(っ◔◡◔)っTreat yourself to some fudgy, chocolatey brownies!Not only that, but they are also perfect for sharing with family and friends ♥
★彡[ᴅɪᴅ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ ꜱᴀʏ ʙʀᴏᴡɴɪᴇꜱ?!?!]彡★
Okay, so this recipe isn’t exactly the healthiest but kids love them. I do plan on posting a healthier brownie recipe in the future, but for now, this is the one that I am using. Because these brownies are made with simple, standard ingredients, they’re pretty much guaranteed to be a show-stopper!
If you’re looking for a healthier, plant-based dessert recipe, then I recommend checking out this chocolate cake recipeby Peppa Pig. Kids love Peppa Pig so you really can’t go wrong with this healthier alternative.
Anyways, back to the brownies. The fudgy brownie recipe is fairly simple and straightforward. To make the brownies extra special, you can dust them in confectioner’s sugar or add a few chocolate chips. Another advantage of this recipe is that it’s simple enough for children to help. Let’s get started, shall we?
FUDGY BROWNIES
Servings: 12 Time: 40 minutes Difficulty: easy
INGREDIENTS
1 cup butter
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
confectioner’s sugar (optional)
chocolate chips (optional)
DIRECTIONS
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease an 8-or-9-inch square baking pan.
Using a mixing bowl, mix together the cocoa and sugar. Add in the melted butter and stir again. Finally, whisk in the eggs and vanilla.
Add the flour and salt, and mix just until smooth. Gently incorporate the chocolate chips (optional). Don’t overmix it.
Scrape the mixture into the pan and spread it out n an even layer. Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until the brownies just begin to pull away from the sides of the pan.
Take the pan out of the oven with oven mitts, then let it cool on a heat-proof surface before cutting. Sprinkle confectioner’s sugar to decorate (optional). Enjoy!
Just so you know, Rebecca is the one who approved this recipe.
Disclaimer: Please note that I make no money from this blog and I’m not involved with affiliates. This blog post is for educational purposes only!
This chocolate cake recipe is from my daughter’s book, “Peppa Pig Loves to Bake!” I want to share it with you because she tends to destroy everything she touches, and I don’t want to lose this recipe. I want to make this recipe evergreen, and currently, my blog is a good place to do that. We got the book from a book sale at my daughter’s school but it is also available on Amazon. If you scroll down to the bottom of this blog post, you’ll see a video tutorial by no other than Peppa Pig herself. Unlike the video, the recipe in the book is vegan. Alternatively, you can also use gluten-free flour if you’re avoiding gluten.
Did I mention that this recipe is vegan-friendly? 🌱
CHOCOLATE CAKE RECIPE
Servings: 4-6 Time: 40 minutes Difficulty: easy
INGREDIENTS
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
3 tbsp. cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
5 tbsp applesauce
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup cold water
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
Add in applesauce, apple cider vinegar, vanilla extract, and water. Mix until smooth.
Pour cake batter into an 8″ x 8″ square pan or 9″ round cake pan.
Using an oven mitt, put the cake pan in the oven.
Bake for approx. 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
Using an oven mitt, take the cake out of the oven. Let cool.
Once the cake has cooled, have fun decorating it! 🎂
Disclaimer: Rebecca’s birthday was on October 27th, but her birthday party was on November 10th (it was my husband’s idea). Because Rebecca’s birthday party has already passed, I’m going to write this blog post in the past tense. If you spot any mistakes please let me know and I’ll make corrections. The same article can be found on Medium but is behind a paywall. If you are still interested in checking it out, then you can do so by clicking on the following link:
My daughter recently turned 6 years old, and after much thought, my husband and I decided to host her birthday party at an indoor playground this year. Indoor playgrounds are the perfect place for children because they offer fun equipment like monkey bars, climbing walls, and other features that children love!
My daughter was excited about her upcoming birthday party which is totally understandable. Throwing a party is an important part of childhood and it can create memories that last a lifetime. I wanted to give my daughter the same upbringing that I had as a kid, but unfortunately, our house is too small for large gatherings and I didn’t want the kids to be running around or messing with things. So, an indoor playground it was!
My husband had a good idea when he suggested that we invite my daughter’s classmates to the party. Sometimes, you just need to go big or go home! 😂
I spent all Monday evening working on my daughter’s invitations and it felt like a school project all over again. Fiddling with every last detail, and even ripping envelopes that I messed up not once, but three times, I was exhausted. When I saw the finished product, however, I knew all of the hard work was worth it.
Invitations for Becca’s birthday party. The photo is my own.
Despite all of my work, I spelled Abby’s name wrong and my daughter made a big fuss about it. Meanwhile, she didn’t know how to spell Abby’s name either so I had to guess.
Becca: Abbey’s name is spelled with an eeeeeeeeee!!!
And now I know. I won’t make that mistake again.
Party Anxiety
In many ways, hosting a birthday party sounds like a dream come true for any kid; however, there is plenty of anxiety that goes into planning them. If you’ve ever hosted a kids’ party before, then you know exactly what I mean.
For some people, RSVPs can be a major source of anxiety when hosting an event. As a rule, invitations should go out as soon as possible after being personalized for guests. Since we were still in the early stages with our RSVPs and waiting to hear back is never fun, it would have been much easier to get everything in order if we knew how many kids were coming.
Then we played the waiting game.
Only 2 kids RSVPd on time, which heightened my anxiety even more. I kept telling myself, This is okay. Everything is going to be okay.
It is always helpful to include an RSVP by [date] on your invitation, as it gives guests more time to plan before the party. I got excited every time I got a call from an unknown number because I thought it might be a parent telling me their child would be attending my daughter’s birthday party. However, it was mostly spam or work-related calls.
There was something very stressful about waiting to see who would RSVP to her birthday party. Would her party be a success or would it be a total flop? There were too many unknowns, and without experience hosting kids’ parties, all I could do was eat Cheetos and patiently wait. But here’s the thing:
👉 My vocabulary does not have patience in it, because I am an impatient person.
Being a parent can be challenging, and the worst-case scenario would be to have a “teddy bear picnic” for my daughter if nobody RSVPd. I’m sure she would be just as happy with that, but it’s not the same as having a birthday party. My daughter loves her toy cat and drags it with her everywhere, which is the equivalent of a security blanket for children.
Becca playing with her toy cat at the playground. The photo is my own.
With 10 out of 12 kids who RSVPd attending my daughter’s birthday party yesterday, and with 11 total kids in attendance including my daughter, I’m happy to report that I think it was worth it. If my daughter is still into indoor playgrounds when she turns 7 years old, it’s something that we would consider doing again. If anything, we learned that weeknights do not work for most parents, and that weekends are probably best when planning a kid’s birthday party.
I ask the parents on WordPress, have you ever experienced this? Feel free to share your experience in the comments below ↓ I will do my best to reply to your comments as I am working again this weekend.
May was another busy month for me. I ditched my daily habit tracker which I now realize was a mistake. That journal thing was useful and I was actually crushing big goals when I was using it consistently. My life is a mess without any kind of schedule or normality. Everything in my life is different now – new home, new baby, new location (sort of….) bigger family (totally not used to a family of 4!), and new plans. Some readers even asked about my disappearance on WP and if I was okay – your concerns really touched me. Thank you! 💕 I just wish that there was more time to write/blog.
Re-grounding Myself Again 🌱
I also wanted to update you on my whereabouts. Up until the beginning of June, I was temporarily working full-time from home. We were also in the process of packing and moving to a new home. On May 20, 2021, I went to my appointment as planned, only to find myself in the L&D triage unit at the hospital later that day. I had abnormally high blood pressure a.k.a. gestational hypertension + fluid retention, so they wanted to rule out some things, like preeclampsia. I am grateful for the knowledge I gained from nursing school because I knew what signs and symptoms to monitor throughout this pregnancy. That being said, I became concerned during the final weeks of pregnancy when my BP remained consistently high, which is abnormal for someone who typically has low blood pressure. Ultimately, childbirth was the best solution to quickly alleviate my gestational hypertension.
On May 21, 2021 at 4:48am, Baby Aaron was born weighing 7lbs 1oz, and measuring 20.5 inches. He had some mild jaundice (more medical jargon, see photos below ↓) but the jaundice went away on its own and he didn’t need blue-light therapy. Most of this pregnancy was fairly straight-forward and uncomplicated up until the very end, the delivery went smoothly despite dreading childbirth the most, and Aaron is a healthy baby boy. His big sister welcomed him with open arms! ❤
Rebecca and Baby AaronA jaundiced Baby Aaron, 1 day oldA sleepy neonate. He will be 1-month old on June 21, 2021 🐵
(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥ FINAL THOUGHTS ♥
I am keeping this blog post short and sweet because honestly, I am not in the mood to write today. I am trying to write a blog post in the presence of others and the words aren’t flowing the way I would like them to – and good writing cannot be forced. I haven’t even touched my personal laptop in weeks which I mostly use for WordPress, but I consider it rude to spend hours blogging when we have company over. Also, my phone needs a major upgrade which I don’t see happening any time soon (it barely holds a charge), so I haven’t felt motivated to brainstorm blog post ideas, write rough drafts on my phone, or capture life’s precious moments. Perhaps it is time to revisit that habit tracker journal yet again, before I become a lazy potato.
I initially wanted to write about paying it forward, because I have been blessed with little acts of kindness by people lately. This post ended up being completely different than what I had initially planned to write about. I do not post often because I am in school right now while trying to juggle family and school life. I am aware that I focus most of my attention on other areas of my life, and consequently, this blog suffers because of it. And I am genuinely sorry for my absence. Unfortunately I will be MIA until April 18, 2019.
Here is the dilemma that I am dealing with. If you are a student, you may have seen this before.
I want to update you on how I have been doing. In December, if you had read my cookie post, you would have known I was really ill. I ended up getting bronchitis which took additional time to recover. By the time I started feeling human again, the winter semester had started so I needed to focus my attention on school. FOCUS is important to me and school is my top priority. I get criticized for saying this my daughter should be my top priority, right? Right. I devote time to both school AND my daughter but it’s really hard to balance things. I cannot be present 100% of the time for my daughter and I admit I am probably not the best mother in the world right now. But if you are going to judge me, try going to nursing school yourself while trying to devote all of your time to your toddler without encountering these problems:
Kitchen Nightmares
She looks proud of herself
In February, I was hit with the flu and ended up with recurrent bronchitis. Bronchitis seems to linger in sickly Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (Alpha-1) carriers like me. It is an inherited condition which presents itself similar to asthma. I noticed that my lungs are worse in my late 20’s than they were in my teenage and childhood years. For this reason, I cannot participate in activities that require running or any strenuous physical activity or I’ll have air hunger. Believe me, it’s awful.
Sometimes I escape to this place to get work done. Let nature heal you 😊
I thought I was over being sickly and that my body had enough antibodies to fight off whatever sickness lingers on doorknobs and cursed sneezes. The university is full of sickly people. Students feel the need to attend class despite being ill, which I am guilty of myself. Nursing students cannot afford to skip school. I caught something a few days ago which presented itself as a persistent, uncomfortable sore throat and horse cough. I already know how this is going to end which is likely a head cold and sleepless nights. Fun. Now pair this with conjunctivitis (pink eye) and you really have something going for you. I’ve had conjunctivitis for a few days now and saw a doctor yesterday. The doctor advised me to stay home today so that the medication can work its magic. Hopefully my eyes will be less swollen and red by tomorrow!
How do you find balance in your life? How do you balance personal life with school? Please leave a comment below↓
Today is Day 4 of the 7-Day S.L.E.E.P.S. challenge! Ahhhh! I almost forgot to write an update because I was too immersed in my errands. That being said, today was quite adventurous for me. I finally took the 3 km hike to MCDs. There was a trail to follow alongside the busy highway. Even though there was lots of traffic at 9am in the morning, the view was very scenic. The sun was shining, it wasn’t too hot but warm enough that I didn’t need a jacket, and the grass was green. However, there was one disturbing thing that I saw below the bridge. I saw what appeared to be an empty backpack with clothes that were scattered on the grass next to it, but there was nobody in sight. It made me think very disturbing thoughts. Was someone abducted? Murdered? *shivers*
If you would like to read about the S.L.E.E.P.S. 7-day challenge, you can find my first posting here. This challenge was originally mentioned on a podcast called Operation Self Reset. The purpose of this challenge is to document personal progress, crush goals, and conquer fears over the duration of 7 consecutive days. Here is the breakdown from Day 1:
The acronym is S.L.E.E.P.S.S – Smile: what made you smile yesterday? L – Learn: what did you learn today? E – Exercise: how did you exercise? E – Execute (x4): what are your goals and what are you doing to achieve them? P – Phone call: who did you call/text today? Show them gratitude. S – Smile: what made you smile today?
Day 4 ~ May 21, 2018
S – Last night, I listened to some self-help podcasts (thank you, Leo Gura, from http://www.actualized.org) while I cleaned the apartment and worked on my upcoming lecture notes for the week. I had a very lonely evening last night and couldn’t help but cry. It was just one of those depressing nights where the world seems to be turning but your world stands still. Whenever I feel this way, the last place I want to be is on social media so I avoid it like the plague.
When I am feeling sad, one thing that helps me feel better is the WordPress blogging community. Most of my readers and fellow bloggers live on the opposite side of the world so they are usually awake when I should be asleep. It is nice being able to vent about my problems to people who are experiencing similar hardships. Even though this community exists online, I am grateful to have encountered some wonderful people in this blogging community! 💖
L – I learned that I can do more than one thing in a day lol After the refreshing walk to MCDs and back, I had the energy to bus to the nearby lame mall again. There, I ended up running some errands that I had put off last week. I also forgot to eat breakfast and lunch today.🤷♀️ I also forgot to eat dinner but today I am not hungry, and when I am not hungry, I don’t force myself to eat.
E – I think we covered this one for today. This also fits under Learn: I learned that I am very capable of getting bikini body ready for the end of summer/early fall. It won’t happen right away but I am not far from reaching my goal. The weight is coming off naturally ever since I gave up junk food. It may only be 10 lbs that I need to lose because I am a small person, but getting toned is what I am working on right now. Today, I feel like I got a solid workout from walking and carrying 5 heavy bags of groceries back home. That’s called weightlifting, my friend.
E – Here are my plans for tonight/tomorrow:
(1) Prepare meals for tomorrow
(2) Pack everything and try not to forget anything
(3) Does my hair smell? No. Well, have a shower anyway
(4) Make a document with due dates because I dunno wtf is happening anymore
P – I was planning to call the in-laws but they were at their cottage today. My mother had to tell me to call them because it didn’t cross my mind to do it myself. Does this forgetfulness make me a bad mother because I didn’t think to ask how my daughter is doing? I know that Rebecca is well taken care of and that she’s probably having way more fun at the cottage than she would be having at home. Here are some photos that they sent me and I wanted to share them with you!
My baby girl is hundreds of miles away but she doesn’t seem too upset. Here, she is enjoying the sunshine at the in-laws’ cottage.
Baby Becca has always had a love for shoes! She’s going to be a shoe lover when she grows up…. just like her “nan” (my mother)
I love this photo so much! ❤️ I didn’t have this toy car as a kid and always wanted one. They look like so much fun! ❤️
S – I am happy that I have a new laptop mouse that is easy to use, that my daughter had a good day at the cottage and that my husband made it safely home. My husband and I are not living together right now (we both live in separate provinces with no family) but he is working on getting transferred here. I miss him and my baby girl a lot, and the way I cope is through nursing school. Nursing school keeps me on my feet and it is very fast pace, so I have no time to feel sorry for myself. I’m not sure if this coping mechanism is healthy or not, but having a blog where I can express my feelings when I am feeling vulnerable helps me feel better.
Will you join me on this 7-day challenge? Please leave a comment below ↓ and feel free to leave a link to your blog if you decide to join me. I would love to read about your S.L.E.E.P.S. Let’s spread some love while crushing our goals!
L – I learned that I can do more than one thing in a day lol After the refreshing walk to MCDs and back, I had the energy to bus to the nearby lame mall again. There, I ended up running some errands that I had put off last week. I also forgot to eat breakfast and lunch today.🤷♀️ I also forgot to eat dinner but today I am not hungry, and when I am not hungry, I don’t force myself to eat.
Sereneluna 
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