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...!

Flying Flags 2022

So we had huge debates about this and it's been settled that the traditional Flying Flags glamping for Pam's birthday/Halloween started in 2016, so this is the sixth year we've been doing this! We haven't attended every year (I think we had to miss 2018 because of all the wedding preparations, and didn't go 2020 since it was too close to Sophie's due date) but it's always on the calendar until proven otherwise!

It's a very different experience with a toddler (oh how I miss being able to sit around the campfire with a glass of wine and talk uninterrupted for hours!) but it's been a fun change too, also a huge difference between last year and this year just with Sophie's age and abilities. 

We left Thursday night to avoid traffic and so Sophie could just sleep on the drive up. We got up late Thursday night and basically just went to bed. We had a row of the wine cottages to ourselves and we had Zinfandel, split with Rob and Raf. The rest of the weekend we got to hang out and jump back and forth from our backyards to hang with everyone else, Sophie enjoyed the opportunities to ride her bike and play at the playground. Our usual Friday night activity is the dinner Debbie and her sister put together for us all dedicated to Pam's birthday, which was, as always, delicious!

I just loved this trailer and thought
it was a nice picture

Kacey was a viiiiiibe

She was not at all a fan of this outfit
(if you couldn't tell)

On Saturday we spent the morning in Solvang just down the road cause I can't resist visiting there when I can cause it's just too adorable! Our usual planned activities are the Friday night dinner dedicated to Pam's birthday, and then Saturday is our costumed progressive wine tasting where everyone brings a varietal that we taste test, and end with pizza and donuts as is part of Doug's family tradition (that I don't at all mind adopting for ourselves either!)

Acted like a Viking outside the Viking Room

Mexican train! (I was napping lol)

Star Wars crew! (Actually a coincidence they all matched)

Cat's out of the bag! We're Aladdin, Jasmine & Abu.
I did consider making Sophie Rajah so she would be MY
sidekick, but come on, Abu is a better character than
Rajah and I love that she's AJ's little sidekick :)

We were really worried about her wearing the full
costume because every time we tried, she was NOT
happy about the monkey hat, but we got it going! She
was actually excited about it and kept it on pretty
much all night!

The rosé room varietal tasting

Sunday was clean up and go-home day (our 3 hour drive is one of the shortest ones of everyone there! So everyone needs to get a pretty big head start on Sunday to get home) and you know me, I can't pass Santa Barbara without stopping somewhere! We visited Alameda Park in downtown, a super awesome park for kids for Sophie to play and get some energy out, then hit up an old favorite Argentine restaurant of ours on the east side for an empanada lunch before getting on the road.

Love the little mission art! We were here
at the top of the hour and got to hear the
mission bells chiming down the hill too,
it was so lovely

I drove and was getting so close to falling asleep that I had to break into the huge bag of hot Cheetos that Doug so kindly bought for me and that got me awake and through the rest of the ride. We were thanking our lucky stars that Debbie is in town cause she was happy to take over watching Sophie while we got a nap (yay!) and now today is actually Halloween and we're looking forward to tonight. I have a busy day at work though, so just trying to get through this first...