Barber Pole cakes Take 2!

One of my first blog posts written was about my attempt to make my husband (who's a barber) a barberpole birthday cake. It didn't quite turn out, to say the least... I chose a difficult recipe while I had no baking skills. It's been a year and a half since then and I've been baking alot more so I thought I'd give it a go!

My husband owns a barbershop downtown called "That 50s Barbershop" and this past July was his three year anniversary of being open. This was a big deal for us as we started the barbershop with nothing and three years was how long we were willing to keep trying to make this little dream of his go. Well, since opening we've never had to worry about making this a successful shop as it's done so well. At three years, the shop is very successful and I couldn't be prouder of my husband. :)

So.. I wanted to celebrate with some yummy cupcakes! I didn't want to have a big fancy barber pole shaped cake because it was soooo hot out that week and well, I have two very small children at home who need alot of my attention. So cupcakes it was and they were delish!

Since Parker is gluten intolerant, I decided to turn our favourite chocolate cake into a gf cake and it was good! I followed her recipe exactly but cut out the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. I replaced those with Pamela's Ultimate Baking mix (equal to the amounts removed from original recipe, just over 1 3/4 c). Then after icing it with chocolate buttercream icing, I piped on some barber poles! I think it turned out great!

Here's a picture of my husband and Parker having a cupcake in the barbershop. What a silly boy Parky is, whenever I said "look at the camera" he would look up at the ceiling so Dave decided to follow suit. :)

Sophie is 7 months old!

Well, she's 7 months and 3 days old. :) This picture is from a few weeks ago but I just love it, we were at Rathtrevor beach and she was having such a good time!

At 7 months (and 3 days), Sophie:

~ has two bottom teeth. (and she has a bottom and a top tooth juuuuust about to pop through as well)

~ army crawls everywhere. This girl is speedy!

~ has started pulling herself up to standing onto furniture.

~ lifts arms up to when she wants up.

~ has started eating solids. We offered her some pieces of food when she turned 6 months but she wasn't too interested so we held off. ABout two weeks ago she started actually eating what was being offered. No baby food here!

~ loves to sleep with mama. She's been nursing more frequently at night but since we cosleep, I can't tell you how many times actually and I don't feel too affected since her waking up only requires me latching her on before drifting back to sleep. Cosleeping and breastfeeding rocks!

~ is still not interested in napping independantly. Naps are hard around here. Uusally her morning nap is a struggle, she wants to sleep with me but Parker's still up so that doesn't work. Often I'll either wear her, take her out for a walk or drive or if she's really tired she'll fall asleep while I nurse her and I can lay her on the sofa for a short whle. The afternoon naps are much easier as she naps with her brother. Sometimes she'll nap for just 1/2 hour but once in a blue moon she'll nap for two hours.

~ is much more vocal. When she's sad she says "dada" or "mum" over and over again.

~ loves to play. She often growls at me when she's feeling playful. Funny little girl!

The slowness of summer

I've been promising to keep up with my blogging but I've been enjoying the slowness and laziness that comes with Summer. That and it's too darned hot upstairs where our computer is!

Our summer has been filled with many beach visits, meteor watching, phosphorescence, camping, visiting with friends, farmer's markets and gardening.

Plus, we welcomed a new member to our family: Cady! She's a Golden Retriever/Border Collie cross who we adopted from a family a few months ago. She's beautiful and kind but not the greatest listener and tends to get overly excited and barky around dogs she doesn't know. I'm contemplating obedience school as I'm a bit clueless when it comes to training older dogs but I'm having mixed feelings about the requirement to spay and have up to date vaccinations for her.

Oh! And we're gearing up to move.. hopefully! We live downtown which I love and it's convenient for Dave and used to be convenient for Ally but since she switched highschools and our desire to be a bit out of town, we're hoping to move to Lantzville. We found a great home on some property that I adore but am waiting to hear back from the landlord. We're up against another family but DAve spoke with the landlord today and he'd like to meet Dave so it sounds like maybe we have it? Ugh... house hunting is stressful!

Anyways... when life returns to a more normal pace and we're hopefully settled into our new home, I hope to resume more posting. I have TONS of recipes to share including some tinctures, teas, exracts and raw food! So enjoy the rest of your summer and I'll see you all (well, the 7 of you! lol) soon!