Goal accomplished -- our big boy!

Playing in the big park in Petaluma, originally uploaded by jessicafm.

Wow, David did it! It has been one month and two days since he last pooped in a diaper. As of this morning, Davey made his goal of pooping only in the toilet for a month. Yay David! He is now very comfortably using the toilet for all his daytime toilet needs, whether it's with his Sponge Bob seat or an adult seat. That's our guy!

As promised, we are now shopping for a big boy bed as his prize. Woo!

To the sous go the spoils

To the sous go the spoils, originally uploaded by jessicafm.

Davey assisted me in making vegan brownie bites this evening. He helped measure and stir the ingredients and then, his favorite part of course, he helped me clean up the spatula and bowl. I'll dust powdered sugar hearts atop the bites this evening and take the bites to Marin Day School tomorrow for their Valentine's Day celebrations.

The brownie bites turned out pretty tasty if a bit sweet and tangy. Hm, more like chocolate cake with chocolate chips than brownies. Still, not bad. I'll experiment with the recipe in the future to get it perfected. Meanwhile, here it is as written in The Joy of Vegan Baking:

1-1/2 C granulated sugar
3/4 C unsweetened apple sauce
2 TB water
2 tsp ground flax seed
1/2 C water
2 tsp vanilla extract
1-1/3 C all purpose flour
3/4 C unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 C nondairy semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Grease an 8x8 inch baking pan (or mini muffin tin as I did).

In a medium sized bowl, stir together the sugar, apple sauce and 2 TB water.

In a small bow or food processor, combine the ground flaxseed with the 1/2 C water. Add this to the applesauce mixture, along with the vanilla, and stir to combine.

In a separate small bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt, chocolate chips and nuts, if using. Add to the applesauce mixture and stir just to combine.

Pour in to prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes. The finished product should be moist. Bake longer if you like a cakier result. Remove from the oven and let cool before cutting. Store leftovers in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or in the freezer up to 3 months.

I'm going to ride!!

I'm going to ride!!, originally uploaded by jessicafm.

You can see here just how much fun we had over the weekend in South Lake Tahoe. Davey and I spent most of the daylight hours, and some of the night, throwing snowballs and otherwise playing in the snow. Mark spent as much daylight time as possible on his board at Heavenly Ski Resort. Sue and Jim Bradford really took care of us as well -- thank you, we love you guys!!

Riding the board with Daddy

Rad little dude

Rad little dude, originally uploaded by jessicafm.