Valentine's Sweets

Despite the fact that I pin a lot of pastry on my Pinterest page, the truth is, I'm not about to make any of those things. I HATE to bake. Flour gets everywhere, sticky substances like shortening are hard to clean, you have to be exact with measurements, etc. In my opinion, the ROI on baking is low. I love to cook. Hate to bake. 

That's why I'll be ordering my Valentine's Day treats from our recent MommyBeta Podcast sponsor Bake Me A Wish. My husband likes to order Christmas cakes to our family from this site and he received a birthday cake from here last month and it was heaven! This site is great! There are over 25 flavors and they gaurantee delivery on the date of your ocassion. 

Now, I'm not a big romantic when it comes to Valentine's Day. I've been known to spend this evening in the grocery store. But my husband likes to make the effort and make dinner reservations so I figured I should too. But I'm not sifting flour for a holiday that I barely even observe. I'll do that for Santa but not for St. Valentine. For that, I'll break out the credit card. 

Send a cake for your loved ones this contrived holiday 'o' love and let us know how it goes!

Signed, the non-romantic pregnant mommy who is really just in it for the cake! 

Healthy Cake Recipes for Baby's 1st Birthday

Just a couple weeks away until Tazzy’s 1^st Birthday! I’m planning to make a cake but have yet to determine a recipe. I'm looking for a cake recipe that won't give her sugar shock! I'm not opposed to giving Tazzy sugar by any means; I just prefer that for now I focus on natural sugars as she'll have plenty of time for the other stuff as she grows.

I found a bunch of healthy and delicious cake recipes on one of my favorite baby food web sites Wholesome Baby Food. There are lots of options including carrot cake, apple swirl cake, apple spice cake, vanilla cake and more. There are also some great sugar-free recipes at Homemade Baby Food Recipes including applesauce & banana cake, carrot cake, and spiced banana with dried fruit.

And here is another option for a sugar-free carrot cake more that I found from a member who posted on BabyCenter. 

I haven’t yet decided which cake recipe I will use but I am leaning towards making a carrot cake.

You'll notice that a lot of the recipes posted on Wholesome Baby Food call for some sort of granulated or brown sugar. I agree with the folks at Wholesome Baby Food that a little bit of natural sugar isn't going to hurt your baby. It's not like they're going to eat the entire cake...although my little Tazzy might try. She loves her some food! 

Anyway, for anyone interested in making a somewhat healthier version of a cake or even a cake with no added sugar for baby's first birthday check out some of the options above.

And if you have a recipe you’d like to share I’d love to hear from you!

1st Birthday - For us or them?

My little princess at 11 months oldI can’t believe Tazzy is going to be one-year old next month. It’s nuts! People told me that time flies but I had no idea it would go by this fast. At first, I was thinking I wouldn’t have a big party since it’s probably that Tazzy wouldn’t remember but then I thought about it and realized that I want this occasion as a memory. I want to be able to look back at photos and see her at her very first birthday party. 

And then Josh and I realized that this party is more for us than for her. We decided to have a Sunday brunch and invite our closest friends and family to help celebrate Tazzy’s birthday and the fact that we’ve survived and even thrived this first year as parents.  Woo hoo, we made it!

We’ll have little goodie bags for Tazzy’s little friends, a piñata (that we will not break…but since I can remember, I always had one at all of my birthday parties as a little girl) and of course cake. Thinking of making an all-natural wholesome cake – anyone have any recipes??

Aside from that we’ll have food and drinks for the adults. I am looking forward to raising a glass to this last year. It’s been amazing and every day gets better and better.

And a side note regarding invitations. I went back and fourth on whether to mail paper invites, send an email or use Evite. Finally, I decided to use Paperless Post, where you can design and send a virtual invite. More on my experience in a separate post. I digressed.

Anyway, I’m super excited about this first birthday party. Now, I want to hear about your child’s first birthday. Did you do anything? If so, what? And did you feel like the party was really all for them or more for you?