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 :)