Chillin' and Catch-Up

Most evenings for a while, this is how Tyler would sleep before I went to bed.
On his stomach, on the couch.

He's definitely much happier this way, supervised, of course.
And, right now as I type this, he is snuggled in our new Moby Wrap. I can actually use both hands to type while I hold my baby! Yay. :)
My sweet little infant is growing into a very chunky baby.
I love that though.

Brad loves to watch movies in my bed. So one day we were chillin' in there while I was probably cleaning my closet or something. It works best for us if I put a movie on for Brad so I can get some cleaning done when I need to.
Oh, and see those two dots on the left side of his face (right side as you're looking at him)? Those are, what we believe to be, chicken pox spots!
He had his shot for the varicella vaccine (chicken pox vaccine) and then a week later I noticed a spot on his arm and back, then those spots appeared on his face and then finally a few days later he had a cluster of three spots where the shot actually was on his leg.
He had no other symptoms though and apparently they didn't even bother him!

He likes it when his brother shares things with him so he loved that he was on the bed with him.

I've gotten back to cloth diapering. Well, I should say, I've gotten to it full-time, before I was only part-time. Back when Brad was almost a year I bought four Imse Vimse diapers and two diaper covers. I only bought that many because they were expensive. I had seen them on a few bloggers sites and did not do my research. Well, after a while they did not fit Brad anymore and would leak. Also, they were not very easy to use.
Then I stumbled upon Bum Genius.
Which you can see in the picture below, that is Brad's white one. He has eight of them now, all different colors.

The Bum Genius are a one-size fits all (due to the snaps for easy adjusting) and they are easy to put on.
After they are washed and dried I just put all the inserts back in and have them waiting to use when we need them. Although sometimes I'm grabbing them off the drying rack and putting one together as we need it. :)
We've been working on potty-training so sometimes we only use 2 or 3 a day!

Sweet little Tyler is not in cloth diapers. We need them all for his brother. After we use up the Pampers we have from when we had Brad, we'll probably buy the Seventh Generation disposables until he is bigger and Brad doesn't need diapers anymore.
Then he can use the cloth!

And, one last random thing for this long, random, catch-up post.
I have been using Pinterest and LOVE it!
I found this recipe and made it last week. It's really good! It combines my favorite cake and candy bar- Reese's Peanut Butter Cheesecake Bar. You can find the recipe here.
And you can follow me on Pinterest here. It's a lot of fun! I've been finding great recipes and craft ideas, among other things.
Happy pinning, as they say. :)

Wipe Your Face!

Good-natured teasing amongst friends is always fun.
Sometimes I get teased for being a germaphobe and being a bit afraid of messes.

I will let my son play in the mud and get messy in other areas but sometimes I just don't like messy food situations.

Thankfully for me, God knew this and gave me my son! :)
Brad doesn't like messy food either. If something is on his face he will say "napkin! napkin!"
That is, if he doesn't forget to not use his sleeve.

Lately though, he has been allowing more and more food camp out on his face while he is chowing down.

Exhibit A:
Spaghetti face:

Now I know what most of you are thinking "you call that a spaghetti face?!"
For Brad, that's a surprise though, he wasn't upset or crying for a napkin, he was just letting the sauce sit there.

Exhibit B:

Sticky syrup fingers while eating waffles.

He gave up on the fork and just started shoving it in his mouth. At first, he would say "ewww" about his hands but I said "just finish eating and we'll wash them later!"
Then he was fine. :)

Exhibit C:
Peanut butter and jelly face.
He loves to open the sandwich and dive right in.
This is common for peanut butter and jelly as he does not mind this on his face, either.

He takes after his momma (and probably daddy, too), I never liked being sticky or messy when I was younger either.
He's my little boy and I love him and I would still love him even if he LOVED messes!

And here's a random picture to show how he likes to play dress up in mine and David's shoes, coats, gloves, hats or clothes. :)
Before he had my flats on he was actually walking around in high heels!

Spinach and Leek Macaroni and Cheese

I enjoy eating Annie's Macaroni and Cheese but I thought that I would jazz it up.
I want to eat healthier and add green vegetables to my foods.
Fresh spinach leaves sounded good. They are full of vitamins and cook down really well so they would be nice and soft in the mac and cheese.
I never tried using leeks before but I am a fan of onions and anything in that family so I decided to give those a try, too.
Here's the recipe:
Take a big bunch of rinsed spinach leaves.

Roughly chop them.

Chop up some leeks.
I didn't chop too many up as I wasn't sure how strong they are. I had maybe a quarter cup there and that was a good amount.

Next, make your instant mac and cheese.

Then add it and let the spinach and leeks get soft in the hot pot.

Then serve!

I really enjoyed this dish and whenever I make Annie's mac and cheese I will definitely add these two vegetables to it.

Brad didn't really eat it but I know it wasn't due to the vegetables in it- he's just not a fan of mac and cheese. Strange, I know! He eats pasta or ravioli in sauce and he eats cheese but he's not a fan of pasta and cheese. We will definitely have to work on this! :)

What are ways you try to make your meals healthier?

Eat Your Veggies

Bradley is not a big eater. I must admit this consumes my thoughts every meal time and I tend to worry. His doctor said he is fine because his energy level is normal. I guess Brad is just not a big eater right now and I shouldn't worry. It is hard though!
The other night he ate some green peppers (with ranch dressing- first time I gave that to him- I'm trying to fatten him up:-) and chicken in homemade BBQ sauce.

I thought it was soooo cute that he figured out how to dip the peppers.

He did a good job eating most of them, he just had some trouble with the skins. They took a while to chew. The next time I gave him peppers, I peeled most of the skin off.

Mommy and Daddy had salad with their chicken. It was a really good, last-minute meal. Thanks to my friend Lindsay who gave me the idea when I was talking to her on the phone that afternoon. :)

His "concerned" face. Maybe Mommy takes too many photos.

Are your kids picky eaters? Do they eat more or less than what you would expect?
I'm a first time mom and I hoped Brad would eat more but he eats less than I think his body needs. I guess I should listen to his doctor and be content because he seems to have enough energy. I would appreciate any advice or thoughts. :-)

Oatmeal Success!

Thank you to everyone who gave me advice on cooking Steel Cut Oats, but it was the advice of my Pastor's wife that I took (Kami, I will have to try that overnight recipe). 1 cup of oats, 4 cups of water, 2 hours in the crock pot on high. I put it in at 7 when I got up and two hours later it was perfect!

Of course, I had to drizzle some honey on it.
I've been on a honey kick lately....in my oatmeal, on toast with peanut butter and straight from the bottle on a spoon. :-)

Bradley did not have any oatmeal. I did give him some but he said "no" and shook his head(even after multiple times of offering it to him). He has a cold that makes him cough a lot and he is congested in his throat. I feel badly for him and I hope he gets over this quickly so he can get back to eating better.

I snapped these photos this morning while I was waiting for the oatmeal.

John Deere toy, of course. :-) (Thanks, Lindsay!)

Tomorrow we will be having oatmeal again and hopefully Brad will have some! :-)

Steel Cut Oats

Today was my first attempt at cooking steel cut oats. It did not go as planned. The water boiled over and massive rivers some starchy liquid got into my stove (a mess that I will have to clean later) and it happened again when I moved it to a different burner. I continued to let it simmer (although it seemed more like a boil even though I had the burner at low) and it continued to bubble over and started to smell like it was burning. I tried some and it did not taste good! I don't think it was cooked all the way and it had a burnt taste to it.
So, this confirms my fears that I am quite incapable of boiling anything starchy for more than 10 minutes (the time it takes to boil pasta) as this has happened to me with brown rice, too.
Any suggestions, maybe slow cooker recipes? Does anyone else have these problems with oatmeal and rice?
I'm going to have some toast now with peanut butter and honey. I think I can handle a toaster. ;-)

What I Eat When...

Okay, I'll admit it, I'm an emotional eater. I eat when: I'm happy, sad, lonely, bored, depressed...and, that just about covers everything, right? Well, sadly I don't always have healthy food readily available in my cabinets to munch on. Truthfully, even if I do, sometimes I go for the "comfort" food, like chocolate or chips or my husband's cookies. I do want to eat healthy. So, I try to make sure I have ingredients and snacks to make food that I can grab between meals. One of my favorites is mixed nuts, raisins and semi-sweet chocolate chips. Here is a picture I took a while ago, with my point and shoot and no editing(not that this is an exceptionally great photo, just saying that because my photos recently have been with my DSLR and edited).


So, what is your favorite snack?

Not Me! Monday

Not Me! Monday- Snow Pop Epic Fail edition

Check out other Not Me! Monday's at MckMama's site; she is the woman who started this whole blog carnival to help us confess what we may or may not want to confess. Without further ado, here is my not me! confession:

I did not make MckMama's recipe for Snow Pops yesterday. If I did make them, they would have been absolutely perfect! If I had my husband pick up a few ingredients for me while he was at the store on Saturday, I would have told him the Hershey's Bliss white chocolates were the blue bag, NOT the purple bag, which are the milk chocolates. And, if I didn't have the proper wooden dowels for making Snow Pops, I would certainly go buy the correct size; I wouldn't make my Snow Pops much LARGER than they should be, to compensate for the larger wooden dowels I had. Nope, not me!
I also wouldn't try putting some type of sprinkle on the outside of one Pop, to see what it would look like. If I did, the white sugar crystals I rolled it in, wouldn't just "disappear" in the still-too-wet chocolate and make a mess- such as the Snow Pop on the left in this picture:


Here is another picture of what my Epic Fail Snow Pops would look like, if I made them:

A spoon

Tuesday night means Italian night for my baby boy and I. My husband was bowling so we had Penne Alla Besty- recipe courtesy The Pioneer Woman.
Tonight my baby boy ate with a spoon!
Here he goes...
With much encouragement from Mommy- "put it in your mouth, baby!"
Yay!

There were lots of "Good babies" and "you're so smart!"
Then he had enough and decided it was more fun to splat his hand in it.
We have been practicing eating finger foods and yesterday he actually had grilled cheese! Tonight though, I was too nervous to have him eat the Penne whole(it would be too slippery anyway for him to grab a piece and take a bite) so I blended it in the baby food processor. I'm glad he practiced with the spoon and at least had the coordination to get it to his mouth. I'm actually just glad he got the concept of it! I'm a proud mommy, that's for sure!

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I was not overly excited to receive The Pioneer Woman's cookbook. So excited, that I made a week long menu consisting of Pioneer Woman recipes I wanted to try.
That being said, this would not be a photo of meatloaf from her cookbook:
And this is not olive cheese bread- that was so scrumptious, I wanted to eat it all- from the Pioneer Woman's cookbook, either.
Now that that's out of the way, onto something else; like my son. This is not a picture of my son. If it was, it was not taken approximately 9:30-10 PM. No, he is in bed between 7 and 8 every night. I would never let him stay up late as he certainly was NOT teething.

Because, ya know, if he was teething, he wouldn't look this happy.

And he wouldn't want to play on his drum.
So, I did not let my child stay up late. And while NOT taking pictures of my child staying up late, I didn't take another picture of one of my cats. Nope, not me! I have enough pictures of my kitties; I don't need anymore!
And because it is not me Monday, I feel the need, or rather DON'T feel the need, to confess that I have been a tad lazy and have not posted a Christmas celebration post about my Christmas gatherings. So, because I have not not posted that post, I certainly wouldn't use this post to show you some pictures of pretty spider webs on the beams of the porch at my mom's house.

These webs were not covered in beautiful frost and when I posted this particular picture I certainly did not NOT think I need better photography skills. Seriously, can you see the webs in intricate detail, in all their glory in this picture? Nope, because I certainly do NOT need more skills!