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! :)