Barhorst Brewed: February 23-March 2

Olivia has started using the word "friends" to refer to any group of dolls/stuffed animals/action figures that is too large to be named individually in a timely manner. She talks about how she's going to put all her friends in her bed, or how first she needs to get her friends. Then she walks by with her arms full to bursting and her friends spilling out over the edges.

Last Saturday, Olivia came to get us in our bedroom. It was 8:05 am when she came to wake us up, and I immediately noticed 4 important things about this: 1. It was 8:05 and Gretchen had not woken up yet. 2. Olivia's clock turns green at 7:30 and remains that way until 8:30. This means that she either slept until her clock was green, or she played quietly in her room until it was green. I'll take it. 3. Olivia wasn't wearing pants, which means she stripped down before coming to get us, so she either stopped in the bathroom or was already wet and fixed the problem. 4. She WAS wearing the same underwear that she went to bed in, which means she wasn't wet. She must have stopped in the bathroom before coming to get us, which implies that she discerned that she needed to go to the bathroom and took care of the problem all by herself. Saturday was a good morning. :)

Gretchen has a rash similar to the one Olivia used to get. After consulting Steph and my mom, I decided a buildup of diaper cream on my diapers was at least part of the cause. Gretchen ended up in disposables for a week in an attempt to clear her up, and I started stripping diapers. Stripping diapers consists of soaking them in Dawn dish soap and then rinsing. And rinsing. And rinsing. My washing machine has been doing nothing but rinsing all week. :/ Gretchen is looking better, though, and I'm about done, so hopefully we'll be able to get back to normal soon. :)

If you find the prospect of completely ignoring recipes uncomfortable, you may want to skip this next paragraph. :-P It turns out that I am not someone who is bothered my recipe alterations. In fact, this week Bryan told me that if someone gave me a recipe for a singing football (we have one that plays music when you press a button), I'd produce a knife block (full of knives, of course) instead. Equally good, but not what the recipe had in mind. I'd argue that a fully loaded knife block is, in fact, infinitely better than a singing football, so I don't see me changing my recipe-altering ways anytime soon. Anyway. I found a recipe for some fabulous looking mint oreo brownies. I actually did follow that recipe ...mostly. They were every bit as delicious as we had hoped, but there was one problem: the frosting recipe makes 3-4 times more frosting than is really necessary. The frosting layer was as thick as the brownie layer, and was pretty much all sugar (especially since I didn't have enough powdered sugar, so I made my own by blending regular sugar with cornstarch (it's a real thing, I promise), but my blender got tired before everything was powdered, so it was still kind of grainy), so Bryan and I started scraping it off before eating the brownies. Not wanting to waste all of the mint flavored sugar, I decided to make a cake using the frosting as a substitute for sugar. I pulled out my standard chocolate cake recipe and set to work. One cup of frosting for one cup of sugar, no problem. But then... I was out of cocoa powder. Turns out there's an alteration listed for those who want to make Devil's Food chocolate cake instead. I started following that version because it called for baking squares instead. Only my baking squares are from Aldi, and Aldi breaks their squares into 0.4 oz sections (even though all the recipes ever call for multiples of 0.5 oz squares), so I didn't use exactly the right amount. I kept mixing stuff together, though, and the batter tasted fine. I decided not to frost the finished product, but I did dust it with powdered sugar, which was immediately absorbed by the top of the cake. It is delicious. If it wasn't more time, effort, and ingredients than I care to dedicate, I'd make my chocolate cake this way all the time.

Bryan and I found a ballroom dance club nearby-ish, so on Wednesday we went to check it out. With the exception of one other couple, we were the youngest ones there by about fifty years, but we had a blast. There were more males than females, so I got to dance pretty much the whole time, even when it wasn't swing dancing. All the old men asked Bryan's permission when they came to get me for a dance. He felt very important. :) There was a live band, so when they found out that we knew predominantly swing dance, they modified their set to include more of those. When they took a break, someone led a mini lesson on the Charleston, so now we're learning that. This is apparently a weekly thing, so we'll definitely be going back.

I've been chipping away at my 30 Before 30 list. I have a bonus post with an update scheduled for this Wednesday.

Josef and Alison came to visit for our Happy March card club this weekend. More on that next week...

Pictures and Videos:
Video password: BarhorstBrewed
Gretchen Plays 1
Gretchen Plays 2

Olivia's outfit one day was especially spectacular. Unfortunately, she took off the multi-colored, leopard spotted, hooded jacket before I could get a picture: