Happy Halloween

In the years to come I look forward to having my babe actually participate in holidays and get excited.  This year Colby is going to be a skunk because he is such a stinker-short story to go with that-he's not really a stinker most of the time.  I was at my in-laws looking through boxes of pictures with my husband and his parents.  Colby looks almost identical to my husband when they were babies, but Colby has my chubby cheeks.  We picked up a Halloween picture of my husband at one dressed as a devil and on the back it says in my mother-in-laws perfect cursive, 'we thought it was fitting'.  Needless to say she is still heckled about this photo caption.  On to the blog post:  Creepy food to make for kidders that aren't too scary to eat-click on pictures to go to links to find directions. 

Tasty Skeleton Cupcakes with mini cupcake and wafer hats

Yummy Mummies made with biscuits and nutella

Vampire Smiles made with apples and almond slivers

Spaghetti and Hotdogs-maybe a bit too gross to eat

Octopus Potpie

Baby Registry Advice

Here's another advice column for my friend who is expecting.  We lucked out and got most of our big items from friends and family.   I was rather surprised at how little Colby did until like 4 months-and he was pretty content to just sit in one place and watch whatever I was doing so he didn't need a lot of things to entertain him.  So here's a run down-hope this helps-now that I look at the list I guess a lot of little things come with babies so ask for A LOT! 
The Goods:
Swing:  Probably good.  Colby didn't really care for his.  If possible I'd get one that plugs in so you don't go through too many batteries
Bouncy Chair/lounge chair with some danglies-this will be what you use most probably.  Ours vibrated too. 
Play Mat:  Also good-definite need
Night light
Crib toy:  When he's older one that attaches to the crib and plays music and has lights so when he won't nap he can entertain himself
Wipes and Diapers-It was awesome to have some on hand so we didn't have to run out
Strollers:  The umbrella stroller is nice to throw in the car-jogging stroller-good for walks because it is more stable-medium sized stroller good for short walks or trips to mall-we didn't have one that fit the car seat but it would've been nice
Car Seat: We went with the Chicco Keyfit 30-it takes up a lot of room in the car but it was highly rated by consumer reports
Mirror for car so you can see him in the back seat
Books:  He loves ones with textures, shapes that pop up, and peek a boo ones
Bottles:  I wouldn't go too overboard because I've talked to a lot of moms whose babies went through like 4 different kinds of bottles before they'd drink out of them.  We use Mag's old Avent ones for when I pump
Breast Pump:  If doing this.  I got the First year's mipump.  Next time I'd get a bit more expensive and one that has a rechargeable batteries that you can plug into the wall. 
Bibs, burp cloths, spoons, sippy cup-you will need these things sooner then you think-might as well ask for things you'll need:)
Pacifiers: We totally weren't going to use these, but after him crying for a whole night and trying to feed him repeatedly-he just needed  to suck-so I'd get a few to have on hand-we just got nuk ones.
Baby Wash Cloths
Tub Toys-some foamy ones that stick on the wall
Baby-bath tub: We just used the tub or later Jeanean got him an Inflatable duck to bathe in.  We got a small tub from the hospital so I imagine you'll get a small tub as well
Non-skid mat for tub floor so he doesn't slip
Swaddle or Sleep Blankets:  These were nice to keep him warm-we just had like 3-we liked the halo sleep sack a lot. 
Monitors-we just have the one sony monitors with 2 speakers.  It is voice activated which is nice.  We could probably just due with 1 speaker thing.  One friend up here has the video  monitor- i guess that would be nice for peace of mind too. 
Baby nail clippers, hair brush, thermometer, baby tylenol/pain reliever, baby wash and lotion (colby has eczema so we can't use these, but they smell great), vaseline for circ., saline nose drops for crusty noses,  butt cream-the burts bees stuff is awesome and expensive so I'd register for that
Outlet covers-ones with a tab you pull down are way easier then the ones without
Carrier:  We had a front snuggli which Colby liked and I found a moby wrap at a garage sale and it is awesome-I wish I had one when he was really little because you can nurse him in it and no on would no. 
3-4 Fitted sheets and mattress covers
Bassinet-had one from a garage sale.  Great to have by bed for middle of night feedings.  He was in it until 3 months

Odds and ends:
Don't worry about blankets-because I"m sure you'll get plenty and the receiving blankets are kind of worthless after a few weeks
Crib tent-My husband was worried about the cats trying to sleep with him so we got a mesh tent that zips up and keeps the kitties out.
Baby hats-he was born in the winter so I thought he was cold all the time so hats were good-just light knit ones
Excersaucer/bouncer-we used an exersaucer for a few months and he enjoyed sitting and spinning around playing with the toys attached.  It only lasts a few months though.  A lot of babes I know like the johny jumper things but we didn't have one

For you:  If breastfeeding get some lanolin cream, breast shields-or washable ones, boppy pillow, cover, pump.  For after the delivery I'd have quite a few pads on hand, tucks pads, hemmroid cream, tylenol, ducolax pills to help you poop (this may be worse than pushing the baby out), ice packs for your boobs, some nursing tanks-pretty much lived in these things with comfy pants

Diapering Advice for New Moms

Alrighty!  We have made it to almost 9 months of cloth diapering, which I guess makes me a  slight expert.  I was waiting for pictures to be developed at Walgreens and the cashier noticed Colby was wearing cloth and struck up a converstation with me about diapering.  She was happy to finally meet someone personally who uses cloth instead of just hearing about it on blogs.   Today one of my friends emailed me for advice on which type of cloth to use and the ins and out of cloth so I thought I would share my advice with all.  Sorry to bore you if you have no desire to use cloth diapers, don't have a baby, or just think it is plain gross.

DIAPERS:   Flannel diapers are quite easy and cheap to make.  I've made some that are just old t-shirts with towel inside.  they sound really back roads-but they work great and are pretty soft.  We're still on the cloth diaper train right now and he's been on solid foods for almost 3 months and it isn't too bad and it is actually a bit easier since they don't go all over the place like when he was just on milk-and he only goes like every 3-4 days so solids aren't bad at all and I just have a rubber spatula I keep in the bathroom in a cool whip container to scrape them off and then I use a Lysol wipe to clean the scraper.

 There are several routes you can go with cloth diapers and we are just doing flannel homemade ones with covers.  I use thirsties covers which you can order online at target or amazon.  I did buy two bumgenius diapers-these you stuff them and they snap up to different settings so you don't have to buy different sizes.  These are alright and the fleece liner wicks the moisture away better than flannel so you can leave them in wet diapers longer.  One of the mom gals I know uses softbums-they are a Minnesota based company and she apparently only uses 4 a day for her girl-they look pretty nice here's the website:  http://www.softbums.com/  If you want to go the expensive diaper route you will probably need 12-18 ish at 20 dollars a piece.  The cheap route is the diaper covers are 12 dollars a piece and the flannel diapers or they can be made out of t-shirts and towels which I have done as well-are practically free. 

24-30 Flannel Diapers or so (Colby is still a super pee-er so we have to change a lot of diapers)
4-5 small/medium diaper covers
4-5 Large ones
Diaper pail=cat litter bucket with lid-it keeps the stink in and it fits about all his diapers before I need to wash
Pins-we did pins at the beginning but now we just set them in the cover and velcro it up-seems to work well-so I wouldn't even bother with these
Wipes-you can use regular ones but I've done some flannel or baby wash clothes too-just in a tupperware with water and or baby wash and some baby oil-you can find lots of recipes online

Next time around I'm going to buy some flat birdseye or gauze ones from Target because they are super soft for the newborn butt and circumcision. 

Laundry is easy too-sometimes I do a soak in cold then a cycle in hot with extra spin and half the detergent-or I just run a cold cycle with detergent then run a full cycle in cold to get out all the suds.  Sometimes I throw in some vinegar in the wash too for an extra boost. 

Homemade Baby Girl Shoes

 This past weekend I worked on making a pair of cute shoes for my niece.  I found this awesome tutorial to make some cute ruffled slip on shoes. Click on the picture to go to her website fleetingthing.com.  The tutorial was very clear and concise.  I added about a half inch to the pattern to make the longer.  I had some issues with the sewing machine when I was making the ruffles so I just used some elastic on the back.  I ended up realizing that these shoes were going to be a bit too small for my chunky niece (22 Ibs at 6 months) so I didn't spend as much time on the details as I should have and Colby had to take one for the team and try on girl shoes.  

Here's mine made from one of my husband's old dress shirts. 

Halloween Photo Shoot

Most of our leaves have fallen down so I've been trying to work on some cute baby pictures outside.  I have a few costumes passed down from my sister so we tried those on.  I'm still debating about if he will be a tiger, pumpkin, skunk, or gnome.  Enjoy.  (Oh, and don't judge the quality of pictures...I haven't invested in a cool camera yet and just have a Cannon Powershot)

My Favorite Brownie Recipe

Pic from here

These are my favorite brownies because they are so moist and chewy, not to mention incredibly simple to make.  I got them from my old Better and Homes cookbook I got at a garage sale from the 70's.

Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Butter
1 cup Sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla or almond flavoring
2 eggs
2 one ounce bars of unsweetened chocolate bars melted
1/2 cup of Flour

Directions:  
Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla. Add eggs mixing after each and add chocolate.  Mix in flour.  Place in greased 9x9 pan.  Put in oven and turn it on to 325 for 30 minutes or so.  Try not to eat the whole pan!

Once A Month Cooking List for October

Here comes a big one.  I'm going to actually try to have all my meals prepared and planned for the whole month! (We usually have left overs on the big dishes to have the next day)  Should be a tasty month and the prep wasn't bad at all.  Basically most of the meats just marinate in a baggie and I put them in the freezer then the day before I want to eat the dish I put it in the fridge.  I try to just do steamed veggies, potato, rice or salad as sides so it doesn't get too hectic.  I only spent 125 for all the meals!
Here's the plan:
1.  Chicken Curry
2.  Sweet Soy Marinated Chicken
3.  Chili Burgers
4.  Pork Chops
5.  Chicken Tacos
6.  Chicken Nuggets
7.  Farmer's Casserole
8.  Green Chili Enchiladas
9. Chili
10.  Grilled Chicken
11. Corn Soup
12.  BBQ Chicken Pizza
13.  Eggs and Waffles
14.  Meat Loaf
15.  Potato Soup
16.  Pizza
17.  Tacos
18.  Spaghetti

Once a Month Cooking

I bought this cookbook because I needed to spend five more dollars to get free shipping so I ended up with this gem.  I had heard about once a month cooking and it perplexed me.  Would it save me time?  Money?  Energy?  I tried it last month and I don't think it saved any money or time.  I still had to use the oven or crock pot most days and instead of buying groceries once every week I did one big shop and still had to go back every week for lunch meat and milk.  What  I do enjoy about this method is the variety.  We commonly get in a rut of tacos, spaghetti, and grilled chicken so having new recipes to try out is thrilling in its own respect.  I was dissappointed in the quality of revisions of the cookbook.  Some recipes are vague and contradictory.  One calls for cooked cubed chicken in the ingredient list and then in the directions it says to cook it.  Here's our menu for two weeks that pretty much lasted a month for us.

Herbed Chicken:  Chicken with cream of mushroom soup baked in oven
Pot Roast:  Pot roast in crock pot
Chicken Nuggets:  Delicious!  Chicken strips dipped in bread crumbs
Playoff Burgers:  Burgers with cheese and onion
Farmer's Casserole:  Eggs, potatoes, ham, onion, and green pepper
Poppy Beef:  Strange but good.  Hamburger with linguine coated in cheese
Chicken Tacos:  Chicken mixed with taco seasoning in crock pot
Mexican Lasagna:  Chicken, beans, lasagna noodles baked
Corn Soup:  Tasty spicy corn soup

Homemade High Chair Cover

The high chair the most of our baby gear was second hand.  My husband's coworker graciously gave us a crib, high chair, and booster seat.  Unfortunately the chair was covered in cracking vinyl so I finally got around to refinishing it since we are using it a few times a day now. I had a bunch of PUL (water proof fabric) left over from my attempts to make diaper covers so I was set. 

 It was really a pretty simple job.  It was just one solid piece so I traced a front and back, cut it out, sewed it together and stuffed it with the padding from the old one.  I then did some decorative stitching to keep the foam padding in place and wallah, it was done. 

Candles out of Clementines-FALSE

I saw this idea on apartmenttherapy.com and it sounded sooooo cool:  Make a candle using a clementine and olive oil, awesome.  Reality-enjoy it for two seconds before it extinguishes itself.  The premise is you tear away the flesh of the fruit leaving the white part (pith) and then soak it in olive oil and it will light on up and smell great.  Reality-it won't stay lit for more than two seconds-but those will be two very aromatic seconds. 


Theirs:  Artistic 

Mine:  Burnt out

Quick Breakfast Bites

Yes, yes, I have spent far too much time on Pinterest during naps and bed times.  I seem to always find something fun I've wanted to do and my bookmark folders are over flowing so I decided it was time to try some of these out.  They turned out well and looked beautiful and poofy right out of the oven.  Definitely would be fun to do for a breakfast when you have guests staying over. 

 Here is the original pic from Pinterest:

Here are mine:

 Directions:  Grease muffin cups and put veggies and meat in each cup.  I just used ham, onion, and then cheese on top.  Mix 8 eggs and 1 tablespoon of flour then pour into cups.  Bake 18 minutes or so at 350.  I placed some in the fridge and froze the rest to dethaw and eat later.  About a minute in the microwave and they were fast and tasty to eat.

 

 

Garden Harvest

 Here's part of my garden harvest.  My beets and carrots are still in, but I think I'll probably pull them out next week.  I was pretty happy with my garden, I had quite the infestation of slugs and grubs and hopefully next year will be even more bountiful.  Next year I definitely won't be doing the corn as I only got a few cobs and they took up a third of my garden.  I did get 4 egg plants and unfortunately 3 of them rotted in my fridge before I ate them, darn.  

How to Cut An Artichoke

 Oh how I love the mighty artichoke.  It has a deep flavor and dipped in butter, yum.  Artichokes look very scary to prepare but they are very simple and forgiving.  The canned versions do not do the fresh version justice.

 1.  Buy an artichoke.  Generally I try to buy them when they are on sale for 99 cents, but this is a rare find.  Look to make sure they are firm and not slimy in any spots.

  2.  Cut about the top inch or two of the artichoke off.  I like to use a bread knife and saw through it.

 3.  Cut the stem off so there is about a half inch left.  This is too stringy and woody to enjoy, but sometimes I try to cook them up and eat them any ways. 

4.  Now here is your artichoke.  Place it in a pot so it is sitting on its stem in a few inches of water.  Cover and simmer for 30-45 minutes until you can pull a leaf out easily.  To eat it you pull one leaf out at a time and scrape it accross your top teeth to get the "meat" off.  Then discard the rest of the leaf in a big bowl on the table.  Once you start to get down to the little pokey leaves scrape out the little leaves and fluff with a spoon.  This will leave you the heart of the artichoke which is the best part.  I recommend dipping everything in butter.  Enjoy! 

My Favorite Snack!

Well, aside from a spoonful of nuttella - I love these s'more sandwiches.  When I used to baby sit I would make these for the kiddos and I'm sure they got a mega sugar buzz.  Basically spread peanut butter over bread, cover with marshmallows and chocolate chips then place on cookie sheet and broil until the mallows turn golden brown.  Enjoy!

Update Baby Shoes

Alright,
I got around to trying to make one of the shoes from the tutorials. I tried the 'Little Man Shoes' and the tutorial was awful.  Well, the tutorial was really fine, but the pattern wasn't clear at all.  I was making the 6-12 Month size and it said to cut and add length, but didn't specify as to how much so I assumed to was the half an inch that I added every where else and I was very wrong.  The buckle doesn't even cover his feet.  I'm hoping to get them right soon.

Ponderings

I found myself pondering life outside on the patio
Eating a peach slice by slice with a knife
Juice running down my fingers
Grass nestled in between my toes
The sun beaming proudly in my face
Why am I always trying to be someone else?
Trying to have beautiful flowing locks
Having people at the grocery store adore my outfits?
That is not me.
I am the woman with calloused feet
Hairy armpits and legs
Happy to stay home and raise a boy
Cook for the family and tend to the pets
Patience, long legs, and frizzy hair
I am the one outside blushed with fresh air
Content to soak up the sunshine of life

Colors for the House I Love

I'm loving warm yellow and oranges right now complimented with deep blues with lots of patterns.  As I'm getting older I'm realizing that I'm starting to turn into my mother-well, I never call her 'mother' and I could never turn into her-but my house is becoming more like my home growing up.  My mom always goes thrifting and to auctions so she has accumulated a massive amount of treasures. Every nook and cranny is filled with something that draws the eye in.  For the past few years I think I've been trying to be far too minimalist which translates into boring-so my goal is to fill my home with objects I love and interest me.