Delightfully Domestic

Backcountry Dinner Anniversary Date

 

 

I escaped into the woods for a backcountry dinner date with this cutie last weekend to celebrate our anniversary - our SIX year anniversary! Time is flying. Especially these days with two little ones at home, so what we were really needing on our anniversary this year was time alone together to just slow down and rest. The kind of rest that can only be found outdoors.

Every year we take turns for who plans our anniversary date and this year it was my turn. I had ran this new trail just out of town with a running group last year but my husband hadn't been on it  yet so I figured it was the perfect place to go check out! It's a 5km trail that connects the riverside park that we got married at to the ski hill, and we hiked to the halfway point where there is a picnic table set up at a beautiful look-out spot of the river. This is the view:

 

 

The night that my husband proposed to me he cooked chicken alfredo at our hostel in New Zealand then packed it in to a beautiful beach for a picnic dinner, and I wanted this anniversary to be reminiscent of that night so we packed in our backcountry stove and everything we needed to cook chicken alfredo. Everything except for a stirring spoon that is, haha. We made do with a plastic fork that was mostly melted by the time dinner was ready :) 

 

^^ happiest outdoors ^^

 

I baked brownies and made creamy decaf coffee for dessert. The weather had just started to cool off by the time we were having dessert so steaming hot coffee was the perfect treat. 

 

^^ I like that the steam was caught in this shot ^^

 

We hiked back out the way we came until we got back to water level, then we bushwhacked a bit to the river bank and walked the rest of the way along the shore. It was so peaceful, especially because we left both the 3 year old AND the baby at home. I had been really hesitant to leave Sullivan behind. I've been experiencing some separation anxiety this time around that I didn't really have with Emery, I don't know why! Family members offered to watch him for us but I kept refusing, insisting that I would just wear him in the Ergo carrier and he would sleep and we wouldn't really even notice he's there. Although that is probably true, when we went to drop Emery off at my parents for our date and my husband found out that my parents had been wanting to keep Sully too he drove back to our house and grabbed frozen milk and bottles for them, ha! I had no choice but to leave him then, and it was for the best. I guess I was needing a little break from him, and time alone with hubby is important too - especially on an anniversary!

Here's to many more adventures, with - and without - babies in tow! 

 

xo.

 

Two Months

 

 

At two months old, Sullivan is:

• most comparable size-wise to his sister at six months, check out her six month photos where she is wearing this same shirt! lets just say he takes nursing very seriously ;)
• wearing his sister's hand-me-down cloth diapers. How I'd missed the huge cloth diapered baby bum!
• fitting size 3 clothing, sometimes even size 3-6 pants with the cloth diapers on
• taking his morning nap(s) in the ergo carrier or stroller while we walk/play outside, but I've also found success napping him in the swing in the afternoon lately  
• a light sleeper now (sadly), which has me questioning the whole "train your baby to sleep through noise" thing because his sister makes constant noise so you'd think he would be used to it by now but nope - she wakes him many times a day 
• smiley! mainly for his mama :) but he's been sharing his sweet smile more and more every day!
• so happy just laying on his back kicking. it seems sometimes he like to just be set down every now and again haha, much to the dismay of all his admirers
• rocking the most hilarious hair-do. he'll be bald in no time
• such a chill little guy (except for the few days that his sister woke him up literally every time he fell asleep, then he was rather cranky - understandably!) but honestly most of the time he is just the most contented baby
• starting to giggle. I can't make him laugh yet, but it's come out while he's sleeping and sounds so sweet
• slowly improving his sleep. he'll now sleep a four hour stretch at the start of the night, then it's usually two 2 hour stretches and some restlessness until morning. thankfully though he doesn't have to be completely sound asleep every time I lay him down in his bassinet, he'll squirm and grunt himself to sleep on his own after nursing, so I'm optimistically telling myself that the habits are there for him to become a good sleeper- it's just the actual sleeping part that we are still waiting on 
• cooing along as I read stories to Emery or as he is being sung to sleep and I just love every little thing he has to say. I can say that honestly because he really doesn't fuss very much! ha!

 

xo.

 

Rainbow Velvet Cupcakes

 

 

Our girl turned 3 at the end of August and I still can't believe it although she reminds me every 5 minutes. Three is a big deal, to her and to us. Three is big-kid everything: bed, undies and of course parties. I've learnt that big-kid parties means that the guest list is determined more by who her friends are than mine and that I basically don't get to see my kid the whole time.  Also, it was the first party where the theme was dictated by the birthday girl and she chose rainbow! Actually, what she chose was a rainbow chocolate cake and I went ahead and turned that into rainbow themed everything (after some discussion with my 6 year old niece who is obviously in-the-know on this kind of thing). 

Initially, I was a little stumped on what to do for a rainbow chocolate cake because obviously chocolate is brown and I wanted the entire cake (not just the icing) to be rainbow, then I had an "a-ha!" moment when baking red velvet cupcakes for my best friends bridal shower in the Spring. Red velvet cake batter is the weirdest thing, it's sort of chocolate because there's a little cocoa in it but it also has apple cider vinegar and a ton of dairy. When I realized that it didn't HAVE to be dyed red I invented these beautiful rainbow velvet cupcakes (which might totally already be a thing, I didn't search it up on pinterest because I don't want to be disappointed if I turns out I'm not actually the inventor ;) ). 

 

 

I was a little nervous how the lighter colours like orange and yellow would turn out, but don't they look beautiful?! 

 I used this one-bowl red velvet cupcake recipe that I found on pinterest, but obviously turned it into a six-bowl recipe in order to mix all six colours. I also doubled the recipe to make two dozen cupcakes. 

 

 

I iced each cupcake with cream cheese icing to make the cupcake colour so it was six-bowl icing procedure as well, haha. Then I went ahead and rainbow-everything'ed this birthday party: rainbow fruit platter, veggie tray, goldfish crackers and monster cookies with rainbow M&Ms. I just love this kind of stuff! Party food is my favourite food. I'm a pinterest mom, I can't help it :)

 

 

 

We had so much fun celebrating this vibrant, wild little girl!

xo.