Mark it with a “g”

Lots of good things happening with my family right now – my sisters are killing it in the adult-ing category of life.  I’m just plugging away at mom stuff, but the long weekend was nice for visiting with everyone in the East Bay.

P and I made a cake.

It was his idea…and because he is the clever thoughtful boy that he is, he decided that we should “mark it with a ‘G’ for grandma”.

It was her birthday, after all.

This was his first time eating candy.  I’ve blogged about Gimbal’s before (they are allergy free and don’t use nasty dyes), and have used them in various Halloween and Valentine’s baking projects, but P has never really cared about trying them so I just ate them myself.  🙂

Well now he knows what sugar tastes like.

My sheltered hippie boy.  Ha.  Until this point, his only real exposure to candy was at the Stanford clinical trial (he was rewarded with a lollipop after all his scratch testing and blood draws) and then Halloween (I swapped all his trick or treat candy out with allergy free lollipops that he completely forgot about).  And because I use bananas and applesauce to sweeten the things I bake/cook for him, I think this was a shock to his palate.

I could practically see his taste buds blow up.

Anyway.  He helped with every single part of this baking project – from the shopping for ingredients, to the egg cracking, to the frosting.  He did it all.  I helped, naturally, but I was very hands off once I set him up…only polishing up the details.

I think he has a future in the field.

I thought we were done here, but then he wanted sprinkles…soooo…

He had decent aim, but there were so many on the floor…so I just let him find them and eat them (easier than cleaning, right?).

And then he licked off the icing spatula.

And then he didn’t nap.

Whoops!

And they say sugar isn’t a drug?  My kid doesn’t skip naps.  This was something else.  After a few hours we gave up and threw him in the car to drive to my parents’ house.  He fell asleep in the car, of course, so that worked out decently.

Looking as cute as ever.

My dad grilled for dinner and we all enjoyed the nice sunshine.  The pool was cold but the kids seemed content to splash around on the steps regardless.

After dinner it was cake time 🙂

We stayed up well past our bedtimes.  All for the birthday lady.

Kyle and my dad played golf in the morning, so my sister and mom and I went to Bed Bath and Beyond.

Breakfast first. That’s a dinner plate, so the size of sunbutter on top is not for the faint of heart appetite.  The “pancake” I made had two eggs and one ripe banana pulsed in a blender.  It was okay, but was basically just a vessel for sun butter.

I found a million and one things I “needed” from BB&B but made it out without buying one single thing.  Miracle of miracles.

My mom and I went to a nearby park with the kids just so they could play for a bit before going home (I felt bad for trapping V in the stroller all morning).  She is obsessed with slides at the moment.  And then park we went to (Pleasant Hill park) was great!  It was my first time there and I will def be taking the kids back again.

Once Kyle got home and the babes woke up from naps we packed up and shipped out.  Back to Davis!  And thanks to the holiday, we still had basically a full weekend ahead of us. 🙂

It’s ice cream maker season!

Coconut milk, cacao, sugar.  P requested I make it warm next time because this ice cream was too cold for his mouth.  My big boy is getting sugar exposure left and right…only this one he wasn’t that into.  More for me!  🙂  🙂  🙂