Sick Season & Sophie's Second Birthday

I guess this is something fall babies have to learn to live with, but poor thing was sick all this week, and then I caught it. It's been a loooooong week. She woke up Monday with the runny nose and watery eyes and I was hoping it might just be a 24 hour thing, but didn't seem like it when she kept waking up throughout the night and we ended up having to bring her into our bed that night. I was sad I wouldn't get to go wake her bright and early with sunshine and happy birthday wishes on Tuesday morning, but I think I actually liked waking up seeing her passed out inbetween us in bed, looking so sweet and snoring innocently. It was a better way to start her second birthday.

...but she was sick all Tuesday too which was such a shame, and it was the rainiest, stormiest day of the year so far it seemed, so we never really got to go outside and she was definitely going nuts inside the house being sick. She actually seemed decent enough in the evening that we decided to go out to Dave & Buster's. It's not exactly toddler friendly, but we found a lot of games that she had fun with (especially the carnival type ones where we could stand her on the top and she could throw the balls) and she did the bottom row of lights on Lightning Speed which is one of my favorites.

She was too tired at the end to open her presents, so we made it a point to do the next night on Wednesday. This girl cleaned up with gifts!

We all had so much fun opening her presents, and she wasn't quite understanding it, and it was hard to get her to get excited about another gift after being invested in the one that had just been opened.

This girl and these clogs lol

This Ratatouille from my mom speaks
French and English but it freaks Sophie out haha

She kept going back to the Cocomelon box
(cause that's what a Cocofelon does!)

Playing with the ice cream kit from Auntie Kit Kat

We had a rough week with her being home sick but we were able to venture out a little more this weekend. On Saturday we went to a Sugar Plum Fairy Tea that my dance studio was hosting to raise funds for their rendition of the Nutcracker. It was really cute! And set up deliciously. Sophie was getting restless but once they started dancing she was pretty into it. And when they would stop she would yell "Dance again!" and we had to shush her a lot. After that we went to Target which, after the week we had had, felt like a big deal.

She insisted we move everything to
the seat so she could lay down in the back

Excuse me are you the manager?

Today we made it over to the Long Beach Aquarium and it was annoying how dark it was so early, but we still had some light and Sophie really enjoyed their little play area, which she never really had before. Sadly the penguins weren't out because of the avian flu going around so I missed my favorite part but we got to see the second best part which is the otters.

I'm sad the weekend is over but wow am I looking forward to Sophie going back to daycare tomorrow :)

Lessons in Baking: Vanilla Cupcakes

I decided to bake the cupcakes for Sophie's birthday (and also decided cupcakes would be more manageable for all involved rather than a full cake) and I kinda remembered last minute and was trying so hard to find one of those super low-sugar and low calorie recipes that uses like applesauce instead of flour and sugar or something but I wasn't sure how to search for those and nothing was coming up, so in the end, even though the recipe I found was called "Healthy Cupcakes for Toddlers" and as I was making it I was thinking huh? What a misnomer - didn't notice anything different, still normal amounts of butter, sugar and flour. Oh well.

I did homemake half the frosting again (using the Top Shelf Rolls recipe) which turned out great. I will say that the order of events for the cupcakes and instructions did make them turn out lighter and fluffier, so that was nice!

Sophie's special cupcake to blow out!

Sophie's Hangout

I absolutely did not have it in me to throw another "party" for Sophie after last year (those are so intensive!) but AJ really wanted her to have kids to play with and candles to blow out, so we arranged a "hangout" with our families and like 2 friends with kids lol, so that happened on Sunday. Good news was that Cafe Sophie was still up from last year, COVID didn't shutter their shutters!

There she is by the end of the night. We didn't open her presents since we were trying to wind down and didn't want to get her all riled up, and since the next day (today) is her grandmother Debbie's bday, we don't want to steal her thunder, so we'll open them on her actual bday on Tuesday, which should make it even more fun.

Sad news though is that she woke up sick today. She's borderline - she's warm but no fever, congested but hardly coughing (I've heard her cough like twice total today) and mostly just gushing snot (which is clear at least) but with the RSV going around, we're playing it cautious and keeping her home from daycare today. We're hoping it's nothing and just clears up, but somehow that seems overly ambitious of a wish, so I'm pretty certain she'll have to be home tomorrow as well, on her actual birthday, which is such a shame cause she's supposed to have a party at daycare tomorrow. At least she doesn't really know the difference and I'm probably more upset about it than she is.

Can't believe today is her last day being 1! In a lot of ways I feel like she has already been 2 years old for months now, but it's about to be official.

Lessons in Baking: Cornbread (AND!) Cooking: Brunswick Stew

This wasn't a huge endeavor and and wasn't too special so I didn't think to document anything until it was about over. And it's just as well because I wasn't too impressed with either of them, but they were okay.

I LOVE soups and stews and I could eat them at any time of year, but I know they're better crowd pleasers in the fall and winter, and since the weather has finally turned I decided to get on it. I originally thought to wait to make it until next Monday or Tuesday since there's rain in the forecast, but it's Debbie and Sophie's birthdays so they probably want something more exciting than my experiments.

So I found a recipe for "Brunswick Stew" which, I had no idea what that was exactly, but seemed like a good enough stew to try. Apparently it's "a tomato-based stew generally involving local beans, vegetables, and originally small game meat such as squirrel or rabbit, though today often chicken." (Spoiler alert: I used chicken.) It was fine, but it didn't seem to have too much unique taste or seem much different than anything other than a generic stew. It did have a slight kick to it because I put in a little too much cayenne, but that was about it. I will said I learned that celery seeds as a spice exists and I loved what they added to the flavor and aroma at the very beginning when it was just onions and potatoes and spices. Likely going to incorporate that more often.

This was after the squirrel (I mean, chicken)
was added

I made cornbread to go with it, which was my first time doing that too. (And where I realized that I should have looked at the serving amounts before I made either of these because it was wayyyy too much for 3 1/2 people, even for a day or two with leftovers!)

The cornbread was fine, but like the stew, nothing very impressive or memorable, just fine. The recipe called for 3/4 cup of sugar and I'm absolutely appalled at how much sugar goes into everything, so I'm often cutting it back, although not too much because I'm nervous the recipe may need sugar for chemical reactions and not just taste, so I took this one down to just 1/2 cup instead, but I don't think that's what made this just whatever.

Cornbread prep

Finished product

Well, you win some you lose some. At least it was pretty easy and good to know I could probably recreate it in a pinch, and I learned about celery seeds.

Lessons in Baking: Top Shelf Rolls Orange Cupcakes with Chocolate Fudge Frosting

Making our way through Top Shelf Roll recipes, I actually baked the orange cupcakes with chocolate fudge frosting last week in advance of the Flying Flags weekend to take up with us.

This one was rough because yet again I was battling dealing with Sophie while trying to bake and barely remembered to take any pictures as it was, let alone trying to get everything accomplished, but it worked out in the end.

Ingredients prepped separately

Altogether now

Totally forgot a before shot of them
going into the oven (but I don't think we're
missing much of anything from that)

Here's what really takes these over the edge:
spreading the warmed orange marmalade
over the top of the warmed cupcakes
before frosting them!

Homemade frosting coming up!

Whip it. Whip it good.

Frost it. Frost it good.

Et voilà!

They turned out good, although a little dry on my end, but I blame myself because of how distracted I had to be while I was working on it all. Better luck next time (but still amazing and worth trying yourself!)

Halloween Recap

I was expecting this to be somewhat of a repeat of our Halloween last year - a bewildered Sophie just sits in the stroller, maybe walks, confused and taking in all the sights and sounds and having no idea what the heck is going on around her and her parents are the ones having the real fun.

...but I was totally wrong!

We had so much fun with her this year and she was really getting it! 

She had festivities at daycare which probably helped set the scene. We were in a rush after getting home to get dressed and get off to our friends' place where we decided to trick or treat again this year. They have a really fun neighborhood for it and there's a nice group of us with kids all hovering around the same ages and seems like a great tradition. It was hard to get Sophie away from pushing Baby around but we got her excited by telling her that we were going to go see Bryce.

We got done up in our Aladdin, Jasmine and Abu costumes and hit the streets. She watched the older kids at first, and then when we started explaining to her that we were putting candy in her bucket, she was all about it. She started pointing out houses, asking us to "open door!" and often times when they offered the bowl to her, she would take a full handful and get really excited about "candy in bucket!" and by the end of the night she was saying "Halloween!" ("Happy Halloween" was a little too much of a mouthful for her.

She would be so proud with whatever she got from the house and come back out holding it up saying "this!" (or, more phonetically, "dis!")

Our crew had a lot of fun, and between us all it was us, the Thompson's and Bryce and grandma Linda, the Totty's and 10-week old Jaxon, the Wanamaker's and their two little ones James and Jack. We had road wines, ran into friends, and a really fun time.

Aladdin and Abu with Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtle Leonardo and Master Splinter

Megan is their pizza lol

Grandma Linda got too hot for her
Donatello costume

After the trick or treating was done, we were hanging out at the Thompson's house and we ended up staying there a long time - we were all having such a good time. Sophie was in such a good mood which still baffles me because we couldn't really get her to eat any dinner, she didn't eat any candy, and it was hours past her bedtime! Her and Bryce were running around being crazy, pushing dolls in strollers, jumping onto beanbag chairs, going down slides and chasing the dogs. We finally tore ourselves away around 10:30p, and we got Sophie down well without her ever having a meltdown.

It was a surprisingly great night (we knew we'd have a good time but we didn't know Sophie would be so interactive and into it) and I'm sad it's over, but now we're onto Sophie's upcoming birthday...!