Pinterest Food Reviews - Part 1

Lately I've made a lot of recipes I've pinned from Pinterest and thought I'd give my feedback. 

Toddler Muffins (B+) :
Based on the overwhelming positive reviews on allrecipes, I had high hopes for these...I think too high of hopes!  They were honestly just kind of bland...didn't taste good, but didn't taste bad.  I will make these again, but will experiment with adding some other flavors.  Some of the other reviews mention applesauce, raisins, cinnamon, etc.  Lachlan didn't immediately take to them, but after eating them a few times he grew to LOVE them. I hope next time I make these with a few revisions they will be an A+ recipe!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter, softened 1/2 cup brown sugar, or to taste 2 large bananas, mashed 1 (4.5 ounce) jar baby food squash 2 carrots, grated 2 eggs, beaten

1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup oat bran 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 24 mini muffin cups or 12 standard muffin cups.
2. In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Mix in the mashed bananas, squash, carrots, and eggs. Stir in the flour, oat bran, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, and salt until just combined. Spoon the batter equally into the prepared muffin cups.
3. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 15 to 20 minutes. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack. Store at room temperature for up to two days, or freeze.

Lemon Garlic Green Beans (C+):
These were really just "okay" but I did change up the original recipe.  They were fine to eat with dinner, but I don't think I would be jumping to make them again.  I'd definitely be up for trying out some other recipes instead.  We really love garlic and just couldn't taste it at all.  Recipe idea adapted from She Wears Many Hats blog

Ingredients:

1 large bag cleaned/trimmed green beans (think mine was about 2.5 lbs) 5-6 slices bacon 1 lemon 1 tsp garlic powder Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions

1.  Prepare a large bowl of ice water and set aside.

2.  In a large pot of boiling, salted water cook green beans for about 3 minutes.  In large pan/skillet, fry bacon.

3.  Drain beans and transfer them to the bowl of ice water.  Once cool, drain beans, and proceed to next steps.

4.  Remove bacon.  Add green beans into the bacon grease tossing to coat and continue cooking over medium-high heat.

5.  Add juice from lemon, garlic powder, and salt and pepper.  Continue to toss and cook until desired tenderness and done-ness.  Crumble bacon and stir into beans.

 

Parmesan Broccoli Cauliflower (C+):
This was on same level as the green beans- just "okay."  I probably would not make again and in my opinion the veggies taste just as good roasted and are a lot less work!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup plain bread crumbs 1 tsp garlic salt 1/4 tsp black pepper 1 1/4 cups milk 4oz (1/2 package) cream cheese, cubed 1/4 cup plus 2 T parmesan cheese, divided 2 T butter, melted 1 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning, divided 1 pkg (16 oz) frozen broccoli 1 pkg (16 oz) frozen cauliflower 1 large onion, chopped 2 T butter (not melted) 2 T flour

 
Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix bread crumbs, 2 tablespoons of the Parmesan cheese, 2 tablespoons melted butter and 1/2 teaspoon of the Italian seasoning in small bowl. Set aside. Cut up any large broccoli or cauliflower florets into bite-size pieces.
2. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in large skillet on medium heat. Add onion; cook and stir about 5 minutes or until tender. Stir in flour, remaining 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning, garlic salt and pepper. Add milk; cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. Add cream cheese and remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese; cook and stir until cream cheese is melted. Add vegetables; toss gently to coat. Spoon into 2-quart baking dish. Sprinkle top evenly with crumb mixture.
3. Bake 40 minutes or until heated through and top is lightly browned.

Lachlan - 14 months

Blogging Frequency = Pathetic.  I know.  Unfortunately, I've had this post written up for a while, but have not been able to figure out how to resize pictures with Windows8....so since it takes a long time to upload full-sized pics, I'm just going to do a few in this post.

So, lately Lachs has been a little bit of what I describe as a "handful."  Evidence is trying to get his 14-month pictures.  It starts with numerous pictures and struggles with getting him to just leave the sticker on his shirt.

Next we tried giving him distractions such as the phone and some animal crackers, but that didn't help too much.  So I didn't feel like I got a cute smiley picture, but my pics sum up how he is at this age!

No change in clothing sizing.  We did order him a pair of shoes (think he is a 5.5).  Anyways, he screamed and did not like his shoes at all, so has yet to wear them.

He has got a ton more teeth.  His front bottom right tooth came in (to complete the set of 4 down there).  On his right side, both his top and bottom molars have started to come in-- the bottom one is really coming along!

Fine/Gross Motor Skills

• Has learned to steer pretty well with his walkers.  He sometimes will get stuck and immediately goes into panic mode, but a lot of times we tell him to turn around and he will. 
• Just recently will balance standing still for a short while (maybe 5 seconds or so)
• ON his 14-month birthday he finally got brave and took a step without holding on to anything towards Dustin.
• Will drop items into a Kleenex box or milk jug and then figure out how to get them out.
• Not making much progress in the world of puzzles or his shape shorter.  But he has made progress in the classic toy that has 5 buttons/gimmicks that once you master a little animal pops up.  He can do the middle 3 now.  He likes the ring stacker, but does not understand there is a correct order.

Verbal/Communication Skills

There has not been a ton of improvement here and in fact I don't think we've heard "Hi" in the last month.  I do think he understands a whole lot of what we are saying.  I can tell him that Dada is sleeping and to go get him and he'll immediately head to the bedroom.  I can tell him to go get a book and he will bring me one, so I think he knows some of his toys.

 

Eating

Does really well eating all of the school food.  We give him about 15 oz. of milk each day.  We have to watch his dairy intake because of his constipation.  It gets a little frustrating at times because he'll love a food one day and then the next just refuses it and will dump it all on the floor.  He has got in a bad habit of putting his food on the floor when he doesn't want it....which makes me really mad cause then it just goes to waste and I can't save it to try again later!  Some days he will take 3 bites of a meal and then sign "all done."  I initially would get worried and try to force him to eat, but quit doing that and figure if he gets hungry he will eat and let me know.  He is very good with signing eat when he wants something. 

Sleep

Sleeping 10.5-11 hours each night.  Usually sleeping around 2 hours at daycare for 1 nap.  At home we've been trying to keep with the 2 naps cause seems so sleepy in the morning, but this is getting to be a struggle.  I think he naps so well in the morning that he doesn't really want to take an afternoon nap then.  So probably a matter of time before we may have to transition to one. 

Favorite Things

• Jabbering a ton of nonsense
• ANY book, but still loves the flaps the best
• His zebra walker
• Throwing ball back and forth; Throwing ball from upstairs through the railing into the family room and then we throw it back up to him 
• Crawling into a closet, pantry, bathroom, etc and closes the door to play peek-a-boo 
• Stuffed animals that talk/sing/move
• My old rocking chair and Sesame Street table
• Animal crackers-- we bought a huge tub at Sams and appears to be a mistake...he just LOVES them and I think is impeding with him wanting to eat dinner cause just wants animal
• Disobeying...loves to completely ignore when we tell him "no" and will even look right at us when doing something he knows he shouldn't be.  He really likes to climb up on the fireplace or bang on the laptops.
• Putting anything and everything in his mouth.
• He likes covering his mouth on and off like when making Indian sounds.   He also will run his finger over his lips.
• Still loves bath time, but he has graduated from his duck to the regular big boy tub!  He loves all the water and splashing.  He was always trying to stand up or crawl out of the duck, so figured it was time to say goodbye!  The duck now sits in his room and he loves just pointing at it and saying "duck"
• Pointing at lights
• Pretending to talk on the phone-- holds it up by his ear
• Loves the wheels on the bus app on the iphone and watches that a lot.  He is getting better with pointing and swiping things on the iphone-- pretty amazing to me.

Typical Day at 14 months:

• 6:45-7:00- Wake up, get dressed and in the car if weekday.  On weekend, will usually let him in the crib for 15-20 minutes and then get him out to play.  
• 7:00- Prune juice with Miralax
• 8:00- Breakfast (muffins, pancakes, waffles, etc.)
• 9:30- Nap if at home (usually 1.5 hours)
• 11:30- Lunch 
• 12:00- Nap if at school  (usually 1.5 hours)
• 2:15- Afternoon Snack
• 2:30- Nap if at home (usually 1 hour)
• 4:00- Afternoon Snack2  
• 6:00- Dinner (Roasted Veggies, Meatballs, Peaches, Pears, Cheese-stuffed Shells, Lasagna)
• 7:00- Bath every 2-3 nights (We have tried to move this up a tad earlier due to him sleeping so late)
• 7:15-7:30- Read him a few books in the rocking chair and let him have his pacifier.  We usually read a Lullaby book with music, some Ernie/Bert Good Night book, and recently added in the Going to Bed Book.  He has started whimpering a little when we go to put him down, but he stops within 10 seconds of walking out the door. 

 

 

Lachlan Photodump from phone

Good news- we are on the road to a technical recovery!  It appears our friend was able to recover the photos and videos from our dead laptop, but have yet to 100% confirm that and get them on to the new laptop.  We had bought a new laptop from Best Buy a couple weeks ago, but it was horribly slow and so useless...so we returned it and got a better one.  However it was out of stock, so they had to ship to us and we just got it up and running today.  So will take me a while to get things all straightened out, but have a few posts in the works and hopefully will be back to blogging a little more often! 

For now, here are some random pics from my phone I thought I'd share from the last few weeks:

LOVES to crawl in the pantry to play...and find snacks!



Loves feeling his hair while relaxing with the pacifier

Napping on his cot at daycare



Asleep on the ride home from daycare

Still not walking on his own...but LOVES being able to push this toy all over the place

Loves eating snacks at his little table

Loves bathtime, but now his entertainment is throwing all toys OUT of the tub



One of his may adorable hats

Self portrait- likes when I put the camera in the mode where he can see himself

NEVER sleeps on his back, but this was how he rung in the new year



One of his usual sleeping positions

Another common sleep position

Sleeping close up

Likes playing on ipads and iphones- we've banned him on the ipad until we get a protective case though!

Getting ready for bed after his bath!  He is wearing the wool cover that is our new miracle worker for solving leaks!

Lachlan - 13 months

We are still having major computer issues around home, so there is unfortunately a lack of pictures with this post, but do have some 13 month photos to show.  I'm trying a new setting for his monthly picture of him just sitting in his chair...problem is that he does not want to sit still in the chair and get his picture taken.  Instead he only wanted to repeatedly bang his head with the paper towel holder:

Or was determined to ruin and peel off his sticker:

Or had mouthful of animal crackers as bribery to stay in the seat long enough to snap some pics:

No change in teeth or clothing sizing.  In fact, he weighs slightly less now than at his 12 month checkup, so he has definitely hit a plateau.  He has became a little less clingy, which has been really nice...now it just goes in phases or waves, but he will do periods of independent play.

He has been such a healthy baby and in the last month has had 2 minor ear infections.  He didn't seem bothered by them at all, so we were kinda shocked when the doctor told us.  He took amoxicillin each time-- the first time he came down with a fever and rash, which may have been a separate virus, but also could have been a non-allergic reaction to the antibiotic.

He enjoyed his 2nd xmas, but still too young to have any concept of what was going on or that he got a bunch of new cool stuff!

Fine/Gross Motor Skills

• Loves lifting flaps in books
• Enjoys looking at books himself and will work really hard sometimes to try to turn pages 1 at a time instead of skipping through chunks of them.  (This is just sometimes and some books that he will try for the 1 page only at a time...others he still clumps through himself)
• Waving Hi a little more consistently.  (Sometimes says Hi along with it.)
• Walks with walker toys...no concept of steering and just rams into the walls
• This has taken him a while to master, but while standing (holding on to something) he can slowly bend down to pick up the object and return to standing.  Before he would just plop to sit down to get the object.

Cognitive Skills

• Very good memory of all the flaps in his books and which ways they open
• We do some hand motions with some of his books and he will pick up on it instantly and remember the page to do the action.  For example, in a Sesame Street book it says something about Oscar's hammer going bam, bam, bam.  Dustin would always slap his thigh to imitate the bang and now Lachs does it every time.  For Wheels on the Bus, I hit the page when making the horn go beep beep beep and he'll do that.
• Before he started signing eat, he figured out to crawl over to his high chair and bang on it when ready for food
• Loves pointing at things and us naming them.  Sometimes he will switch pointing between 2 objects like 10 times in a row while we just keep telling him the names. 
• He is understanding how to be silly or what is silly.  If I pretend to use his pacifier or sippy cup he knows that is funny.

Verbal/Communication Skills

Since he was going to be home with us for almost 2 weeks over xmas, I wanted to really emphasize signing certain things and see if he could pick up on it.  We so struggle with understanding what he wants sometimes, so I was hoping this would help him communicate some with us.  I was shocked at how fast he picked this up (because his daycare teacher does not do this with them)!   His most frequent is "All Done."  The worst is when he uses it in instances like while in the carseat and I can't react to it!

Signs:

• All done
• More
• Eat
• Hi/Bye (waves)
• Reaches both arms up to be held
• Can sometimes point to the room or object he wants when he gets flustered and I tell him to show me what he wants.  Or I will point to do different things and ask him which one he wants to do...and he'll point at one.

Words he says and we think knows meaning:

• Hi
• Dada
• Uh Oh  (most frequently said word BY FAR)
• Duck and Quack, Quack

Words/Phrases he understands (I'm sure there is more, but am blanking out on this):

• Bring it to mommy/daddy or Come to mommy/daddy
• Go get daddy-- he will then just come full body at Dustin to wrestle with him
• His name (he has known this for a while)
• No (understands but only follows it 5% of the time)
• Where's Lachlan-- he knows that will start a game of peekaboo and will go hide or cover eyes

Eating
We are done with the formula and done with bottles!    He eats really all of the school food that is provided- the only thing they don't give him are oranges cause we think they may give him diaper rashes.  At home, I've been trying to make things that he can eat with us, but that just depends on how busy I am.  Unfortunately I try to feed him healthy most times, but he does get the occasional McDonald's and Pizza Hut :)  He signs "all done" when he is finished eating, but that means we have a 3 second window to react.  He will start picking up his food and dropping it on the floor if we leave him there too much longer!

Sleep
Sleeping 10.5-11 hours each night.  Naps have got better at daycare- they have started doing just one nap and he sleeps for about 1.5 hours, so that is much better.  Interestingly enough, he sleeps on the cot and has done so much better than in his crib.  They said he would just laugh at him and bang around and play when they try to put him in the crib...or sometimes scream/cry.  They put him on this cot that is about 2 inches off the floor and he just lays right down, does not move, does not try to get off of there.  His teacher says that within minutes he is out and has a pile of drool :))  Unfortunately because he only gets this 1 nap, he usually sleeps on the car ride home and we have to wake him up to eat dinner and he is pretty crabby, so then put him to sleep pretty early.  I get to see him for less than an hour on weeknights usually.  On the weekends, we still do the 2 naps, so he gets a good 3+ hour of naps in.

Favorite Things

• Books with flaps...loves, loves, loves 
• Using any of his toys with wheels that enable him to walk or pushing around on his hands/knees
• Crawling into a closet, pantry, bathroom, etc and closes the door to play peek-a-boo....definitely not scared at all if the room is pitch black and he will wait pretty long for us calling out to him before he'll open the door to show himself.
• Covering his eyes while in the high chair to play peek-a-boo...always waits until they are super messy to do this
• Peeing on the bath towel every single time we take him out of the tub...just started this up
• Stuffed animals that talk/sing/move
• My old rocking chair and Sesame Street table
• Anything he can ride-- Cozy Coupe and Pillow Racer (we have had to hide these cause he just loves them so much and only wants us to push him on these!)

Typical Day at 13 months:

• 6:45-7:15- Wake up and get dressed and in the car if weekday.  On weekend, will usually let him in the crib for 15-20 minutes and then get him out to play.  It was very easy to eliminate this bottle-- I'll sometimes  give him a sippy of milk or juice. 
• 8:30- Breakfast (Prune Juice or 5oz milk plus school breakfast.)
• 9:30- Nap if at home (usually 1.5 hours)
• 11:30- Lunch and 5 oz milk in sippy cup (Eats school lunch)
• 12:00- Nap if at school  (usually 1.5 hours)
• 1:30- Nap if at home (usually 1.5 hours)
• Afternoon Snack with 5 oz milk 
• 5:30-6 Sleeps on car ride home from daycare
• 6:00- Dinner and water in sippy
• 6:45- Bath every 2-3 nights (We have tried to move this up a tad earlier due to him sleeping so late)
• 7:00- Read him a few books in the rocking chair; Offer some water in a sippy

My latest faves!

So our computer has totally crashed.  We are in the process of hopefully being able to recover pics and videos off the hard drive...and if not, this will probably be my last post ever cause I will just die without them!  So most of my good posts I have in the works will have to wait until I can get the pictures to accompany them.

By the way, we did get a new laptop this last weekend (which is why I can resume with some boring posts in the meantime), but it has Windows 8 which I'm having a really hard time getting used to.  Anyone else having troubles switching?  It is not very intuitive.  Seriously think I'm going to have to watch probably some 6 year old on YouTube do a training video.

Anyways, here are some of my favorite things lately, so thought I'd pass along:

Shout Color Catchers:  Throw in any laundry combination and these things are amazing-- they suck up all the dye from your dark/colored clothes.  I wish I would have used these a long time ago cause I never really sort my clothes like I should.

 

Kleenex Cool Touch:  I have had a killer cold this week and these things are a lifesaver!  They are so much better than any of the tissues with lotion.  These things are NOT greasy like the lotion ones, but I can blow my nose 50 times/day and it doesn't get sore.  They are really soft and feel cool...just like the name!

 

Television Shows:  We have just finished getting caught up on the current seasons of Breaking Bad, Homeland, and Dexter....all outstanding!

 

Apps: SongPop is my favorite; Wheels on the Bus is my favorite for Lachlan

 

Wool Cover:  I HIGHLY recommend the Etsy shop My Eco Baby.  Look at all of her CUTE designs that she makes from old sweaters!  I did a custom order of a black/gray soaker with an owl applique.  Besides being cute, these things have been a lifesaver.  We were getting night diaper leaks nearly every night, so I bought one of these for him to wear over his diaper.  Wool can absorb like 40% of its weight and I soak it about once per week in a lanolin solution so it repels the moisture away from his skin.  It has worked like a champ!  I'm thinking of buying another one.  I don't have a picture right now of mine, but here is a cute one:

 

McDonald's Grilled Onion and Cheddar Burger:  This is a score cause it is on the dollar menu...holler!  It tastes pretty much just as you imagine-- the flavor of McDonald's, but the grilled onions had a great grilled flavor.  My only complaint was that it comes dry...I got a side of their Hot Mustard to dip it in.