Frozen fruit salad and vegan cupcakes

Wow, I haven't posted in forever!

I guess the day-to-day juggling act of working and caring for a young tot has made it hard to remember to post when I cook -- and that's not exactly too often these days! We've mostly been living off Amy's vegetarian and vegan pizzas, baked potatoes with broccoli, and pasta/salad/soup dishes. I also haven't baked in forever - until today.

Anyway, we're not vegan, but I've been more interested in vegan baking lately, so this afternoon I made these pretty cupcakes:

http://www.lovintheoven.com/2007/11/peanut-butter-cupcakes-vegan-style.html

I eyeball/measured the frosting, mixing powdered sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, soymilk, and olive oil.

Then I also made this fruit salad that my mother always used to make for the Fourth of July -- so very sweet!

Frozen Fruit Salad:

Ingredients:
1 and 1/2 c sugar
Frozen orange juice
Large can of fruit cocktail
3 bananas, sliced
10 oz bag of sliced strawberries
Small can of pineapple (or use frozen)
Small can of peaches (frozen is fine too).

1. Boil 3 cups of water with your sugar, then remove from heat. Add orange juice and all fruits.
2. Pour into 9 x 13 pan or large tupperware and freeze overnight.

And too bad I couldn't capture photos of these items - they were gone baby, gone, before I could snap a few!

In other news, our precious girl is now 1! Some days I can't believe she has grown so fast, but I also remember trying to capture each moment in my mind, knowing it would soon pass. A friend of mine recently asked, "what did 6 months look like? what about 8 months?" and I can honestly recall vivid images of my daughter at each stage. At 6 months she had just learned to sit up, and at 8 months she had just learned to crawl. At 10 months she learned to sleep through the night. And at 1 year she abruptly decided she was done with nursing. She is consistently her own person, making her own decisions about her likes and dislikes. May we all be so lucky~xo