Time to Chill

Sometimes after a long day of daycare, Tommy likes to relax in his chair.  

I've seen Andrew do the same thing with more of an adult beverage in hand.

Pears are Delicious!

We interrupt this blog about Tommy...

 To bring you MORE TOMMY.

Tommy LOVES baths so much that he tries to climb into the tub himself.  He just can't wait! 

Ok fine, if you won't let me get in the tub, I'm outta here! 

Tommy's Grover Party!! Part Three

So we've covered the decorations, food, cupcakes, allergy free cooking and desserts, infectious diseases... but we HAVEN'T covered the FUN of the party.  

We set up a couple tables in our dining room for chowing down on tacos.  Hi Maria, Mandy and Aunt Erin!

My cousin Christina on the far left and her future husband Josh on the far right were able to come up from Carmel.  Uncle Adam and Great Aunt Debbie are in the middle. Everyone is enjoying the Mexican feast! :-)

My friend Lindsey and her daughter Elise came.  Elise hung out in Tommy's high chair while Tommy was napping for the first HOUR of his party. Way to be fashionably late, Tommy T!

Travis, Drew, Aunt Cait, Gram and Pop all hanging out in the kitchen.

Susan, Nora and Wyatt played with toys.

Drew and Meredith had to leave early so we went ahead and opened their gift.  He got the cutest little sweaters and a pair of jeans. 

He looks like he loves them! Kids love clothes, right?? :) I know PARENTS love clothes! They're my favorite!

He found the chair we got him nestled away with all the gifts.  Yay! Something to climb on!

Aww, Tommy and Uncle Adam!

Isabel loved the cupcakes!

So did Max!!

In fact he made such a blue mess, Ashley had to clean him up.

Lots of kids and lots of toys... it's playtime!

Lindsey and Elise enjoy the show.

Tommy with his squeaking red tennies (Thanks Aunt Meeghan!) plays along while his drooling begins.  It's not too bad at this point. 

"Hey Mom! Can we open presents now??"

It was finally time to open gifts.  Do you think Tommy is surrounded by enough gifts?? It's like a gift fort! I actually had to dig through the gifts to get to him.

It is WAY more fun to bang on the gift boxes than it is to actually open them.

It's also more fun to wave the gift boxes too!

 You have to pay attention when opening gifts.  If you're not careful, you'll end up opening the same sweaters you opened earlier! Whoops.

 

Tommy got LOTS of cool stuff.  He got a super Grover!

He got several riding toys.  He got a bouncy cow. 

Hello Mr. Bouncy Cow!

He got a Wheelie Bull.  Interesting that the kid who is allergic to milk got a cow and bull. :)

He also got CAT Rider truck.  Look at his shirt now.  His drool spot grew a bit, ya think?

 

All cooled off in a Grover short-sleeve, he got back on that truck! BEEP BEEP!

Time for a reading break in the Thomas chair!

Hey who's been eating the Oreo mouths off the cupcakes? As it turns out, it was Grandpa and Pop! They were both eating the Grover mouths!! I should've bought more Oreos!

There were a lot of people and a lot of gifts to open.  Everyone crowded in the living to watch. 

We were really crowded in there.

They were sitting everywhere! Tommy is a popular guy!!

Once the party was over and things settled down, we had some family time.

I think picture is cool.  Tommy loved going UP with Grandpa especially when he could see himself!

Tommy's Thornburg Picture with Aunt Cait, Aunt Erin and Dada.
So Tommy, are you one or six?? ;-)

Happy First Birthday Tommy! Hope you had a wonderful time!! We had so much fun at your birthday party.  Here's to many many more!!

Tommy's Grover Party!! Part Two

Let's get back to Tommy's party.  Before we do that, we need to talk about what lead up to the party.  On Friday morning, I took Tommy to daycare.  He had a little bit of a rash on his face.  It wasn't terrible but it was spreading.  I got a call from Tommy's daycare.  They said they were concerned because the rash had spread to his diaper area and his legs.  I said, OH CRAP and called the doctor.  They said that they should probably see him and just in case he was contagious, bring him in the back door.  The doctor checked him over and said, "I don't see any signs of infection. I think it's just an allergic reaction."  We said, "Are you sure? He has never had a crazy rash like this spread to his diaper area."  I mean, come on, we are the Rash Experts, remember? "Also, we're having a huge birthday party on Saturday with lots of little kids."  He said the same thing again so we believed him and went on with the party plans.  

Friday night he slept pretty well but when he woke up, he looked a little worse than this... 

We were not very pleased.  His rash wasn't getting any better.  Plus it was his first birthday. Waaaahhh! :( His diaper area and legs looked wayyyy worse.  Poor kid. :( So we racked our brains trying to figure out what he had to eat.  We came up with the margarine that I had put in the first recipe of the cupcakes I had made in preparation for his birthday.  (It didn't make sense that margarine would affect him so badly but we went with it.)  

So let's talk about allergy-free baking for a second.  

I searched and googled and yahooed my way through truckloads of recipes trying to find one that sounded decent for a birthday cake (you gotta have CAKE). I finally settled on two.  One recipe uses vinegar to make the batter rise and the other uses cornstarch, sugar and milk (or a milk substitute).  

So I tried the first recipe with vinegar.  It was the one that everyone told me to try and it's all over the Allergy Free Network website.  It is a Depression era recipe which uses no milk or eggs due to the rationing at the time.  

I found the second recipe on a girl's blog (blogs are the BEST).  It was an eggless yellow cake.  I substituted almond milk for regular milk.  

Question: At this point in the story which one do you think tasted better?? :-) 

 So in this picture the corn starch recipe is on the left and the vinegar recipes is on the right.  I made six of each.  Each recipe calls for a stick of butter.  That's a lot of butter in 6 cupcakes.  I used margarine but there's still milk in margarine.  Sorry for that, Tommy.  I was still learning.   Also, I incorrectly thought that I had cocoa powder for the Wacky Cake.  Whoops.  So I added extra vanilla extract to try to make it sweeter.  Just a small mistake.  :-)

 Even the batter looks different (cornstarch bottom, vinegar top).

 I popped them in the oven.

 They began to rise.  Cornstarch was rising a little better than the vinegar.

 Hey, did you fill those cupcakes a little full??? Just a LITTLE.

 Not too shabby!

 I was going to make my own icing until I found that Wilton's chocolate frosting had no milk, eggs or peanuts in it.  SWEET! But, um, what the heck is in it if there's no milk? Yikes.

Mmm, warm cupcakes!

Andrew and I tried both recipes with the frosting.  The cornstarch cake was like a super sweet corn cake. It was pretty tasty! The Wacky Cake tasted like Play Doh.  It apparently really needed that cocoa in it.  BLARGH.

 So the yellow cake it was! Tommy gave it a try sans icing and ATE IT UP.  He LOVED it! He couldn't shove it down his gullet fast enough!

Mmm mmm good! 

So the day of his party, we chose the yellow golden eggless cake.  But Tommy needed to eat his lunch first.  (You may or may not notice that I removed all the rash I could from each photo.)

Peaches?? WHERE'S THE CAKE?? :-)

 There it is!

 He needed a little help blowing out the candles.  He thought about it though. :)

 Then it was time to DIG IN!

 YUM! First time having frosting! Especially CHOCOLATE! MMMM!!

 He didn't go full force with the mess on his face.  I was surprised.

He did make a mess out of his high chair though.  The cake was pretty crumbly so that was easy to do.

 Time to stop for a drink.

 Then back to it!

 Maybe I should try smashing it?

What do I need this plate for anyway?? 

So let's take a step back and talk about the rash again.  We thought it was just an allergic reaction right?? We took Tommy in for his 12 month appointment the Monday after his party and our doctor told us that it was Hand Foot and Mouth Disease.  Double Awesome!! The doctor also said he was probably most contagious Friday and Saturday at the party.  So Tommy probably infected everyone that was there.  Awesome times ten! So I contacted everyone with kids at the party and apologized profusely.  I think the saying is s**t happens.  Well it definitely does.  But it's a fast moving disease and the doctor okayed Tommy to go back to daycare on Monday.  He's scabbing up and healing pretty fast, thank goodness.  Poor poor kid.  

Did I mention he had 3 shots on Monday for his 12 month appointment?  Now we think he's sprouting some more teeth.  Once again, he WILL catch a break... very soon.  Say it with me now... very soon.   

Oh and don't worry.  There are still tons more pictures from the party.  Continue to stay tuned...