Whoopie pies are just the best, and they’re easy to make at home with kids. Whoopie pies, we’ve learned, just aren’t really a thing in Washington. And they’re H’s favorite treat, and something she’s been missing from NJ (Whole Foods made really good ones back east, but all the baked goods at Whole Foods here in WA are too…healthy). So, I’ve started making them. The Christmas batch was such a hit that she wanted to help me make some more this past weekend. Sunday night while my beef roast cooked we made them for dessert.
Tag: baking
It’s here! Trick or Treat Day came and went. I was so in the weeds with this Belle costume, which H asked for back in July, and I ended up sewing the whole thing on Friday night. I stayed up all night, it took 11 straight hours of sewing, I binged all 9 episodes of Stranger Things 2 while I did it. But she is so excited, and I love how this gown turned out.
Today’s the day! HFR is 5 years old today. I’m going to get the typical parent cliche out of the way here first by announcing I can’t believe she’s five, it feels like just yesterday when she was born, where does the time go, etc. These are all true statements that run through my head on a regular basis, and at every birthday she’s ever had.
I’ve been on a break from blogging for a couple of weeks while I got ready for the holidays. And they’ve arrived! They came, they saw, they spread festive cheer all over the house! My in-laws just left this morning, and I’m looking around the house figuring out where we’re going to put everything.
Memorial Day Weekend. We didn’t get to the beach, but we did cook out on Monday. We had some family over for sausage and peppers, corn on the cob, tomato salad. And I still had some sweet cherries in the freezer from last summer, so I made the first official pie of the summer season. Delicious.
So, our “baby” is three. I don’t know how that happened, but it has been much stranger for me to see her turn 3 than it was for 2 or even 1. Three is such a big deal. She’s officially outgrown baby toys and now qualifies for anything that’s “Age 3+” (even though she’s already been playing with some older things for a while). She’s moving from a toddler to a preschooler.
I loved last weekend. I only left the house to go get some lunch with Adam and H on Saturday. The rest of the weekend was spent inside being a glorious homebody.
So about a month or so ago, we discovered that H will eat anything if it’s in a mini muffin. My extremely fickle toddler is obsessed with minis (regular size just doesn’t quite cut it), and we’ve been using this discovery to get more fruits and veggies in her belly. Her feeding therapist fully supports these sneaky strategies, and so far it’s working.
I promise that title sounds fancier than the boxes really are. I love teachers (I am one!), and I love putting these treat boxes together. This is just a little extra on top of the class gift, largely because I always have more jam than any three-person family could eat in a year. And you need something to put the jam on, hence…scones. Also, H’s school has just been completely amazing to her and for her, and I want to show my appreciation for their work with our little late bloomer as often as possible.
Last year, H’s first at her school, I made gift boxes for her teacher, aide, the head of the school, and the marvelous admin. I put in some blueberry butter I’d made over the summer, a Starbucks card, and some homemade scones I made the same morning I delivered the boxes. The scones were just so fast and easy that this year I kind of decided this was a tradition worth keeping up. And, again, I made all the scones last Friday morning while H was at school and then delivered them at the half day pickup.
Adam’s birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and H was a huge help making his birthday cake. Every year I make a roast chicken dinner for him and bake a three-tiered devil’s food cake with vanilla buttercream. This year H helped with the cake. Baking with her always requires a little project management, but baking a three-tiered cake required a little more.