a huge weight off knowing our kids all made it home safe and sound.

With the school year fastly wrapping up, we now have to start preparing ourselves for graduation.

I don’t think it matters much if you have a senior graduating or a kindergartener graduating, they’re still your baby and it’s still harder than any of us would like to admit.

When we aren’t hiding in our closet crying over our babies growing up and rational thoughts return we should all take advantage of the opportunity to celebrate that comes with a graduation.

Now is a chance to pat yourself on the back for a job well done; you and your graduate have made it through another year.

Plus, end of the year field trips are only going to keep us busy for so long. Family and friends are much better than that.

I want to share a recipe that’s good for any graduation party; be it in the backyard or a rented banquet hall.

Green Grape Dessert Salad

You’re going to need:

4 pounds of seedless green grapes
1 (8 oz) package of cream cheese
1 (8 oz) container of sour cream
1/2 cup of white sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
4 oz chopped pecans
2 tablespoons of brown sugar

First things first, you want to wash and dry the grapes.

Now, in a large bowl you want to mix together the cream cheese, the sour cream, the sugar, and the vanilla. 

Once you have that mixed together add in your grapes and stir till everything is evenly distributed.

Next you just sprinkle in the brown sugar and the pecans and mix it a little more.

I like to serve mine in a bowl other than what I mixed it together in, but you don’t have to. 

If you do want to serve it in another dish now is the time to move it over and then let it chill for a little while before serving.

So, there you have it; an easy but crowd pleaseing recipe that still allows us time to cry in the closet.

Happy Birthday Boy 1.

Six years ago this month I was laying in a hospital bed praying with everything in me to just make it through another day, another week of what had been a horribly scary pregnancy.

Things changed on April 10th. That day, my doctor decided things were getting a little too risky and that although still 4 weeks early it was better for everyone to go ahead and deliver.

After many tears, phone calls, prayers, and two units of blood I was taken to the O.R. In what seems like only minutes later, I was kissing the head of my sweet baby boy.

He was here.

He had all ten fingers and all ten toes.

He was early, but for the most he was okay, just the expected breathing complications.

He was taken to the NICU where he could be given oxygen and the monitored care he needed. We expected an NICU length of at least 3 weeks, but even as a newborn he had his own way of doing things. After a terrifying Code Blue call, and an emergency baptism with our family priest things started getting better. We left the NICU after only 17 days with a note from the doctor declaring him to be “a healthy, hard-headed handful”.

I’m happy to say in the last six years that doctor’s report hasn’t changed much. My sweet boy is very much still healthy, hard-headed, and man is he a handful.

    In honor of this new milestone, I’d like to share one of his favorite things to make.

It’s “semi-homemade” because sometimes that’s just how we roll in the non Betty Crocker or Martha Stewart world.

        Dirt Cake

You’re going to need
1/3 cup butter or margarine
1 8oz container of Cool Whip
1 package of Oreo cookies
2 packages of vanilla pudding mix
1 8oz container of cream cheese
1 cup powered sugar
3.5 cups of milk

Start by creaming the butter, cream cheese, and powered sugar together.

Now, in a separate bowl whisk the pudding mix, milk, and cool whip together.

Once that’s whisked together well, combine it with the cream cheese mixture.

This is his  favorite part: Crush the Oreos. It doesnt matter if you do it in a bowl with a cup, or  in a ziplock bag with the a rolling pin just as long as you get them crushed up.

Now all that’s left to do is put it together.

You can either mix the cookies in with the cream cheese pudding mix and serve it in a pail like my kid likes to do, or if you want to be a little “smancy” as he says it, you can make layers in a glass cake pan or serving bowl. To do that you just rotate a layer of crushed cookie and a layer of cream cheese pudding mix, and repeat.

This dessert you have to store in the refrigerator.

So, here’s to my baby's latest trip around the sun. Here’s to the doctors and the nurses that keep things calm and have steady hands in times of crisis, and to the teachers that love my boy in spite of his hard-headed ways.

Happy Birthday baby, I love you to the moon and back!
  
Now, dig in!