Cooking Blog

Because I had so much success with the carrot cake, I have been considering starting a cooking blog. There are so many cooking blogs lately, I figure I could jump on the band wagon and do my own. I decided to do a test run with chocolate chip cookies. I hired a wonderful assistant and paid her in chocolate chip cookies...she wasn't complaining.
I'll just do step by step instructions on how to make the cookies (because I know how hard it can be to make chocolate chip cookies).
Step 1: Put all the ingredients in the bowl

If you miss the bowl, it is okay. Just hand the mess over to your mom and she will clean it up. (I turned my back for 2 seconds and this is what I came back to)

Step 2: Mix all the ingredients together

Step 3: Copy your dad and try to sneak a bite of the dough

Step 4: Throw a temper tantrum because you got caught trying to sneak some dough

Step 5: Put the cookie dough on the cookie sheet

Step 6: Realize the cookie dough balls look an awful like snowman parts. Build the tallest cookie dough snowman you can.

Step 7: Put the cookies in the oven
(no picture was taken because my assistant is very afraid of the oven and ran away)

Step 8: After tearing out your hair bow for the fifth time that day, enjoy a delicious chocolate chip cookie

And that is how you make chocolate chip cookies!

Not my Battle

Having an 18 month old, I am learning to pick my battles with Addy. When she wants to do something that I don't want her to, I stop and ask myself a couple questions before fighting with her.
1. Is it going to harm or kill Addy?
2. Is is going to harm or kill someone else?
If the answer is no to both, then I really start to question whether it is worth the fight.
My case in point:

I just hope she gets this out of her system while she is young.

Birthday Boy

We went to Zions National Park for Toph's birthday this year.

This girl loved it.

She loved seeing deer for the first time close up.

Toph enjoyed it too. He took the camera from me and started taking pictures of the deer.

Happy Birthday Toph!

The Icing on the Cake

Just to clear a few things up before I start, my name is Stacie Pace. My name is not Julia Childs, Carlos whats-his-name from Carlos' Bakery, or Martha Stewart.  With that being said, I set out on a mission to find the perfect cake for Toph's birthday this year. After looking over a few recipes, I decided on Carrot Cake Supreme. In this recipe, supreme = a supreme amount of sugar and fat. Even though it wasn't the healthiest cake (I'm pretty sure "healthy cake" is an oxymoron)  on the planet, birthdays only come once a year, so I decided to splurge.  

The actual cake baking went off without a hitch, which was a pleasant surprise. When the time came to frost the cake, I was feeling pretty confident about things.  I made the delicious cream cheese frosting and started icing the cake. 

 My assistant could not keep her fingers out of the frosting.

My first problem was that I had made two cakes to stack on one another, but I didn't have two pans that were the same size and shape. I improvised and made one in a square dish and the other in a circle dish. I didn't find this to be a problem until I tried to match them up during the stacking process....it didn't quite work. I wasn't going to let that get me down, and I continued on. As I stacked the cakes and continued frosting the cake, I started realizing that my cake may not look like the picture I saw on the cooking blog.  I just kept adding more frosting in hopes that it would hide my mismatched shapes and less than par frosting skills. I 'll let you be the judge on whether or not that worked. 

I've included the cooking blog picture of the carrot cake so you can have a reference as to what the cake should look like. (Just in case you are confused, the cooking blog picture is above and my picture is below)

All I can say after revealing those pictures is that the cake was very delicious. Toph said this is the best tasting carrot cake he has ever had. 

Here is the birthday boy with the amazing cake. Isn't he so lucky to have such a talented wife?

Hopping Mad

It finally happened. The thing I have dreading for a very long time has finally happened. Addy fell/jumped out of her crib last night.
It all started with a poopy diaper....nothing good comes from a poopy diaper.  I went into Addy's room about 11:30 last night to make sure she was covered. When I walked in the room, I immediately knew she needed a diaper changing. Toph and I were as careful as possible to keep her asleep as much as possible during the diaper changing, but it didn't work.  Addy was wide awake when it was all said and done. I tried rocking her back to sleep, but she was tossing and turning trying to get comfortable on me. I decided to lay her down in the crib which she did not like at all. By the time I reached the door, Addy was already jumping up and down and screaming. I took 5 steps out of her room when I heard the dreaded thump followed by her saying, "owie", and then the screaming continued.  Toph came running up and checked just about every bone in her body to make sure it wasn't broken. He was VERY concerned. Addy, on the other hand, got over it pretty quick. We took her down to our bed because there was no way I was putting her back in that deathtrap.

 She thought it was pretty cool.

So cool that it was over an hour before she calmed down and went back to sleep

I'm afraid Addy will be jumping out of her crib now just so she can sleep in our bed.