A Lesson on How to Make Apple Bread

We uh, have a lot of apples. 

In terms of measurement, I'm pretty sure we have somewhere between a peck and "holy shit that's a lot of apples". 

So obviously we had to get busy with ridiculous made from scratch apple recipes that are paraded all over Pinterest. Fall is basically the only season that I really can handle daily June Cleaver kitchen endeavors. What can I say, I'm a sucker for anything that will make my house smell like cinnamon and baked goods. 

Last night the kids and I made apple bread. Stupid simple recipe that we found on Pinterest (posted below). Strangely, the kids were completely engaged with taking turns dumping ingredients and stirring. There was no fighting or fit throwing when it wasn't their turn. 

...What?! I know. I said it. No fighting.

Their favorite part was cracking eggs. I've never let the kids crack eggs before. You would think I had given them permission to paint the house, they were so excited with it. 

I hope I don't wake up one morning with all my eggs cracked all over the house.

Here's a step by step of our apple bread, adapted from Pinterest. Personally, I would recommend doubling the ingredients for the bread but NOT doubling the cream cheese topping, as the bread didn't rise very much and the cream cheese was a little overwhelming for my ridiculous picky kids. 

You will need:
- 2 large apples (or 3 small apples), peeled and chopped
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin spice seasoning

For the cream cheese topping:
- 6oz cream cheese (room temp)
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Combine chopped apples, oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla into mixing bowl. Give your minions helpers some spoons and tell them to stir. 
3. Sprinkle amazing sibling dust over said minions so that they will somehow be so nice taking turns dumping ingredients with each other that you're convinced Supernanny made an appearance in your house when you weren't looking.

4. Add flour, baking soda, pumpkin spice and salt. Mix well and pour into loaf pan. 

5. Mix together cream cheese, egg and sugar. Pour over batter. Poke holes in the batter to let it seep in, if desired. Put a loose foil tent over the top

5.5: Thank your lucky stars that you realized you pulled sour cream out of the fridge and not cream cheese, BEFORE you stirred it in the mixing bowl. Yikes. 

6. Eat apple pie for dinner and watch Despicable Me while letting bread cook for 30 mins. Eat without pants for a more exciting experience. 

7. Remove foil tent and continue cooking for 20 mins or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool before slicing.

Here's the original recipe. The link to the recipe is http://todayscreativeblog.net/apple-recipes/

Apple Bread:

You will need:
- 2 large apples (or 3 small apples), peeled and chopped
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin spice seasoning

For the cream cheese topping:
- 6oz cream cheese (room temp)
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup sugar

1. Preheat oven 350 degrees F.
2. Chop your apples into small pieces or grate. Place into a large mixing bowl. Add oil, cup of sugar, eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Gently fold in flour, baking soda, salt and spices until wet. Pour into prepared loaf pan.
3. Combine cream cheese, sugar and egg either with a fork or mixer. Pour over the top of the batter. Using a fork or knife, gently swirl the two layers together.
4. Bake for 30 min with a loosely covered tin foil tent. Remove foil and continue to bake an additional 15-20 min until a toothpick inserted into bread comes out clean. Allow to cool before slicing.

Apple Picking

Although NO one would believe it since it's 80 degrees around here, it's late September which means it's fall and FALL means apple picking!

We drove up to the "mountains" of Julian, California today (which is apparently well known for it's apple orchards and apple pies) with friends, up a horrifically winding road that combined with sitting in the back seat and my headache medicine just about killed me (which it didn't, but it did force my poor friends to pull over so I could be that friend that pukes on the side of the road...we'll see if they invite me to anything else ever again....). We got there right when the orchard opened so we had the entire place to ourselves. Eating while picking was encouraged, and we took full advantage of it. Especially Camden, who personally test-tasted every apple by taking a single bite of each one and putting it in his bag. I ended up having to dump half his apple bag out to replace with non-eaten apples. 

Commence photo dump:

By the end of the day, we brought home a shit ton of apples...

...and some treats. Including an entire apple pie which I ate half of for dinner. 

Red Letter Day

So I decided that since I can't seem to get ahold of anyone regarding speech therapy approved preschool for Cam in this city (seriously people? I'm leaving my phone number. Call me back) and private preschool around here is a million trillion dollars (a month), I decided I was going to take matters into my own hands and do a little at home school time with him while Calen is at school. Not a ton, maybe an hour out of a day. Since the kid is SO unwilling to learn (he doesn't have time for crap like the alphabet or colors!) I have to start with the serious basics. 

Since he's still pretty iffy with his colors, I decided to start with the color red for this week. I'm not a very motivated teacher anyways so colors are easy for both of us. This morning we started with the colored Cheerios (sold at the NEX for a buck a box!) sorting game. He sorts them just fine so my questions of whether or not he's color blind has been answered...he's not. 

After that I took some rice that I had colored red last night (2 cups rice + 2 tbs vinegar + food coloring + shake shake shake in a ziplock bag + lay out on wax paper to dry = colored rice) and poured it in a baking dish and let Camden play "construction site" with it. Good ol' fashioned sensory play. I'm turning into some sort of hippie recycling homeschooling mom or something.

Note: I have NO INTENTION of homeschooling either child EVER. Sweet for the people that have the patience and energy and compassion for it but it's not my thing. Why won't they call me back?! Also I do happen to recycle.

We then had lunch on the patio featuring red raspberries and strawberries, and Cam ate while I read him "The Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear." It's a favorite in our house and it was appropriate for the day. 

We finished our little red splurge with painting with red paint, including making handprints. Later when we start doing alphabet stuff I'll have him decorate it with alien stickers. After all, "A is for Apple" is SO last generation. A is for Alien people!

His little chubby MAN HANDS

And that was it for the day. Cam liked the special one on one attention too, and listened pretty well. I have a few more "red" projects for tomorrow and then we'll try to confuse him by adding a color to the mix. 

Pajama Party

I had this crazy insane idea to you know, cook dinner tonight. Then I decided instead to put pajamas on early (new pajamas...I love how something like new pajamas still entertains them at this age), watch old Mickey Mouse shorts on Netflix and have popcorn for dinner. 

I'm so high class. 

At least I didn't take them to Walmart in their pajamas.

(their pajamas aren't old and dingy enough to take them to Walmart yet)

The First Day of Kindergarten

I don't know how it happened. Ten minutes ago Calen was this big:

And now he's THIS big?! 

Nope, definitely not. Someone took my adorable, squishy little baby boy while I was sleeping, and replaced him with an equally adorable but enormous big kid. 

I blame aliens.

First day of school photo dump. (actually I took these photos last week. Who wants to deal with a photo shoot on the first day of school?? Let's be reasonable.

Also, I got to meet Calen's teacher today and see his classroom. The teacher is very nice. The classroom is reasonable. It's just, a big class. There are 27 kids and only one teacher and NO aids. I'm concerned, to say the least, that if Calen has any issues with anything, he won't get the attention he needs or deserves. Of course we are coming from an elementary school in Cape May where his class last year consisted of 11. With 2 aids. It's so different here. I miss our small town. 

At his seat in his classroom!

Calen of course loved school as he always does. Camden was absolutely crushed that we had to leave Calen at school without him. It's been a long summer and they've been inseparable. So I took Cam to the science center in Balboa Park. It was busy but a lot of fun, and special for Cam that he got to do something without his brother. And speaking of, when Calen isn't around, Cam is a whole other person. He was actually sharing and even bigger taking turns with other kids at the science center. Willingly. Like it was his own idea. A parent commented on how good he was at sharing and taking turns. I looked at her like she had mashed potatoes up her nose. She clearly doesn't know Camden. But it was so nice to get a compliment about him instead of the usual "how old is he? Oh THAT makes sense." comments I get about him. 

It's the Last Day of Summer Vacation!

I'll be honest, I'm almost sad about our carefree summer days coming to an end. Not caring when we roll out of bed (I say "we" but I mean "I", since my kids wake up at 6am. I feed them breakfast and then snooze for a couple hours while they play) No set bedtimes as we are often out late doing fun activities. Living on the beach and at the zoo. Ahh, I will miss it. But then the kids will start fighting and not sharing and asking me ten thousand ridiculous questions and it's all I can do to not shout "When on earth are you going to SCHOOL?!" Okay, I'm ready for school tomorrow. 

I had big plans about today. After all, it's Calen's last day before Kindergarten. I thought we would get up early and go to a restaurant for a big breakfast. Then I decided that was stupid since the kids get up before any restaurant would ever open and demand food immediately. So I made them oatmeal and told them to deal with it. Sign me up for parent of the year awards. 

I also forgot that I had to pack not only a lunch but a snack for Calen tomorrow, and conveniently we decided to run out of groceries on Labor Day, aka "Don't Go To Any Store Ever EVER Day". So after an hour grocery trip to get bologna and juice boxes, we drove straight to In N Out to treat ourselves with an animal style burger (for me) and a strawberry milkshake (for them). I decided to park on the street to be an asshole to through traffic to give the kids more room to ride their scooters and bikes in our front driveway area. Also we had fun with sidewalk chalk. I couldn't resist this Pinterest idea. 

My BABY!!! Waaaah

After lunch we went to the beach, because is there any better thing to do on the last day of summer? Unfortunately every military family in San Diego had the same plans so there wasn't a ton of room to play on the sand today, but we made do. Also because of the storms last week the amount of seaweed or whatever that crap is was abhorrent, but it would clear out every once in a while and we would jump in for a quick swim before it returned (well Calen and I could. Camden still has a deep seeded fear of the ocean). 

It's been such a fun summer. One for the books!

365 Days in SD, Day 80 (yesterday): Bouncing Around and Nighttime at the Zoo

First of all, how nice is it to finally live in an area where Groupon actually means something? 

A friend and I bought some Groupons to a local inflatable bouncy place. Lots of big bounce houses, slides, even a couple water slides. Calen went down a I-shit-you-not two story water slide with his 4 year old friend and while I was convinced they would both panic, they absolutely loved it and did it maybe five times. 

Seems legit

That night, we once again did the zoo.

When you live ten minutes away from the world famous San Diego zoo, it's not hard to spend a lot of time there. By a lot I mean a lot. We usually find ourselves there once or twice a week. The way the math works, when we bought our not-cheap annual membership, if we went more than twice in a year, we would pay for our membership. So since we've only been here two and a half months and have gone to the zoo something like seven or eight times, I think we've gotten our moneys worth. 

And since the zoo is bigger than any two zoos combined ever, there's something new to see each time. Literally, each time. 

My favorite part of the zoo here is their summer program called Nighttime at the Zoo, which means that they stay open later than normal, until 9pm. Since all the animals wake up after dark, it's far more exciting. We haven't been to the zoo in the normal daytime hours yet. Generally we eat dinner then head over around 5:30 or 6. 

Nighttime at the Zoo ends on Labor Day, and since that's a school night for Calen (booooooo....hisssss), we decided that last night was our last nighttime zoo run. 

Acting like seals. Watch out for that polar bear!

On the skytram at the zoo at sunset

Pink lights shining on the flamingoes at night made them look like they were glowing

Each time we go, we walk past this booth where this incredibly talented artist hand paints these beautiful names with animals painted in. Even though it was absurdly expensive, I finally decided to just do it. After all, we might only have ten months or so left here. And what better keepsake from this city for the kids than their names gorgeously painted at the infamous San Diego Zoo?

Both boys got to pick which animals they wanted, and it only took an hour to paint both of them. 

Calen's

Camden's. He picked all his own animals, and I was impressed!

365 in SD Day #79: Playing Hookie

Today is Thursday which generally means 5 o'clock tball practice for Calen. 

Can I take a moment to whine about a 5pm-6pm practice time slot? Do the people who determined this schedule you know, ever eat dinner? Or expect 12 five year olds to perform well at the end of a day during dinner time? Especially after I have to force dinner down his throat at 4pm in order to make it to practice on time (and then feed him a second dinner right before bed since he ate dinner too early). Okay, I'm done. 

By the time we got home from Calen's kindergarten orientation (don't even get me started on the disappointment that is California schools) at 9:30 in the morning, it was already 85 degrees. So the kids had popsicles for brunch and I made an executive decision that there was no way my kid was going to practice baseball on a shadeless field in 90 degree heat. Besides, we had far better things to do today.
Like go to the beach! Obviously. 

Due to an offshore hurricane down in Mexico, the crazy violent surf made it a "red flag" day (the lifeguards, for those unaware, post flags describing the swim conditions each day. Green means gentle surf, yellow means strong swimmers only, red means holy shit stay out of the water swimming prohibited). So even though we couldn't really swim (I may or may not have broken the rules and dived in a couple times just to cool off), the kids and I still jumped the shallowest waves and played in the sand. 

The newly found almost-surfer in me wanted to grab a board and try the waves out. Then I came back to reality and remembered I've only actually successfully stood up on a surf board like six times. Ever. In baby wussy waves. 

Yeah...no.

Playing on the beach....look at those bigass waves!

Calen the sand monster!

Camden created a new game called place his toy Coast Guard boat in the sand, then run away from it like it's a lighted firework with a short fuse. When the waves would come in, the boat would "sail" all the way up the beach. Rinse, repeat. For three hours. 

Calen really wished he had a toy boat to use so he found a piece of wood that he called his "boat". It floats and works just as well and even though it's not nearly as super awesome as Cam's real toy boat, Calen was just as content and thrilled with the game. Which just proves to me that even in 2014, little boys can make toy boats out of driftwood and have just as much fun as the newest gadget. 

Calen's super rad driftwood boat (smothered in sand)

Way better than tball practice. 

Everything Is Awesome! (Legoland, CA)

Probably the best (and most dangerous for this Lego obsessed family) of living in San Diego is having none other than Legoland, California less than half an hour north of our house.

Ummm, THAT'S happening. 

We had decided to save it for the short 2 week period that Brad has here at home before he deploys again. We had planned on going next week, but I woke up with a serious Legoland itch this morning and made an executive family decision that we were going NOW. 

We've went to Legoland Florida during our Disney vacation this past fall. Which was a blast and all, but the park here in Cali has it beat by a mile. It's bigger, it has more to do, and it has a rocking water park. (This opinion is skewed, partly due to the fact that we went in fall/winter in FL and was closed for the season, so I can't really compare).

We opened the park at 10am and left an hour before closing at 7pm. We hit the water park first per the Internet's request. The theory is the waterpark is less busy in the morning and completely PACKED in the hot afternoon. It was correct. How did we plan anything ever without Google? Someone give it a Nobel Peace Prize.

The water park itself is just rad. There are areas with flowing water ways and piles of Lego Duplos to build custom boats and see if they will make it all the way down the water way. Or take some giant foam Lego bricks and connect them to your intertube on the lazy river to create your own raft. And then go do all the normal water park stuff (slides, wading pools, etc), but add Lego animals, Lego people (sorry, minifigs. I still don't get the name) and Lego bricks absolutely everywhere. 

People probably thought I was mentally handicapped, since I would notice something throughout the park that would remind me of a Lego set of my childhood and giggle to myself loudly. 

Cam was being pissy about the water until he found this Lego alligator. Then he gave it a smooch (for good luck?) and actually started to swim. Ooookay.

Post water park and lunch, we went to the standard part of the park. Lots of rides, some shows, Lego Movie characters (still mad that Batman didn't make an appearance), and monsterous Lego structures wherever you looked. Oh and uh, gift stores. Everywhere. Lego gift stores. Dangerous for mom and dad the kids.

It's Emmett!! AWESOME.

I could have just gone without the kids and totally been okay. 

It's a Legossaurus

They had these Lego building pits everywhere

The best part of Legoland (in CA or FL) is the Lego city. Real U.S. cities are built to scale, some buildings (particularly in Lego NYC) easily would surpass my ceilings in my house. Calen and his little engineering mind went absolutely bananas in the cities. You could see his eyes light up and the gears start turning inside his head. I told Brad he should work for Lego. Brad said "uh yeah so we can get free Lego sets!" We are on the same page when it comes to parenting.

Lego NYC

Lego Rushmore. And now that we've seen this version, who needs to go see the real thing??

Lego San Francisco

It was just an awesome awesome day. We left talking about if we could afford annual passes (we can't) and watched Cam fall asleep in the car eating Doritos (mid chew...found that used chip in his mouth later....gross) and Calen fall asleep holding a book up to his face. Now that's tired. 

And the best part? A short half hour drive home. 

I can say, if you aren't into Legos, shame on your face!! then you probably won't geek out about this theme park as much as say, my family did. It's still fun, especially for kids, but don't go looking for super thrilling rides or crazy rollercoasters. The whole point of the park is Legos. This sounds obvious but I overheard some people complaining that "there isn't anything non-Lego to do here!" (ummm....why are you here??). If you aren't into it, avoid it. If you are, brace yourself for awesomeness.