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Photo Diary: October 2016 Part 3
Birthdays
Photo Diary: April 2015 Part 2
Some day I’ll get caught up. Some day…
The Pop Poppa Nap Cast Episode 98
Good golly it’s been a long time since I did one of these! The 98th episode of The Pop Poppa Nap Cast features some stuff I recorded back in April and then follows it up with an update from this week! It’s not a complete update, but you’ll get the deets on both kids’ birthday parties, the swingset construction and more!
Guys, first off, Kite Day was more fun than I expected. Kites are rad, even cheapo ones from the drug store (just don’t get those crazy-long tails tangled up).
Speaking of rad, crawfish parties are in that same category. I really miss hanging out with my friends, so these get-togethers are super important to me.
Both the Princess Power Barbie doll
I talked about the Charlie & Lola cartoons back in PPNC #84, but here’s a look at the artwork I mentioned.
Charlie and Lola art sample
Birthdays! Cakes make kids even cuter. It’s a law of nature.
Here‘s the list of tips I came up with for throwing a solid pre-schooler birthday party. It’s pretty much the best thing you’ll read all day.
And finally, behold the glory of a more organized garage!
For more of me check out UnitedMonkee.com, Comic Book Resources, Geek.com and @PoppaDietsch on Twitter.
10 Tips For Throwing A Successful Pre-School Birthday Party
A few weeks back we celebrated our daughter’s fourth birthday with a lot of her friends from school. I don’t mind saying that it was a huge success and I take basically no responsibility for that. My wife was the mastermind behind the festivities from invitations to decorations and games, but she doesn’t have a blog and I do, so I’m the one who’s going to throw down some advice. Continue reading
The Pop Poppa Nap Cast Episode 97
The Pop Poppa Nap Cast Episode 97 reflects back on a year of Jack, his many developments in recent weeks and our struggles to get our daughter to sleep in her own bed.
If you want to listen to the episode I recorded after Jack was born a year ago, you can find it here. I also chronicled the events in the Photo Diaries from that month.
Here’s me doing the sign for “more.”
For more of me check out UnitedMonkee.com, Comic Book Resources, Geek.com and @PoppaDietsch on Twitter.
The Pop Poppa Nap Cast Episode 91
The Pop Poppa Nap Cast Episode 91 covers a gnarly stomach bug, all this snow and video game fun times with the eldest child.
If you’re curious about why The Protector 2 was so disappointing, read this.
Here’s Patton Oswalt’s routine from Werewolves & Lollipops on birthdays that I mentioned. It’s probably NSFW.
To see my reviews of those Batman and Superman comics I mentioned, check out the ones on UnitedMonkee and PopPoppa.
Here’s the video I mentioned of my doing Alphabet Sounds when Lu was a baby. I wrote about doing this with Lu back in 2011.
If the Retron 3 sounds like something you’d be interested in, check out the following link on Amazon: Hyperkin Retron 3 Video Game System for NES/SNES/GENESIS – Gray
For more of me check out UnitedMonkee.com, Comic Book Resources and @PoppaDietsch on Twitter.
The Pop Poppa Nap Cast Episode 90
The Pop Poppa Nap Cast Episode 90 might sound a little echo-y because of the new computer, but it covers Guardians of the Galaxy, snowy days, Steven Universe and way more.
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My review of Guardians can be found here. To see the Rocket Raccoon toy I mentioned, check this link out and to see my review of the Steven Universe DVD head on thisaway.
For more of me check out UnitedMonkee.com, Comic Book Resources and @PoppaDietsch on Twitter.
The Pop Poppa Nap Cast Episode 87
The Pop Poppa Nap Cast Episode 87 goes back to cover New Year’s and my wife’s birthday, plus my attempts to get on an hourly schedule and the various ways they were thwarted this week.
Check out the Babes In Toyland post I wrote here.
Here’s a look at the schedule and check-list on the wipe board in my office.
WebMD has a solid post on Fifth Disease.
Littlest Pet Shop Season 1
For more of me check out UnitedMonkee.com, Comic Book Resources and @PoppaDietsch on Twitter.
Bonus Food Pics: Pre-Birthday Dinner & Dessert
As some of you may know, today is my 30th birthday. I’m going back and forth between not thinking about this new decade and trying to figure out how I’m going to not trust anyone over 30 if I’m now included in that bracket. Last weekend, my parents came in for a visit to celebrate a little early. As I mentioned in a recent Photo Diary, we went to New Paltz on Saturday and while I originally thought we might come back closer to home for a mid-day dinner, I changed my mind and decided to head over to New Paltz’s Gilded Otter. Both a restaurant and a brewery, I decided to start off with their beer sample which not surprisingly lead me to order their India Pale Ale to go along with my meal of Stout Braised Boneless Short Ribs. I haven’t had shortribs too often, but have always liked their juicy tenderness. The meal was served with veggies and some super fluffy, bite-y Horseradish Mashed Potatoes. I scarfed this all done pretty quickly, so it must have been good.
For dessert, my lovely wife Emily made Michael Ruhlman’s Classic New York Cheesecake from Ruhlman’s Twenty (page 113). She wasn’t super thrilled with some of the vagueness in the recipe, but I thought the results were a real treat. More lemony than I would have expected, the mixture of acid and creamy cheese with the best graham cracker crust I’ve ever had made this aces in my book. I should say, I’m not much of a dessert fan, but I do love cheesecake and even had two pieces of this on Saturday.
Bonus Birthday Food Pics: Sushi From QQ & Brothers Barbecue
One of these days I’m going to remember to write down what I order from our favorite nearby sushi place, QQ Asian Bistro. I want to say that these are pictures of the 007 Roll (above) which consists of “Spicy tuna, crabmeat, avocado,lightly deep fried, eel, spicy mayo sauce, topped with scallion, masago” and the Spider Roll, but I can’t quite be sure. 
Anyway, when my parents were in town for Second Christmas and New Year’s we decided to celebrate another holiday: my wife’s birthday. Instead of going out for a big meal, we instead ordered the big meal and ate it at home. It was a great experience and as usual, the QQ food was wicked good. 
But that’s not all the food goodness we enjoyed to celebrate my lovely wife’s birth. On her actual birthday I made her a cake and we also went and got dinner at Brothers Barbecue. Brothers actually opened a while back, but they had a fire and shut down for around two years or so. Well, they’re back open and we had some awesome food there. Above you can see the corn bread which was super thick and sweet and yummy. 
And then there’s the entree. I had the two meat plate with two sides and decided on Kansas City ribs and pulled pork with mac & cheese and collard greens with bacon. The ribs were delicious and fell right off the bone, the pulled pork was perfectly tender. Both were complimented very well by their barbecue sauce which reminded me of a homemade version of Arbys Sauce. The collard greens were really tasty too, I don’t think I’d ever had them before, but they had a very cabbage-y flavor to them. The mac and cheese was alright. Having made several versions of that as a main course and as a side, I know how hard it can be to keep in good shape. It wasn’t bad by any means, just not mind blowingly awesome like everything else. Welcome back, Brothers!
Baking Birthday Cake For My Lady
Sunday was my wonderful wife’s birthday. The one thing she asked for was for me to make her favorite cake with her favorite icing. That happens to be the batter recipe for Betty Crocker’s Sour Cream Chocolate Cupcakes with Martha Stewart’s Fluffy Vanilla Frosting (Cupcakes page 302). As I’ve said before, I’m not much of a baker because I don’t like sweets or deserts too much, but of course I’m going to do my best to make her birthday a happy one.
I got the cakes going in the morning which was as simple as popping all the ingredients into the mixer in the proper order (everything up to and including the baking powder). The only changes I made (as noted in my wife’s printed out copy of the recipe) were using hot water and vegetable oil instead of shortening. Then I mixed in the eggs and popped the baker’s chocolate into the microwave for 2 minutes and then into the mixer. Done. Those went into heart-shaped pans with Crisco and some flour and then into the oven at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.
Later on in the day, I made the icing, which also was pretty simple. Again, it’s a lot of putting things into the mixing bowl, but my wife did suggest I sift the powdered sugar which took the most time. To add a little pizzazz I used some pink food coloring and as you can see, it came out a nice shade of neon pink.
The last part was icing the cake and that’s where I ran into some trouble. I’m more of a “it needs to taste good, not always look good” kind of people, so the first draft of the icing looked pretty crummy. Em came in and finished it up, which is good because otherwise it would have looked like an anatomical heart cake and no one really wants that in that shade. As far as I know, it turned out pretty good. Of course, it only mattered if Em liked it and she did, so there you go. Happy birthday!
