Jumping Daisy

>Today Thea had her 9 month well baby check up.  She got her booster for the H1N1 vaccine and barely cried at all.  Thankfully Leila was able to get her booster of the mist as well and she also did awesome…the first dose didn’t go as well but with Cory there to help, she was calm and happy to escape a shot!

Thea weighed in at 23 pounds, 14 ounces and is 30 1/2 inches tall.  She is a big beautiful girl and aside from a bit of a yeast infection that we need to get under control, all is well.

>What do you do when you are feeling stressed, overwhelmed and under-effective? I usually cry and feel sorry for myself. Sometimes I bake.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread…this recipe is so good, and it uses apple sauce instead of oil and not too much butter, so you don’t have to feel bad about the chocolate chips! Here is a picture of my loaf, cooling on the stove.

I found this recipe at http://www.tastykitchen.com

Ingredients:

1 cup Mashed Bananas (2-3 Whole Bananas)

4 Tablespoons Butter, Softened

¼ cups Apple Butter Or Applesauce

2 whole Eggs

2 Tablespoons Milk

¾ cups Lightly Packed Brown Sugar

1-¾ cup Flour (sneak Some Wheat Flour In, Nobody Will Know)

2 teaspoons Baking Powder

½ teaspoons Baking Soda

¼ teaspoons Salt

¾ cups Chocolate Chips

¼ cups Chopped Walnuts (optional)
Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Smash the bananas until they’re broken up but not completely smooth. Some lumps are OK.

Add in the butter, apple butter, eggs, milk, and brown sugar. Blend with a hand mixer until everything is incorporated. Again, small lumps are OK.

In a separate bowl, sift the dry ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture and mix gently with a spoon. When all the flour is mixed in, add your chocolate chips and walnuts.

Spray your loaf pan with cooking spray, and pour in the batter. Bake until golden and a toothpick/piece of dry spaghetti comes out clean, about 60 minutes.

Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool to room temperature.

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Yes, it was a particularly rough morning, so along with the Chocolate Crinkle batter I have chilling in the fridge for later, I also made these awesome cookies.

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My friend Jessica from work passed this recipe on, and I made them today, though I am not a walnut fan so I used pecans instead (YUM!). I am thinking I may stick some in the freezer for Christmas Eve dessert, if not, they will surely be eaten quickly!

Santa’s Helpers

Servings: Makes about 2 dozen cookies

Preparation time: About 20 minutes

Baking time: About 15 minutes per batch

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups firmly packed brown sugar, divided

¼ sour cream

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

½ cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

24 walnut halves for garnish, optional

Preheat oven to 350˚. In small bowl, stir together ½ cup brown sugar, sour cream, and cinnamon until smooth. Stir in chopped walnuts; set aside. In medium-sized bowl, with electric mixer at medium speed, cream butter and 1 cup brown sugar. Add egg and vanilla; beat until light and fluffy. With mixer on low speed, gradually add dry ingredients, beating just until smooth. Divide dough into quarters. From each quarter into 6 equal balls; place balls 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets. With fingertip, make a wide, round depression in the center of each cookie, reaching almost to the edge and leaving a rim. Fill depressions in cookies with walnut mixture, mounding above the rims. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until filling is set. Cool cookies on wire racks. Garnish each cookie with walnut half, if desired.

>Just melts my heart…Thank God for these two!

>

I do not like Christmas.  It is too expensive, it is stressful, it is too much work and it introduces too much clutter into my already cluttered house.
I really didn’t want to get a tree this year, but I didn’t  considered not having a tree of some kind for very long, and I am so glad we got one.  I would call it a compromise because we did get a tree, and it is a real tree, but it is also about 3 feet high.  I am actually really happy with it.  It was easy to decorate and Leila could help without any trouble.  It hardly takes up any space at all, and we can put it on our breakfast bar and avoid Thea trying to pull up on it.
As an added bonus, while Leila and I decorated the other day, she said, “I love our tree.  This is the best Christmas EVER.”  As much as I don’t like Christmas, I adore the excitement that Leila shows.  Not just for the tree and the presents to come from Santa, but for making cookies together and best of all, for time spent with family.  I am a family girl and so far, Leila is undeniably taking after her momma.  I can’t imagine a trait of mine that I would more like her to have.

So this year, in order to focus on Leila’s joy and excitement for the season and reduce my own stress, unhappiness and financial burden, Christmas has been scaled back in all of the less important ways.  I don’t need a big tree, I don’t need a lot of gifts.  We have tried to pick something thoughtful for those closest to us without breaking the bank. And though in past years I have made a lot of gifts, I just haven’t had time or space to sew, so even our homemade gifts are being scaled back. (Though I plan to post about the gifts that Leila and I will be making for the daycare staff.)  I am not going to worry about spending “enough” on each gift.  I am not even going to stress about how much my gifts will be enjoyed.   

For me it is not even so much about refocusing on the reason for Christmas, because I think I have that down and am working on it with Leila.  It is much more about taking the self imposed pressure to please off of myself.  I already know that a three foot tall tree means the best Christmas ever to my most important critic, even if the house across the street may have a 9 footer.

 

 

And here is the only other Holiday decorations I bothered with this year.

>I dig these chicks.

>It is all going by so fast…When Thea was born I thought she looked a whole lot like her sister.  Nearly 9 months later the similarities aren’t nearly as obvious, but they are still there.  Mostly in the big full baby cheeks and sweet baby hand gestures that I remember so fondly from the first time around.  My Thea has a look of her own, that I think is mostly to her Daddy’s credit, though the nose is all me.  Well all me, and my dad and my Grandma Dalene.  Her eyes are a beautiful color of green/hazel/brown.  Like Cory’s, only a shade or two darker.  It is a color I haven’t seen before, and I like. 

This evening Thea was exploring, crawling around while I was making dinner and as she ventured into the kitchen Cory followed behind her calling out, “Thea, where do you think you are going!?” And as he closed in on her she took off faster with a sweet baby giggle.  What a big grown up girl!

This past couple of weeks have seemed to age her quite a bit, she has started giving kisses, if she is in the mood and you ask her she will stick out her tongue and come right in for a big wet one! 

We have been doing baby sign language with her for some time, but the one sign that she has quickly picked up on and will return is the sign for dog, which usually comes along with a loud “Da!”  Thea really likes Zoey…Zoey really likes to lick Thea’s ears and then run away before she loses a handful of fur.

Though she still isn’t sleeping very well, normally waking up 2-4 times a night to nurse back to sleep, I can’t help but forgive that sweet little face for my lack of sleep.  At least she is a great cuddle bug…just don’t let her snuggle in too much or she will take a bite, and believe me, it hurts!

>As Leila was walking around the living room today, attempting to keep my shoes from sliding off of her cute little feet she announced, “I am a Mommy!”

I asked her, “Are you are good Mommy?”

“Yes Momma, I am!”

“What makes a good Mommy, Leila?”

“I don’t know, but I sure love you!”

I needed that today.  I sure love her too.

>

Ignore the shiny nose of a baby with a cold…

>Leila has been really into spelling lately, and she loves to type on the computer.  Of course there are a lot of tricks to spelling correctly in the English language, and Cory and I are never sure if we should correct her when she spells things wrong, but phonetically.  We decided that for now, phonetically will do because we don’t want to discourage her.  The other night she spelled, “CATRPILR” and this one she was especially proud of, so we took a picture, “DADE”

>Love-A-Lot (The girl’s daycare) has a Thanksgiving tradition of hosting a turkey lunch for all of the kids and the parents of the bigger kids.  This is the 2nd year that Leila’s group was included and so Cory and I took a long lunch on Tuesday to go have lunch with Leila.  The kids sang a couple of songs that Leila refused to participate in, and then the teacher read off each child’s Thanksgiving letter.  They got to choose who to write to, and what to say.  They also had each child make themselves a placemat with a collage of their favorite foods.

Here is Leila’s letter to Mommy: