Quite Possibly the World's Easiest Recipe

...for dessert anyway! Short of someone taking it upon themselves to write out a recipe for eating a raw banana, this has to be the simplest and yummiest recipe I've come across! (seriously Nancy...you can do this one!) Wes and Carol (see previous post) gave me this recipe Monday, and I was so intrigued that I had to try it out right away. It's also the craziest recipe I've tried, as I would never think to put soda in a cake mix (those of you who have done Weight Watchers may have seen this before). The original uses diet soda, but I didn't have any diet soda, just a regular Coke and it turned out fine. I assumed the only difference was natural versus artificial sweetner, but I'm guessing both versions are fat free since there's no eggs or oil. I don't know how it works chemically, but it does. And Rachel affirms the cupcakes' yumminess with many "num num"s when she eats one!

12oz. soda, regular or diet (dark for chocolate, light for white or lemon cake, i.e. Sprite or 7up)
1 box cake mix

Dump cake mix in a bowl. Pour in soda. Beat according to package directions (mine said to whisk for 2 minutes...I didn't bother to break out the electric handmixer). Fill muffin cups that have been lined with paper cups and bake according to package directions (I use an ice cream scoop...it's easy that way). Find something else to do while they cool, or you'll burn your tongue (they also come out of the paper liner better once they're cool, thus keeping as little cake as possible from sticking to the paper cup).

Happy Memorial Day!

We had a nice Memorial Day visiting friends Wes and Carol and their baby Jackson. We hadn't seen him since the day after he was born, so it was lots of fun seeing how much he's grown and how he and Rachel interacted with one another. Jackson is such a cutie pie! Though he's not yet old enough for them to really "play" together, you'll see that they enjoyed meeting one another! She also enjoyed their two daschounds (sp?) Sam and Siren (unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures of her playing with them because she kept moving around in circles!).

holding/shaking hands...she likes a formal introduction I guess

Rachel is very kissy lately, and no one escapes a visit without several kisses!

Some more random pictures from last week...

more pigtail fun!

She looks so much older than almost 18 months to me in this picture.

Watch out when she has this "here comes trouble" look!

My favorite part of this picture (described in the previous video post) is Max in the background wondering why he doesn't have a chair that would give him access to so much meat!

Rachel loves berries of all kinds (thank goodness she's not allergic to any of them!) and she devoured the extra ones I had leftover from Monday's dessert.

When I asked her if they were good, applause was her answer (she's still not talking much and relies heavily on unofficial sign language, grunting, and occasional whining).

Num Num!

Last weekend I cooked a big ham (from which I got many smaller portions of ham for future consumption), and while I had my back turned, someone took it upon herself to try out how it tasted! Her immediate reaction was "num num! num num!", Rachel's latest way of saying she likes how something tastes (and smells...I'm a little worried about that one as this is also her reaction to the Vicks Vap-o-Rub that I put on her chest when she has one of those tickly coughs). And as usual as soon as I turned on the camera she immediately stopped saying it, and I could only get her to say it again after prompting her. Take a look.

My Future's So Bright...

She really likes these sunglasses I got her, but...

...she doesn't keep them on for long.

I got some funny shots of Rachel the other day during a particularly messy snack of graham crackers and peanut butter.

This one would be frame-able if not for the sticky peanut butter and crumbs!

Rachel came down with something this weekend. She ran a pretty high fever and had some tummy problems (no cough, runny nose, or anything else...it was weird). But fortunately the fever only lasted about a day and a half. You can tell in this picture that she wasn't feeling well. She doesn't sit long enough to watch much tv, but she did watch about 20 minutes of The Little Mermaid with me.

Child Labor Laws? What laws?

Hey, see...I gave her a break...time to do some texting and such. :)

New Table and Chair

I had the idea a while back that we'd get Rachel a child size table and chairs for her 2nd birthday, but since she's taller than a lot of 2 year olds already, I figured we should go ahead and get her a set now. We went to my new favorite store, Ikea, this weekend, after a mother's day lunch with Joshua's family, and picked her up this cute table and chair. I had pictured a large plastic type of set, but seeing as how this nice stained wooden one was only $15 more, we opted for this one instead. She loves it! Not only does she do quite a bit at it (as you'll see in the following pictures), she uses the chair as stool to "help" Mama in the kitchen, and it's shorter than the kitchen table chairs she's been using so she's not so high up anymore. And I love the crab seat cushion...she picked it out herself! :)

Here she is "helping' Daddy assemble the table

If that doesn't look like trouble I don't know what does!Trying out the new chair...

Reading at her table...
...snacking at her table...

Lunch with Joshua's mom (I'll be so glad when she finally starts talking and offically starts calling her grandparents something! we'll get to see if everyone ends up getting called what they want to be called!)

I had some help with Sunday breakfast :)
Right after I took away the butter, her comment was, appropriately, "Num! Num!"
Someone stealing the bacon...

Stretch her out on a sofa and I imagine this is what she'll look like as a teenager

Her pigtails are much better now that her hair has grown out some more

I swear, I think she thinks Max is a living breathing stuffed animal! She's always loving on him, when he lets her.

Crawfish and Other Tails

We celebrated Joshua's dad's birthday this weekend with a crawfish boil...much fun was had by all! Here are some pictures from Saturday as well as some other stuff that Rachel's been up to lately.

Rachel enjoying the rocking chair while we watched the men do the cooking this time (most of it anyway)

We had two big pots going that were not dissuaded by either winds or periodic rain showers....

...and steaks and sausage for those of us not eating too much crawfish (I found out Rachel doesn't like steak...yet...she'll learn!)

Here's some of the funny faces she made while her daddy showed her the live crawfish. Thankfully she doesn't understand what happens to them once they hit the pot...I'm not looking forward to explaining that in the future!

I promise I didn't intend for us to be dressed alike!I'd love to know what's going through her head in this picture!

One of her newest tricks is getting into my desk chair...not so much worried about the chair as I am all the chaos she could make out of the chaos already on my computer desk!

Her hair is long enough for a ponytail now :)

She's developed an affinity for blankets recently, sleeping with one in her crib (she cuddles it, not on top of her) and now, whenever she sits in her chair or we sit on the sofa together, she wants this quilt on her.

Silly Lunchtime Fun

I caught Rachel in one of her more expressive moods the other day while eating lunch. She's started mimicking some of our facial expressions and body language.