Preschool Rainbow Cupcake - Pt. 2

Happy birthday to my Big Boy . . . the Yam turned 3 years old today!!! Can you believe it. He's done some phenomenal growing over the recent 3 months that he's been in preschool; I was excited to make cupcakes for his class in the preschool (and the school-age room as well). It's a little thing that I probably won't get to do a lot since Liam's birthday is in the summer and even if he were to have a party at school, well guess where I'll be – at school in my own classroom. (Colin is a risk too as his birthday may sometimes fall during Spring Break.)

When we dropped him off at school this morning, they had written on the window a birthday message for him. There was also a giant banner in rainbow dots between the two classrooms. How did they know I chose a rainbow theme?! I asked when we should bring the cupcakes by and they said around 10:30am so that there would be sufficient time before lunch to get a bit of appetite back. The preschoolers/toddlers were so cute in their little chairs. They all started to sing to Liam while I was handing out the cupcakes and Liam tried so so so hard not to dig into his frosting (which is pretty much all he eats of cake these days) until everyone was served.

Even two of the infants got to have some cake. And the school-age kids were super stoked when I said they could all have a cupcake too. The teachers were so impressed by the rainbows and called me Supermom! Awww. I told them it was easy but it just took a long long time. The little kids exclaimed “Wainbows!” when they bit into the cupcakes and when they saw the papers. The papers are beautiful actually; Jon said they looked like little tie-dyed shirts with their circular pattern that wasn't always perfect VBGYOR order.

It was a cool feeling, being that awesome kind of mom. You know, I hate to have a Back to School whinge right now, but I feel like I put this much effort into everything I do for others and that includes my friends as well as my students. Why oh why are my efforts not viewed as spectacularly by the administration or the parents? Maybe I need to make rainbow cupcakes for everyone at “B2S Nite” to get their appreciation. Um yeah; like that's ever gonna happen!

I hope Liam always enjoys cupcakes and being spoiled a bit on special days. I know it seems like we're going a bit overboard this year, but last year I wasn't even home because I was at a CTA conference and besides, this is like the first birthday he's going to remember anyway.

Oh, we finally got to learn the names of his little school chums. When I was loading the photos onto the computer this evening, I actually got Liam to tell me who everyone was. Apparently this Cami girl that he's confessed to holding hands with before is an older woman (she's probably four by my best guess). That was adorable when I learned about Cami. “Cami an' Weeum hold hans. Hold hans's OK to hold hans.” Awww.

Preschool Rainbow Cupcake - Pt. 1 Tutorial

Liam was allowed to bring cupcakes to his school for his birthday. The only stipulation was that we bring smaller cupcakes to minimize the amount of sugar and filler before lunch. Oh boy. Making my first set of class cupcakes for the kids!!! I was really excited but for the life of me, we haven't done anything to plan for a “party” so I had no themes or anything planned. My one advice I found in the blog-o-sphere was that toddlers like sweet – plain and simple – stick to chocolate or vanilla. When I thought about the apple spice cake with panuche frosting that I made a couple of weeks ago, I recalled Liam actually barely ate the cake, but boy did he eat that frosting. Okay, simple flavors it will be...but that doesn't mean it has to be simple design.

Awhile ago, we had a friend from our junior college days post her daughter's 1st birthday party pics that included the most beautiful 6-layer rainbow cake with white frosting. Each layer was a different color of the rainbow and there was thick white frosting between all the layers too. Well, I decided to go for it in cuppy cake form. And, I have a mini-muffin tin from our Sunday Champagne Brunch days in college.

I got a basic white cake mix and made the recipe on the box:
1 box mix
1 C. water
1/3 C. veggie oil
3 eggs
Mix with electric mixer for 2 minutes.

Then separate the cake mix evenly into 6 separate small bowls. Add food coloring. I was lucky I didn't have to mix any primaries to get secondary colors. I had 1 pack of those Schilling 4-color liquid droppers with the pointy caps (you know the ones – all our moms had them when we were growing up). But in my recent forays into more talent required types of decorating (eg. Liam's 1st birthday giraffe cake with my first attempt at fondant), I've managed to acquire a few other gel colors which are great as they don't liquify your icing and have super vibrant colors.

I used Wilton gel colors in: violet, copper orange, and sunny yellow.
I used the Schilling liquid colors for: red, blue, green.

I was a little worried that the orange was too dark. I originally bought it because it was my substitute for brown since I didn't think that was appropriate for a child's giraffe cake. But as it turned out, the red was so pale, it was almost pink and that contrasted with the dark orange quite nicely.

Start adding your separate cake mix by spoon. I used a small tea spoon (note I didn't say teaspoon) and only about half of the spoon at that. The cake batter was full enough that it really didn't spread. Being that I was using mini-cupcake papers, I noticed I was already having trouble with fullness. So by the time I got to green, I realized throwing in a couple spoonfuls of water to thin it a little. The colors started to spread and I was chugging along.
Time for the oven. I was a little worried about the fact that my cupcake wrappers were so full because you normally only fill them 2/3 full to allow for rise. As I was using the mini pan, I shaved 4 minutes off so I'd have more time if the centers were liquid and wouldn't really risk burning them.

Oven at 350F degrees for 14 minutes. *

The timer went off, the toothpick went in and came out clean. They were super puffed over the top and running into each other, but they really had a great mushroom top (a la Mario Bros.) Allow to cool, and then frost with white frosting for the striking contrast. I used a new product from Pillsbury that was a pre-star-tipped, canned, pressurized icing tube. It was SO easy!!! But it unfortunately did not have enough frosting for 24 mini-cupcakes (probably would have, but I have made 2 larger cupcake in our silicon pan with the leftover colored cake batter and I frosted those first, oops). Luckily I had a regular can of Pillsbury white frosting as well.

* Tip: Don't preheat your oven until you're almost done with loading up those cupcake papers. It takes forever to load those little guys with 6 different colors and I was dying in the warming kitchen! Remember, this is August in the Sacramento Valley folks. It's hot in here!

First ever time at the cinema

No not for me, but yeah for me in a sense. I've been to the movies a grand total of 1x since Liam was born; Hubster and I were lucky enough to go see the first part of Harry Potter 7 last Fall while I was pregnant (Mannam came to babysit - and she frickin' cleaned the living room and kitchen while we were gone SCORE!!!). But yesterday was Liam's first trip to the cinema to see a movie properly - ergo our first time taking a child to the movies.

We got my colleague Luanne to watch Colin so it could be a "focus on the birthday boy" kind of experience. Unfortu-nately we had to drive all the way to Rocklin to see Winne the Pooh and it was totally a Murphy's Law kind of drive down. Traffic, mega-mobbed gas station, farm equipment chugging down the road, more traffic, and a detour through Lincoln all served to get us to the theater approximately 4 minutes after the posted showing. They weren't selling tickets to that showing anymore but that's fine because I wanted Liam to have the whole, find a seat, lights go dim, kind of experience for his first trip. So we had to wait 2 hours for the next show. To placate Hubster, we went to Guitar Center and I let both boys run around and "jam" on as many instruments as they could. We also ran around Joann's Crafts for a bit. Then we went through the drive through at McDonald's and parked in the shade so I could pump breast milk before the movie.

Then we got to the movie. We let Liam give our tickets to the ticket gal. Then we took him to the arcade and let him pretend to drive the race car game. Then I got us popcorn (his favorite!) and some M&Ms to share and we went into the theater. We found a great seat; the theater was only 1/3 full and it was all families with little children (Jon was the only dad in the whole theater - although there were some older brothers but they were like high school age). We noshed on popcorn and delighted in the animated short about Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster.

Liam managed to only get up and want to run around 4x. I had to remind myself that he's just 3 years old and it was his first time at the cinema and he can't even sit through 70 minutes of movie at home. Once I thought I smelled a poopy diaper so Jon took him to the restroom but there was no need. Another time he was starting to get a little loud and antsy so I took him out in the lobby and he ran around, played on the car game again, and we went on a hunt for our theater by looking for the theater number (he's so great at his numbers). Totally forgot about the M&Ms, oops; I'll probably put them on the cake for his party this weekend at my Granny's house.

He was passed out by the time we got home and woke up enough to be cute for Luanne and her daughter (and our usual baby/cat/house sitter) "Towia" but was basically passing out on his feet. Jon changed his diaper and put him to bed in his street clothes. It was a wonderful special day to start our celebrations for Liam's 3rd birthday.

Easter

While I sit here and nurse, I thought I'd finally post on Easter (with pictures!). I'm also thinking about it because Liam was whining (it's been a whiny morning) "Mannam and Gamma," and I got some great pictures of Liam with my grandmother

Colin 4 weeks old.

To start off, with Easter being so late this year, everybody except my mom thought Easter was the previous week (apr. 17). So Jon and I were planning to do a combo Easter/Jon's 36th birthday. Once we got that confusion over with, we decided to postpone the birthday celebration to actual Easter. And I decided we should host since I wanted to get the house cleaned up a little. The birthday was really important because Liam's been wanting to have a birthday party since Colin was born (probably because of the balloon that's still floating on our living room ceiling).

A couple of days before Easter, my mom called to say that my granny was in the hospital again. She had had heart attack symptoms but luckily it was not the case; she was extremely anemic though. Mom didn't know that she'd be feeling up for celebrating even if she got out of the hospital. So we canceled and then stopped housekeeping. Lol.

Liam's 2 Easter baskets.Colin's 1st teeny tiny Easter basket.

Granny got discharged on Friday night and really wanted Easter. So plans were back on and then we had to hustle to get cleaning done before 3pm.

The boys taking a nap during cleaning.

We had corned beef, roasted potatoes and asparagus, and cabbage. It was delicious. I put some lovely cala lilies from Jon's mom's plant on the table.

We had devils food cupcake with peanut butter cup surprise inside and Liam helped Jon blow out his candles (Jon is now a whole box of candles old - 3 dozen).

Liam checking on the spoils of his egg hunt. Note the color sorting. He also counted them in Spanish (until he got to cinco, then they were all cinco).

We did an egg hunt indoors because our yard is too unkempt and too noisy being on the busy corner we live on.

We tried to watch Tangled since Mom and Granny hadn't seen it, but Liam was getting too fussy and loud (I'll have to let them borrow it).
The best surprise from the Easter bunny was a "magic wand," what Liam calls his "big, giant egg!" and all the candies.

Liam flinging basket grass around to look for more "jumping" beans.

Announcing Colin Alexander!

Finally!!! Got a chance to get onto the blog and finally type up the birth story of our newest, precious little boy.

I decided that Thursday, March 24th was pretty much my last day at school. I was so tired. We had just finished a unit on the Renaissance and I had taken them through a week of drawing single-point perspective drawings. My next doctor's appt was on Friday anyway and I wasn't going to be able to take a partial day since my appointment was in the middle of the day. I called my long term sub, told her to plan on coming in on Monday and told the secretary I was going to keep my keys for the weekend so I could come in and get some things taken care of and some housekeeping done. I went home. After dinner and putting Liam to bed, we popped the cork on another bottle of champagne. Awww. Jon discusses with me what kind of induction I'd be willing to have if it comes to that.

Friday, Jon and I both had showers (never go to the Lady Doc without a shower; that's just rude!). We made a list of all the things that should just get packed into the car for our stay in the hospital and for Liam's stay with Nana and Granny. There was a "last minute list" too. I decided to take the Durango down and told him I'd go shopping while I was down there for some odds and ends like cheap magazines and diapers for Yam.

I get to the doc's office and my BP is beautiful 112/79. My weight 208.5 (with clothes on). Doc checks my cervix and says 4cms!!! The heartbeat was a lot stronger than the last visit. She says she wants me to get an induction since we live far away. "How about tomorrow morning? I'm the OB at L&D tomorrow." Wow, okay...ummm...(secretly it would be nice for her to deliver me since she's been my doctor for 2 decades now) but I don't want another pitocin induction. Well, it turns out that L&D had too much scheduled for Saturday morning, but they want me to come in at 8pm that night!!! Okay. I call Jon and my mom to tell them that tonight is the night. Then I did that shopping I was going to do. Liam and Jon arrive around 4pm. We had Chinese food for dinner (just like the night Liam was induced). We wish them good luck with our little Yamster and Jon has me drive to the hospital because he needs to call family and let them know we're on our way.

Checked in at 8. I ask for the midwife side. Got an awesome sassy black momma for my first nurse (with 6 kids of her own). They broke my bag at 9. It took awhile for them to get a good baseline on baby's heartbeat - about an hour. I wasn't having any painful contractions. But then they let me get up and we took a couple laps around the delivery floor and I start having actual contractions; next I sat on the yoga ball for an hour or leaned over it during my contractions. Pain level 3-4. Back in bed for monitoring but baby's shifted so I have to get on my side; this causes the contraction monitor to not pick up anything, but they were a comin'. Within 20 minutes I was spiking pain levels to 7-8 and I could feel those contractions were working on dilating and spreading. Got my epidural at 1am and of course it DIDN'T WORK ON THE RIGHT SIDE just like last time. Ugh. And then they gave me the pit. The nurse anesthetist knew my dad, she used to work with him at Morse Avenue.

After the epidural, they decided to check my progress. "You're at 9cm, and fully stretchy in your cervix, but baby's still at -1 so we're gonna have you labor down. Try to sleep." We turned out the lights, Jon unfolded the reclining bench, and we tried to sleep (of course, they checked me every 30 minutes). Not too much time goes by and then the nurse comes in to check my progress. By the way, the epidural has fully kicked in and I felt like a weeble people from the hips down. "Let's check to see what station you're at." She lifts the blankets and . . . "oh my, we're having a baby."

The midwife slammed her cuppa joe, the nurses barely had enough time to get the table set up and get my legs in the stirrups. I had one spot in my abdomen that I could feel my contractions. I absolutely didn't push at all!!! He came out with the contractions. The midwife kept thanking me for such an easy delivery after the week she'd had even though he did pee on her (I did get a 2nd degree tear because he came out with one hand up at his shoulder). They scrubbed him off and put him on my chest and he crawled right up to the breast! He nursed perfectly for 30 minutes on each side. The nurses did his vaccinations and his heel stick and eye goop while he nursed; he never cried, just winced and went right on nursing. The nurse said she'd never had a baby do the breast crawl or never cry in the 15 years she's been in L&D. Let me just say that compared to Liam's birth, this was so much more of what I wanted, stress free, a little productive pain, medication, easy delivery (I didn't even sweat).

After over an hour, they took him for his vitals and he pooped just before his first bath. Smart guy. Born 1 day early on March 26th 2011 @ 4:29am, weighing in at 7lbs 11oz, stretching 20.5" long, and a head circ. of 14",

here he is . . . Colin Alexander Rogers!!!

birthday bash

Fun weekend was had. It was Jon's 35th birthday on Sunday so I took it easy on my diet change. Saturday I let him sleep in as late as he wanted, but alas he got up early to go visit his dad in Fair Oaks. There he found his passport (phew! our trip is in 2 months and we're going into Canada). Then we spent the day enjoying bad television and eating fried food. One of my favorite things in the whole world is a deep fried pickle!!! Have you ever had one? They're the bestest. Then I had ice cream and several glasses of wine (only 2, but I was using our large tumblers which are about 10oz).

Sunday I also wanted to let him sleep in late but, silly man, he got up at 10am. We had ice cream cake (per request) for breakfast. When Liam got up from his lunch, we drove into Davis and dined outside on sushi and teriyaki. Then we strolled around a little arboretum and Liam had a blast grabbing and crushing plants. More ice cream cake in the evening.

So my diet detour caught up with me this morning. Oops. I gained about 1 1/2 lbs. Back to whole grains and protein and water this week (well maybe one more slice of ice cream cake). One of the best things from this weekend . . . Jon gave me the go ahead to call my doctor and set up an appointment to remove my Mirena. We're are officially going in "pre-heat the oven" mode. :)