Working Mom Wonders: January 2023

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Messages Through Valentine's Day

Every year on February 1st, I start the heart countdown to Valentine's Day for the kids. This year each kid will get a funny meme every day for 14 days. Steve is the meme genius in the family, so he selected almost all of these for each kid, making sure they were very specific to their interests/hobbies/favorite things.

Over the years we have done video messages from family members, positive affirmations daily, 14 things we love about them, and others.

http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2022/01/february-daily-heart-messages-until.html

http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2021/01/daily-hearts-with-video-messages.html

http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2020/02/daily-positive-affirmations-for-february.html

In 2019 I asked relatives/friends to write a message to each kid.

http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2018/02/14-things-we-love-about-you.html

http://workingmomwonders.blogspot.com/2017/02/valentines-day-gratitude-hearts.html

Friday, January 27, 2023

Homemade Chocolate Cake with Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup cocoa

1 3/4 cup sugar

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup canola oil

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup buttermilk (I use 1 cup of milk with 1 Tbsp vinegar)

1 cup hot coffee

Frosting:

1 cup unsalted butter

3 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup cocoa

4 Tbsp heavy whipping cream

2 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2 9-inch cake pans.

Whisk the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt together.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs. Add the oil, vanilla, and buttermilk. Whisk until combined.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Add the hot coffee and whisk until completely combined. (This batter will be thin.)

Divide the batter between the two cake pans. Bake for 24 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pans, but set them on a wire rack.

Meanwhile, make the frosting.

For the frosting:

Beat the butter in a mixer with the whisk attachment. Add the powdered sugar, one cup at a time. Add the cocoa. Then add the whipping cream, vanilla, and salt. Beat until well mixed, scraping the edges a few time.

When the cake is cool, add some of the frosting between the layers and cover the rest of the cake. Store this cake in the refrigerator.

Lunar New Year Celebration

For the year of the rabbit, we had rabbit red envelopes, rabbit cookies, and Rachel wore her red year of the rabbit shirt. We spent the day taking turns doing a bag of Legos to complete the Lunar New Year set we got for the occasion.

Things we ate: egg drop soup, fish, dumplings, fried rice, and chicken lo mein

Our finished ice festival Lego set

Valentine's Day Painting

10th Annual New Year's Eve Balloon Activities

We were all recovering from the flu this year, so things were a little more mild than usual. We still made the most of the night and had a great time!