How to make a Rudolph Birthday Cake.

My son wanted a Rudolph cake for his birthday, so I had to come up with something. I found some ideas on line, but they called for a round pan that I don't have so I had to improvise.

First I baked a large rectangular cake. I guess you can use a mix or use any recipe that will produce a cake that will not fall apart on you when cut and handled. I used this recipe and it was fabulous. Not low fat, but still a lot healthier then some of the other ones I tried :) It need no food coloring at all. I also used a lot less sugar than the recipe called for and it was still mighty sweet. I doubled the ingredients and had enough to have 2 layers with some strawberries and chocolate ganache in between :))

Here's how I cut my rectangle

First I used a pan lid to trace a circle for Rudolph's head. But I left one of the corners on for the nose. Then I cut two leaf shaped pieces for ears, I actually ended up shortening them a little, that was a bit too long. I stuck some popsicle sticks in the ears and then pushed the other end of them into the head - to have them stand secure. Then on to decorating.

The brown is that chocolate ganache that is suggested in the recipe of the whole wheat Birthday cake - SO yummy!!! And the white is your basic cream cheese frosting. The pupils are left over chocolate chips from the ganache and the nose is a large strawberry.

Almost forgot - the antennas are peanut butter cookies that I shaped into that Y-shape. And I had lots of antennas left over :)) Little tip - if you don't want antennas to get soggy, stick them in right before lighting the candles and always have extras just in case your first pair brakes. I left antennas in my Rudolph overnight and they were nice and mushy for the party - still eaten and very much enjoyed :) - especially the part that was inside the cake - MMMMM..! :))

I also stuck that tiny cake in front of Rudolph's nose for the candles, so that he helps blow them out so I don't have to sick the candles in his face.

I am no cake decorator, but that was fun and easy and even with my less then perfect icing job, I got lots of excited kids. They had so much fun picking which part of Rudolph they wanted on their plate! :)

Best smoothie ever!

I think I have just made the best smoothie I've ever tasted (children agree!)
SO, before I forget:
2 bananas
juice of 1 young thai coconut (about 1 cup or more)
1 huge orange peeled (or more, I only had 1)
a ton of organic locally grown hand picked by yours truly only yesterday(ok, just organic will work also) spinach
2 heaping spoons of hemp seed
water or ice to taste.

It was so so good!!!

for all the tandeming mamas out there or those considering it.

We tandemed twice and were even triademing ;)) (is that a word?) at one point. Yes, it was hard (motherhood just is), sometimes I wanted to rip my hair out, but I also cherish the lessons I learned through that. Yes, patience, obviously. But also, living in the moment while seeing the bigger picture clearly.
And the usual things too - when you are tired from puking all day or whatever your pregnancy difficulty is, you toddler is still self absorbed in his/her stressful (the banana has a spot!!!) life and it is the end of the day, it is just a lot EASIER to simply lift a shirt and see the stress just melt away in an instant. Same goes for those days when daddy is working late and it is about dinner time and everyone is just tired - a quick nurse seems to settle everyone nicely, centering the family around this beautiful, bonding, loving and CALM, QUIET activity ;) No hassle, no preparation, no clean up :)
Life saver during the sickness too, when anything else is refused and you are just praising God for the gift of this miracle juice just simply oozing out of your body with no effort on your side whatsoever, that nourishes your sickly baby with increased dose of antibodies, and just the right proportion of all the right stuff that his body needs to recover. Again, at no extra effort from you! It just doesn't get better than this.

And the moments of sibling closeness - that's just the gift for life. No other siblings can bond on this level. No other siblings spend this much time together, on a daily basis, doing something so positive, engaging into tons of skin to skin, looking into each others eyes, stroking each others hair or just holding hands.

We are not tandeming anymore and I can totally testify that the ripping hair days are a lot LESS vivid in my memory than all this. I remember our tandeming as something very special and would do it all over again (and enjoy it a lot more thoroughly!; )). Kind of like parents enjoy their consecutive children a lot more - they understand how fleeting this all is and tend to soak it all up, rather than struggle and fight it :)

And the last word of encouragement.
"1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven (...) 11He hath made every thing beautiful in his time."

God obviously thought it was a great idea to have you experience tandem nursing with your precious blessings right now :)