Oh...can it!

Within the past few years, I've had a small obsession with canning.

I remember my Grandma Bea canning everything from her garden - green beans, pickles, and the like. The ball jars lined an earthy ledge in her cellar. As a matter of fact, I would be willing to be that she still has green beans from 1982!

Unfortunately, I am not gifted when it comes to the world of food. I know, I know. You totally wouldn't know that by looking at me. lol

I have a tendency to burn water, turn homemade yellow cake into cornbread and generally screw up anything that I try to cook or bake.

However, Justin got me an amazing gift for Christmas - one that I had put on my list a few years prior but never received. (Probably because he knows that I would mess everything up. Good thinking on his part)

I received a Ball canning set for beginners, a collapsable funnel and a jar gripper (to pull the hot jars out of the boiling water).

Now...this may not sound exciting, but I was all sorts of giddy! There are so many things that I can make and preserve!

So...I put my abilities to the test last night - I made homemade no added sugar apple butter and preserved it!

To be completely transparent, I made it for my mom for her birthday (which is on Friday). The girl that has everything is receiving homemade apple butter and freshly baked bread (by me, of course!) for her big day! I mean really...who doesn't love delicious food?!

And just in case you want the how to's of this delicious recipe, they are listed here.

Enjoy!

 

A letter to my sweetie boy for his birthday: Seven is a big deal!

 

My Dearest Lucas,

Yesterday was your birthday. The big seven! I won't scar you with too many details of our first meeting, but I can tell you that even though it was a rough beginning for both of us (your dad, Eema and the medical staff too), it still melts my heart thinking about you and hearing your "cry" for the first time.

You have brought me nothing but pure joy since that very first moment. Watching you grow, absorbing the world around you, inquisitive and delighted to learn, I’m reminded each day of the treasure you bring into my world.

As all mothers do, I have goals, dreams and wishes for you. I have, as you can imagine, dozens of them, but on this seventh anniversary of  our first moment together, I will limit myself to the seven that I wish for most.

 

 I wish for the kind heart I see you in now to stay firmly in place.  Keep it, nurture it, handle it with care.  Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you are too sensitive. You are the first to hold your sister’s hand when she is scared, the first to run for the ice pack when someone is hurt, the first to tell me that you love me when you see that I am upset.  The best part of my day is the joy infused by your smile, your hugs, the tender way you put your hand on my face or suddenly say, “Mommy, how was YOUR day?”  I couldn’t live without your affection and kindness.

Don’t ever apologize for who you are, for what you want, for how hard you have worked or where you are going in life. I don’t doubt you will work hard, but I can already see signs that you are quick to apologize, to back down. Don’t. You have learned this from me and I wish I could take it back.  Stand your ground, be proud of you.  Do not live to make others happy or to measure up to someone else’s expectations.  Be Lucas.  This is enough.

Be a student.  Be a teacher.  Learn at every opportunity.  Read. Be inquisitive. Ask. And when you know something and know it well – teach others.  Do not hoard your knowledge, your gifts – share them.  There is inherent beauty in being both student and teacher.  It is a gift to learn and a privilege to teach. After all, you teach me something new every day.

I wish you wins and losses, trophies and empty shelves.  As much as I would love to see you succeed in everything you do… as much as I believe in your gifts, I must wish you challenges.  For it is within the losses, the 3rd, 4th and 5th places, and the failures that your character will be built. It is my job, as your mom, to do my best to guide you through these moments. If everything was to be easy for you, you would be ill-prepared for the ‘real’ world.  I promise you, life is not always easy.

Your dreams: do them.  Your heart: follow it.  Your family: treasure them. Your friends: be loyal to them. Your fears: embrace them and allow them to make you stronger.  The money you earn: respect it. Your passion: LIVE IT.

Seek joy.  Every single day, find something that makes you happy and do it.  Be it big or small – an act of kindness, listening to a song you love, calling a friend, watching the Browns with your dad  - it quite simply doesn’t matter.  What matters is that you spend a portion of each day smiling and laughing. You have such a beautiful smile and a belly laugh that I love to hear. And for the record, even when you think that I'm not watching or listening, I am. Those moments bring joy to my heart, tears to my eyes, and a smile to my face. Thank you.

And my ‘one to grow on’ - I wish to be here for each of your moments…. to keep you on track.

Lucas, you are what bliss looks like in a little boy.  You are dirty and messy, you snuggle and love me. I melt when you say, “I haven’t had my hugs and kisses yet today, Mommy” or "Huggie!" I adore that you need to be all sprawled out in your bed at night in order to sleep. I love it that you still sleep with Bear, Snoodle, and Smokey.  I will never forget your need for a story before bed, how you still love to snuggle with me and how a good dance-a-thon can bring out the sillies in all of us.

And nothing gets to me more than hearing you say, “I love you, Mommy”. Thank you, my sweetie boy – for picking me to be your mommy. There is nothing better in this world.

I will always love you, my buddy.

 

 

We adopted an elf

On November 30th, we became the proud parents of an...elf. Emily the Elf...to be exact.

 

She showed up on our doorstop in a brown kraft paper bag with purple ribbon and festive red and green tissue paper that cloaked a magical gift from Santa.

 

You see...Emily is on a very special assignment. Santa sent her especially to our family so that she could report back to him every night on Lucas and Ellie's behavior that day. Each night she flies back to the North Pole to relay our family's information to the "big guy". I mean...how else is he going to know whether to put the kiddos on the Nice List or the Naughty List.

 

She even came with a book that we loved reading together.

 

We learned lots of things about Emily. For starters, you can't touch her - she might lose her magic if you do. And let me be clear when I say that in no way shape or form should you touch her. Ellie almost had a cow just at the thought of me having to move Emily off of the syrup bottle with my hands. That's right...all out panic mode - full of crying and irrational bouts of how Emily won't be able to return to the North Pole, how Santa will never know that she's awesomesauce, blah....blah....blah.

 

Secondly, Emily thinks that she is hilarious.

 

You see, every morning, she hides in a new location than the previous night. She does this to make sure that you know that she's watching...always watching.

 

Nothing spectacular happened the first night that we got her. She sat perched on our mantle in the living room.

 

When Saturday morning rolled around and she was still in the same spot - Ellie started asking questions. Dammit! Why didn't that crazy elf move????!!!!!

 

Fortunately, she decided to get off her ass Saturday night and fly back to the North Pole. Sunday morning arrived and the kiddos flew down the stairs to see if she was still sitting above the fireplace.

 

Thank God that she wasn't there. lol

 

Lucas was too tired to look for her and Ellie decided that she wanted pancakes for breakfast.

 

So...like any amazing mom, I asked Ellie to pull the syrup out of the fridge. This is what she found when she opened the door:

 

 

What came next were full belly laughs and excited chatter about how Emily was drinking maple syrup and in the fridge. Magic I tell you...it's amazing.

Unfortunately, the kiddo's jovial spirit didn't last. They became grumpy, lost their listening skills and were generally...little terrors.

So...this morning, Emily left them a little message

Now seriously...I would totally be good if my elf spelled it out for me - in M&M's!!!!

The babes got a kick out of her message and the fact that she spilled an entire bag of M's on the counter.

Silly kiddos. And elf. Can't forget the elf. lol

So...now we're on to day three. I wonder what will be in store for us tomorrow? Something fun, creative and clever - no doubt.
   

Getting my groove back

Holy cow! Where has this month gone?!?! I feel like November completely flew by and the holidays (meaning Christmas and my birthday) are already upon us.

Sometime in November, I decided to recommit to myself. In my mind, that meant getting in the running groove again, paying attention to what I'm putting in my pie hole and generally just getting back into a healthy groove.

I did really well for my recommittment week and then the week leading up to Thanksgiving. Then all hell broke loose.

I started out counting my points on Wednesday - the day before we celebrated everything that we were thankful for during the year.

At 1:00 in the am, Lucas ran into our room screaming, "I B-A-R-F-E-D!!!!!!!" Like any sick and pathetic six year old would do. That one small event was the game changer.

By the time that 10:00 am rolled around on Thanksgiving day, Justin and I had been up for 24 hours, washed roughly 12 blankets, gave Lucas a shower and was just plain cranky.

Thank goodness that we cleaned the majority of our house the week prior.

Anway. Lucas was sick and miserable until Friday. Which is no good, because that just means that Ellie is going to get it at some point.

And that my friends is exactly what happened.

At 2:00 am on Saturday morning, Ellie started with the incessant puking.

Again, another sleepless night, laundry at all hours of the morning and two cranky parents.

I'll spare you the details, but the bug ran rampant through our house. *sigh*

Fortunately, it helped tame my temptation to over induldge at Thanksgiving and the days after. Although I'm not going to lie...I did put away almost an entire cherry pie. Mmmmm.......pie.

Needless to say, I was a little nervous about checking in at the Fat Farm today. I mean, I didn't count points for a week, I ate a cherry pie and woofed down a 3 Musketeers yesterday. And might I add that it was the best 3 Musketeers....ever!

Anyway.

I went to the meeting today and weighed in. To my surprise, I lost 1 pound! I can't even describe how excited I am to be back on the losing streak.

Normally, I would be all sorts of bent out of shape about losing only one pound, but this picture totally puts it into perspective.

With today's weigh-in, I've lost a total of 21.7 pounds.

Not only am I ridiculously proud of myself, but I feel so much healthier. Plus...I have a race to train for in April.

................gotta run!

   

Iced Pumpkin Cookies

Okay...so as you know, I signed up for a cookie exchange on the SITS Girls forum of bloggers.

I decided that I wanted to try something different this time instead of making traditional chocolate chip cookies. According to Lucas, I should have stuck with Grandma Gert's chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Anyway.

I decided to make Iced Pumpkin cookies. These cookies remind me of fall. Our house smelled of spicy scents yesterday while I whipped up pumpkin, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Lucas helped me mix the incredients and decided that mid-way through mixing the "dough" that he didn't want to try one. "Pumpkin just isn't his thing." Um.................it's a cookie. Who cares what it tastes like!

The dough was a little more like thickend cake batter and I for sure thought that I messed something up. I dolluped dough on my cookie sheets and baked for 20 minutes like instructed.

While I waited, Ellie helped me make the glaze. She actually tried eating it out of the bowl once it was finished. lol. And I would too. I mean...who doesn't love confectioner's sugar, milk, and vanilla all mixed together?

So...we pulled the cookies out when the timer went "ding" and we placed them on our cooling rack. After 15 minutes, the cookies were cool enough to drizzle with the glaze. This is how they turned out:

They ended up being more cake-like than cookie-like. These little buggars were super moist and soft with just the right hint of fall spices and sweetness.

I'm not going to lie...out of 36 cookies, Ellie ate four, Justin ate one, I ate one and Lucas smelled one and said, "I'm not eating this!"

I packaged them up so that I could get them shipped off to OR today, but when I checked on them before putting them in the box, they were soggy. :( The moisture from these bad boys was trapped in its container. So...I'll be taking my original box home and swapping them out for the cookies at home that I was going to save for Thanksgiving.

Oh well. Lesson learned - do not put these cookies in an air tight container. They will get soggy! Let them sit out on a plate for a day or two. I promise...they will still be moist and melt in your mouth.

______________________________
Servings: 36

Serving Size: 1 cookie 

Calories: 89

Fat: 3.2 g

Carbs: 14.1 g

Fiber: 0.5 g

Protein: 1.2 g

Points+: 2 pts

_________________________________________

Here are your ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup light butter, softened

1 1/2 tsp. Stevia (or 1 1/2 cups sugar)

1 cup canned pumpkin puree

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Glaze

2 cups confectioners' sugar

3 Tbsp milk

1 Tbsp melted light butter

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves and salt; set aside.  In a medium bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup of butter and Stevia (or sugar).  Add pumpkin, egg, and 1 tsp. vanilla to butter mixture, and beat until creamy.  Mix in dry ingredients.  Drop on cookie sheet by tablespoonfuls; flatten slightly.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven.  Cool cookies, then drizzle glaze with fork. 

To make the glaze, combine confectioners' sugar, milk, melted butter and 1 tsp. vanilla.  Add milk as needed to achieve drizzling consistency.  Enjoy!   

   

The cookie exchange is here! The cookie exchange is here!

Okay...so here's the deal. I decided a while ago that I should start a blog. I would chronicle my weight loss challenge and be completely transparent in my road to gaining my health back.

 

For a while, I was a consistant blogger. I wrote something every week and wondered how in the world people blogged every day! I have a lot to talk about, but come on.

 

Then...I started to slack off. I'd write when I felt like it - which was almost never. lol. Then I found a little inspirtation on the SITS Girls website.

 

 

I find myself blogging more, getting involved and even participating in random conversations! I know...who am I?

Anyway...I noticed that the SITS Girls were having a huge upcoming event and I wanted to be a part of it - a Cookie Extravaganza! I mean really...who doesn't LOVE cookies???!!!!!

So...I took a chance and signed up.

Today, I received my email with my cookie exchange partner - the ever fabulous Sara Llyod from The Undomestic Goddess!! And yes folks...because I gave you her URL...you should totally check out her page! I'm sure that you can relate to what she's dishin' out - I know that I can. lol. I mean really...she had me at "Burning Water".

Anyway...we are participating in a cookie exchange together! I'm super excited to be exchanging cookies and recipes with a new friend from Oregon. Although...I'm pretty sure that poor Sara should be scared. We all know how well I cook and bake.

Fortunately for her, I'm not going to spoil the cookie fun here, but I promise to make something delicious (hopefully). I'll probably send nutrition facts too - and WW points values. Just in case.

Let's just hope that Grandma Gert's recipe comes through for me. It would be unfortunate to make my new friend sick - hmmmmm.

What are you thankful for today?

It's Wednesday, hump-day and day 14 of my "30 Days of Thanksgiving" project.

 

I decided to take a break today from all the serious posts and be thankful for something totally trivial - shopping. And not just any shopping my friends...Christmas shopping.

 

Recently, I've been on this kick about getting all of the kid's Christmas shopping finished and out of the way relatively early. And by early, I mean anytime before December 23rd. I mean...there's nothing like waiting until the last minute to shop, stressing out, missing shipping deadlines, finding yourself actually in a store fighting with people and then having to find solace in a bottle somewhere. Which in most instances, it's in the bathroom of the store that I'm in. Listen...don't knock airplane vodka until you try it. They make it pint sized for a reason.

 

Anyway. I accumulated $20 in Kohl's cash and decided to get Ellie's last present with it. I mean...I was going to Kohl's at lunch to purchase one item. It should have been a safe decision, right?

 

Fair Warning.......the holiday madness has already begun.

 

Thank goodness that I wasn't there to shop. I was there for one item and one item only: Gymnast Dora.

 

 

Ellie is all into gymnastics at the moment. And Dora. So...combine the two and you have a win-win Christmas present. Plus...I figured that if she doesn't like it, we'll just blame it on Santa.

Now...here's the best part of my trip. Originally, Gymnast Dora was $32.99. Ridiculous - I know. She was on sale for $23.09 - lucky me. I had $20 in Kohls cash, so Dora only cost $3 plus change!!!

I heart Kohls!

Anyway.

Like I said earlier, I'm thankful that I was able to finish up my Christmas shopping for the kiddos. I mean...if I waited any longer, it would have been a disaster. lol.

What are you thankful for today?