Destruction… milestones… and The Best Chocolate Bundt Cake Ever

So the ‘every-so-often’ non-napping day has turned into the ‘rarely do my daughters nap at all’ day.  They’ve taken to some rather interesting antics whilst confined to their room for a couple of hours of “rest”.  I walked in to this one afternoon last week:

Yes, that is the curtain rod and YES two of the anchored brackets have been PULLED OUT OF THE WALL.  Do I have little girls or little monkeys?  M fessed up to pulling, hanging and likely swinging from the curtains.  When asked why she just grinned at me.  This was after having been in “rest time” for a couple of hours, and after my little mama-freaking-out-tirade over the curtains (I know, pointless – they’re only three) both of my munchkins suddenly became all tuckered out and practically passed out in their beds.

The following day, and totally unrelated, I decided to finally nip in the bud the long standing pacifier attachment that I’ve been dragging my feet over for a good couple of months.  The week of their third birthday back in August, we worked on dropping the paci (or as it’s fondly referred to around these parts – the “bahboo”) during nap time.  To say it was difficult is an understatement; potty training was easier than this.  And it honestly felt like infant sleep training all over again, only this time with very strong-willed and opinionated little ones, who were quite frankly pissed off that I was taking away their security.  After that week or so of hell I was in no hurry to finish the job and ditch the bahboos altogether.  I talked to them about it a lot and always with the disclaimer of “maybe tonight will be our last night of bahboos” but never put my money where my mouth was until last week.  I gave them a brief warning the night before and come morning we made a little ceremony out of it immediately after they woke up, complete with homemade pouches to ship their bahboos off to cousin Zalyn – because she’s a baby, and only babies use pacis.

Gotta love the bedhead!

At the post office, ready to mail the bahboos to cousin Zalyn.

And last but most certainly not least, the Hubs celebrated the big 3-7 last week.  We did a family dinner out at a local Italian restaurant, and then back home for birthday cake and candles.  While I try to not eat cake too often, I’m always up for an excuse to bake one and I don’t mess around with some light or low-fat version.  Bring on the butter and sugar.  I decided on this recipe from one of my favorite go-to sites for high-quality baking, Joy the Baker.  She refers to this cake as the Best Chocolate Bundt Cake Ever and by god she’s right.  I think he thought so too.

“It’s glorious!”

We’ve been chipping away at that cake every couple of nights over movies and DVR’ed television shows, and as it will soon be my undoing I plan to promptly slice and freeze the remaining two-thirds of a cake’s worth tomorrow.  Just so I can open the freezer and stare it down every so often.

A close second

Our days of take-out for dinner multiple nights each week have declined dramatically since we’ve been out here, thankfully.  Having all four of us under one roof again has rekindled my desire to cook (which is quite relaxing for me actually), inspired more creativity with morphing leftovers into something we’ll actually eat again, and motivated me to get us all around the table for a family meal.  And let’s be honest: it’s friggin’ expensive to live out here so however I can stretch a dollar, I’m game.

BUT, there is the once in a blue moon evening where the Hubs gives me “the look”, and I look back at him and practically in unison the cooking plan in scrapped and we opt for burgers after the munchkins are in bed.  I went 13 years of not eating red meat before I got pregnant with the girls (yes, 13) and once I gave in to the cravings I’ve never turned back.  The anti-red meat spell was happily broken back in the spring of ’09 at none other than Five Guys.  We even took a picture to honor that day (sigh).  The Hubs practically danced on the table at the prospect of FINALLY getting to show off his manly grilling skills with an honest-to-god steak, as it had no place on our grill prior to then.  Really, who wants to grill a lonely little steak all by itself next to some veggie burger?  That poor steak would be offended. So from that point forward Five Guys has held a very special place in my heart and stands on a pedestal high above any other burger contender.  There really wasn’t ever a close second.  Until now:

Ah yes, the In-N-Out burger, Cali native and also the first drive-thru hamburger stand in the state back in 1948.  Burger history lesson of the day… check.  Quite a different concoction than the Guys’, but in my humble opinion, officially giving them a run for the money in this house and hereby added to the list of Cali love.