Carter was born almost two weeks late—nearly 10 pounds with big, blue Mommy eyes and a full head of hair. His eyes are now hazel like Daddy’s, and his curls grow so fast that he asked Annamae, who gave his his first haircut at four weeks, to cut them all off this time!
New Year's Eve at the Hiller
Bye-bye curls—new year, new look!
Apron on and ready to bake
Carter's turn to crack an egg
Beyond excited, delirious with anticipation, and somewhat crazy describe Carter when it comes to getting together with other kids. He was at a small home daycare until he went to kindergarten, he’s a very social only child, and we work full time, so a playdate is a rare and cherished event. Yesterday, his friend Jade came over, and they tore up a patch of dirt in the backyard, ran after copious amounts of bubbles (not to name drop, but Gymboree bubbles really do last longer), baked brownies, and while the brownies were baking mopped up the dirt they had tracked in. Funny, how cleaning up can be fun when it’s part of playtime!
Obviously, from the Baking with Carter theme, I believe strongly that baking with kids is a great way to have fun together, to develop skills ranging from dexterity to tactile awareness, to learn everything from math to chemistry, etc., etc. It’s great to meet another parent, like Jade’s mom, Jennifer, who understands why kids should play with raw eggs. Needless to say, it was good that my favorite brownie recipe has two eggs to crack, since both kids are pros.
Because this brownie recipe uses cocoa powder, rather than melted chocolate, it’s ideal to make with kids. Here’s the recipe again, for easy reference:
Favorite Brownies
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter (one stick, room temperature)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons oil
6 tablespoons cocoa
3/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease or line an 8-inch square baking dish with parchment paper or foil coated with cooking spray. Using an electric mixer, beat sugar and butter until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla and oil, beating until the mixture is smooth and fluffy. Add the cocoa powder in three parts, mixing well after each addition. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and salt together. Add the flour mixture to the the cocoa mixture in two or three parts, mixing well after each addition. Pour batter into pan and spread evenly. Bake for about 20 minutes; do not overbake.
Adapted from Cooking with Amy
Carter on a bigger big-boy bike (Christmas 2011)
Carter’s first Christmas ride (2005). What a difference six years make!Even with a sweet tooth that rival’s mine, Carter likes tart cranberry sauce, or at least the lower-sugar orange cranberry sauce that’s become a tradition for holiday meals at our house. It’s hard to believe I blogged about the original orange cranberry sauce recipe two years ago—hard to believe I’ve been blogging that long! I’ve made a few tweaks—including all the zest from an orange, which is my favorite part, and using all orange juice and no water. All this orangey-ness freshens the taste, I think. Let me know what you think.
Orange Cranberry Sauce
12.5-ounce bag of cranberries
1 cup orange juice, preferably fresh-squeezed
3/4 cup sugar
zest of one large orange, peeled in strips
5 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
Combine all ingredients in a saucepan over high heat. Bring to a boil. Turn heat to low and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the cranberries pop and mixture thickens to desired consistency, approximately 30–60 minutes (I like to simmer it a long time, but you don’t need to). Remove the cinnamon stick and cloves (if you can find them!). Cool in a bowl (the sauce will set).
Jeff has been the parent baking with Carter lately. He discovered this gluten-free, low-carb, higher-protein recipe for chocolate chip cookies from Healthy Fellow. I’ve happily (and quickly) consumed the results. Last night, Jeff and I baked the cookies together. By this afternoon, they were all gone—not even one left for a photo.
A vanilla note: The original recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of vanilla, to mask the almond taste and increase the antioxidants. With this batch I used 2 teaspoons—I like the almond taste—so if you’re running short on vanilla, rest assured, it’s a forgiving recipe.
A sweet note: It’s likely that you don’t have the natural sweeteners erythritol and stevia in your pantry. If your grocery store doesn’t carry them, try a health food store. It’s worthwhile to seek them out and experiment with them as a sugar substitute in other contexts; for example, Jeff replaced sugar with stevia for his coffee quite a while ago.
Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies
3 cups almond flour, sifted
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup butter, preferably grass-fed, melted
½ cup erythritol
1 teaspoon powdered stevia
2 eggs, preferably organic omega-3 room temperature (place in bowl of warm water to bring to room temperature more quickly)
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
½ cup dark-chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper (or silicone baking liners
Adapted from Healthy Fellow
Taking the stress, obligation, and anxiety out of teacher gifts. That’s the topic The Happiest Mom*, Meagan Francis, tackled today. As I was commenting, I figured why not weigh in on my own (albeit much-neglected) blog.
At our school, the head classroom parents take up a collection (give what you want) for the teacher and aide’s gifts. This works for me, but I’m not off the hook because Carter goes to two different after-school daycares. On-campus Kids’ Club (Monday through Thursday) has a staff of four. On Friday, Carter goes back to Lucy’s house, the home daycare where he’s gone since he was 20 weeks old, so I needed gifts for Lucy and for his Russian teacher (why Russian is a story for another blog).
I firmly believe you don’t need to spend a lot of money to show appreciation. My goal: something practical (nothing to dust) with a personal but easy-to-do presentation. For example, last year, I wrapped up a jar of deli mustard with a fresh store-bought baguette in bright tissue paper, which I tied closed with colorful ribbon. But quizzing the mustard buyer at Draegers’ at the very last minute caused much anxiety and didn’t leave time for Carter to take part.
This year, I bought handmade, but inexpensive felt appliquéd cup cozies (eco cardboard sleeve substitutes) at a fair in October. I paired each with a Starbucks gift card in a large square blank holiday card, inside which Carter drew pictures. He also addressed and decorated the envelopes. A gold star for one job well done. Now if I could just check something else off my list…
I edited Meagan’s book with Parenting magazine: The Happiest Mom—makes a great gift, too!* Half off until the end of the year or from Amazon
While I applaud the PC nature of Crayola’s “multicultural” crayon set, next time, I suggest the product-development folks think about flesh colors—picture actual skin tones. Really, a white crayon and a black crayon? For the record, in the limited crayon palette at school, Carter reaches for the orange crayon when he draws himself.
“Mommy, I’m almond, you’re white chocolate, and Daddy’s dark chocolate.” When a conversation with Carter about why my paler skin would burn without sunblock took this turn, I correctly guessed his kindergarten class had read a book about skin color.
The book turned out to be Shades of People
“Have you noticed that people come in many different shades?” is the opening sentence of Shades of People
At the start of the school year when Carter and his classmates drew self portraits topped with yarn hair, I was happy to see that they had various shades of paper to choose from. Carter used a tan that’s, well, pretty close to almond.
When Carter and I read Shades of People
Thanks to the the Paper Moon Facebook page, I got 25 percent off my whole purchase—tie-dyed scarf, patchwork headband, letterpress thank-you notes, glass rings, sticky notes with illustrated stilettos, etc. If you’re in Reno, go visit The Paper Moon. The store is in the shopping center at 550 West Plumb Lane, not far from downtown.
Lesson learned: From now on when I travel, I will check to see if Design Sponge has a city guide for my destination.
A huge thrill for me was seeing that Paper Moon carries my book Parenting magazine’s Pregnancy Planner: Essential Advice for Moms-to-Be
Whenever I say a book is “my book,” the inevitable next question, which the lovely store clerk asked: “Did you write it?” The answer is, I’m not the author, but…With the beautifully illustrated books I work on, it’s hard to explain how much creativity and hard work the editorial, design, and production teams invest in a book, how much we collaborate, and how proud we are of the final product. It’s ours. Buy a Pregnancy Planner for an expecting mom, and you’ll see what I mean. And if you’re Reno, you where to find it.
Puppy Spot (aka Carter) and Mommy on Halloween 2010
Carter is perfectly capable of getting himself dressed in the mornings. Yesterday, he put on the Dalmatian-print flannel pants from his Halloween costume, usually reserved for PJs. Some parents might disagree with his choice, but I didn’t care. I’m not a morning person, so I’ve been overly sympathetic to Carter when he’s a sad sleepyhead, like Mommy. Even though I know that I shouldn’t, I’ve even dressed him on particularly late, weepy mornings. But this week, I’ve been managing, though not happily, to get myself up and out of his way. I forced myself to practice what I preach in parenting books: Step back, stop nagging, and tell Carter that I trusted him to get himself ready.
And he did. Good puppy!
