Pancakes

I decided to make the kids pancakes for breakfast this morning. I hav3 never made them from scratch before but I decided to give it a try this morning and I must say I though they turned out pretty well. I tweaked the basic pancake recipe to make it a bit more healthy and even snuck in some flax seed meal!

1c whole wheat flour

1 egg

3/4 c milk

1 tbsp + 2 tsp sugar

3 tbsp unsweetened applesauce

1tbsp baking soda

1/2tsp salt

4tbsp water

2tbsp flax seed meal

Measure out the water and add the flax seed meal, allow to sit while you prepare the remaining ingredients. Mix all of the other ingredients together, and blend until smooth. Add in the flax seed meal and mix. Pour batter onto hot griddle or frying pan. Flip when edges appear firm and the better bubbles on the top. Cook until firm, serve, and enjoy!

The kids seemed to like them, I added a few chocolate chips to theirs when I poured the batter on the griddle. I made them mini pancakes which they love. I use the Papered Chef  medium scoop to make mine, they end up being just the right size.

My other two children.....

We have 2 dogs a golden retriever, Rocky and  chocolate lab, Ruby. I may complain about them but I would be upset if something happened to either one of them. They are a part of the family and have been around  longer then the kids. My husband and I have decided that in the future we will never have 2 dogs at the same time again. It is simply too expensive.

I will say that I hate the fact that there is dog hair everywhere and no amount of vacuuming makes it disappear for very long. I do love the fact that they clean up the trail of crumbs my kids leave so I guess it is a catch 22, clean up crumbs or dog hair! We have a great security system they bark at everything, which is also not so great when they go nuts not five minutes after the kids have finally gone to bed at night.

We have a fenced backyard, and the dogs pretty much have the run of the house. We pretty much let them go where they want. Yes they sleep on furniture but they are not allowed on our bed and do not really go in the kids rooms. I guess you could say they are spoiled.

The kids love them. Hailey has to give each one of them a treat every night before she goes to bed and then she has to pet them and tell them good night. Ryan is starting to acknowledge them too. One of the few words he says is dog. We are really lucky that both dogs are so good with the kids and do not give bother any of the kids stuff.

I cannot understand why some people have dogs though. There are several people in my neighborhood who have dogs that live in the garage. They are ever outside ever that I see. It gets hot where I live. I can not imagine leaving my dogs in a garage all day. I have seen the garage door open and the floor in there is covered in dog poop and pee. I guess they hose it off every once in a while but no dog should have to live like that. I never see them walk their dogs and when we walk buy I can tell that the barks are coming from the garage so I assume they do not go in the house.

So it begs the question why have a dog if it is not going to be part of the family? I can see having an outside dog on a farm or on a large piece of land, but I still cannot see the point of having one if you are not going to give it any attention.

Cleaning out the closet

Tonight I decided to rid my closet of the clothes that no longer fit becasue they are now way too big. I also went through clothes that I had stored in hopes that they would once again fit someday when I got my act together an did something about my weight.

First I tried on some clothes that were way too big and put them in the "fat clothes" pile. Hailey was so cute she kept saying "mommy its too big".

I kind of feel bad becasue some of these items were only worn once but I am sure once I donate them someone will get good use out of them. My husband thinks that I should pack them away and keep them, just in case I need them again someday. I don't think I should keep them. I don't ever want to let myself get to a point where I would even need them again so why let them take up space in the already overcrowded attic?

Then I tried on the clothes I had packed away and it was great that so many of them fit! I had forgotten I even had most of them since it has been so long since I have seen most of them. It is like I got a completely new wardrobe for free! Unfortunately I had gotten rid of most of the pants but I have plenty of skirts, dress, and tops that didn't cost me a dime! I plan to save the big shopping spree for the day that these clothes are too big and I need a smaller size and hopefully that will be in the near future!

Shopping

I finally went shopping to buy some new pants. I have been wearing pants 2 sizes to big that I had to keep up with a belt and finally bought a few that fit. It was the first time in years that I have not had to buy clothes from a plus sized store like Lane Bryant. I did a little dance in the dressing room when I had to go and grab a smaller size then I though I would need. I really have the urge to send a letter that reads:

Dear Lane Bryant,
      I regret to inform you that you have lost a customer. I no longer need plus sized clothing and do not intend to step foot in your store to purchase clothing for my self ever again. I do than you for providing stylish clothing for larger woman but I hope to never again be that larger woman!

Coupons

Last weekend when I went grocery shopping my bill at check out was $130. Yes you saw that right I said one hundred and thirty. Needless to saw the hubs was less that thrilled at the total especially when we are trying to save and make cuts to out budget.

I recently watched a few episodes of "Extreme Couponing" on TLC and could not believe how much money these people were saving on their grocery bill, one family walked out of the store wilt over $700 in grocers and paid less than $0.01 for everything. They have these massive stockplies in their basements, cupboards, closets, garages, ect so I guess they wil never go hungry or will never run out of laundry detergent, but it seems a little over the top to me. I mean who really needs to have 127 bottles of laundry detergent, or 70 jars of mustard.

Back to the reciept from my trip to the grocery store. I sat down with it to try and figure out where I was spending all my money and figured wou that I spent just about $20 on fresh produce, $20 on dairy, $25 on fresh meat/fish, and $7 on bread so that was $72 dollars right there plus the cost of a book of stamps. The remainder of my bill I will admit that there were probally items that I could have used coupons for if I had one ( I think I had 4 this trip that I used). Recently a co-worker of mine brought in a giant stack of the coupon inserts and I went through them I think I cut out like 7 coupons, the rest of them were for stuff I would never use. I just don't see how the people who save that much do it.

Then I started thinking most of those people say that they do not buy something unless they have a coupon for it. So does that mean that they never buy fresh produce or fresh meats? Only canned, jared, or frozen foods?  How is this healthy? I am trying to change the way we eat in my efforts to lose weight and part of that has been to cut out most processed food. Maybe I am not looking in the right places but the only coupouns I seem to find are for processed foods, cleaning products, and beauty/ personal care products. If that is the case how do I save using coupons with the exception of the cleaning  and personal care products that I buy very rarely?

So I will use the few coupons I find for the products we use but I am pretty sure I will never get to walk out of the grocery store and be the person who got $700 worth of grocerys for $0.01 unless of course someone can tell me where to find coupons for produce.

Bow Organizer

My 2 year old daughter loves is obsessed with her hair bows. Hailey did not really have much hair until she was about 18 months old and since then she has accumulated quite the collection of hair bows. We get up very early on week days and she is usually half asleep but she always reaches up to her hair to check to make sure she has a hair bow in and if she doesn't she will let you know she needs one. (She also thinks ponytail holders are hair bows right now)

Her bow collection was a mess in the top drawer of her dresser so I decided to do something to organize them.

I have seen bow hangers at arts and crafts festivals but didn't want to pay $20 for one. I picked up a pre-cut wooden butterfly from Micahels and then painted it to match her room using acrylic paint I already had from a previous project.  I glued a wide ribbon to the back to use to attach all of the bows to and to hang it on the wall. I decided to use thumb tacks to attatch it to the wall and make them look like antennas. I hung it up in Hailey's room and put her bows on it and realized that I should have used a longer ribbon!

A walk in the woods

On Saturday we went for a walk on a trail at Clinton Nature Preserve. First we took the kids to the playground which is one of the best ones we have been to and then we went exploring. Hailey walked most of the .81 mile trail all be it very slowly. She stopped to pick up sticks, rocks, and pine cones, we should have brought a bucket to carry it all.

Ryan even got out of the stroller and walked for a little while I think maybe he felt it was safer to walk then for his sister to push him in the stroller since she insisted that mommy and daddy could not help steer.

The day even ended with ice cream, or in my case and the kids frozen yogurt. It was a nice surprise to find out that the kids got free kiddie cones at Bruster's. I was pleasantly surprised with how well Hailey did with the cone since this was the first time we were brave enough to give her one in public.

Ryan had one too all though his frozen yogurt ended up on the ground after a few tastes, but he did enjoy the cone.

So the next day my sister in-law called and wanted to take the kids to the park and walk the trails with the kids. While Hailey and me nephew were wandering around picking up sticks and flowers a nice gentleman stopped and informed us that the edge of the trail was covered with poison ivy! Great! I was a Girl Scout for 8 years how did I not notice it.

Needless to say Hailey and my nephew ended up riding in the wagon for the rest of the walk, however I am happy to report that we seem to be itch free so we really lucked out.

Bananna Bread

We had some banannas that had gotten a little ripe so I decided to use them up in bananna bread. I played with my recipe to make it a bit more figure friendly by cutting out the oil, reducing the sugar and using whole wheat flour.

2 1/2 c whole wheat flour

1/3 c sugar

1/3 c brown sugar

3 ripe banannas smashed

1/3c milk

1 egg

1tsp vanilla
1tsp salt

3 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/3 c applesauce

(Please excuse the baking soda in the photo I didn't realize I had grabbed the wrong ingredient until I went to add it to the mixing bowl)

If you are not watcing your weight you can add 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips  my husband was very dissapointed to see they were missing this time) or 1/4 cup crushed walnuts.

Blend all ingredients together and pour into greased loaf pan. Bake ant 350 for 55-60 minutes. Cool in pan for 10 minutes.

Swimming Lessons

I am super excited we signed Hailey up for swimming lessons this year. I started taking them when I was 6 mos old through the rec center back home. I have been having trouble finding a place that had lessons for children under the age of 3, and that were not offered in the middle of the day while I am at work. Last year I found Aqua Tots Swim School and I really wanted to take Hailey. Unfortunately Ryan was only a few months old and it just did not work out.

This June Aqua Tots is opening a new indoor location not far from my house which is exciting. She starts her first lesson in July and I can not wait! We have enrolled her in level 2 based on age so she will be a Minnow. She loves the water and going to the pool so teaching her to swim is definitely important. Hopefully these lessons work out well and we can enroll Ryan  and get them both swimming.

Temptation

This year for Mother's Day my husband bought me flowers and  king size 3 Musketeers bar. Umm has he somehow missed that for the last several months I have been avoiding candy and other junk like the plague? When I asked him why he bought it for me he replied " well I know they are your favorite". While it was thoughtful and yes they are my favorite candy bars it is definitely something I need to not eat. Especially a king sized one.

It is sitting on the counter next to the flowers tempting me every day. So far I have avoided it and the " eat me" that I hear every time I walk by has not prevailed. I suppose I will eventually eat some of it since I can't deprive myself of sweets forever and possibly share it with my two year old ( like she really needs it either). Until then I need to find a place to stash it to avoid it calling my name.

If only I didn't live so far away....from work

Can someone please explain to me how gas goes up $0.13 in one day? Gas was $3.86 a gallon yesterday morning when I passed the QT on my way to work and it was up to $3.99 this morning when I went by the same station. I have almost a 75 mile round trip commute to work so it is costing me a fortune to get to work every day. Honestly I  feel like pretty soon I will not be able to afford to drive to work anymore.

You may say "Why would you live that far away from you office" and the answer to that is that my office is not in the best area and we wanted to be in a suburb with good decent schools plus the commute is all interstate so it really is not that bad most days. I drive a 2005 Ford Escape which is paid for, unfortunately it only gets 24 miles to the gallon which is not great compared to the cars on the market now that can get 40+. Since it is paid for and a new vehicle is not in the budget I am going to have to suck it up bit gas prices are killing my budget.

I have started to weight my options at work. I can switch to a 4/10 schedule if I want so we are trying to figure out if it would work for our family to do that. Right now it is looking like it will not. I would have to work 7-5:30 and once you factor in the commute time I would get home in time to give the kids baths and put them to bed. I would also no longer have time to go to the gym or prepare healthy meals both things that are very important to attaining my weight loss goal. I will make my lists of the pros and cons however I think the the pro of saving on gas is going to get out weighed by the cons.

Hopefully when I drive past the QT tomorrow after dropping the kids off at the sitter on my way to work I will not see gas prices of $4.12!

Check it Out

I am lucky enough to have an amazingly talented photographer in the family, my sister in-law Melissa. She is just starting to get out there and is looking for new customers. As Melissa has been building her portfolio I have gotten some great pictures of my kids from her. Please check out Melissa over at Yes M'AM Photography she does an amazing job!

Mini Cheesecakes

Last year for our baby sitter's birthday I made her mini cheesecakes and they were a big hit. So I decided to make them again to send to the sitters house tomorrow just as a little something to show how much we appreciate her.

I am not sure who's recipe this really is but it is one that my mom has made for as long as I can remember. They are great for parties or anytime and can be made with lo-fat cream cheese to make them slightly more healthy!

16oz cream cheese softened

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1tsp vanilla

18 nilla wafers

Combine the first four ingredients and mix with hand mixer untill smooth.

 Line cupcake pan with papers, place nilla wafer in bottom of each paper. Fill each  2/3 full. Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes. Allow to cool on pan for 5 minutes. Cool completely top with fruit. Refrigerate and enjoy!

 Now we all know that I am trying to loose weight so eating these cheesecakes was out of the question for me so I made Pineapple Bliss cupcakes from Skinny taste and they were delish!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies out there. Hope you enjoy your day!

Mommy's Helper

Hailey has decided that she is mommy's little helper. She was right there trying to help me out while I was making frosting for Ryan's birthday cake this weekend. I think she was more interested in getting to lick the frosting off of the beaters then actually helping though.

Beach, better late then never........

We finally took a family vacation that did not involve a trip to NY to visit family. We stayed at Pirateland in Myrtle Beach a place that I have been going for spring break since I was 6 years old. Back then my parents owned a pop-up camper and we camped. We however rented a Villa for the week, my parents also were there in the villa next to us.

the weather was great and Hailey LOVED the beach or "peach" as she kept calling it. Ryan was a little fussy as he was getting two teeth so he was very clingy. We went to the beach almost every day the water was cold but Hailey went in anyway. I think that it surprised her when she got a taste of the salt water.


Can't wait to go back again!

Ten Weeks Down

It has been 10 weeks since I started a journey to loose 50 lbs. I am happy to say that as of this morning I am officially down 20 lbs and that is with a week of vacation thrown in there so I really can not complain. This is the first time in my life that I have started a weight loss plan and stuck with it for any length of time. I don't really see a difference in my body but I have gotten several compliments so that is even more motivation to keep plugging along.

Unfortunately I did not take a photo 10 weeks ago so I do not have a starting point to compare to so this will have to do.

(Please excuse the tooth paste on the mirror, the husband is a slob!)

Ryan's Birthday Party

We had Ryan's 1st birthday party yesterday. I wanted to avoid characters this year so we did blue and green with stars which turned out very cute. As usual I was stressed out about the house being clean and everything being ready when people arrived. Every time we have company my husband and I get an argument, he seems to think I go overboard. The weather was beautiful and everyone was able to be outside and enjoy the weather.

My mother's family has a tradition on a 1st birthday involving a silver dollar, rosary, and a shot glass. The items are placed in front of the child and which ever item the chooses is supposed to signify a path their life will take.

The rosary= a religious life 

Silver dollar= prosperity/wealth

Shot glass= gluttony

Ryan chose the silver dollar, which is the same thing I picked on my first birthday.

We were lucky enough to have my husbands parents in town as well as my grandparents (GG and Papa) in town for his birthday. Living so far away fro most of our family means that they miss most of the kids milestones as well as spending time with them so it was nice to have them here.

Ryan had a slight melt down when we tried to get him to eat the cake. I took off his shirt in order to prevent it from getting stained and he was so upset. Once we put the shirt back on and gave him a bib he dug in. i will say that he was far neater with the cake than his sister was.