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| cutest diapers in the world! |
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| handpainted by Aiden himself |
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| baby mohawk! |
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| the art wall |
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| TP mountains |
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| tiny hands decorating |
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| Whoops! |
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| toothbrushes that look at you :) |
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| smiley faces and fun hiding places! |
Friday, February 25, 2011
Things I'll Miss When He Grows Up...
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Stir-Crazy Red Velvet Cupcakes
It is naptime. Aaaaahhhhh the most blissful time of the day. The time where I get to enjoy all my favorite indulgences like curling up with a good novel, some Hagen Daaz, all while wrapped in my $100 faux fur and velvet Potterybarn blanket, (my favorite wedding gift by far from my posh Texan aunt) which only comes out when baby isn't around to slime it with his cute grubby little fingers.
Today I am blog-stalking, you know as in checking out the competition. Making sure I'm still as interesting as all the other 15 gazillion mommy bloggers out there. :) Then, I come across THE recipe! Red velvet cupcakes for her little daughters 5th birthday...Mmmmmm sounds sooooo good, especially since I not only worked out hard this morning at the gym, but also am trying to incorporate some vegetarian meals into my diet which means I had a vegetarian wrap for lunch. (See my brain is wired to think that meat must be a part of EVERY meal- working on changing this!) Anywhoo, I don't know if it was the lack of smoked turkey in my lunch today or the fact that I'm going on 5 days of being cooped up in the house with a sick toddler who desperately wants to go to the park every single minute of the day...every. single. minute...
But those red velvet cupcakes looked soooooo delish and I suddenly had this uncontrollable urge to make them! Before you could say, "stir crazy!" I found myself in the kitchen pouring a little bit of this and some of that, flour flying and buttermilk splashing into pure, uninterrupted confectionary creating bliss!
So what if I didn't get around to cooking dinner today? What laundry? And WHO needs me to call them back for the 3rd time!? Forget it! This was waaaay more fun! :)
Stir-Crazy Red Velvet Cupcakes
(With cinnamon cream cheese frosting)-i die!
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup natural unsweetened cocoa
1 tablespoon of Wilton pink gel food coloring
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup natural unsweetened cocoa
1 tablespoon of Wilton pink gel food coloring
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon white vinegar
Ingredients for the frosting:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
12 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup sour cream (not light)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
12 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup sour cream (not light)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2-3 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 tablespoon Wilton pink gel food coloring
Directions for the cupcakes:
Set the oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 F.
In the bowl of the stand mixer, cream the butter and the sugar.
Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing after each.
In the small bowl, stir the cocoa, and food color to make a smooth paste. Add this mixture to the egg mixture and mix until the color is consistent throughout the batter.
Add the buttermilk, vanilla, salt, and cake flour. Mix until the dry ingredients are fully incorporated. Add the baking soda and vinegar and stir gently. The mixture will bubble and froth a bit.
Pour immediately into the prepared cupcakes pans with paper baking cups.
Bake in preheated oven for 13-18 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean and the center springs back when gently depressed. Remove from oven and cool in the pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes.
Directions for the frosting:
Cream the butter, cream cheese, sour cream, cinnamon and vanilla together until fluffy. Gradually mix in the powdered sugar, starting with 2 cups. Continue adding more sugar 1/4 cup at a time until you have the desired flavor and texture. Add food coloring, start with half a tablespoon and then add more till you have your desired shade of red.
Frost those little cakes and hope that you have time to eat one before your baby wakes up! :)
Enjoy!!!
Monday, February 14, 2011
LOVE
1 Corinthians 13:13
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Happy Valentine's Day to the man who has truly made ALL my dreams come true. Thank you for teaching me everyday how to love. I feel truly blessed to be your wife and the mother of our beautiful son. Oh and thank you also for the flowers and the best Vday card a girl could ever dream of: the March issue of Real Simple magazine! Genius! :)
Love you babe!
Thursday, February 3, 2011
How Having a Kid Can Turn You From a City Girl Into a Granola Bar in Less than 3 Years!
1. August of 2008 I discovered I was pregnant!
2. The very next day I craved pepperoni pizza but now that I was pregnant, the option of Mountain Mikes suddenly was not good enough for MY baby! OH NO! MY baby needed an organic pizza with fresh basil. To Whole Foods we went and a large pepperoni we bought! YUM
3. Week 7 of pregnancy the nausea set in so I started taking ginger capsules. Whew!
4. Started researching the dangers of epidurals so Birthing From Within became my new pregnancy bible and What To Expect was tossed aside, mainly used for reference only.
5. I drank more Traditional Medicine's Pregnancy tea than frat boys drink beer. Ok maybe not that much but...
6. I started drawing weird birthing art as taught in my hippie birthing books, chanting mantras, and feeling very drawn to the Redwoods for long afternoon hikes as I felt my baby boy needed me to take him there...
7. To empower myself with the idea that I wouldn't need drugs to birth, I starting watching intense homebirth videos with the birthing tub and all. I read many accounts of women who had birthed at home with midwives or some even unassisted and slowly began to realize how birthing is a natural process with minimal interventions needed. (Except in the case of medical emergencies of course) I felt the pure joy of these women as they brought these angels into the world in their own way and realized the potential that a homebirth had to be a much more intimate and spiritual experience than one in a hospital. I cried happy tears.
8. I brought my own little angel into the world at John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek in April of 2009. I pretended I was in the woods the entire time and not in a hospital where some disconnected pushy doctor was trying to rush me along in my labor because she wanted to go out that Friday night! I imagined I had a mother-earth doula with long silver hair by my side the whole time gently whispering in my ear that I was strong and God had already given me the strength to do this on my own. I had a drug free labor and delivery and was transformed into a much stronger woman because of it.
9. After reading more and more books about vaccinations, my husband and I decided we would be delaying all vaccinations until our son was at least 6 months old. Today he is almost caught up and has had no complications at all.
10. A month into battling extremely sore breasts from nursing, I was about to quit. Until I got the advice to keep it up because, "My baby needed this from me." He's almost two years old and we're still at it.
11. Many evenings of my newborn baby crying endlessly had me worried it was colic or something scary. Looked more into attachment parenting, bought a sling, Bijorn and wore him more. The crying stopped.
12. I heard my sister in law was doing cloth diapers. Why in the world would anyone do that to themselves I wondered...until I started researching it for myself. Soon I was a cloth diaper addict, we own 40 of them and I've even taken them on vacations the whole bit! I'll never look back.
13. At 5 months old it was time to start solids. Started reading about all the benefits of making your own babyfood and there I was, knee deep in cloth diaper laundry and now half of my freezer was stocked with endless amounts of little plastic cubes of my homemade babyfood.
14. Well with an almost fully organic, all natural diet then why are we still putting chemicals on our skin I thought? Move over Bath and Body works lotions and potions, hello Alba, Burts Bees, Tom's natural toothpaste, Method cleaning products, Chlorine-Free Seventh Generation maxi pads, ect.... one thing leads to another. Right now we have just began to make friends with veggie burgers and tofu. I make weekly batches of flaxseed granola and have began substituting more whole grains for whites like brown rice flour instead of white flour. Or Quinoa instead of rice and pounding green smoothies like never before :)
And so I wonder, what would have happened if hubby would have just made me eat the Mountain Mikes pizza on that summer's evening early in my pregnancy? :)
Where are you in your journey into hippie-inspired motherhood?
2. The very next day I craved pepperoni pizza but now that I was pregnant, the option of Mountain Mikes suddenly was not good enough for MY baby! OH NO! MY baby needed an organic pizza with fresh basil. To Whole Foods we went and a large pepperoni we bought! YUM
3. Week 7 of pregnancy the nausea set in so I started taking ginger capsules. Whew!
4. Started researching the dangers of epidurals so Birthing From Within became my new pregnancy bible and What To Expect was tossed aside, mainly used for reference only.
5. I drank more Traditional Medicine's Pregnancy tea than frat boys drink beer. Ok maybe not that much but...
6. I started drawing weird birthing art as taught in my hippie birthing books, chanting mantras, and feeling very drawn to the Redwoods for long afternoon hikes as I felt my baby boy needed me to take him there...
7. To empower myself with the idea that I wouldn't need drugs to birth, I starting watching intense homebirth videos with the birthing tub and all. I read many accounts of women who had birthed at home with midwives or some even unassisted and slowly began to realize how birthing is a natural process with minimal interventions needed. (Except in the case of medical emergencies of course) I felt the pure joy of these women as they brought these angels into the world in their own way and realized the potential that a homebirth had to be a much more intimate and spiritual experience than one in a hospital. I cried happy tears.
8. I brought my own little angel into the world at John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek in April of 2009. I pretended I was in the woods the entire time and not in a hospital where some disconnected pushy doctor was trying to rush me along in my labor because she wanted to go out that Friday night! I imagined I had a mother-earth doula with long silver hair by my side the whole time gently whispering in my ear that I was strong and God had already given me the strength to do this on my own. I had a drug free labor and delivery and was transformed into a much stronger woman because of it.
9. After reading more and more books about vaccinations, my husband and I decided we would be delaying all vaccinations until our son was at least 6 months old. Today he is almost caught up and has had no complications at all.
10. A month into battling extremely sore breasts from nursing, I was about to quit. Until I got the advice to keep it up because, "My baby needed this from me." He's almost two years old and we're still at it.
11. Many evenings of my newborn baby crying endlessly had me worried it was colic or something scary. Looked more into attachment parenting, bought a sling, Bijorn and wore him more. The crying stopped.
12. I heard my sister in law was doing cloth diapers. Why in the world would anyone do that to themselves I wondered...until I started researching it for myself. Soon I was a cloth diaper addict, we own 40 of them and I've even taken them on vacations the whole bit! I'll never look back.13. At 5 months old it was time to start solids. Started reading about all the benefits of making your own babyfood and there I was, knee deep in cloth diaper laundry and now half of my freezer was stocked with endless amounts of little plastic cubes of my homemade babyfood.
14. Well with an almost fully organic, all natural diet then why are we still putting chemicals on our skin I thought? Move over Bath and Body works lotions and potions, hello Alba, Burts Bees, Tom's natural toothpaste, Method cleaning products, Chlorine-Free Seventh Generation maxi pads, ect.... one thing leads to another. Right now we have just began to make friends with veggie burgers and tofu. I make weekly batches of flaxseed granola and have began substituting more whole grains for whites like brown rice flour instead of white flour. Or Quinoa instead of rice and pounding green smoothies like never before :)
And so I wonder, what would have happened if hubby would have just made me eat the Mountain Mikes pizza on that summer's evening early in my pregnancy? :)
Where are you in your journey into hippie-inspired motherhood?
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