Eat Dessert, Not Too Often, and Mostly Homemade

Nutrition blog posts are nice, but photos of food and kids are better, right? April and May are fun months at our house. We've rehearsed the list of birthdays many times with Louisa. First Cora, then Georgia. Next is Louisa and Belle Mere. After that is Dad and Grandpa Jack, followed by Oma!

Birthdays definitely present a reason to bake/make, and so we have! Of course you all saw Cora's chocolate pie mess. Louisa's birthday is tomorrow, but already she celebrated with her "church friends" with these oatmeal creme pies that Nate meticulously created yesterday afternoon.

Tomorrow we'll continue the feast with a peanut butter pie that I can't wait to eat. Here's the description in Joy of Cooking: This may sound like kids stuff, but it's not. The filling is mousse-like and surprisingly subtle in flavor, and the chocolate glaze gives the pie a finished, elegant look. 

Tonight after dinner we went to Safeway to buy some ingredients for the pie. Because she's three (tomorrow), Louisa is always interested in helping. She saw the box of chocolate graham crackers and after I explained that they were for the crust, she said, oh! can I have one crust? We made the crust but had to pause at that point in the recipe because the toys strewn about the floor and the dishes piled up next to the sink went to my head. Bath time! I declared, which was a good call because it filled the remaining time until Nate got home.

Louisa's birthday noshing won't end with the peanut butter pie though. On Saturday, we're throwing a kid birthday party and bringing in the pros: fresh strawberry cupcakes from my friend Heather Lee, who has a little cupcake business: Cake. Simply.

But don't fret! I'm balancing out all these sweets with some tasty, fiber-packed meals to prevent sugar highs and crashes. I found tonight's dinner, black bean and chicken tostadas with sautéed chard from our neighbor, pleasing to the eye, so I snapped a picture:

I'll leave you with a sweet image of the most recent birthday girl, enjoying the wrapping as much as the presents themselves, and a photo that depicts how our dining room has looked since April 11. Nate suggested taking it all down in between the girls' birthdays, but I told him I considered leaving it up until May 23. Check back for pictures of peanut butter pie and strawberry cupcakes!