bright eyes + blue eyes

sweet success

Regarding the great independent muffin baking project I mentioned last week...

Here are the results: my little baker did a wonderful job from start to finish!

She worked in the kitchen all by herself and followed the receipe perfectly.

I put the muffin pan in the oven when they were ready to go in, and I took them out when they were ready to come out. But other than that, she did it all.

She had so much fun.

And--the muffins were delicious!

time : 31 healthy foods you should be eating now

I find myself drawn to meal plans & eating recommendations which emphasize real food.

Food from the ground.

Food from the trees.

Essentially, food from the earth. (...instead of from a factory or processing plant of some sort.)

As I've mentioned before, I like naturally occurring stuff.

Also, I like to incorporate the KISS principle ("keep it simple, silly") when it comes to healthy eating.

For example, I'm not drawn to statements such as this:

"Studies have found that 1/4 cup of fresh berries, when consumed 45 minutes after a 3oz serving of calcium-laden food, will reduce LDL levels by 10-12%. On a Tuesday. If you're wearing a red shirt."

Bleh.

Too much to keep up with there.

I do, however, love it when I read good, common-sense advice such as this:

"Aim to fill half your plate with colorful fruit and veggies."

That's some good advice. I can handle that.

* * * * *

All this to say, I really liked the following Time article:

31 Heatlhy Foods You Should Be Eating Now

Check it out.

* * * * *

After I read the article, I made myself a little cheat sheet.

I can post this in my kitchen or on a page in my calendar, with the aim of incorporating more of these foods into my family's diet.

Note: on my cheat sheet, I left off the following items--I can remember these without putting them on my little reminder card.

Lean Meat, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Red Wine, Dark Chocolate

* * * * *

So here's the cheat sheet. Feel free to copy and paste this image directly into your own photo files. I designed the card to be 4x6 so I could easily order a print the next time I order family photos from snapfish.

 

cookies

I've always been interested in learning how to decorate sugar cookies. 

Well, guess what?

There are tutorials on the internet for just about everything.

And that includes tutorials giving all the specific details of how to decorate sugar cookies.

Recently I stumbled upon a tutorial on a blog which showed me how to use "fill icing" to decorate cookies. 

One click led to another, and suddenly I discovered that there are a LOT of blogs dedicated to cookie decorating.

(Funny how every little hobby has it's own virtual "blog neighborhood." In that neighborhood, lots of people know each other, read each other's blogs, link to each other, share ideas, etc.)

I started a "cookie" board on pinterest. Pinterest is such a great way to collect a group of specific links. So much better than just bookmarking the links I like on my computer. I love that, on Pinterest, I can instantly find exactly what I'm looking for because I can so quickly look for the picture I've pinned.

I clicked around on several cookie decorating blogs. 

Here's my favorite one so far: The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle

And here's a link to my pinterest board: Cookies

{posted by Abbie}

dessert last night

This is one of my favorites.

It's one of Gram's signature desserts: homemade cherry pie.

Delicious!

grandparents are awesome

Gram and Papa had a safe & uneventful trip to our house today. They're here! Hooray!

Our dinner tonight was:

Spaghetti Pie

Garden Salad

Chickpea & Carrot Salad (which I found years ago in this post from Behind the Gate)

Bread

Brownies & Ice Cream for dessert.

Bluebell Pistachio Almond is hard to beat.

 

out with the old, in with the new

No more formula.

The general recommendation is to switch to whole milk after the 1st b-day.

As Manzo's 1st b-day drew closer, I found myself wondering how the transition from formula to milk would go.

Any guesses on how it went?

(dramatic pause)

Totally easy. He loves his new milk.

And who can blame him.

I'm a milk enthusiast myself. (yum)

I would definitely drink whole milk if I could.

(well of course I physically CAN drink whole milk, but you know what I mean...)

I was the king's taster for Manzo's new whole milk...and it is GOOD STUFF.

Cold and creamy.

He loves it.

So now we're on to the next challenge: phase out bottles and move exclusively to sippy cups.

I think that transition is going to be a bit harder. He doesn't seem crazy about his sippy cups so far.

(I welcome any advice you may have...)

Here's another milk photo for you. This one is my "where's waldo hunter" version.

pb&j

Direct quotation:

Superboy

Age 10

"Mom, it's just that the sandwich tastes SO much better when YOU make it."

Sorry, Charlie. Practice makes perfect. You're definitely old enough to make your own sandwiches.

p.s. please note: in this picture, Superboy is wearing his "saturday shirt." He picked this shirt out at Goodwill about three years ago. He wears it almost every Saturday. For some reason, this shirt is the very definition of weekend relaxation for him. It's silky and red, with black and white handprints all over it. What in the world.

{posted by Abbie}

clementines

2006 Easter photo.

Lotsa eggs have been hunted in that front yard.

* * * * *

Okay, back to the current time.

June 2012.

I've tried to encourage my kids to be very observant while we're here.

Before we arrived, I briefed them that some things would be the same, and some things would be different. Won't it be fun to observe all of the simliarities and differences? (yes!)

Today, we were opening up a bag of clementines from Waitrose (grocery store.) The clementines were in a little red mesh bag. (same as at home.) There was a label at the top with the bar code and basic info. (same as at home.)

One of the kids stopped me and said, "Mom. Look: the label on their clementine bag also has a picture of some clementines!!!!"

(There was a pretty little illustration on the label. Our standard bag of clementines at home comes with a label that is illustration-less.)

Um...yep. 

So I guess they are observing "the little things" after all. ha! Not exactly what I had in mind, but hey... whatever works! 

{posted by Abbie}

cereal bars

Superboy has had orthodontic gear in his mouth since Oct 2010. 

We took a family trip in December 2010. 

As I was trying to pack snacks for the car, I hit a wall. 

So many of the snacks I typically packed were suddenly off limits. 

Our top 4 snacks USED to be: raw almonds (or other nuts), trail mix, pretzel sticks, apple slices, baby carrots.

None of those things were going to work anymore. Yes, he can still eat apple slices, even with the appliance, IF they are sliced thinly enough. But my old standard of cutting the entire apple into four huge chunks definitely doesn't work anymore.

So when I was at Target, I looked around for easy & quick snack options that are also relatively healthy.

Aha! Cereal bars. 

So I got some.

We gave them to the kids in the car. They each took one bite. I've never SEEN them react so negatively.

I don't know what it is about cereal bars that they detest so much...the texture? Not sure. All I know is that they don't want to have anything to do with them.

Funny thing is, on our trip, we were planning to get a little treat each day. (ice cream) We told the kids that if they had a bad attitude or complained, their consequence (while we were on our trip) would be losing that day's ice cream.

One day, one of them was skating on the border of bad-attitude-land. (I cannot remember who it was or what the issue was.) Hunter said something about "be careful...you don't want to lose your ice cream."

Then, for added effect, he said, "And if your attitude gets REALLY bad, we'll make you eat an entire cereal bar."

Ha! We all cracked up. That was the birth of one of our little family jokes. Now, when someone needs a reminder to shape up, one of us says something along the lines of, "watch out....you don't want to have to eat a cereal bar, do you?" 

Sometimes that silly little joke produces a giggle and the bad attitude melts away. (Nice when that happens!)

What are your go-to snacks??

 

giving it a try : e-mealz

I keep reading little things here and there about a program called e-mealz.

Basically, it's a membership which helps you with meal planning & grocery shopping.

Each week, members get a 7-day meal plan (dinners only) and a corresponding grocery shopping list.

For the last couple of months, I've been on the fence about whether I'd like to try this system.

Then, I decided to go for it. I just signed up yesterday.

The tipping point, for me, came when I discovered these three things:

(1) You choose which meal plan is the best fit for your family. There are 30+ different meal plan options. I tend to shop at Kroger. When I found out that there was a Kroger meal plan, which incorporates weekly sale items into the meal plan, I was impressed.

(2) Dave Ramsey endorses the system. I like his financial perspective and was impressed when I read that he said e-mealz "saves you a ton of time & money."

(3) I saw a coupon which would save me $2 off initial membership.

+ + + +

Members purchase a three-month commitment to the plan. So, for the next 12 weeks, I'll be following (more or less) my e-mealz dinner schedule & shopping with pre-made grocery lists (hooray! I'm excited about using the lists.)

At any point, I can switch from one meal plan to another. (For example, I might switch from "Kroger Family Plan" to "Low-Carb Any Store Meal Plan")

Here's one thing that majorly appeals to me about e-mealz: The efficiency of the system. I love that it will save me a lot of time and energy. I like efficiency.

(Related: Goodbye Efficiency, Part 1, Goodbye Efficiency, Part 2, and Goodbye Efficiency, Part 3)

(sidenote: LinkWithin, if you link back to any of those three posts, I will be highly impressed. And surprised.)

Here's one thing that I have concerns about: I'm curious to see what the meal plans are like. I hope they don't ask me to buy a bunch of pre-packaged stuff & just do a bunch of re-heating. No gracias, mis amigos.

+ + + +

Here's a link to the e-mealz site if you decide to check it out for yourself. If you try it, let me know what you think!

(cute little owl, isn't she? I should've asked for the Chi Omega discount.)

My membership price was $12.50 for a 3 month membership. (Will be $15/3mo. going forward.)

A dollar per week? Not too shabby!

I used a coupon code that I saw mentioned here on Becky Higgins' blog.

The code is ORGANIZE and it's good until Jan 31st.