Easy and fast that is my life motto. And for cooking is the most important to make everything easy, fast and tasteful
Because many of my friends asked for the recipe of Edie’s B-day cake I decided to write it publicly as inspiration and help for other mom’s who are having struggles with cooking.
How to prepare Edie’s B-day cake
(Called also “Hrnečková cuketová bábovka” = “Cup’s zucchinis cake”)
Potřebujeme (Ingredients):
2 – 2 1/2 hrnečku polohrubé mouky (cups of flour – semi big grains)
1 prášek do pečiva (pack of baking powder – or 1 big spoon)
1 hrneček cukru krupice (cup of crystal sugar)
1 vanilkový cukr (pack of vanilla sugar)
2 vejce (eggs)
5 PL oleje (big spoons of oil)
1 hrneček mléka (cup of milk)
1 hrneček nastrouhané cukety (cup of grated zucchini)
1 PL kakaa (big spoon of cacao)
50 g najemno nakrájených lískových nebo vlašských oříšků (small cuted peaces of hazelnuts or walnuts )
tuk na vymazání (oil for engrazing the cake form)
hrubá mouka na vysypání bábovkové formy (flour for filling form)
Jak na to:
Mouku smícháme s práškem do pečiva a prosejeme. Přidáme cukr krupici, vanilkový cukr, žloutky, olej, mléko, nastrouhanou cuketu, kakao a nakrájené oříšky. Vymícháme těsto a zlehčíme tuhým sněhem z bílků. Naplníme formu a upečeme při 160 °C. Pomocí špejle zjistíme, zda je bábovka upečená. Hotovou pocukrujeme nebo přelijeme čokoládovou polevou.
How to do it:
Mix flour with baking powder, add sugar, 2 yolks, oil, milk, grated zuchini, cacao and cut nuts. Mix all ingredients until U create nice smooth dough. Make the “snow” from the whites of eggs and softly mix it with the rest of dough. Put oil and flour into the form, be sure that all of the parts of the form will be covered by flour. Than pour dough into the form and bake under 160 °C. By wooden stick you can check whether the dough is ready. When the cake is ready you can sugar it with powder sugar or with chocolate.
And how the cake can look like:
1. Version I prepare simply, just few more tricks and it was ready. Have a look
2. Version was more advanced. I put the dough into tree different forms and made 3 levels cake. Look how nice it looked before it was totally eaten Proof of being also tasty!
I can promise you that with this case you will never do bad. It is very simple, fast and with little bit of your imagination and invention you will never fail.
Advice:No matter what you will cook you will always make happy your child. And I believe that “home made” or “mama made” is always better than bought. Because the love and personal parental touch can be never bought!
You know I love skying and in general every sport. But since I started to travel very much I missed already two winter seasons at home. And it is really something for me. Two years without skying is making impact on my passion for this sport. So this feeling of lacking my loved sport motivated me to find substitute. And I found it!
“Surfing…………my skying on the white waves of the sea”
I took one day course of surfing with my cousin in Margarita Island. So if you want to learn how to surf, keep reading and following pictures.
Surfing is not difficult sport, you just need to know basics and practice, practice and practice. It took us few falls and ups but we made it
So for surfing you need only board, good sun block and yourself. Surfing is done through few basic positions.
1. You have to find the center of the board, put your hand there and keep your chest (bottom part under the breast part). Keep your head up and body straight in the line.
2. second position is about lifting your body at once. You have to keep your body facing aside and head front. Your knees have to be turned to center and facing each other and your body weight has to be more front.
3. and then you try to stand up, keep facing front and try to keep balance. If you put more weight front then you will speed up if you put more weight back you will break.
And now look how the theory works in the waves. You have to start paddling with your hands when you have wave behind your board.
And after whole day of activity guess how did I end
But I have been awarded by certificate which is indicating my newly gained sport skill. I hope that once I will do surfing with Edie.
I love sports and I hope that I will be able to improve my surfing skills as much as possible. If you have any questions just ask I will be happy to help
That is the count down of one year life and believe me in the early age of our life this is one of the most exciting time with highest speed of development.
For me it is just like yesterday when Edie was born and I hold his little shaking and very fragile body in my arms. It is just like yesterday when I welcomed him in this world.
He was born in the Czech Republic, but his life is already connected with three continents. Because half of his prenatal age he spend with me in Thailand, after he spend 6 month is Czech and than he moved with us to Venezuela (Latin America). I would love to have his childhood also, believe me. It is colorful, adventurous and diverse.
But let me tell you what is new in his life and how we were celebrating his Bdays.
Edie has now 77 cm and 9 Kg
He is receiving mother milk only in the morning. I still keep this beautiful moment for us and hopefully I will be still able to breastfeed him for some time. Although my lactancy decreased a lot so lets see. During the day he is eating what we are eating. He has days when he eats a lot and then he is something like “poo machine”. His “outs” are more than his “ins”. But he eats about 6 times per day. Breakfast (oatmeal, or arepa, or bread with cheese, tomato or fruits), snack (creckers, fruits), lunch (all what we have), snack (fruit), snack (joghurt or compotas), dinner (some creamy soup or puree). He drinks mainly water, but also he is trying everything what we drink (natural juices, milk, flavored water – just a little I do not like to give him sweets).
He sleeps very well at night. He had his routine. At 7pm dinner, around 8 pm bathing and after we just put him to his bead. I sing a song and he falls a sleep. The time of carrying is over. He is just waking up because he is thirsty. Especially here in Venezuela is now very hot (more than 30 C) so he is asking for water. He drinks and falls a sleep again. He wakes up at 5 am and then I take him and let him drink milk and be cuddling with me in the bed.
He loves to play – there is no change and now we started to go to baby gym. He loves to spend time with other kids so I try to be out with him as much as possible. He also loves water and on the beach he spends most of his time playing in the sand. He likes his texture and taste. He is able to play nicely on xylophone, he is able to twang the strings of guitar. He loves music and now he is always swinging his body into rhythm of music. It is fun to see him dance. He tries to draw with crayons, but he is eating them too so I have to control him while doing art stuff. He loves to put tops and closures to different boxes, bottles and everything what has some top. I let him. He loves to take things off the box and put them back (this is the good part). He is rather organized. And he loves to play “hide and seek”.
His motorical skills are improving. He is drinking from his bottle with holders on his own, he tries to feed himself alone. But i have to help him to pass the spoon to his mouth. He tries to drink form glass (but mostly he is so far blowing in than drinking) and from bottle. He likes to play with cutlery, and any kids of things which are given to his hands. He is trying how the things works.
He is able to stand up on his own, to slide down from the bed and stairs, he is walking around the things by holding them and with support he is trying to walk as much as possible.
He is very social. But very attached to me as mom. Not so many people can carry him and for long time. Even he does not want to go to hands of his dad, grandma or Sandy. He is holding me tight most of the time somebody else wants to take him. So I became his personal carrier and believe me or not “he is heavy” so my back suffers a bit. But I consider it like a training. Because when I feel his little hand holding my arms I forget every pain for this feeling. He loves to greet people. He is waving on the streets to people which give him back smile. And he is flirting with nice girls on the streets and when they smile at him he became shy and hide his face on my chest. It is such a cute moment.
He is very sharing person. When he eats or chew something what he likes he always offer the things to others to eat or chew with him.
He is not talking. Although he is trying. Sometimes we are guessing that he said something in some language. But he is saying still mamma, memme (this means all other things, thirst, hunger). He is “juuuud and wowed” by things. I heard him to say baf like a dog and huiiiii like horns of the police car.
He is learning fast. I am giving him about month to learn how to walk. Lets see his improvements.
Edie is wonderful child, sometimes crying too much but it is just because he want to go out or to do things on his own and I do not let him. I strongly believe that I have to show him already now where are limits for his behavior otherwise he will be abusing our benevolence and liberty. He understand perfectly the word and meaning of “NO” but depends only on his mood if he wants to follow or not. We just have to be consistent.
Now it is a time for his cake and typical Venezuelan B-day song;
And some other random pictures for his one year picture gallery
Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.
I love this life proven joke, you have to know it also:
2 years you are teaching your child eat, walk, talk and do things on his own and then you are trying even harder another 16 years to make him sit and shut up!
And because we are exactly in the phase 1 I would love to show you first steps of Edie. I know he is walking with my help but if you would be with my son as much as I am then you would celebrate it too. I have still in my head this little angel which was not able to even turn and then it happened and since that time he fall down form the bed many time
Now he is already in the stage when he is trying to stand up on his own and he learned how to slide on his belly down from our bed (14. 2. 2010 exactly on St. Valentines day). In the first moment we were so happy about his improvements but immediately after that we realized how easily he can reach higher places and new things and happiness was over
Few minutes of fame were over…………but isn’t it great how fast is he improving and growing?
Look at him, how lovely shaking and unstable he is
Edie’s first stand ups trials
Walking with mom’s support
And more improvements is coming every day. With child the live is never boring!
Emotions – whole year and even prenatal time was full of emotions. Everything what was happening was so new, so exciting and unique. You can not repeat this time again and I definitely felt so many new feeling which without Edie I would not have had opportunity to live it. Since he was born my life totally changed. I am not anymore alone in this world and I have to take care 24/7 about little man. Before I had Edie I was thinking how I would be able to take care of somebody if I am able to make dry every flower and able to forget to feed my fish for few days……but yeah. I have learned very fast and every day is now different and full of changes. My biggest emotions came with particular things. I have been crying when Edie was, I was laughing when Edie was. Surprisingly he is the only person which is able to make me drive crazy. I am very calm person but when he starts to cry because of ony reason, believe me I am becoming crazy. Kids are the best teachers of patience, tolerance and love.
Learning – this is such a simple and basic thing I am doing on everyday basis. Since Edie was born there was nearly any activity repeated. He is developing very fast and I am practically pushed without any previous notice and explanation to keep learning and catching his development pace. It is not easy because kids do not ask for permitions. They are just here waiting what we as parents can offer them. Edie is challenging me every day. He is looking for new things, new activities and I am here for him, exploring our mutual road of learning. I have learned a lot from him. I started to play guitar, because he like music. I am able to perform most of the daily activities only with one hand (cooking, cleaning our flat, going on toilet – bit challenge, etc.) because in the other I am holding him. I have learned also how to rest fast and effectively together with him. I have learned what makes him laugh, cry, happy, entertained, bored. I think that I have learned many things about parenting too. I have been asking many mothers and fathers around for advices, discussing with many parents around in Venezuela. Challenging them and myself in good will of giving my son as much as possible. Learning process consist for me of 80% observation, studying, open mind, absorbing, feeling and 20% performing, applying what I have learned and improving what have been done before.
Exploring – that is exactly the biggest part of being parent and having your child. I have never thought how many things are needed since early beginning and probably nobody will know it till you do not became parent. The parenthood as itself is the unknown journey. Your boat is sailing to the future with good will of raising Good Person. You have a goal but nobody can tell you how to reach this goal. Nobody have thought us in the schools the most basic things such as “to be parent”. We are bearing the biggest responsibility on our shoulders and especially in the beginning you have no idea how the things will work, you have some ruff idea what you are supposed to do. You just go ahead and keep exploring even you have no idea where the wild water of life will take you. Exploring is not scaring it is just widening your horizons and enriching your life.
So if we count all pluses and minuses to have a baby is big Gain. Your life obtained big motivation to do things. Your life is enriched by special family spirit which you can keep growing.
Into my hands was given the biggest gift in my life and it is life of the another person!
There is nothing more beautiful and challenging and worth to being loved than is your child. Because it is your love, it is your heart and it is your life!
You will not believe me but I always loved to cook and prepare different culinary specialties. I was always “watching under the hands” of my foreign friends and learning “by doing” different recipe.
All this years of cooking, experimenting resulted into the simple result that when I gave a birth to my son and he became 6 month olds I started to cook for him different dishes. I have never thought that I would be feeding him by junk food such as hamburgers, preprepared formulas and letting him drink coca cola and other artificial stuff full of con-servants, colorants and other additives.
For me always had huge reason the motto:
Healthy food means healthy life.
And I got so shocked about the news which brought Jamie Oliver about the results of USA kids. I knew that people over there are not eating properly but that even kids can not recognize different vegetable feels sad. They are taken out of the real world and they have to face the artificial created stuff which is considered as real. I am shocked how much money are spend for brainwashing customers about dietary advantages of eating fast food, if everybody can see and there were proved the unhealthy effects of eating it.
I am big fan of Jamie Oliver and his wish about better dietary for our kids because I can see how much good food influence the quality of our lives.
So I can strongly recommend to watch this video and think what we are eating in our homes and which kind of food is served to our the most loved once.
Day of lovers and friendship (El Dia del Amor y la Amistad)
The day of Lovers in Venezuela especially in Caracas was very lovely and “tropically hot” day. in general there is nothing new about the celebration, you can see couples around, families and friends who gather together to celebrate this nice and lovely day.
We made very nice time for us as family. First we went to great Italian restaurant where we totally overate ourselves which satisfied our primary needs. And in the afternoon after our darling fell asleep we escaped with Carlos from our home and went to wonderful little bar with wonderful view to whole Caracas. We picked bottle of white semi dry Argentinian vine and enjoyed Valentines delicious menu. I have to confess that I had great time. Calm, fulfilling and the most important loving.
Because saint Valentine is also the day of friendship we went to visit our friend for whom we borrowed (learn stole ) balloons in the shape of flowers from some party we passed by to made him surprise.
Motto: To Love and Be loved is the biggest treasure in our life. Appreciate, Love and let the others to love you.
By simple words I would describe Carnival in Latin America such as the dance and fun of colors. I remember that in Czech Republic we do have something similar called “Masopust” the time when we get dressed and have fun on the street. In case Of Latin America was the tradition brought by missionaries from Spain and Italy. But the big advantage of local celebration is weather. Here we do not have to think how the weather will be and that”s why which kind of customs we should choose. Here is such grate weather and conditions that you can let your imagination run and create any kind of customs for yourself.
The Carnival is celebrated in the two levels. One is by adults which remained in its pure quality only in Brasil, where people get basically naked and dance on the street their souls out and sweat blood . In Venezuela and other neighboring countries they stopped to celebrate carnival in such a spectacular way because of robberies and steeling. Adults usually celebrate with their friends in the beach. Take a drinks and have fun in the sea side. The colorful way of celebrating carnival remained only for the kids. It is big fun to see on the streets and shopping molls different fairy tales characters who interact with kids and make them laugh. Nearly every part of city Caracas prepared carnival celebration with games and performances for kids. We have visited municipality Chacao which always keeps nice and wild celebrations. As you can see Edie was enjoying his time with another kids as we were.
Edie was trapped by Mickey’s
Edie was totally amazed by the amount of masks around him
Edie and his new friends
Carnival advice:Enjoy your life, it is short and there are many things to do and many dreams to achieve. Do not waste the only ultimate and limited gift which was given to us when we were born. So let’s play, dance and make our life colorful!
Take this post also as inspiration for possible masks creation for your child.
Music and sounds are surrounding us since we are born and even before. Imagine how are we influenced by the heart beat of our moms, by their voice melody and internal peristaltic. All the internal processes do their sounds and create musical environment for us.
And then we are born and music and other external sounds immediately caught us and we are living our life in certain pace and rhythm.
I love experimenting with different sounds and instruments. Not always it has to be musical instrument as such, most of the time it is enough to have spoon, plastic bag, PET bottle, can filled with rice, two wooden sticks etc. And I am becoming inspired by Edie because kids have the unique gift of not being limitated by our education such as this is This and that is That and it can not be vice versa. They are so exploratory and they are able to create sounds from what ever. That’s why I am letting Edie to play with many things and just keep experimenting.
Look at him how is he enjoying. Our future Mozart
Experimenting with string instruments such as guitar, castanets and xylophone
Experimenting with electronic piano
Musical advice: For the kids is actually the best game experiment. The most of the kids psychologist said that the development of intellect comes from exposing kids to many different situations and stimulus and letting them to solve it. I love experimenting and I am happy that Edie too. If the baby feels fun with music since early age than there is high probability that he will enjoy later too.
Yeah I do not know where the time goes but one more month passed and Edie entered his last month of his 1st year. For me is so exciting to be near by him and being observing him on his life journey. He has done so many things and he has developed many skills during last 11 month.
But what is particularly new is as follows:
his weight 8,9 kg and hight is 74 cm
he is nicely waving during greeting time to everybody, everybody is so astonished and keep smiling and waving him back
he is clapping his palms and able to do hi5
he is still suffering of mamitis, as we called the big need for mom. It is curious but always when he is some time without me, he is calmly playing with somebody else or on his own, but it is enough to see me and he immediately starts to complain and run to me. Sometimes with smile but many times just as a need to be hugged and carrest.
his breastfeeding habits: I cut off his supply of mother milk so he is having exclusively only 2 round in a day, in the morning as breakfast cca 6am and before going to bed cca 8pm. I realized that it is not good for his dietary to give him more mother milk because afterwards he was not eating properly the food I prepared and also he was too used to breast. Also he was usually falling asleep while being fed which created him artificial sleeping time and he did not want to sleep at night properly.
His sleeping: finally he is sleeping whole night long! How we reached that point. Yes, we LET HIM CRY! I was already so tired, after 10 month of broken nights the past 3 weeks became more and more demanding. He was waking up 1,5-2 hours and was asking for being carried. I already cut of at 9 month to give him breast as calm down pacifier but it brought new issue. His constant waking up. And once I said: “Enough”! He has every needs satisfied now he is only being spoiled by us and our constant carriage. He can not sleep properly on his own and it is not good for him as well for us. So we hold our hand with Carlos and decided to hold on his cry and not to carry him. First night was terrible, he was standing in his crib and yelling and screaming to us. We did not move, we did not talk, we were nearly not breathing just holding our hands . I do not know how long it took but he stopped after a while (cca 10-20 min). He repeated this process 3 more times at night but always calmed down after a while. And in the end he fall asleep on his own. The second night was a bit better, he did not cry that desperately and was falling asleep faster. Third night already slept through and woke up only once for short time. After the week he is falling a sleep about 8 – 8:30pm and waking up for his drink at 5:30 -6 am. He usually drinks and afterwards he falls a sleep with me again. He is very active whole day, smiling, playing and being happy. He takes 2 naps a day. One in the morning after the breakfast about 10-11 am and than in the afternoon about 3pm, sometimes later.
What Edie eats: now basically everything. I try to give him everything what we eat, of course that some things he can not chew so he is spilling it out but at least he is trying its taste. He started to love papaya, which he did not like before. He loves yogurt with compotas (presnidavka, fruit jars), he likes chicken, creamy soups, melon, bananas, potato pure and brad with ham and cheese. He enjoys to drink mother milk and tap water mostly. He drinks about 400-600ml in a day. He is also eating basic finger food on his own like fruits and I try to give him drink also from glass or plastic bottle to let him learn how it feels and works.
He has his third and fourth upper tooth. And it is not comfortable for feeding. I discover it while I was breastfeeding him.
He loves to play, I try to show him different instruments and now I am trying to learn to play guitar to be able to teach him in the future. I know first song (3 piggies from Nohavica). He loves to dance also. Always when he hears music he calms down and usually start to move his hips. It is very funny to observe him. He is catching ball and through him back. He loves bottoms on mobile phone and PC in general.
He is also more and more manually skillful so he is bale to switch light on and off, able to whisle, clap his hands, wave. He is unfortunately able to open top from toilet and since he loves water he keeps playing in the full tank
He is very happy with other people, he likes to be the center of attention and if he can play with people and other kids he is very happy. But of course mum has to be close by. Than he is smiling, laughing and sending kisses.
many people said that he is very beautiful and long. He looks long and he is wearing clothes of 12 month and more, although he is still considered as young.
he is very smart and he is already trying us. He was already punished by slapping his hands when putting them into the electricity plugs or touching big frame with painting which could have fallen on him. He knows now and always when he tries to do it again he looks at us with his face like is somebody watching or can I do my sin and it is enough to remind him by raising a bit our voice. Not to shout just telling his name and reminding him.
He has also developed sense of self protection. He can recognize that he is up the stairs or on the bed. When he reaches the border he start to shout and call for help. He never crawl or jump down on his own. He knows after falling that it is dangerous and he can harm himself.
He is very smart and started to abuse out goodness so we needed to show him that there are some limits. He is in time when we need to say also NO and when he need to understand that he can not do everything he wants. He always cries but he starts to get a point. Now is the time of creating the good patterns in his head. We do not want spoiled kid! The theories say that till the age of 1 you can not spoil your baby, but you can create bad habit, and it is very easy. Kids are great manipulators!
He is healthy and strong child. Do not suffer from sicknesses now. He is tasting most of the things which he founds on the street or in the park. He probably tried all different leaves from the garden and also bit of soil and other stuff. I will never be fast enough to avoid this. But on the other hand now he is creating his immunity system, so I can only wish him “Enjoy your meal!”
Edie is in general very lovely, very demanding for attention and that’s why I keep constantly learning new things and creating new activities to keep him busy and not board. It is also important for me that he keeps my brain running! Unfortunately when he wants something he starts to yell out so we try to unlearn him this pattern. Not easy at all, but worth to try.
During his 11 monthary we visited beach side and he had opportunity to dance his first beach samba on the beach so just have a look and dance and celebrate with us
Picture galerry
Edie was also trying hard to fill his pool with sand, he had two supporters watching him
Advice of the day: Enjoy the time with your infants, because time flies and they will not be little anymoooooreeee!
I can promise you that with this case you will never do bad. It is very simple, fast and with little bit of your imagination and invention you will never fail.
