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.

B2S Meme - August 1st

Back to School Meme

Back To School Meme - Found on this blog: MS Teacher

Completed in Reference to (Self or Child): Self

1. Number of years teaching or your eldest child has been in school (k through college) ? This will be my 6th year; my 5th in this district

2. Amount approximately spent on Back to School Items so far including clothes? $150 - still have much to buy ($250 if you count the whopping C-note we get to spend of the district's money)

3. Number of Days until school starts in your area (+ or - if it’s started)? 15!!! (And I've been out for 2 months longer than everyone else)

4. Approximate distance school is from your house? 21 miles

5. Amount of time it will take you or your child to get to school from your house by car or bus? 30-40 minutes, depending upon the farm equipment/harvest season

6. The actual or approximate number of students in the class you teach or your oldest child’s class? 100 students

7. The number of classes in your grade or your oldest child’s grade level? 5 World History, 6 US History (of which I'll teach 1)

8. The price to buy a full student lunch at school? I honestly have no idea, which is super pathetic considering 90% of our kids are on F/R lunch and I HATE what they serve my students and wish we could change it.

9. Number of schools in your district? 3 + 1 small school + 1 alternative high school

10. Early dismissal days already built into the calendar? yes

11. Price paid for the most expensive back to school item so far? I don't remember...the paint for my shield projects for the Medieval Faire; naw, that was pretty cheap

12. Time school day ends? 3:09 and 2:07 on Wednesdays

If you'd like to do the meme, please feel free!

I Fuffoo

That's Liam's "I love you."

Liam is doing a great job showing love and affection for his little brother. This morning, I've only been awake for about an hour and already he's melted my heart again. Colin was fussing while I had Liam on my lap (we were watching Toy Story 3) so I had to put him down and pick up the bairn. Then I asked Liam if he still wanted on my lap and he replied he did. There I was, sitting with both my lads on my lap, and I took Liam's hand and had him hold Colin's hand (it was the part of Toy Story 3 where the toys are just about to be incinerated and they all hold hands - that part makes me tear up every single time I see it!). Anyway, Colin immediately grabs Liam's finger and just about bending his hand backwards. Liam turns to Colin and says, "I so much Cow'n. I SO much Cow'n." There was so much gentleness and genuine affection in that voice. So what that he missed the Fuffoo part. The fact is he said he loved Colin so much, to Colin, without prompting from me or Jon. Oh my, I'm getting teary just writing this. Can't believe my sweet little guy, my Smoochie, is gonna be 3 in two more days!!!

throw together meatloaf

What's for dinner? I've been wanting to make a meatloaf since last week. It's a little hard to want to make one though when the weather outside is so dang hot. I probably should have done it on Sunday when I already had the oven on for bread baking, but oh well, it didn't happen then. I don't have any exact measurements for this, but I'll give you the basics.

What you need for meatloaf, any meatloaf, is ground meat, a filler, a binder, and seasoning.

The meat: today, just 1 pound of 85/15 ground beef. I actually estimated the weight because our kitchen scale needs a new battery and a majority of the beef was still frozen although I had had it out on the counter to thaw all day; it was a 3 pound package that we hadn't separated before putting in the freezer.

The fillers: I started off making lardons (basically bits) from 3 slices of bacon. While they were frying, I julienned (you must get yourself a mandolin or v-slicer with one of these inserts) ½ a white onion, three stalks of celery, and 2 small carrots – the mirepoix. To boost the vegetable level, I also added about a ¼ up of broccoli slaw from the pack Jon bought for stir-fry the other night and a big handful of baby spinach leaves, diced. I cooked all that to soft in the bacon grease. We also needed breadcrumbs, but don't have enough bread, so I used the food processor to pulverize about a cup of butter & garlic flavored croutons.

Seasoning: The most basic seasoning is salt and don't you dare try to make any meat dish without it. Salt is the ingredient that makes meat taste meaty! I did not add any extra salt to the meat because I figured the croutons and the bacon grease were salty enough. Then I also added black pepper, a small amount of smoked paprika, and an even smaller amount of cumin (which I'm really not fond of). Oh, I also added some parsley flakes and some ketchup and yellow mustard.

The binder: one egg.

Mix it all together (by hand of course). Now here's the best tip. . . never cook your meatloaf in a loaf pan!!! The fat from the beef has nowhere to go and so the loaf essentially poaches in fat and you can't get a decent crust - possibly the bestest part of a meat loaf. Think about it. Do you really want to eat fat-poached ground meat? So I lined my loaf pan (I'd love another one for my birthday btw, hint hint) with foil and then packed the meat loaf into that. Then I lined a cookie sheet with foil and got the wire rack from our old toaster over out. (It also doubles as a great cooling rack when you're making just a couple of freezer cookies at a time.) Turned the loaf out onto the rack, peeled the foil away, and set in the oven at 325F; cook the thing until internally it reaches 160F and you won't get sick.

Sadly, we don't have any mashed 'taters to serve with the meatloaf. Oh well.

Colin is 4 (months)

The little Coco-butter is now 4 months old and becoming a better human every day. I'm getting a little apprehensive because I can't believe it's almost Back to School time and I'll be leaving my little guy and heading back to work in a couple weeks. Here's the latest on Colin Alexander Rogers: Age 4m.

Likes:

• sleeping in Mommy and Daddy's bed (no we don't co-sleep, but he falls asleep nice and hard after his early morning meal and can sleep a couple hours more if we leave him on the bed)
• his JumperRoo (which he is now a pro at using and gets everyone in the house smiling when he uses it)
• his feet - he hasn't quite gotten them into his mouth yet, but he loves to hold them and usually only talks when he's got his feet in his hands
• LIAM!!! - zOMG his big brother is probably the most awesome thing Colin has ever encountered
• diaper changes - probably the time Daddy and I get the biggest smiles from him is when he's trying to make diaper changing difficult by grabbing feet, diapers, or various articles of clothing
• Lamaze toys - he was obsessing over Mortimer "Bruce" Moose earlier in the month but switched to Jacques Peacock. Then we got him a "knot monster" the other day when we wanted to go to Roseville and he love love loves that.

Development:

• talking/cooing - he's a chatty little guy, but see above note about feet
• rolling over - ummm, still trying hard on that one; Colin gets about halfway over and decided being on his side is better
• no longer needs to be swaddled, but it still calms him down a lot of the time
• can be put down for a nap/sleep without falling asleep in the arms
• has basically outgrown the Puj (his baby tub)
• almost reached out for me in his first moment of "Mommy, you need to come here and pick me up" when he caught eye contact with me after I had been at the grocery store and didn't come get him as soon as I got home. He also cried really loud then.
• sleeping for long long stretches at night and on a good-night schedule that usually has him asleep within 30-45 min of putting Liam to bed each night (8-10hours of straight sleeping baby = bliss for Momma)

Growth/Doctor Stuff:

• Dr. Honeychurch is still not concerned with Colin's poop-schedule. Yup, Colin is still pooping only once every 3-4 days. Because he's not straining and his belly isn't distended and there's no blood in the stool, he's just not a poopy baby. It's just so weird for a mostly breastfed baby to not poop all damn day. Liam pooped at least 3x/day and he was mostly formula fed by this age.
• Jon thinks Colin's hemangioma is getting smaller. I can't see a difference. Doctor said it would actually shrink from the inside (middle) out so I don't think it is shrinking just yet.
• Both Daddy and I were WAY off on our guesses for how big he would be. We had a bit of a cheat in that we weighed him the day we took Liam in to ask about his fever & rash. Colin was 14 1/2 lbs on that day.
• 15 3/4 lbs (55th percentile)
• 27 1/2 inches tall (99th+ percentile)
• 42 1/2 cm head circumference - my babies have such enormous braincases
• Got more shots at the doc's this time. Only, unlike the 2 month visit, he was not so much of a trooper. And boy was he miserably grouchy for the rest of the day.
• Still mostly breastfed; he takes only about one bottle/day anywhere between 4-6oz of formula.
• Had an allergy attack this week. Basically, seasonal/environmental allergies. Luckily his only reaction was red rimmed eyes and lots of congestion (which led us to haul out the dreaded sot snucker)
  

Where we've gone:

• 4th of July celebration at the Stonehouses. Colin did a little better swimming in their pool than he did in Katherine's pool in June.
• Spent a day at Granny's with Granny and Mannam while we were at a food & wine afternoon with friends.
• We went to the doctor for Liam; ergo we went to ice cream at Ben & Jerry's scoop shop
• We went to Roseville to go shopping for a breast pump adapter for the car; ergo we went to Big Spoon for fro-yo.

Happy 4 months my little man. I love you!!!

big bedtime to-do

So today is sort of a milestone day. Colin is 4 months old today. I hope I'll have a post devoted just to him later this evening (if I'm not too lazy). But there's another milestone that I just had to blog about. When I got up this morning (the actual getting up), my whole family was in the bed!!!

So I guess 2 nights ago, around 3-something in the morning, Liam came into our room and quietly climbed into the bed next to Jon. I guess he would have stayed, but he started whinging for Green Ghost and so Jon went in to get it and by that time Liam was amping up with energy. Jon ended up sleeping in Liam's bed for about an hour before he came back to our bed. All during this time, I slept right through it all and had no clue. If I had known, I would not have kicked Jon out of bed to be with Liam when the kid woke up at 5:45a. Sorry!

Well, this morning, around 5:30, just as the dawn was breaking through our windows, Liam stood in the door of his room and whined a bit. I sat up sleepily and said, "hey kiddo." Whimper whimper "momma," whimper. Then I waved him over as my head was dropping stone-like back onto my pillow. The next thing Jon knew, Liam was scrambling over him trying to climb into the bed. He laid down but needed his Green Ghost. Jon grabbed it and wouldn't you know, within seconds Liam was snuggling into the pillow between us. I held his hand so he would know he was safe (he's never slept in our bed before - so um wow!). Boy has some RANK breath! Serious morning breath/stuffy allergy nose stank going on in that kids pie-hole. At one point he sat up and flopped head first toward the foot of the bed, promptly putting his knees in my chin and feet in Jon's face. I just sat up, grabbed him, and re-righted his little bones back onto the pillow.

At 7a, Colin woke up and wanted his breakfast. It's typical for me to take him back into the bed to nurse him in the morning and sometimes I even get to leave him in the bed with Jon because our new mattress has a sleep spell on my infant when his belly's full. Well I wouldn't leave him this morning with the squirmy preschooler in the bed (he's hard enough to wrangle carefully away from Colin when awake). But as Colin was finishing feeding, I realized my sweet, sleepy family was all in the bed in the morning light. It's not so bad when it's summertime and there's nowhere for us to go/be. We even had one of the cats in the bed. So really truly, almost my entire family was in the bed (Lily isn't exactly allowed on the bed as that's Poppy's territory - oh well). It was a sweet and special milestone. I did get up and change Colin's diaper (which he loves btw) and as he and I were leaving the room, I heard a squeak, so high and loud, I would have thought I had stepped on a toy. But it was Colin, looking at his daddy and big brother, making the coolest exclamation of joy I've ever heard. I'm shocked the bigger boys didn't wake up.

:)