Toy Rotation

Hi Everyone,

 It’s Hump Day!  Are people still calling Wednesday that?  If not then just happy Wednesday. 

I think we as parents all start out with a dearest intentions of not being that house with all those kid toys.  You will keep them to a small number and your kids will play with them, all day every day. I will just wait a minute while all you current moms finish your laughing. Okay, lets get back to it.  

James has started to develop a decent amount of toys and he would play with half of them for a few minutes and be onto the next thing.  So while on pinterest I saw the idea of toy rotation.  I know this isn’t anything new and I have even do a little bit with James before.  I divided them into two groups and would switch every couple of days.  This worked okay but it wasn’t great.  So I read a couple of blogs and took a trip to target and hit up the dollar spot.  

I ended up getting 4 medium tubs with lids.  They came in a in a pack of two and were only $5.  I thought I would see how 4 boxes went and if it was a hit I could always add more.  Since school is getting close to start there were tons of educational things at the dollar spot.  I grabbed some little puzzles, some wood blocks and magnet letters, numbers, shape and animal books.

 I also grabbed a couple of new toys for James, a little grill that teaches him shapes and colors and even Spanish and a little flashlight that makes sounds and stuff.

Once we got home, James went down for a nap and I started organizing the boxes.  I bought out all of the James’ toys, took out the toys that he was just to old to play with and no longer interested at all, and looked for themes within the toys. The themes that I found where Balls, Cars, Shapes and others.

I made sure that I included books and a variety of items inside the tubs and even numbered them so I wouldn’t get confused.  I also split up this big toys items are going to rotate them in every so often.  

We have been doing the toy boxes for a couple of weeks now and I think they are going pretty well. In the morning, James get very excited when I bring him a new box to explore and the first time he found the wooden boxes he crawled with them all the way into the kitchen for breakfast. Somedays it entertains him more than others but his still favorite activity is to explore the house.  I think it’s just the stage he is at.  He is learning how to climb up and in things and walking around the house so it’s just a big playground.  Another nice feature about the toy tubs is the super fast clean up, it now only takes me a minute to pick up all the toys and pack them up for another day instead of a few minutes to track down and put together everything he had gotten into that day. 

I’m sure in a few weeks or so I might add a new box, maybe mix up the items in the boxes or add some new items, to keep things interested for James.  But right now they are working and didn’t really cost me too much to put together. 

-Megan

Do you often look to pinterest or other sites for inspirations?

What did you do when you realized that your kid just had way too many toys?

What I'm loving #1

Hi Everyone,

I hope you had a great weekend.

I thought I would do a fun little post about things that I’m loving right now. I always like reading these from other bloggers and they can always lead you to new things. 

1. Luna Protein Cookie Dough Bar - I once read in a magazine that a good way to get over your chocolate craving is to have a healthier chocolate bar.  So I found these luna bars and they are so delicious. I’m not gonna lie they don’t taste exactly like cookie dough but they are dipped in chocolate and have chocolate chips in them and something that resembles caramel.  So they totally fill that chocolate craving. They also  are great to throw in the diaper bag and go.  

2. Sunflowers -  I usually grab a big bouquet at the farmers market and they brighten up my kitchen.  If I good about changing the water and cutting the stems I can almost get two weeks out of one set.  

3. Ibotta - Ibotta is an app that you can get rebates or cash back for things that you buy.  All it takes is a couple minutes after you go shopping and you can get back a crazy amount of money, even more if you buy a lot of name brand stuff.  The thing that I love about this app over the other grocery apps is that you can get rebates for just regular stuff. I always grab the milk, bread and eggs one that I can use for any brand that I buy. They always have a lot of different stores that you can get rebates from and some of them aren’t even grocery stores.  I know joann’s fabric and old navy are offering $5 rebates.  Once you get $20 you can turn it into a gift card do a lot of different places.

4. My Favorite Murder (Podcast) - If you were in one of my many writing classes during college you would already know this little fact about me but death interest me.  And I don’t mean in the way that I’m gonna kill someone but dying and different ways to die, I find fascinating.  So when I stubbed across the podcast, My Favorite Murder, I couldn’t get enough. If you aren’t in anyway interested in this topic, feel free to skip down to the next item, you are interested or might be on the fence, I will tell you a little about the podcast.  My Favorite Murder podcast is hosted by two friends, Georgia and Karen, and they sit in Georgia’s house and talk about murders that they find interesting. It is a comedy podcast (they don’t make fun of the people killed) and they will even say this themselves, don’t came to them for the facts.  But they are amazing story tellers and you will get lost in it.  And totally laugh out loud more than once.

5.  Running -  I have been dabbing my foot into running again and it just feels so good.  I think thats when you know you are onto something that you might stick with.  Almost all of last week James was sick, fever, running nose sick.  So I couldn’t take him out with me on a run.  I know I could have gone in the morning before he woke up but he was having some rough nights and I wasn’t gonna do that.  But everyday I thought about how great it would to get out there and run.  To feel my legs stretch, to listen to my favorite podcast, to be a runner.  We finally got out on Saturday and it wasn’t my best run but I had to remind myself overtime isn’t going to be magical, that some runs are gonna be harder and some runs are gonna feel like magic. 

6.  Shopkicks - This is another app that I have found recently and I don’t think I’m at the love stage because of the options lately but when I first found it, I was in love.  This app allows you to get kicks or points for just going to stores and scanning certain products. Then you can use those points to get gift cards. 

7.  James’ Laugh - Okay, to be honest this thing I’m always loving. Day in or day out I can’t get enough of his laugh.  What I find so fascinating about it is the things that he finds that are so hilarious.  On Sunday, it was the word ribbit, like the sound a frog makes.  Last week, it was me dancing and tickling him with a tape measurer.  And oh man, don’t think I danced and tickled for as long as I could just to hear that sweet little giggle just a little bit longer. 

So thats just a little rundown on these that I’m really loving right now.

-Megan

Do you find yourself looking for new things to try or do you just stick with the old stuff?

Do you have any weird interests or hobbies that you don’t share with everyone because they might think it’s a little too weird?

Toddler Must Haves

Hi Everyone,

It's Friday and that means just a couple more hours until the Weekend.  Where you can relax and sleep in and just spend the day how you want.  Haha, I'm totally kidding or at least I am if you are mom.  The weekends are never your own.  

For today's post I thought I would put together a list of things that have made my life so much easier with James' current age group - Toddler. I did a post a while back on life savers for when he was a baby.  Go ahead and check that out if you want. 

1. Bathmat -  James was quickly out growing his baby bathtub but would cry and have a terrible bath whenever we would take it out of it.  I had search online and in stores for a mat that I thought might work but didn't have any luck.  I was searching for something kind of like a cushion.  In the meanwhile, my mom suggested using a bath towel. That worked out great but after the bath I was left with a soaking wet towel.  A little bit after his birthday, we went to Baby R Us and I found this bath mat and it's pretty awesome. It's a Boon Ripple Bathtub Mat .  It has a ton of little suction cups on the bottom which keeps it in place, all these little drain holes to let the water flow and even a hook at the top that hooks right on the shower head. James is now unstoppable in the bath, crawling from one side to another.

2. Strawberry huller - James loves strawberries and on a good day he will eat about 5 in a sitting.  And when I first found out that James liked strawberries, I was so excited that we had another food to eat that he had it all the time.  Like for breakfast, lunch and dinner so thats a lot of strawberries.  Before I found this pitter, aka I saw it at my mom's, I had to cut off the top of the strawberries and cut out the interior white stuff.  Not anymore, now it's a quick push, twist and pull and I'm on to the next one. So quick and so easy. Life saver. 

3. Food Calendar - I already went into detail about this last week but man it's another life saver. 

4. Little Food Container - James isn't a fan of vegetable but which little kid is.  I still offer them at almost every dinner meal but a lot of goes to waste. So ,again my mom (she helps me out a lot with my James issues), bought me/James these little microwavable single serving veggies cups.  They come in green beans, corn, carrots and peas.  The thing that I really like about them is that I can open one and use it for a couple of days and I don't have to waste a whole can of veggies if it isn't on our own meal schedule for that week.  I can also keep/ use them for a while. I'm not exactly sure how they work out cost wise but I do like the convenience of them. 

5. Snack Cup - I know this isn't another new to other moms out there but those snack cups with the lid that allows the kid to grab the food but keeps most of the food from getting dumped out are a major life saver.  I use them everywhere - in the house for a post nap snack, in the car on long trips and nothing keeps a baby happier than snacks, at the ballpark.  At the ballpark is a big one for us.  James really likes to feed himself and it allows us to enjoy the game, in our seats, and James can have his dinner without any problems. 

6. Dust Buster - I originally bought a dust buster for our floors before I got my current vacuum. But it has become a big help cleaning up after James' meals.  It's the perfect size to pick up all the crumbs that end up on the highchair. 

7.  Tunnel/ tent play set - This one is just a fun one and James really enjoys it.  He got this for his birthday and we probably play with it at least once a week.  I try not to have it out all the time because it does take up a good amount of space and it loses it's appeal if it's out all the time.  The thing that I really enjoy about it is how I can quickly 
pack it up and it all fits into a little bag. 


So those are my toddler must haves.  I'm sure it will change in a couple of months because he will be really mobile and probably running around the house by then.  

What are the things that you find/found most helpful when you baby was a new toddler?
Did you find most of the products yourself or did someone guide you to them? 

I hope everyone has a good weekend
-Megan

Chocolate Chip Recipe #5

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are having a great week.  Here at the Henry household we are having a rough week.  James is sick - running nose mixed with a fever.  Not a good combo.  So I haven't been able to do a lot of things around the house but I am doing what I can. But on the bright side I am getting a lot of James cuddles this week. 

I made these cookies a couple weeks back and I wasn't mad that I got to offload them to some other people instead of eating them all.  This recipe called for melted butter,again, and sea salt.  Two ingredients that differ from the classic Tollhouse recipe.  I found this recipe through the blog The Baking Chocola Tess.


Ingredients 

14 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour 
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt or sea salt
3 cups, any variation of chocolate chips or chucks.  I used half semi-sweet and half white chocolate

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350.  While the oven was preheating, I placed the butter in a little ceramic tray and let the butter melt.  Leave the butter in there for a just a couple of minutes until half melted. Take the butter out and let it cool.

2. Once the butter is cooled, add both sugars and beat until light and fluffy.


3. Add the vanilla and eggs, beating between each addition. 

4. Add the flour, baking soda and salt (don't use course sea salt.  I did and it really affected the taste of the cookies). Beat on a low speed until just combined.

5.  Add additional tablespoon of flour at a time until the dough forms a ball and doesn't stick to the sides of the bowl.

6.  Fold in chocolate chips until just mixed.

7. Use ice cream scoop (1/4 cup for large cookies or 1.5 for medium size) and drop the dough onto the baking sheets. Once again I made sure that I made them taller than they are wider.  You can add extra chips on top if you like. 

8.  I baked the cookies for about 10 - 12 minutes until they were golden brown.  Allowed them to cool on the sheets for a couple of minutes until removing them.

The cookie dough tasted really good but when I actually baked the cookies, there flavor was a little bland.  I think it was because I used the course sea salt.  Because when I did get a bite with the sea salt the flavor were great.  

Reviews
Taste - 4 -  Overall it was a decent cookie.  Like I just said with a sea salt bite, flavors were amazing, without a little bland.  
Appearance - 5 - They looked like really good cookies. I always love the look (and taste) mixing the semi-sweet and white chocolate chips.
Dunk ability - 5 -These cookies held up really well so dunking them was no problem at all.
Removability - 5- Again, parchment paper wins again. Maybe I'll start doing one tray with parchment and one without.
Affordability -  3-  I think this all depends on what you have at home. For the 3 cups of chocolate chips, you will have two buy two (12 oz) bags of chips so unless you have extra chips at home, it can add up quickly. Especially if you don't have sea salt at home.  These two extra ingredients can easily add $5 to your grocery bill. 

Overall it looks like a 4 is the average.  They were a decent cookies. 

Do you like to mix the chips when you bake?
What do you do when a recipe calls for an ingredient that you don't have? do you buy it or substitute? 

-Megan

Day In The Life #2

Hi Everyone,

I hope you guys had a great weekend.  We surprising had a pretty busy weekend running errands around town and making a trip to Ikea (more on that in another post). I thought I would do a Day in the Life from Saturday but we will start with Friday night.

9:00 pm -  I forgot to grab some cash at the grocery store and I always like to have some on hand for the farmer's market.  So after James went to sleep and Wes and I did a little work outside, I hopped in the car and went to the ATM.  

I snapped this photo and it reminded me how much I miss my morning runs.  There was just something so relaxing and peaceful about running before, it seems, like the whole world is awake.  So when I got home I asked Wes, would he be okay with it if I went for a run in the morning as long as I was home in time to nurse James.  He feels very passionate about his morning feeding.  I went to bed a little later than I would have liked and set my alarm for 5:30.


5:30 - Alarm goes off and I hit the snooze button. Snoozes goes off, I turn the whole alarm off.

6:00 - My other Alarm, aka James, goes off and there is no hitting snooze on him.  I nurse him and we wonder out into the living room.  We hang out and watch a little TV.

6:45 - I started breakfast.  On the menu for this week is french toast so I had a little extra prep to get done and didn't want a whinny baby while I was trying to make breakfast. Wes wakes up and plays with James on the floor with one his toy rotation boxes. 

7:00 - We eat breakfast and just play around the house/ get ready until it was time to leave for the farmer's Market which opens at 8am. 

8:00 - We leave for the farmer's market.  I was planning on taking my bike and pulling James behind me but Wes decided to come and didn't feeling like biking so we all piled into the car.

8:30 - Arrived at the farmer's market and did a couple laps around seeing if there is anything that I just had to have.  

After grabbing a waffle, we settled down to watch a band play.  I think we all enjoy watching the band.  James isn't quite at the point of dancing to the music but it's nice to just sit down, enjoy a waffle and relax.  It's a great start to the morning. 

9:15 - James started to get a little fussy so we packed up, I grabbed some flowers and we headed home.

9:30 - Almost as soon as we got home James went down for a nap.  Taking the opportunity of James' napping and Wes being home (aka napping on the couch) I took off to the store to grab a couple of things that I forgot at the store yesterday.  After I got home and James was still asleep (Score!!) I started on a little meal prepping. 

I diced and sliced some strawberries, got the veggies all chopped for dinner and made some oatmeal bites (not impressed, throw them out this morning)  for James for the next morning.  

Does anyone else all seem to be losing one of their wool balls?  Mine always get trapped in the clothes. 

James ended up napping a crazy long time so I was able to get a few more things done around the house like pick up and do a little laundry all while listening to my new favorite podcast - My Favorite Murderer.  If you are in anyway interested in Murder/ true crime I would check out the podcast. It literally makes me laugh out loud while listening to it. 

12:30 - James wakes up and by this time I was so ready for lunch.  So I started making some BLTs and I couldn't possibly make them without my little helper.  

The climbing gene is strong with this one.

1:30 - After lunch is all cleaned up, Wes said that he need to run an errand.  We order windows for James' nursery but they came in the wrong size so we had to return them.  We pilled into Wes' newish truck, first family trip in it and headed over to Home Depot.  We returned the windows with an issue (so thankful) and did a little drill window shopping.  

After leaving Home Depot, we went to Cabelas to do a little more window shopping and to look at fishing poles.  Wes recently bought a new fishing kayak and is now on the mission to outfit it. 

James and I enjoyed looking at the fish tank/ pond that they have in the store.  

3:30 - We finally get home and I want, hopefully quickly, to show signs that he was tired and ready for a nap.  Sadly those didn't come and we only took one nap that day. So we just played in the living room waiting for dinnertime.  

5:30 - I turn on the over to preheat and finish up prepping dinner.  The oven beeps and I put the chicken and veggies into oven and put a pot of water on the stove for the corn that we got at the farmer's market. 

6:30 - It's dinner time and man it was delicious and so simple.  For the chicken and veggies all I did was place them in baking dish sprinkle it with a garlic herb seasoning and some olive oil and that was it.  For the corn on the cob, I just boiled it and then melted some butter in the microwave, add some cajun seasoning and brushed it on the corn. Delicious!!

7:00ish - It wasn't bath night and thinking it was going to be an early night, we changed James into his PJ's and got him almost ready for bed.  An early bedtime didn't happen, he seems to be filled with energy after dinner and didn't show any signs of slowing down. 

8:00 - James finally slowed down and I put him to bed. 

I didn't really document the rest of the time.  I think we watch an episode of 'In An Instant' and it was really sad.  A lady was driving on a highway and a semi-truck over took her and pushed her off the highway bridge and she and her two kids were stuck on the side of the bridge, barely hanging on.  Everyone was fine but whenever I see a story or read a story that has to do with a baby, I can't help but get teared up. 

11:00 - After the show ended, we went to bed.  

A little healthier version of an Oatmeal Cookie

Hi Everyone, 

After making some lactation cookies for my sister and eating a couple while I was up there I was really craving oatmeal cookies. 

 So I broke out my old and faithful Betty Cooker Baking Basics cookbook.  It has so many good recipes and perfect for if you are just starting baking.  

The recipe is called the Ultimate Oatmeal Cookies and they totally live up the name.  If i would have done exactly what the recipe called for I had everything at home but I really wanted to make oatmeal cookies with white chocolate chips, cranberry and walnuts.  So we made a quick trip to the store to grab the white chocolate chips but while we were at the store I thought why not try to make them a little healthier and do some substituting.  

I found this chart online. 

We also only had one egg and I didn't want to spend a dollar more for target eggs when I was going to the store the next day for groceries. So I switched out one egg for flaxseed (which I had already at home).  I was going to substitute some sugar for unsweetened applesauce (which I had at home too) but the recipe called for brown sugar not white and I didn't want to chance it.  The nice thing about these healthy substitutes is that i already had them at home so I could do these whenever I bake and make them a little bit healthier without having to do or buy anything crazy. 

Ingredients 

1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs (1 tbsp flaxseed with 3 tbsp of water for 1 egg) 
3 cups old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 white chocolate chips
1/3 dried cranberries
1/3 walnuts

Directions

I placed the flaxseed with the water in a small measuring cups and let it sit for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees and lined my cookie sheet with parchment paper (my new best friend).

I combined the brown sugar, butter, baking soda, cinnamon, vanilla, salt, one egg and flaxseed until well mixed.  

Then I stirred in the oats, flour, chips, cranberries and walnuts. 

I used my large ice cream scoop and place 6 cookies on each sheet.  

I made sure that they were taller than wide and baked them for about 12 minutes. Checking on them until they were lightly golden.  I think I got about 15 cookies from this recipe.

 I think I'm getting addicted to the giant cookies. 

I let them rest on the cookie sheet for a few minutes then transferred them to the island to really cool.

Oh guys, these cookies were so good.  So good that I hid them from Wes so he wouldn't have any.  Okay, I also hide them so I wouldn't grab one every time I walked by them. 

What I think really makes these cookies the 'ultimate oatmeal cookies' is the cinnamon.

  

I'm sure this is nothing new to oatmeal cookies with the other add-in's it just makes them so much better.

When you cook or bake, do you follow the recipe exactly or do you go your own way?
Do you prefer your cookies small or giant size?

-Megan