Cupcakes, Birthday Parties, and Baby Gates | Friday Five

Happy Friday, friends!  I hope everyone has had a great week (and is looking forward to a fun & restful weekend)!

I mentioned last week that I was hoping to get back into the practice of adding some more personal, life lately, update kind of posts around here this year.  If you missed last week’s currently post – it was kind of a catch up on things that we’ve been up to in January so far.

Today, I’m sharing a similar style post with a little re-cap of our week plus some of my favorite things from the last seven days.

Man.  What a week.  We started this week off freezing cold, and ended it with a random warm, but rainy/windy day and it’s back to cold, although not freezing, and sunny today.  That’s North Carolina winter for you.

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Here are some of my favorite things from this week:

1. Baby’s First Birthday Party & A Good Well-Visit

Last weekend, we had our families come over to celebrate baby’s first birthday.  [You can read some of my thoughts on him turning one here from Monday’s post.]

We kept it VERY low-key, like always.  We ordered pizza, made some cupcakes and crispy treats, opened a few gifts, and called it a day.

The boys LOVED having all the grandparents and their aunts and uncles around for the day.  They both got lots of extra attention and play time and we were so thankful to see everyone.

Littlest had his one year well-check Monday morning, and although it was freezing cold and windy, the visit was a good one.  Good health is something I will never ever take for granted when it comes to our boys.

2. Reusable Cupcake Liners

As I’m working on organizing our home this year, I’ve been trying to move more towards less waste and more reusable things.  We’ve used cloth diapers since we had Little and recently started using primarily cloth napkins around here.

So, when we were out of cupcake liners for the Littlest’s birthday, I decided to grab these silicone liners from Amazon.  I got 24 since that’s how many cupcakes I typically make in a batch (and because the package of 24 is only $1 more than the package of 12 so…).

I’ve only used them once but so far, I like them.  And I’m glad not to have to worry about running out or having them on hand when I want to make cupcakes or muffins.

A few notes:

• I lightly sprayed them with cooking spray, even though I don’t think you have to.  But some of the reviews mentioned sticking and I didn’t even want to take a risk of that.
• They did add a little time to clean-up after the party since I had to clean each individual liner, but it wasn’t difficult.
• I just put out a bowl to collect the liners as people ate their cupcakes to keep the mess corralled and make for easy soaking and cleaning afterwards.  This worked out really well.

3. Egg Free Cupcakes that Taste Delicious

One thing I was concerned about when we learned about the Littlest’s egg allergy was his birthday cake.  To be fair, that’s not top of the concern list – but I still thought about it.

After searching on Pinterest and reaching out to some other food allergy moms I know, I found this delicious chocolate cupcake recipe from Sweet Little Bluebird without eggs or dairy.

We tested the cake out the week before the party and it turned out well, so we made the cupcake version for everyone.  I’m glad to report that it was a hit.

Since we don’t have dairy allergies, we just used a traditional chocolate buttercream frosting on the top, but you can skip it if frosting isn’t your thing.

4.  A Baby Gate for the Bottom of the Stairs

So, to be fair – this is probably something we should have gotten a long time ago.  Like before we had two kids.  We’ve always had a gate at the top of our stairs, and we talked for a long time about getting one for the bottom when Little was smaller.  But, for the most part, I was able to keep any eye on him when it was just the two of us at home and soon enough, he learned how to go up and down the stairs safely on his own.

But then there were two.  And I don’t know how babies learn to climb up stairs so quickly, but they do.  And the fact is, I only have two eyes and also things to do around the house and it is virtually impossible to keep eyes on both boys every second of the day.

I knew that the littlest had started being interested in the stairs, and even climbing them with some assistance.

But then, one day, he got to the stairs while I was using the restroom and climbed himself up several of them trying to get to his big brother who had just gone upstairs.  I immediately went up behind him and although I caught him, I wasn’t fast enough to prevent him from falling down a couple of stairs first.

Thankfully, I was there to catch him and no one was hurt, but we ordered a baby gate that night.

He doesn’t love it, but I feel WAY better knowing that everyone is safe.

5.  A New Nap Schedule

A couple of weeks ago, my oldest skipped his afternoon nap (he’s almost 3.5), and then continued to skip his afternoon nap to the point I thought that he might be ready to drop it completely.  [I still tuck him in bed each afternoon with books and his sound machine so he can read.  And I enforce a “quiet time” where he has to stay upstairs playing independently during nap time.  He just wasn’t falling asleep.  He would play and play and still be fine until bed time.]

But then this week, he was on the couch with me and we were reading aloud the Chronicles of Narnia and he just put his little head over on me and fell asleep.  And proceeded to sleep for a full nap.  The next day, he fell asleep in his bed during nap time, and yesterday, he started in his bed, but I found him later in my bed snuggled up taking an afternoon nap.

So maybe we aren’t done with naps after all…and I’m not mad about it one little bit.  I will say though, he went to bed easier and earlier without a nap, so pros and cons…

If your kids have dropped naps, I’d love to know when and how the transition was.  Also, any tips for quiet time?  I enforce the independent play rule, but find myself reminding him often “how much longer” he has for his quiet time.

And that’s what we’ve got this week.  I’m not totally sure what we’ve got in store for this weekend, but I do know that we’re getting ready to transition to all things Valentine’s Day over here on the blog next week, so stay tuned for that!

I hope you all have a really great weekend; I’ll see you back here on Monday!