Josephine's 1st Birthday Party!

Josephine isn't officially 1 until Wednesday, but we had her birthday party last Saturday. Her whole family was there: Nathan and me, of course, Grannie, Papaw, Uncle Terry, Granna, Paps, Grandpa, Aunt Moug, and Naomi. We had sandwiches for lunch and cake for dessert. Josephine was so excited about her new toys that she didn't go to sleep until 11 PM that night.
She didn't quite understand how to tear the paper on the presents and got frustrated when she couldn't play with the toy she had just unwrapped. She enjoyed the yellow cake with strawberry icing. She got more icing than cake, though. Here are some pictures from her party.


Josephine standing with her new wagon and a wrapped present.


I had to help Josephine open her presents but we had time to stop for a picture.


Josephine and Naomi sitting in the wagon. They're going to have a good time with this toy.


Josephine had her own cake to play in.


Josephine used her spoon to dig into her cake.


Aunt Moug gave Josephine a pig flashlight that oinks when you turn it on. Josephine was quite sure what to think of it.

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Gingerbread House

We decided to make a gingerbread house with the Randolph's. We had no idea what we were getting into. At the end of this post is the recipe and notes to making the gingerbread and icing. Our houses turned out very different. My first time making gingerbread was a learning experience and we ended up with a "well fortified" house. The gingerbread was way too thick. Hope, after her 4th try, successfully made a very nice, thin, and neat gingerbread house. The decorating pretty much followed in line with the gingerbread. The Randolph's was very neat and attractive and Nathan's and my house was ... well, pretty much a mess. But we are very proud of our mess. : ) We ran out of icing so we still have a little more to do. We all had a good time decorating the houses once we were finally able to do it. Josephine and Drinnen played on the floor (or were held) during the festivities. Elizabeth and Emily did a great job on their houses.


Hope is decorating their house. The Anderson's house is on the right corner of the table.


The Anderson's house is on the left and the Randolph's is on the right.


Elizabeth and Emily stand beside their houses. Hope said that they didn't go to sleep until 11PM because they were so full of sugar. : )

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Josephine Update:

• Josephine has added "NaNa" (for Naomi) to her vocabulary. Also, she can sort of say "baa" when you ask her what a sheep says. It's very cute. Still no "mama".
• Josephine's walking still continues to improve. She teeters and totters a little more every day.
• Her third tooth has finally broken through. The other top tooth will probably come through within the week.
• Books are still a big favorite with Josephine. She can identify the difference between the "mama" and the "baby" animal. She can also point out the animals eyes and noses along with the different types of animals.
• Josephine is eating some of her food whole now. She can eat a banana without me having to cut it first. She loves to chew on apples (but it is taken away with much protest from Josephine when she bites a piece off). At the moment she is eating her waffle, very slowly, whole. She'll gag herself every once in awhile, but she does much better than I thought she would.

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Gingerbread House Recipe and Notes

Before you begin -- this is going to take awhile. It will take a few tries before you get it how you want it. Start at least a couple days before you plan to decorate your house to leave room for do-overs. But, on the bright side, the longer it takes to make it, the better your house will smell (unless you burn it).

Ingredients:

Gingerbread--

• 1-1/2 cups of whipping cream
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2-1/2 c. firmly packed brown sugar
• 2 tbs baking soda
• 1 tbs ground ginger
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1-1/3 c molasses (if you're going to eat the gingerbread, get the more expensive molasses)
• 9 c all-purpose flour
• If you accidentally put some vegetable oil in the dough while you're making your daughter's birthday cake at the same time, don't worry, the gingerbread will be fine.

Icing--

• 2 large egg whites
• 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
• 2 tsp water
• 3 or 4 c. sifted powdered sugar

--I recommend that you make at least 2 batches of the gingerbread (not necessarily at one time) and 3-4 batches of the icing unless you're a master at not wasting ANY gingerbread.--

Tools--

• A HIGH powered mixer. If it's not high powered, only do half of the gingerbread mix at a time. (I burned out the motor in my mixer on this full recipe.) If you make the icing in a food processor because you burned out the motor in your mixer, the lid may stick to the bowl after awhile, trapping what little icing you have left, and possibly resulting in damaging the bowl or top trying to open it. If the lid does get stuck, use hot water to get it unstuck forsaking any icing left in the bowl.
• Pizza cutter. Hope was smart enough to try a pizza cutter to cut out the house. An Exacto-Knife would also work well (I didn't try that.)
• Templates for the house and whatever other objects you want. There are plenty online to print out. It's important that the pieces are a uniform size so they can be glued/iced together.
• Hot glue gun to glue the house together. Most recipes call to use the icing, but it's much easier to use the glue gun as long as you don't eat that part of the house.
• Cardboard or wooden base covered in aluminum foil to put the house on.

Candies --

• any candy is going to be good but here are some suggestions
• Hershey's kisses in Christmas colors
• Reese's cups in Christmas colors
• Skittles
• Hershey bars
• orange slices
• red hots
• peppermints
• bubble gum
• starburst
• pretzel sticks
• gum drops
• cake-decorating icing
• hard candies can be melted in the oven to make stained glass windows

Instructions

1. Cover 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Whip cream and vanilla in a small bowl and set aside for the moment.
3. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, baking soda, ginger, and cinnamon.
4. Add molasses and cream mixture to the bowl and mix.
5. Add flour one cup at a time to the high-powered mixer.
6. Preheat the over (time below).
7. Now that the dough is ready, lightly flour a pastry board or mat.
8. Put part of the dough (1/4 - 1/2) on the mat and roll out until flat. Remember that the dough puffs up while it bakes and it looks better thin. Roll it to no more than 1/4" thick (closer to 1/8").
9. At this point you could go ahead a cut out the pattern you want (this saves from wasting gingerbread), but it can be tricky. You can also wait until the dough has cooked awhile before cutting the pattern. Remember to not cut the dough bigger than the baking sheet.
10. Another option, if you are able is to roll out the dough on the baking sheet and parchment paper. That can be hard to do, especially if you use a baking sheet with sides and you have a large rolling pin. The flour can burn so get as much off the paper as possible.
11. For 1/8" pieces, bake at 300-degrees for about 1 hour. For 1/4" pieces, bake at 275-degrees for 1 hour 45 minutes.
12. If you did not cut out your pieces previously, after 45+- minutes, take it out of the oven and cut it then. Discard any scraps and make sure the edges of the gingerbread are smooth. Switch rack positions when putting the baking sheets back in.
13. When pieces are finished baking, loosen gently with a spatula and let them cool on the sheet for another 5-10 minutes before moving to a rack to cool completely.
14. Once their cool, either glue your house together or put them in airtight plastic wrap and store up to one month.
15. Icing--needs to be used fairly quickly after making. Cover the icing between making and using the icing. I suggest making several batches of the icing, although you may not want to do it all at one time because when the icing gets hard, you can't use it on the house.
16. Beat egg whites, cream of tartar, and water until frothy. Blend in sugar on high speed until stiff, 5-10 minutes.
17. Use a mixer, not a food processor to do this. The icing will the cement the lid onto the bowl.
18. Best of luck!