The end of an era

Well, folks.  Here we are.  It is baby Hamburglar's birthday.  My baby is now a man.  I've decided the best way to celebrate is to send him out in the woods with the pocket knife I got him at the Bonneville Dam gift shop to kill his first bear.  And make his own diapers from a deer hide.  Or maybe beaver skin.  It's time he put all of the skills he's learned over the past year to use.

Or not.

But we are going to start potty training.  One of my coworkers gave me the potty chair she used for her oldest son.  Yeah, a used potty chair seems kind of gross, but this one sat in her attic for, like, 15 years.  I'm not sure exactly why, but that makes it seem better/less gross for some reason.  I figure that, since Hamburglar is walking now, he can start walking to the toilet.  Now we just need to figure out the best way to go about it.  I'm thinking about just putting him on the toilet every hour so he gets used to it?  I don't know.  more research is needed.

Also, it's the end of my 22 month run of no periods.  I started my period yesterday.  And, whereas it's nice to have a physical sign that I'm not all knocked up again, I'm going to miss not bleeding every month.  I'm converting from a New Mom back into a Real Human.

Hamburglar's birthday was a big hit.  We had his party on Saturday and there were kind of a lot of people there.  We had a barbecue and I set the time from 1-3p.  We didn't start the grill until just after 1 and, if I were to do it again, I would have had Mr. Adventure start the grill a bit earlier and maybe do the pinata while the food was grilling.  But the food was great and it was a hit.

(Ignore the man texting in this picture.  He's the only person we let visit us in the hospital after Chumbercules was born.)


Well, the pinata wasn't a hit.  Because it was a pull-string pinata.  I stuffed it with bubbles, wind-up toys and Minion graham crackers.

I had a friend over on Friday night who helped me do things like: pick up dog poop and make little hot air balloons.

We made the hot air balloons out of paper lanterns I got on clearance at Pier One, some yarn I had lying around, and little gift boxes I found at the dollar store.  And the vases of flowers came from Whole Foods.  Today is Nick the Florist's birthday, too!







After she left, Little Miss Adventure helped me make cupcakes and a cheeseball.  The cupcakes burned.  Because my stove is old and the temperature gauge doesn't exactly work well.  But they were only a little burned, so I rolled with it.









For the cake, I made a Poke Cake.  Kind of.  I used a box of Devil's food cake, baked it, let the cupcakes cool over night (because they were burned and I was contemplating throwing them away).  The next morning, I saw that Mr. Adventure had eaten one of them, so I figured they weren't too burnt to eat.

I made concentrated cherry jello (I only used one cup of boiling water instead of adding a cup of cool water, too) and I poked holes in the tops of the cupcakes with a fork.  When I tried to pour the jello, I made a giant mess.  So, I decided to rip the top/center off of each cupcake and try again.

After successfully jello-ing each cupcake, I made the frosting.  I used vanilla pudding, concentrated (I only used 1 cup of milk to mix it) and beat it with a tub of Cool Whip.  It was pretty good.  Hamburglar got frosting in his eyes.

I also made an angel food/pineapple cake.  It's my go-to cake if I need a desert in a hurry.  You just take a box of angel food cake and a 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple, mix them together in a bowl, pour into a baking a dish and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.  I only set the kitchen timer about half the time, so I'm never exactly sure how long things take.  I also use my hand as a measuring cup a lot of the time, so in half of my specialty recipes, I have no idea what is in them.  Like my hot wings.  People ask for the recipe all the time and I've given it to them, but no one can ever reproduce it.  I think because I do a lot of things by taste?  I don't know.

Anyway, that's about it.  Mr. Adventure has school tonight, so I think I'm going to take the baby on a dinner date somewhere.