Henry's 4 month Appointment

We took Henry to the pediatrician today for his 4 month appointment. His doctor says he's doing great! He has a little eczema on his legs, but I already knew this, Peyton has it too. But other than that he is a big strong healthy boy!

His Stats:

Weight: 17 pounds 11 ounces (90th percentile!)

Height: 28" (Over 100th percentile!)

Head Circumference: 43 1/2 centimeters (90th percentile!)

So since he was born he has GAINED 9 lbs 9 oz, GROWN 8 whole inches and his noggin has INCREASED 3.75 inches! Huge!

Developmentally he is doing great as well! He only wakes up once a night to nurse. He has a tooth almost all of the way in, and it's a canine tooth on his bottom left, weird huh? I always thought the bottom two teeth came in first! He smiles at everything (but mostly at Peyton), and he is SO CLOSE to rolling over, any day now!

Here is his 4 month bear picture and then all of the months of pictures for comparison purposes :)

4 Months

                                  

  1 Month                2 Months

                              3 Months

Pumpkin Bars

Another delicious festive recipe coming your way! These bars would be a great addition to your Thanksgiving dessert menu. I found a similar recipe in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, but of course I had to change it up, so this is my modified version :)

Pumpkin Bars

*2 cups flour ( I used Trader Joe's white whole wheat flour, but you could do half all-purpose flour and half whole wheat, or just all-purpose if you don't have this particular flour)
*2 tsps. baking powder
*2 tsps. ground cinnamon
*1 tsp. baking soda
*1/4 tsp. ground ginger
*1 tsp. salt
*4 eggs
*1 16-ounce can pumpkin
* 1 1/2 cups sugar
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 1/2 cup applesauce
* handful of semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9 x 13 glass baking dish and set aside. Combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, ginger and salt in one bowl. In another bowl, combine the eggs, pumpkin, sugar, oil and applesauce. Mix your dry and wet ingredients together. Add the chocolate chips. Pour the batter into the lightly greased baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 mins. You can tell its done when you give the dish a little shake and the center doesn't jiggle much. These will be soft though. Let them cool completely and then cut into bars. You could also frost the bars with a cream cheese frosting if you're so inclined :) Enjoy!

I made a purse!

My sister gave me a top for my birthday a couple months ago. I loved the fabric of the shirt but it just didn't look right on me so I stuck it in my fabric drawer and forgot about it. Yesterday I decided I needed a new purse and I thought "Hey I should try and MAKE one!". So I scavenged through my fabric stash to find a cute print. I rediscovered the shirt and knew it was perfect! I really wish I had taken a picture of the shirt before I cut it up but it had these cute buttons down the middle that I thought would make for a unique purse front. It actually came out pretty good! A few people might even be getting purses this Christmas :)
Let me know what you think!

The front

The back

See the little blue buttons? That was the middle front of the shirt originally.

A cream colored lining

The print up close

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

Fall is by far my favorite season of the year. I love the crisp jacket weather and the pretty colors that the leaves become. But my favorite part about Fall is the DE-licious holiday food, pumpkin in particular. I also love the fact that pumpkin is totally healthy for you (it's loaded with vitamin A and alpha and beta-carotenes!), so you really don't have to feel guilty at all about indulging in that 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) piece of pumpkin pie :) 

I came up with these cookies because Peyton has been on a cheese diet lately, that is, he won't eat anything but string cheese. So I thought I might sneak in a vegetable and some wheat germ and oatmeal into a cookie for him. He loved it and so did we! The pumpkin makes these cookies extra moist and the handful of chocolate chips that I added give them a little extra decadence.

  

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

8 tblsp. butter
1/2 c. white sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
1 c. pumpkin puree
1 tblsp. honey
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 c. white flour
3/4 c. whole wheat flour
2 c. old fashioned oats
2 tblsp. wheat germ
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsps. baking powder
handful of chocolate chips (Optional)

Cream the butter and sugars together. Add the eggs one at a time. Mix in the pumpkin puree, honey and vanilla. In a separate bowl combine the flours, oats, wheat germ, cinnamon, salt and baking powder. Pour 1/3 of the dry mixture into the wet mixture and stir. Slowly add the rest of the dry mixture in and stir just until combined. Add the chocolate chips. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Stick the whole bowl in the fridge while the oven is preheating so that it firms up. Drop the mixture by spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet or your pampered chef stone. Bake for 13-15 minutes or until they're slightly browned. Let sit on the cookie sheet for one minute after taking them out of the oven then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Happy Fall! :)

Healthy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ok so since I just posted an absolutely sinful muffin recipe in my last post, I thought I'd redeem myself a bit and show you a very healthy, breakfast worthy muffin recipe. This is actually what we ate for breakfast this morning! But don't worry, the healthy part doesn't compromise the taste at all, these are still delicious! I found a recipe for oatmeal muffins over here. This one is almost perfect except for the fact that Peyton is SUPER picky, so I knew he wouldn't eat just a plain old muffin. My solution...throw in a few chocolate chips! Only enough to entice him though, I didn't want his healthy breakfast turning into a sugar fest!

Healthy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins

3/4 cup old fashioned oats
3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 12-muffin tin really well or use muffin liners. Combine the oats, both flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a separate bowl combine the honey, buttermilk, oil and eggs. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until combined, but don't over mix! Fold in the chocolate chips. Fill each muffin cup about 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. These are best eaten warm, so hurry up and go eat them! :)

Decadent Blueberry Muffins

These muffins are rich, buttery, not-diet-food, but absolutely delicious and fluffy blueberry muffins! I adapted a recipe from my recipe book How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. I added blueberries to try and up the health factor a bit. These would be a great dessert or brunch muffin!

Decadent Blueberry Muffins

6 Tablespoons butter (at room temperature)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup fresh blueberries (or more if you love lots of berries!)

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 12-muffin tin very well or use muffin liners. Cream together the butter and sugar. In a separate bowl mix the salt, baking powder and flour, then add the eggs an milk. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture a little at a time until the batter is moist. The batter should be lumpy, don't over mix! Gently fold in the blueberries. Spoon the batter into the muffin tins, filling about two-thirds full. Bake 15-20 minutes or until slightly browned, and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Then consume!

TWO

My oldest baby boy, Peyton, is two today! I can't believe how fast time has gone!

Below I've posted the birth story that I wrote up a few days after he was born. Enjoy!

-It's kind of graphic and a little bit TMI, so you have been forewarned!

Peyton Elliot was born 10/19/2008 at 5:03 pm, 8 lbs. 8 oz. and 19" long!

 

Labor was hard, it started as awful back labor early Sunday morning at home, I was admitted around 11am, and he was born 6 hours later! Contractions were really tough; they were every 20 seconds and about a minute and a half long the whole 6 hours of labor! Since it was all back labor I couldn't walk and labor, I couldn't bounce on the ball and labor, and I couldn't lie down, every position hurt! I finally got in the shower and had Matt rub my back while the hot water hit my belly and it made things a little more tolerable. One thing's for sure I would never have made it through the birth process alone, Matt and my mom were both with me the whole time, and they helped so much! I made it all the way to 9 cm w/o getting an epidural, but I felt like I was dying by then and I was screaming and crying and shaking and all in all a huge mess and didn't think I'd be able to push. So, I decided to just go ahead and get some relief and got the epidural, and it did nothing! I still was able to feel all the pain! I guess I'm one of those"lucky" few that the epidural has no effect on. The anesthesiologist came in to check it and decided to just try putting in another epidural, but

before he could begin to put it in (he was all prepped and seconds away from sticking another needle in my spine), I said "I need to push!" So the nurse checked me and said, "Cassie feel your baby's head",  he was crowning! So no need for the 2nd epidural, but I was feeling ALL the pain! I pushed for about 45 minutes but I wasn't stretching enough so I had to have an episiotomy! I could feel him cutting my skin; it was the worst feeling in the whole world! But finally, I pushed out my Peyton and the second they put his body onto mine I started bawling, mostly from relief of the pain but also because I couldn't believe I'd actually birthed a child!  I wish someone would have told me that labor would be the most awful thing I'd ever felt in my life, I really had no idea that it would feel the way it did! I thought I was so prepared with my soothing music and birth ball, but If someone had even mentioned that I should relax, be quiet and listen to classical music I probably would have thrown a bed rail at them! lol  However, the outcome, my beautiful baby boy (who looks just like his Daddy) was so worth it! I'm so in love with him! 

Happy 2nd Birthday Bubbaloo :)

Fall Table Runner

My little house was in some serious need of holiday decorations. So the frugal person in me decided that a trip to the Dollar Store was in order. I am proud to say I spent a mere $4 on Halloween decorations, that's it! But when I got home I noticed that the table was still too sparse for my liking. I looked through my material stash and found some material that my mom had given me that was leftover from some curtains she had made. It looked fall-y enough but there wasn't enough left for a whole tablecloth, so a table runner it was!

Do you want to make your own? It's really easy! Here's how:

Find some fall looking material and lay it out on your table. Cut it to your tables size. I made mine so that it hangs off the table a couple inches on either end. Be sure to add an extra inch or so on all four sides for the seam allowance.

Get your iron out and start on one long side. Fold the material over a half inch and iron. 

Then fold the material over again another half inch or so and iron flat. The ironing is a really important step, don't skip it! The iron really does make the difference if you want to produce a professional looking handmade item. 

After one side is ironed take it to your sewing machine and sew down the length of the material, close to the fold. Do the same thing for the other long side and then do both ends. You are pretty much just hemming your table runner. 

Don't forget to clip your diagonals so that you get nice crisp corners in the end!

After the table runner is all hemmed it will look like a nice (but boring) finished product.

 Time to get your fall leaves out. I got a package of 150 of these at the Dollar Store. 

Side note: When I put these in the cart, Matt looked at me and said "What are those for?" (because I had already put quite a few things in the cart). I just said "I'll think of something!" and he rolled his eyes. But I knew I couldn't let 150 fall leaves for only a dollar pass me by! lol

Ok now we are going to sew the leaves on. Start on one of the long sides and one by one put each leaf down and sew right over them, on top of your hem line, down the middle of the leaf.

I alternated the leaves facing one stem inwards and one stem outwards, one stem inwards etc. This is kind of a long and slow process but it looks really great in the end! Do the other side and your done!

 I didn't iron down the middle afterwards but I probably should have since my table runner is a bit "hilly" in these pictures :)

 I thought about doing the short ends too but I thought that might be a little too excessive, but if you like it better then go ahead and do the ends.

 Doesn't my house look festive? And for only $4! :)

2 Months Old!

My little baby Henry is the big 2 today. 2 months that is! I know that people always say that time will fly once you have kids but it seems to be going hyperspeed lately. I seriously feel like I JUST gave birth! It's crazy!

Here's my little (big!) boy today.

 I decided that I'm going to try and take a picture of him on our recliner witht that bear every month so we can really see the difference! His 2 month appt. isn't until next week so I'll update with stats and such after that.

And here's the one and two month pictures side by side for comparison:

Henry

I just have to post this picture of Henry....

Isn't he perfect? I found him clutching his little bear during naptime yesterday :) Love.

Peanut Butter Cups

Reese's are my all time favorite candy, so when I saw this recipe here for homemade peanut butter cups I knew I had to give it a try and of course modify the recipe to make it my own. These turned out so delicious, that I forgot to get a picture of the final product before I realized that they had all disappeared somewhere ;) I might even go so far as to say they are BETTER than Reese's, but you be the judge... they're super easy to make!

Peanut Butter Cups

1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

4 tbsp. creamy peanut butter

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp salt

powdered sugar

mini cupcake liners and mini muffin tin 

Melt the chocolate chips with 4 tbsp. of peanut butter in the microwave. Be sure to stir it a few times or the chocolate will burn and get grainy. Add half of your chocolate to a pastry bag with a piping tip on it (if you're fancy), or just use a ziploc bag with a corner snipped off (like I did!) and pipe the chocolate into the mini liners. Be sure just to put enough to coat the bottom, this is the first layer of your "cup". Put the muffin tin in the fridge so the chocolate can harden up. Meanwhile mix the 3/4 cup of peanut butter with the vanilla and salt. Add powdered sugar until you start to get a dough like texture. I didn't measure out the powdered sugar, just mixed and tasted until it was sweet enough for me. Roll a small amount of dough into a ball and softly push into the center of your hardened chocolate on the first layer. Don't let the dough get all the way to the edges though or else it'll be poking out of the peanut butter cup at the end. Then add the rest of your chocolate on top of the peanut butter dough. This is the last layer. Place your whole muffin tin in the fridge until the cups are firm. Peel back the cupcake liner and forget about any diet you were on as you consume :)  

These are your ingredients, minus the vanilla (I'm still out!).

First layer of chocolate.

The peanut butter "dough".

Roll the dough into small balls and press into the first layer.

Cover with the remaining chocolate and then refrigerate until firm! 

Oatmeal Pudding Cookies

Yum. I was determined to come up with a new soft oatmeal cookie recipe and I have to say, these came out amazing! The secret is all in the pudding mix, that's what makes these cookies so perfectly soft and fluffy. As an added bonus, if you happen to be a nursing mama (me!), then these cookies do wonders to boost your supply! 

Oatmeal Pudding Cookies

1 cup butter (2 sticks)

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

3.4 oz pudding mix (I used butterscotch flavored because it is what I had on hand, but I'm sure these cookies would also be great with vanilla or chocolate...experiment!)

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

2 cups flour

3 cups oatmeal

If you like raisins in your oatmeal cookies (we are not fans), then add about 1/4 cup to the batter.

Cream together the butter and sugars. Then add the vanilla and eggs and beat until fluffy. Add the powdered pudding mix and combine. In a separate bowl combine the salt, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and flour. Then add the oatmeal. Combine your wet and dry ingredients. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Put the bowl of cookie dough in the fridge to set up while you wait for the oven to preheat. Place the dough by heaping teaspoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet. I baked my cookies on my Pampered Chef Stone (if you don't have one, you really should invest...the cookies will NEVER burn if they're baked on one of these!), but a greased cookie sheet will also work. Bake for 12-15 mins or until slightly brown. Transfer cookies immediately to a wire rack or parchment paper. The cookies might seem slightly mushy at first, but they'll firm up once they've cooled. This recipe made about 25 cookies. 

My Sous Chef is ready to bake!

These are your ingredients, minus the vanilla. I ran out but the cookies really should have vanilla to make them taste even better!

Cream the sugars and butter, then add the eggs and vanilla.

Add the pudding mix. My butterscotch flavored pudding made the dough an awesome orange-y color!

Combine the dry ingredients.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients and then spoon the chilled dough onto your stone or cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees. Try to resist the urge to gobble them up as soon as they come out of the oven :)

Healthy Chicken Nuggets

For dinner tonight I knew we were having chicken (we had just bought a GIANT bag of frozen chicken breasts from Costco), but I was bored of my usual chicken recipes (grilled chicken, crockpot chicken, BBQ chicken), so I had the idea to make some chicken nuggets, yum! Most kids (and many adults) LOVE chicken nuggets. Usually these nuggets are fried in oil giving them their tasty flavor while providing a cartload of calories. So I decided I was going to come up with a way to bake them in the oven without sacrificing flavor. That's when I realized that we were out of a necessary ingredient for the breading process, eggs. We also didn't have any of the ingredients I've used as substitutes in the past (yes you can bread chicken with yogurt or applesauce!). So my solution was to create buttermilk. Did you know you can do that? All I did was add a few teaspoons of lemon juice to about a half a cup of 2% milk. I let that stew for a couple minutes, gave it a sitr, and Voila! buttermilk! Success!


Oven Baked Chicken Nuggets
-Chicken breasts, fresh or thawed, cut into bite sized pieces (I used 4 smaller ones and we had plenty 
  enough for me, Matt and Peyton.)
-Panko Bread Crumbs (these can be found in the ethnic food aisle of the grocery store. I prefer these 
  Japanese bread crumbs over regular ones because they are airy and crunchier!)
-Seasoning to flavor the bread crumbs (You can use a couple teaspoons of Italian Seasoning, or just   
  combine a few things; I used salt, paprika, garlic powder and pepper)
-Buttermilk (or milk with a couple teaspoons of lemon juice mixed in)
-Olive oil

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Combine your bread crumbs and seasoning in one bowl and put the buttermilk in the other bowl. Spray a 9x13 inch glass baking dish with cooking spray. For each piece of chicken, first drench it in the buttermilk and then in the Panko crumb mixture, then place it in the baking dish. It's okay if the nuggets are touching in the dish, just make sure they are all one layer. Sprinkle your nuggets with a small amount of olive oil. Bake at 425 degrees for 25 mins. Then put the nuggets under the broiler on low for about 5 mins, or until they're nice and brown and crunchy. Let them rest for a few mins. before serving so they won't all fall apart. Then drench in ketchup or barbecue sauce to your heart's content!

These are your ingredients.

Coat each piece of chicken in buttermilk, then the crumb mixture. Drizzle with olive oil and place in a glass baking dish.

Bake until they are nice and toasty!

Enjoy with the dipping sauce of your choice! :)