Friday, October 19, 2012
:)
I just love those big blue eyes!!! :) and I could literally eat those cheeks!!! Love love love this child!!!
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Clutch it...
I've been in quite the sewing mood as of late! I've made six fleece toddler hats, two taggie blankets, two medium tote bags, one large tote bag, one bucket purse, and three clutches! I have to say that I'm most proud of the little clutches and the tote bags! They are super cute and really easy to make! Maybe I'll post a tutorial on how to make the clutches! There's a really great tutorial for the tote bags found here so there no need to make a tutorial for that! :-) AND they might not actually be used as clutches but they would make perfect make up bags, pen holders its just a good all purpose holder of stuff...I've posted a couple of pictures of the clutch/bag things so hope you enjoy!
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Homemade Chocolate Beetroot Cake
This post was originally started way back in July or August and I am just now completing it! I guess that tells you how crazy life has been around here! The little one is on the move crawling all around getting into everything! I've been canning a bunch, cooking a lot, spending lots of quality time with friends, going on dates with the hubby, squeezing those sweet baby cheeks, practicing the piano and many other things! It's been fun but busy! So here goes to hoping I'll be blogging more in the near future!
Back in July or August I had a surplus of beets...what do you do with a ton of beets you ask? Well you pickle them, you roast them, you make baby food and then when there is nothing else left to make you research things to make and you find odd recipes one of which was homemade Chocolate Beetroot Cake! Insane I know veggies inside of a chocolate cake? Does the cake actually taste good? Is the texture that of a normal cake? Does it have a rich chocolate flavor like it should? ...Is it even edible??? Well yes...yes...yes...and yes... it is all of those things it taste great, it is the texture of normal cake, it has a rich chocolate flavor and it is most definitely edible! I would go so much as to say that it was very very good! My father-in-law brags about it to all of his friends and relatives and asks if anyone has ever heard of a beet cake...its quite comical! So if you ever have a large quantity of beets or just want to add in some extra nutrition to chocolate cake give this cake a whirl!
I used the recipe below as the base for mine and I made a few adaptations to it! Next time I might not do the cream cheese icing and do a sprinkling of confectioners sugar instead as the cake was so good by itself. Everyone seemed to like the icing but I'm still thinking just confectioners sugar would be great!
Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened, divided
1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar or regular brown sugar which is what I think I used
3 eggs at room temperature
2-3 oz. dark chocolate
5 medium beets (2 cups pureed)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Icing
8 oz. cream cheese softened
2 cups of confectioners sugar or less if desired
2 Tablespoons of beet puree
Directions
Make the beet puree by trimming the beets and simmering them for about 50 minutes, until tender. Drain the liquid and cool the beets (you can run water over them to cool them off.) Slide the skins off, then place them in a food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Let the puree cool slightly before using it in the cake.
Cream 3/4 cup of the butter with the dark brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer, then add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Melt the remaining butter together with the chocolate, either in the microwave or in a double boiler over simmering water. Cool slightly, then add the chocolate mixture, beet puree, and vanilla into the butter/sugar mixture (it may look separated at this point.)
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add the dry ingredients to the bowl with the wet ingredients and mix well. Pour the batter into two greased 9 inch cake pans; bake at 375 degrees F for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean (I started checking around 25 minutes.) Cool the cake in the pan 15 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.
Mix cream cheese and sugar until smooth add in beet puree to create that lovely purplish color!
Back in July or August I had a surplus of beets...what do you do with a ton of beets you ask? Well you pickle them, you roast them, you make baby food and then when there is nothing else left to make you research things to make and you find odd recipes one of which was homemade Chocolate Beetroot Cake! Insane I know veggies inside of a chocolate cake? Does the cake actually taste good? Is the texture that of a normal cake? Does it have a rich chocolate flavor like it should? ...Is it even edible??? Well yes...yes...yes...and yes... it is all of those things it taste great, it is the texture of normal cake, it has a rich chocolate flavor and it is most definitely edible! I would go so much as to say that it was very very good! My father-in-law brags about it to all of his friends and relatives and asks if anyone has ever heard of a beet cake...its quite comical! So if you ever have a large quantity of beets or just want to add in some extra nutrition to chocolate cake give this cake a whirl!
I used the recipe below as the base for mine and I made a few adaptations to it! Next time I might not do the cream cheese icing and do a sprinkling of confectioners sugar instead as the cake was so good by itself. Everyone seemed to like the icing but I'm still thinking just confectioners sugar would be great!
Chocolate Beet Cake
From Straight From the FarmIngredients
1 cup butter, softened, divided
1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar or regular brown sugar which is what I think I used
3 eggs at room temperature
2-3 oz. dark chocolate
5 medium beets (2 cups pureed)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Icing
8 oz. cream cheese softened
2 cups of confectioners sugar or less if desired
2 Tablespoons of beet puree
Directions
Make the beet puree by trimming the beets and simmering them for about 50 minutes, until tender. Drain the liquid and cool the beets (you can run water over them to cool them off.) Slide the skins off, then place them in a food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Let the puree cool slightly before using it in the cake.
Cream 3/4 cup of the butter with the dark brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer, then add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Melt the remaining butter together with the chocolate, either in the microwave or in a double boiler over simmering water. Cool slightly, then add the chocolate mixture, beet puree, and vanilla into the butter/sugar mixture (it may look separated at this point.)
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add the dry ingredients to the bowl with the wet ingredients and mix well. Pour the batter into two greased 9 inch cake pans; bake at 375 degrees F for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean (I started checking around 25 minutes.) Cool the cake in the pan 15 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.
Mix cream cheese and sugar until smooth add in beet puree to create that lovely purplish color!
Saturday, July 7, 2012
What I've Been Doing...
I've been outrageously busy as of late! In my last post you saw that we started swimming lessons and that consumed my life for four weeks! We had two weddings (both outside in the 100 degree weather) and I've been doing lots of gardening/canning! We've spent time visiting friends and family, the little one got to meet his great, great, great aunts, and we've had many a play dates with lots of little people!
My father-in-law has a beautiful huge garden! He said that he wasn't going to plant a garden and well he did and its massive! It could easily feed 5-6 families instead of the three people that live in his house! Well after his garden was planted he had to go in for surgery! He had knee replacement surgery a few years ago and one of his artificial knees got infected and he had to have it removed and then had to undergo 6-8 weeks of IV antibiotics and then will have his knee put back in! So that means that his garden needs tending to! He has some good friends that care for the garden and then he sends me down to pick veggies for him and usually whatever I pick I can keep! I take it to him to see what he wants first since he's done the hard part but I get to keep tons of stuff! So he has 4 rows of green beans and each row was producing 2.5 five gallon buckets FULL of green beans! So one lady picked one row, two of his friends picked the other rows and I picked the fourth row! The two friends gave me most of their beans and I ended up having an entire trash bag full of beans, a five gallon bucket, a mop bucket, and multiple food lion bags! I also had an entire milk crate of beets and I've had 3 heads of cabbage that were probably 12-15 inches in diameter! I also had tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, squash, bell peppers, broccoli and potatoes! EEK the veggies are coming out my ears!!!
So I've been canning like a crazy woman! I've canned 18 quarts of beans, 17 pints of beans, and I've frozen 10 quarts of beans! I also canned 6 quarts of pickled beets, 4 pints of beets and 4 jelly jars of beets! The week before that I had 7 food lion bags full of yellow plums from my grandmothers plum trees and I made plum freezer jam, plum baby food, and homemade plum ice cream!
My father-in-law has a beautiful huge garden! He said that he wasn't going to plant a garden and well he did and its massive! It could easily feed 5-6 families instead of the three people that live in his house! Well after his garden was planted he had to go in for surgery! He had knee replacement surgery a few years ago and one of his artificial knees got infected and he had to have it removed and then had to undergo 6-8 weeks of IV antibiotics and then will have his knee put back in! So that means that his garden needs tending to! He has some good friends that care for the garden and then he sends me down to pick veggies for him and usually whatever I pick I can keep! I take it to him to see what he wants first since he's done the hard part but I get to keep tons of stuff! So he has 4 rows of green beans and each row was producing 2.5 five gallon buckets FULL of green beans! So one lady picked one row, two of his friends picked the other rows and I picked the fourth row! The two friends gave me most of their beans and I ended up having an entire trash bag full of beans, a five gallon bucket, a mop bucket, and multiple food lion bags! I also had an entire milk crate of beets and I've had 3 heads of cabbage that were probably 12-15 inches in diameter! I also had tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, squash, bell peppers, broccoli and potatoes! EEK the veggies are coming out my ears!!!
So I've been canning like a crazy woman! I've canned 18 quarts of beans, 17 pints of beans, and I've frozen 10 quarts of beans! I also canned 6 quarts of pickled beets, 4 pints of beets and 4 jelly jars of beets! The week before that I had 7 food lion bags full of yellow plums from my grandmothers plum trees and I made plum freezer jam, plum baby food, and homemade plum ice cream!
Friday, July 6, 2012
Swimming = So Much Fun!
We started the sweet boy on swimming lesson for the month of June! We had 4 weeks of lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 30 minutes! It was a blast! He loved every minute of being in the water and is on his way to becoming the next Olympic Swimmer! I figured I'd do the first round of lessons at the local pool and then use the skills we learned the rest of the summer by bumming off of other people's pools! Swimming is one of my favorite activities and I want the little man to be as comfortable in the water as he is on land! He was so cute throughout the lessons and we quite a hit with the older ladies that take swim aerobics on the other side of the pool! There were three other children in the class and two of them were two years old! The two year olds were phenomenal! They could swim to the bottom of the pool and pick up diving sticks and diving rings! They could also swim a short distance to another person AND they could float on their backs for up to 30ish seconds! It was amazing!
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| Going Under!!! |
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| Practicing reaching for toys! |
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| Kicking!!! |
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| Playing with the watering can! |
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| The lovely instructor! |
Friday, June 15, 2012
Breastfeeding, Pitocin and Babies oh my!!!
So as you've guessed it from the title of this post its about Breastfeeding, Pitocin and other medicines and Babies!!! So I'd probably say if you are not pregnant, you don't have any interest in these topics or if your not a mother then this post MIGHT just bore you! This is the first time I've ever shared my blog with the large land of facebook (eek) however I know numerous people that are pregnant/nursing/mothers that this information just might be of some use to! This is my experience and I figured I'd share! Normally I post randomly about my baby boy, my life, recipes I like and a few other tidbits but today its all about babies!
Breastfeeding is probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my entire life! I personally wouldmuch definitely rather give birth again than have all these issues of breastfeeding! It has been insanely difficult for me and has posed its long long long list of complications including but not limited toooo mastitis, plugged ducts, blibs, Raynauds, thrush, torticollis and bad latch problems (insert sound of small violin playing for my personal pity party....ok moving on)!!! Granted most of these things haven't happened all at one time but none the less they have been painful and difficult to move past! I am happy to say that I am still nursing despite the numerous issues I've had! I feel like I am a very persistent person and because I am so adamant on nursing its the only reason I am continuing to do so! NOW most people do NOT have the insane amount of problems that I have however if you're one of the few that do then there are some things that I've learned from this experience!
Pitocin- If you don't know what Pitocin is....its the drug that is given during an induction to help get labor going and to start your contractions! BE AWARE of pitocin and the complications it can cause and the risks it poses to the health of you and your baby!!! Now I know there are instances where Pitocin is completely necessary however just be aware of what you are putting in your body! Do your research!!! There are numerous articles out there regarding the side effects and risks of pitocin This Article is very informative on the risks of pitocin and even questions why it is so frequently used! Also there is a link to pitocin and ADHD. This Article goes over the link found between pitocin and ADHD and according to the article those children whose mothers were exposed to pitocin are twice as likely to have ADHD as opposed to mothers who were not exposed to pitocin! I know that labor can be a scary thing and when you are in the moment its hard to make rash decisions so just know what your going to be up against before you go in! I would also recommend looking at the other medications and drugs administered in the hospital so that you are aware of whats going to happen when you give birth!
Babies- I know that just because I have been a mother for a whole 6 months that it does not make me any expert of the whole motherhood thing but I feel that SO FAR it seems to have come very naturally for me. I am thankful for that innate ability that's just come out in me and I am so very grateful for the insight of all the other wonderful mothers in my life who have shared their experiences and given support! Experience and support are so crucial when raising a child and I am so blessed to have so many good examples of mothers in my life! If you don't have someone you can turn to for advice there are plenty of books/articles/forums out there to help new mothers but always tailor things to meet your needs and to fit your lifestyle! Just because someone says to do it this way doesn't mean its wrong to do it another way! I've been given plenty of advice that I don't care to use right now but it doesn't mean that that advice was wrong, its just not right for me!
*Disclaimer* This is the way I do things for my family...this is not to pass judgement on anyone on the way that they do things for their family!!!
Breastfeeding is probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my entire life! I personally would
- Earth Mama Angel Baby Natural Nipple Butter is amazing! Not only did I find it to be 10x better than lanolin but its also all natural as it says in the title and its NOT made of the yellow waxy stuff secreted by sheep that lanolin is actually made of! Yeah that just kind grosses me out to think about that lanolin is a yellow waxy substance secreted by sheep!
- All Purpose Nipple Ointment is even more amazing than the Earth Mama Angel Baby stuff! It's composed of 3-4 different medications that are so helpful when experiencing pain while nursing! Next time I'm asking for this BEFORE I even go to the hospital!
- Don't sleep on your stomach! You may be so excited by the fact that you aren't sporting a super huge belly anymore but trust me don't sleep on your stomach! EVERY time I sleep on my stomach I get plugged ducts and trust me they are so painful!!!
Pitocin- If you don't know what Pitocin is....its the drug that is given during an induction to help get labor going and to start your contractions! BE AWARE of pitocin and the complications it can cause and the risks it poses to the health of you and your baby!!! Now I know there are instances where Pitocin is completely necessary however just be aware of what you are putting in your body! Do your research!!! There are numerous articles out there regarding the side effects and risks of pitocin This Article is very informative on the risks of pitocin and even questions why it is so frequently used! Also there is a link to pitocin and ADHD. This Article goes over the link found between pitocin and ADHD and according to the article those children whose mothers were exposed to pitocin are twice as likely to have ADHD as opposed to mothers who were not exposed to pitocin! I know that labor can be a scary thing and when you are in the moment its hard to make rash decisions so just know what your going to be up against before you go in! I would also recommend looking at the other medications and drugs administered in the hospital so that you are aware of whats going to happen when you give birth!
Babies- I know that just because I have been a mother for a whole 6 months that it does not make me any expert of the whole motherhood thing but I feel that SO FAR it seems to have come very naturally for me. I am thankful for that innate ability that's just come out in me and I am so very grateful for the insight of all the other wonderful mothers in my life who have shared their experiences and given support! Experience and support are so crucial when raising a child and I am so blessed to have so many good examples of mothers in my life! If you don't have someone you can turn to for advice there are plenty of books/articles/forums out there to help new mothers but always tailor things to meet your needs and to fit your lifestyle! Just because someone says to do it this way doesn't mean its wrong to do it another way! I've been given plenty of advice that I don't care to use right now but it doesn't mean that that advice was wrong, its just not right for me!
NOW for some super cute pictures of my favorite little boy!!! Pictures were taken curtsey of my best friend Di over at the Super Tiger Goose blog! She's an awesome photographer and she will take wonderful pictures for you!!! She's just starting out so shes really reasonable too!!!
Friday, June 8, 2012
Swimming
The little one loves loves loves the water!!! He loves to kick and splash and is super content while in the water! We went swimming for the first time on memorial day and then this week I got a call about starting swimming lessons and they are for four weeks every Tuesday and Thursday and he loves them! We've been twice and it's a mommy and me swimming class! We sing songs, blow bubbles, practice kicking and other very basic things and it's just so much fun!!! There are three other babies in the class with him and let me tell you two of these babes are über talented!!! They have been taking the class for over a year and both just turned two years old and they can swim down to the bottom of the pool pick up toys and swim across small sections of the pool! It's phenomenal to watch such little babies swimming! That is sooooo going to be my child some day!!! I'm starting him so early so that he will be used to the water and so that he will hopefully start swimming early like these other little tikes! But it's super fun and I'm enjoying getting to spend a little time in the water myself!!! :) so excited that summer is here and that we can now go to the pool more whenever we want!!! Wooo hooo for summer!!!! 
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