25 Days of Christmas - Day 20: Cookies

Still letting the icing set, so don't mind the sprinkley mess.

Tryce loved helping eat decorate cookies!

25 Days of Christmas - Days 18 & 19

Day 19 - Christmas lights.

I didn't take any pictures for Day 19, but we went and looked at Christmas lights!  It was a lot of fun!  the wee one slept the whole time, and the bigger one was impressed for a lot longer than I thought he would be.  We listened to Christmas music and chatted (my aunt was down to visit and came along too!)... made me nostalgic for my childhood, and I'm so happy to be starting these traditions with my own kiddos.

Day 20 - 1st Christmas party

The first Christmas party of the year, and Aubree's first Christmas party ever.

25 Days of Christmas - Days 16 & 17

Sorry I've been inconsistent lately. I've been out of town, and pretty busy getting ready for the holidays. And had a horrible headache (migraine?) all day (I've never had a migraine so I'm not sure, but an all day, throbbing, have to cover my eyes or the lights will make me hurl-type headache seems to lean in that direction).

Anyway, days 16 and 17 are the same theme.. The love my babies have for each other. It seriously makes my heart melt. Tryce has done surprisingly well with the baby since the day we brought her home. He loves "holding" her (under extremely close supervision), and has started this absent-minded hand holding that is the sweetest thing in the world. And I swear she has this little grin that she saves just for him.

So.. Day 16: watching some Yo Gabba while loving his sister (he would get mad if I picked her up, and say "Hold her baby! Hold her baby!)



Day 17: Tryce loving on and talking "baby talk" to Aubree.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 15

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..

Actually, it's not. Not even close.

So, my hair decided to have a Christmas party...

25 Days of Christmas - Days 13&14.

I missed the last two days. Oops. We didn't really do anything but hang out at home anyway. So here's an adorable picture:
(Day 13)



All tuckered out after watching Yo Gabba Gabba Very Awesome Christmas 643678 times. "Moooore Santaaa!" (So this IS a Christmas picture after all. Sort of.)



(Day 14)
Finally got our stockings!

25 Days of Christmas - Day 12

Took some pictures for a friend of mine today.  Here's my favorite:

25 Days Christmas - Day 11

Tryce drew a Christmas picture!

25 Days of Christmas - Day 10

Look what finally arrived!

Tryce's 2012 ornament for his 2nd Christmas! (=

25 Days of Christmas - Day 9: Snow

First snow of the season!



Isn't much, and won't last long (will be back up on the 60s by the end of the week), but I'll take what I can get!

25 Days of Christmas - Day 8: Nails

Holiday mani/pedi...

25 Days of Christmas - Day 7: Christmas Cards

Sent!






(I'm pretty sure this is the earliest I've ever got them out!)



Oh, and Aubree helped.

25 Days of Christmas - Day 6: Cupcake Date

25 Days of Christmas - Day 5: Christmas Words

25 Days of Christmas - Day 4: Hot Cocoa

With extra whipped cream, of course.





Did I mention extra whipped cream?

25 Days of Christmas - Day 3: Christmas Past

The fact that part of our household is a little under the weather (the grown-up part) coupled with a case of the Mondays, today was not very productive.  However, not wanting to leave a day out, I decided to use today to look back on past Christmases to see what I could come up with...

2008: Engaged.

2009: Married.

2010: Pregnant.

2011: Plus one... and (newly) pregnant again!

It's amazing how much has transpired in so little time!  I can't wait to add this year's picture to the bunch, adding one precious little girl. (and there's definitely not going to be an extra "present" this year.. :))

25 Days of Christmas - Day 2: Tree, pt 2

We decorated the tree today!

Well, for the most part.  I was able to recover 2 of my Christmas tubs, but one is still MIA.  It contained pretty white glittery snowflake ornaments, and my tree skirt.  At least the ones I found had all the personal ornaments in it (Tryce's 1st Christmas and handprint ornament, a few handmade ones, etc).


He really enjoyed "hepping."




And baby sister got her first ornament:



It has her name on the flip side of the charm, and her DOB/time/weight engraved on the bottom.  It matches her brother's silver ABC block (you can kind of see in the top right corner of the last picture).

  

Yes, I do realize it's extremely top heavy.  This was intentional.  If you have ever had a toddler around Christmas time, you know why.

Oh, and the snowmen were Tryce's doing.  He found them in a tub and was trying to put them in the tree (such a good helper!).  Not really able to explain that they weren't ornaments and wouldn't stay on the tree, I finally put them underneath, and he seemed satisfied with that.  Hey, who needs a tree skirt anyway when you have caroling snowmen?

25 Days of Christmas - Day 1: Christmas Tree

Unfortunately, I won't be doing up the house in the normal fashion this year, since we're in the middle of trying to sell our house and most of our stuff is packed up.  But, there's no way we're going without a tree!  We got rid of the ones we had last year while we were packing, because our new house has a high, vaulted ceiling in the living room, and the hubs promised me a new, taller tree.

At the time, we had thought that we might be in our house by Christmas.  However, we've added a few projects since then that's pushed our move in date up a few weeks, leaving us treeless.

So today, I packed up the babies, and headed to the store.  We found a decent priced, smaller Christmas tree, and was in and out in about 20 minutes, surprisingly. Then we headed home to get to work!

Putting up the tree:

Who doesn't love some deco mesh?




The overseer.




A kiss for the boss lady.




And, of course, some last minute fussing.




Tada!




All ready for some ornaments.  Let's hope I can find them among all the moving boxes!

Just Checking In!

I've been one busy momma!  Between chasing my too-soon-to-be-almost-two year old, and what feels like constantly nursing my almost two month old, just finding time to breath seems a luxury.


We're also working on moving into a new house! We're extremely lucky to be able to remodel it before we move in... I couldn't imagine living with 2 under 2 while a house is under renovation!

I do have a lot of projects that I am excited to start and share as we work on getting into our new home.  Could there be any greater way to rekickstart a House-Into-A-Home blog?!


So until then, I apologize for the hiatus, and know that I haven't abandoned you!

Peanut Butterless Cookies.

I have not yet introduced my 16 month old to peanuts.  There is a family history of peanut/nut allergies on his father's side, so I'm not really in any hurry to do so (although he has eaten Nutella on occasion).

The other day, I was introduced to something new by my aunt (who happens to have a peanut intolerance): SunButter.  It's basically like peanut butter, except that it's made out of sunflower seeds.  And get this: it actually tastes almost exactly like peanut butter.  I have tried a small variety of nut butters, like almond and hazelnut, and while I do think they taste great, I wouldn't consider any of them an alternative for peanut butter.  I would never make an almond butter and jelly sandwich.

But SunButter, I would.

Oh, and it's also (gasp!) good for you!  Per the SunButter website, it has less saturated fat than peanut butter, double the fiber, naturally higher in Vitamin E, and has NO trans fats.


So naturally, almost as soon as I tried it my first thought was that I HAVE to make peanut butter cookies (there goes the healthy part.  Hah).  Except with SunButter.  So, peanut butterless cookies.

I was really excited, because 1) due to my husband's allergies, I hadn't made/eaten peanut butter cookies in forever, which made me want them even more,  2 )my husband is not a real big fan of sweets, but he used to love peanut butter cookies (I guess he didn't used to be allergic to peanuts when he was young.. it was an acquired allergy.  I think.  I don't know), and 3) my son can enjoy them with us, as it contains absolutely no peanuts or nuts, and isn't even manufactured in a place that contains peanuts or nuts.


At first I was just going to use a regular peanut butter cookie recipe, and just substitute the SunButter like for like.  However, I decided to first do a little research to see if that was recommended.


After consulting Head Baker Google, I decided I was glad that I looked, because numerous comments pointed out that sometimes when baking with SunButter your product will turn a fungus-y green.  I didn't really want to make fugus cookies, so following a suggestion on a review I headed over to the SunButter webite.  Under their recipe tab, they have a little tip telling you to cut back on your baking soda and baking powder so your food doesn't turn green.  Oh and the green stuff isn't fungus after all, just a chemical reaction, something to do with the chlorophyll in the sunflower seeds.  So it won't hurt you if you do eat it.  But good luck trying to get anyone to eat green peanut butter(less) cookies.

They also had a whole bunch of recipes that have already been modified so no reaction resembling a fungus will occur.  I decided to use this basic Sunbutter Cookie recipe, because it was the one that most resembled a normal peanut butter cookie recipe.  Plus, I happened to have everything on hand, so no grocery store run.. yay!


The finished product:





They turned out amazing, if I do say so myself.  To me, they taste identical to regular peanut butter cookies (not like I sampled one from every batch to make sure...).

I'm impatient, so I took them down to my husband's work so he could try them.  He was a little hesitant because they looked and smelled so much like peanut butter cookies.  But once he ate one, and realized that his mouth and throat wasn't itching and closing up, he loved them.  Then proceeded to eat more, and tell me it's my fault if he gets fat, because he's never eaten this many cookies (of course I took that as a compliment).  No one else could even tell it wasn't peanut butter, and only believed it wasn't because my husband was eating them.


Oh, and if you wondering, the cool design was made from a potato smasher.  It was much easier and faster to use than a fork, and I thought it made the cookies look prettier.

Castile Soap

I am currently on a mission to switch all of my household cleaners over to homemade, green products.  I haven't really "cooked up" any of the recipes I've been scouring the internet for, although I have been using some good ol' fashioned vinegar and baking soda (vinegar in the rinse-agent dispenser of your dishwasher is AMAZNG and much cheaper than Jet Dry!).

When you have a baby and suddenly find you're actually in charge of the life of this tiny person, the quality of life seems to become more important than it ever has before.  At least that's how it was for me.

But, the reality of how bad and scary it was to have commercial cleaning products in the house didn't really hit me until my son became mobile, and we had to start baby-proofing.  And of course the first thing you have to take care of is that cabinet under the kitchen sink.  You know the one I'm talking about.. that one that has all those bottles with skull and crossbones on them.  The ones that say "if ingested, call the POISON control center."

Why would I want to clean with poison?

And so I consulted Professor Google and sought out to find a better, safer, way of doing things.


It was on this journey that I discovered Castile soap.


I kept coming across all sorts of fun uses for the stuff: homemade cleaners, shampoo, hand soap, toothpaste (although I admit I'm a little hesitant to try that one).


Fast-forward to this morning.  I roll over in bed, and realize that BabyGirl is pushing my stomach up into my throat (aka, unimaginable heartburn.  Oh pregnancy joys).  Then I realize that I'll surely die of thirst if I don't get any water NOW.  So I whisper-yell at my husband, while trying not to disturb the boy, to pass me the water, which of course is on his side of the bed.  And THEN I remember that, oh yeah, I'm pregnant, and just drank a bajillion ounces of water.  I have to pee.  NOW.  Then I go back to bed, and stare at the ceiling, trying to will myself to sleep.  I even try to sleep sitting up, to see if it will calm the heartburn.

After a sigh of defeat, I grab my phone and look at the time.

4:45.

Of course it is.

This isn't the first time this has happened, and it's at this point when I usually play mindlessly on my phone for hours until everyone is awake.

However, this morning I was feeling a little more energetic than usual.  I decide that since I'm awake anyway I'll go throw a load of clothes in the washer, so I'll feel useful for the day, then lay back down.  But after I started said laundry, I was still feeling too energized to lay down.  After looking around at my sadly deserted kitchen counters, desperately in need of a good deep cleaning, I decide to whip out one of these "recipes."

Initially, I wanted to make this recipe from Crunchy Betty's blog.  She describes it as a bathroom cleaner (The Best Bathroom Cleaner Ever, to be exact), but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work for kitchen sinks and countertops, also.  However, I was still short a few ingredients. Plus it makes a pretty big batch, and I don't have a storage container I want for it yet.

(*side note.. if you do happen to try this recipe, I would recommend not adding the optional vinegar.  While looking up homemade cleaners, I came across Lisa Bronner's blog, where she recommends not mixing vinegar and Castile soap.  Long story short, Castile is a base, and vinegar is an acid, so they'll probably just cancel each other and not be as effective.  However, using a vinegar solution AFTER using the soap mixture works as a great rinsing agent.)

So, I worked with what I had, and made a cleaner from this list, the one under kitchen countertops.  I'm not sure if I would even call it a "recipe," it's just Castile soap and baking soda made into a soft scrub.  Measurements aren't that important.. I think I used about a third a cup of baking soda and a few tablespoons of soap. After mixing, you should come up with an icing-like consistency.  If you use peppermint Castile soap like I did, it will look and smell delicious.  I wouldn't recommend eating it though.  You could also add a few drops of tea tree or lavender essential oil if you wanted, for some extra antibacterial power.

I then proceeded to remove everything from my countertops and started scrubbing.  And I have to say this stuff lives up to it's hype.  It even brought up some caked dark chocolate that was hiding under my crockpot for quite some time (don't judge me) with little to no elbow grease.  I only used about half of what I made, even after scrubbing the sink and the backsplash.

I considered tackling the bathroom with what I had left, but by then the boys were awake, and my energy level wasn't quite as high.  My kitchen is spotless, smells deliciously of peppermint, and I used no toxic chemicals I would worry about my son inhaling, touching, or eating off of.  Oh yeah, and my clothes made it to the dryer.  I'd count today a success, and before 9:00 am!

The little guy was so excited about the whole thing he even tried to help me clean up after breakfast.

In A Nutshell.

This is your obligatory "welcome to my blog" first blog post.  I read somewhere you weren't supposed to start a blog this way, but I'm not always too great at following the "rules."




I'm a stay-at-home mom with a 16 month old son, and a baby girl due in September.

So, basically, if you don't want to hear about housewife-y stuff like homemade cleaners and discovering recipes, this blog probably isn't for you.

I'm also likely to mention gross bodily function type-stuff, like poop, throw up, constipation, and boogers. This is not a disclaimer, just the reality of having a toddler. And a newborn, shortly. Again, I understand if this is not your cup of tea.

I'm also bound to throw some fun miscellaneous stuff in, like my growing interest in photography, just for good measure.

I'm sure I'm leaving out something important... but if I am, let's just blame pregnancy brain, shall we?