Naturally Optimistic

The past couple of days have been great. Having my Dad here was just awesome. He's so good with Dahlia and it's so nice to have an extra set of hands around the house so we can just do general putzing...like making more formula & washing bottles. He also took the 4am feeding each morning which was INCREDIBLE. AND the 7:30 or 8:30 feeding so I got to totally sleep in - awesome! I'd get up to check on them and he'd say - go back to bed. I seriously wish he could move in!!! Dahlia was on her almost best behavior when Grandpa was here...Sunday night she went to bed at 8:30pm with no problems! She slept until 1am!! Last night she went down at 9:00pm (again no problems), I fed her from 10:30 til 11:30 or so and then she slept until 4am!! It was awesome! I woke up at 3:30 in a total panic because she hadn't woken up yet. Of course I had to sneak in her room to make sure she was still breathing. Luckily I didn't wake her up. My Dad brought food with him and ingredie...

For Christmas, my Mother-in-Law gave me this book that had been on my wishlist: I was so excited! And had the perfect occassion to try it out. My Dad's 60th birthday is only a few days after Christmas and we were having a party for him the following weekend. I decided to make the Ginger Chocolate cakes because 1) it seemed like a "special" cake (as one should have for celebrating 60 years!) and 2) it was ginger bread and we were still in between the holidays so I figured people would not think I was out of season by baking this. Oh and 3) I LOVE gingerbread. It took me all morning to create the cakes & the ganache (and pack for the weekend). I also had to run to a candy store to buy crystallized ginger (who knew they sell it at candy stores? Well, they do!) I was quite pleased with how they turned out. The ganache frosting was easy to make (putzy but easy) but the recipe was WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too big for these 12 cakes and sadly a lot of it ended up getting tossed (af...