How Ajay dresses himself

It's rather cute to watch, actually. He does rather well with dressing himself, occassionally asking for help. This morning he was putting his underwear on - he ended up with it backwards to begin with, so he decided to fix it. Then he wound up with the underwear in the correct direction, however, they were inside out. I lent him a hand and we got it all straightened out.
While I'm writing about Ajay's antics, I thought I'd share a comment he made while shopping last Friday. He was sitting in the cart and I was arranging our items around him. When I ran out of room, the styrofoam plates ended up on his leg. He looked at the plates and said "Oh! I'm being decorated!" - oh to have the perspective of a child!!
As you may remember, Alex has allergies. I'm having to cut many (okay, most) foods out of my diet to keep his breathing clear. I keep having moments of weakness (Jeff's wedding, Biju's birthday), but hopefully I'm back on track!! I thought I'd share a pancake recipe with you in case you wanted to try something new. I found this on the allergy board at Babycenter.com.

Oatmeal Pancakes
1 1/2 c. oat flour (you can buy this at the health food store, or do like I do and take regular [uncooked] oatmeal and grind it up in the blender)
1/3 tsp. sea salt (regular table salt has corn in it to keep it from clumping, and corn is a high allergen)
2 tsp. baking powder
3 Tbls light brown sugar, packed
1 1/4 c. water
1 Tbls oil (I use olive)

Combine all ingredients, let sit for 5 minutes. Stir again. Cook on griddle.

What I've found, is the longer the mixture sits, the thicker it sets up. So if you, say, have kids, and can't get to the whole batch right away, it might get too thick for your liking. When this happens to me, I just add a smidge more water. Also - oat flour takes longer to cook up than wheat flour. The outsides may look done, but the inside will still be dough-y. I put my electric stove on 3 to cook these up and let the pancakes just hang out for awhile :) (I had the stove set to 4 last week and kept burning them) Then I put a little dairy free margerine (Smart Balance Light) on top and drizzle some honey over that. Yum! Enjoy!!

Surprise! Happy Birthday, Biju

Well Biju had his 30th birthday on Friday (May 2). That part was no surprise, but I did try to surprise him with a party on Saturday. I think I somewhat pulled it off. Some of my family was able to make the drive down to celebrate with us, and some of his friends from work came, as well. There was an Indian theme, as you can see by the cake. His mom e-mailed me her recipe for chicken biryani and payasam, I made a crock-pot version of Rogan Josh, and a friend brought a shrimp curry (ooh it was spicey, and very tastey). The kiddos had lots of fun playing - I think what they enjoyed most was throwing leaves all over each other.