Welcome to baking season!

I've had the pleasure of baking with both R and RUS this year--much easier when I have only one at a time (hence why there are no pictures of them BOTH helping me at the same time, ha-ha!)

Saturday mid-day

RUS has had a bad cold and cough and J was wiped out from hearing RUS cough all night long and get up extremely early in the morning. So we all snuggled on the couch for a few minutes and I snapped this picture.

Note that R is wearing her special baking apron (thank you, thank you Great-Grammy and Aunt L!) because we had just finished kicking off our holiday baking season with a fresh-baked batch of french buttercream cookies. YUM.

The holiday baking so far is going well. We've done sugar cookies (although I still have to frost them), french buttercream, and just tonight I baked two loaves of applesauce bread. Only five more to go!

RUS's Botday Party

 The set up! We ordered subs from an amazing local sub place, baked cake, and had pretzels, candy corn, and (later) sliced apples. Apple cider to drink.

 Close up of the cake.

(in case you're wondering, "10" is 2 in binary. Thank J for that one.

We had some crafts for the kids. Here, we wrapped up various boxes and containers and attached velcro so kids could make their own robots . . . 

and then decorate them!

 We also cut arm holes in paper bags and let the kids color and stamp on them so they could dress up like robots.

 Here's the gang decorating. This was the activity R was most excited about!

 RUS went to town with the pretzels. He refused to take this one out of his mouth, so I have about 10 pictures of him with a pretzel sticking out just like that.

 Always important to get some book-reading done during parties.

 Now, it's time for CAKE!

And here's my birthday boy!! He LOVED his cake! R had to help me blow out the candles, though, since RUS really only wants to blow through his nose (this is how he cools down his oatmeal in the mornings, too) and it wasn't particularly effective at getting the candles blown out.

R's Chocolate Bar Cake

I'm having a neighbor over who just adopted the sweetest, cutest, tiniest little baby -- they got word that they had been chosen to bring him home and dropped everything and went up to the hospital for his birth and then lived in a hotel for a week until they could officially, officially bring him home. Just a few weeks ago, the 30-day waiting period, during which the birth mother could still change her mind, ended, and he became legally theirs.

Anyway, she's coming over tomorrow. I made my mom's amazing streusel coffee cake to serve when she visits and R helped me (recipe at end of post, for those who are interested).

R is such a good helper. She knows how to mix and stir and clean up messes and she's just really great to work with in the kitchen.

After we were finished making the cake she wanted to make another cake for her friends. I told her no, we didn't have all the ingredients.

She insisted, "But Mommy, we only need three nuts!"

I said, "Only three nuts?"

And then she recited the following recipe for "Chocolate Bar Cake." I share it with you all here.

R's Chocolate Bar Cake
3 nuts
1 scoop of sugar
2 scoops of cream
3 chocolate bars
3 scoops baking powder
2 scoops popcorn

Directions:
1. Chop the nuts.
2. Mix everything together.
3. Cook for 50 minutes.


Grandma's Awesome Streusel-Filled Coffee Cake
3/4 C sugar
1/4 C margarine
1 egg
1/2 C milk
1 1/2 C flour
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease square 9x9 pan. Mix sugar, margarine, and egg together. Stir in milk. Blend dry ingredients in a separate bowl and add to wet mixture. Spread half the mixture in the pan. Sprinkle in half the streusel mixture (below). Add remaining batter and sprinkle remaining streusel on top. Bake 25-35 minutes.

Streusel mixture:
Mix together 1/2 C brown sugar, firmly packed
2 T flour
2 t cinnamon
2 T butter, melted
1/2 C chopped nuts