Coleden Levi turns 2!

Today is Josh's first day back to work in a month. It's only 9am here and I already miss having him home. I'm hoping that we will adjust to our "normal" schedule quickly. We haven't seen it in about 8 months because Josh had trainings to attend a month before his deployment, then there's the 6 month deployment itself, and then our month of all-Josh-all-the-time.

As we do get back into the swing of things, I'm going to be making more appearances here on my little spot of the internet. I know how to blog with this schedule, I never seemed to figure it out while Josh was gone. Photo Fridays will be making a comeback, as well as tons of recipes I can't wait to share.

My first order of business is to share some of the details of Cole's birthday! I wish I could say how much fun Cole had, or how happy and excited he was to open all of his gifts...but I can't. Unfortunately my 2-year-old was in a mood from the moment he woke up. I don't know if it was from our very tiresome trip to Heidelberg the day before, or what, but he was such a grouch.

We decided to hold off on opening gifts until after he took a nap in hopes that he would cheer up some. That was a gamble worth taking. In the meantime, we taped some streamers to his door for him to bust through (thanks Pinterest) and I think that alone perked his spirits up. The rest of our day was spent playing with all the cool, new stuff he got.

 We had to sneak Dorian out of Cole's room to put him in the shopping cart. Cole immediately went to Dorian to make sure he was okay, he's such a good daddy.

 This is a FAST slide! Thanks Papa and Lady!

 He's really getting into this slide thing now!

 He loves his sit n spin Aunt Beth and Uncle Dan!

 Cool shades and a serious face.

 His first light up shoes! Gigi and Grandpa, he loves clapping the shoes together. We barely got them on him.

 His new white board/chalkboard.

If you look at the top left hand corner you'll see a photo of Cole from his birthday last year! I didn't do that on purpose but I love that it happened. He's also wearing the same shirt because I ordered it too large, but we got two good birthday uses out of it.

This cake, oh man. I made this cake last year for Cole with a cream cheese frosting. Since we know he's sensitive (we don't think he's allergic anymore) to dairy, I made the cake dairy-free and used a frosting that was made in a plant that also produces dairy products (I didn't feel like making frosting). Cole loved it!

 Daddy even gave Cole soy ice cream! If you haven't tried it, go now and get some, it tastes like homemade ice cream to me :)

This is slightly altered to fit our tastes and sensitivities from Bakingdom.

That about covers it, there were more gifts than what is shown, but we had some weird lighting and a lot of them didn't come out the way I had hoped :/ oh well, I can't wait for next year's birthday when we'll be stateside!

Rainy Days and Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Thank you Spring for finally showin up. It's been a rainy couple of days for us, and I'm loving it. Drizzly days like this make me want to bake. Since yesterday was also a bit cold, I needed something hearty. Enter the oatmeal raisin cookie. This cookie. Oh. Man. This cookie. So tasty. It's great as it is, but could easily be dressed up some too. Please, please give these cookies a try, you won't be sorry!

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 3/4 cups rolled oats
1 cup raisins*

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, cream together butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla until fluffy. Stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Gradually beat into butter mixture. Stir in oats and raisins. Drop by teaspoonfuls (I didn't listen to this sound advice on my first batch, I added closer to a heaping spoonful, and the cookies ran together terribly. So make sure to drop by teaspoonful, trust me on this) onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool slightly, remove from sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. Yields about 4 dozen.

*For extra plump raisins, soak by putting them in a colander and placing the colander in a saucepan. Cover with hot water while you prepare the dough.