Small Spaces

A month or two ago, I realized that I needed to start acknowledging Mason's capabilities more. Of course, I already do this a lot by letting him choose what he would like to play with, how much he wants to eat, etc., but I realized that I hadn't been really "testing" those capabilities. So one morning when I went into his room, I picked him up out of his crib, held me hand out, and said "Can you give Mama your soother?" He didn't do anything, so I said "Give Mama your soother" and gently pulled it from his mouth. Within a couple days, when I asked him the question, he would spit it out of his mouth into my hand, and sometimes pull it out himself, causing a loud "pop!" I was very happy to see he understood and was catching on! The last couple mornings, I have noticed that he has grown even more: I go into his room to get him from his crib, and as soon as I open the door, he pulls the soother from his mouth, standing up in his crib, and holds it out for me to take. It's like he's like "Here it is! Now it's time for me to have a bottle and then go play!" I know we all know that our children develop, but sometimes we don't really notice the process. When we do, it makes us (or at least me!) feel proud :)

Lately Mason has been getting into everything. But I mean that literally. A couple of days ago, he got into Jake's kennel, and the laundry hamper, all within 5 minutes.

The day before that, he managed to climb into and sit up in a little tiny box that my mom and sister had sent his birthday presents out in.

We had a family birthday party for Mason and his cousin last Sunday, and Mason got a big wagon, so of course, he was crawling in and out of that box. We still haven't thrown it away, because he just loves playing in it! It's funny too because Jake will often go in behind him, and Mason gets so excited when he sees Jake "chasing" him!

We have a tunnel/tent set that is downstairs, and if Mason is crawling through and sees Jake coming in his direction, he just squeals and books it to the other end of the tunnel, before looking to see if Jake is still "coming to get him!" lol! He's so funny! Here's another one, it's from a week ago when Derrick and I put up the cabinets in the laundry room. All of the boxes were thrown just outside of the room, so of course when I brought Mason down a little while later...(sorry about Jake's rear end!)

Anyways, Mason just LOVES going inside of things. I'm sure he's going to be a fort-lover once he gets old enough to ask me to build them!

*Healthy* Chocolate Muffins

Yesterday I said I was going to make these:

I first found this recipe here, but then noticed that the original recipe was from the site above. Here's what I thought the muffins would look like (from this second site where I first found them):

It's interesting how different the muffins look...mine look more like the originals, except that I didn't smother them with chocolate chips! Mostly, because I didn't have enough!

Here are how mine turned out...















So I ended up changing the recipe a little, mostly because of laziness or lack of ingredients. Here is my recipe (you can check out the original one if you'd like to make these healthier. The only thing to note is that the vinegar amount is different between the two recipes. I would assume you should use the original's amount. I used cream of tartar.) Oh and I decided to make these because apparently they were Vitatop muffin knock-off's. Not that I've had a vitatop muffin before, but apparently they are pretty good for you and cost $6 for 4! So here is my adapted recipe:

1 3/4 c rolled oats, measure and then grind them up in food processor, blender, magic bullet...
2 small/medium eggs
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (I used one of those little applesauce cups, and then filled the rest of the 1/2 cup measure with oil, as that's what the applesauce is replacing!)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup yogurt (it calls for greek yogurt...I just had activia, so I used vanilla)
1/2 tsp cream of tartar (or 2 tsp vinegar)
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1-1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup hot water
1 cup sugar (it actually calls for a substitute. I had Splenda but forgot I had it! So I just used sugar)
1/2 cup semi-sweet, white, or peanut butter chips (I had like 10 semi-sweet chips left, so I used those and then milk chocolate chips for the rest, and I used the whole 1/2 cup in the muffins and sprinkled extra on top)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 (12-cup) muffin pans with foil cupcake liners, or spray muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray. Set aside. (I was only able to fill 18, so keep that in mind.)
In a blender, (or food processor), mix all of the ingredients together, except for the chocolate chips. Blend until mixture is smooth. I actually just used a handmixer. You really can just dump everything in and blend away!
Place mixture in a bowl and gently stir in 1/2 of the chocolate chips (set the rest aside). Scoop mixture into prepared muffin pans. The mixture will probably be thin, but don't worry!
Place muffins tins in the oven for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove muffins from the oven (but don’t shut oven off), and distribute the rest of the chocolate chips on top of each muffin*.

Place the muffins back into the oven and bake for an additional 2-5 minutes (or in my case almost 10 minutes), or until a toothpick comes out clean. *Note, you could put all of the chips in the batter, and bake the muffins for 12-15 min straight, but this method gives the muffins the traditional ‘VitaTop Muffin’ look with the chocolate chips on top!

Cool muffins before removing from pan. ENJOY!!!
Servings: 12 Big Muffins or 18-24 Smaller Muffins


I really enjoyed these muffins. They are quite moist (especially the next day), and it's a nice change to make them with the ground oat flour instead of wheat flour. I probably could have ground my oats even finer so that they completely resembled flour, but I enjoyed the texture. It was also nice to be able to just use one bowl to make these. I was going to do it all in my food processor, but it just wasn't big enough. These would probably be good as mini muffins too if you wanted to give your children a treat but still have a little bit of fibre in them!

If you did compare my recipe with the others, you will notice how they would be healthier--they used 3 egg white, all applesauce, splenda or stevia, and semi-sweet chocolate chips. Let me know if you try these, what you think of them, and how they turn out for you!

So remember last week's post...well...

I take back what I said about Mason sleeping well still although he is teething...well, I only partly take it back, because I'm not really sure it was because of teething, and because it only happened one night--last night...or should I say this morning.

He woke up at 4:00AM WIDE AWAKE! I was so mad! I tried to just give him his soother and cover him with his blanket, but he cried...
so I went back in there and did it again...
still didn't work.
So I picked him up and went to the rocking chair. After about 5 minutes of him staring at me (and me not looking at him except to check a couple times if he was still staring at me), I put him back in his bed (this has worked before--it's like he just needs help to relax or something).
But that didn't work either...he just cried and cried...so Derrick suggested a bottle.
Duh! Why the heck didn't I think of that! Oh, because it was 4:45AM and I was trying to stay in "sleepy mode" so that when Mason finally DID go back to sleep, I wouldn't just lay there myself wide awake...
well anyways, I went off to the kitchen to make him a bottle, being so thankful that my husband made that suggestion (seriously. I sometimes baffle myself, not thinking of the obvious...I have had to give Mason a bottle in the night before because of growth spurts, and it usually only lasts one or two nights before he's back sleeping through the night again...)
Anyways, it's about 4:50AM now, and I head back to the bedroom and OF COURSE, all is now quiet...so I walk back to the kitchen, put the bottle in the fridge, and go back to bed, frustrated, but glad he's gone back to sleep on his own.
Except, he hadn't...not even a minute after I lay down, I hear him talking quietly. Sometimes he does this before he goes to sleep, so I left him. But within a few minutes, his cries started again...
So back I went to the kitchen, grabbed the still-warm bottle, squeezed all of the air out of the liner, handed it to him, and went back to bed.
Now I have to say here, that I NEVER put Mason to bed with a bottle. I am a HUGE BELIEVER that this is one of the worst things you can do for your child--it causes toothrot, and can cause ear infections (liquid sitting there)...and how hard is it for the parent who is trying to wean their child off a bottle, but can't because they have to have it to fall asleep and fall back asleep if they wake up (not to mention that formula is only supposed to be at room temp for a max of one hour after it has been made...gross!)...and I'm sorry if you are a believer in putting your child to bed with a bottle...I'm not trying to offend you, but there are just so many downsides to doing this, and working in day care, I have seen the effects on children's teeth and in their seeping ears, watching them lay their ear against the cold floor to give it some relief...so sad :(
But back to my story...I was too tired, so I just gave it to him to feed himself. (That's another thing, I almost always hold Mason and feed him his bottle...I like the bonding time, and in the beginning especially, it helped me not to feel so guilty for not breastfeeding, because we still had Mommy+Mason bonding time...but that's a whole 'nother story to blog about another day)...
Ok, no more side tracks....
About twenty minutes later, he starts crying again. I don't even know if I had fallen back asleep or not. So I go in there, and he still has 1/3 of his bottle left, so I fed him the rest--he sucked it dry, and then when he complained just for a second and seemed to be done, I went back to bed....
Now it's just about 6:00AM and he starts crying again...
so I figure, well maybe he's still hungry, since I only made him 3/4 of a bottle. So I go out an make him a half bottle (better to have extra than run out again, right!?), and this time grabbed some Camilla (a natural pain reliever for babies).
I picked him up, squeezed it in his mouth (it really doesn't taste like anything, but Mason still doesn't like it so I kind of have to "surprise attack" him with it), and then gave him his bottle and put him back to bed.
This time he slept! And so did I...
And then when our dog, Jake, woke both of us up at 8:15 by shaking noisily (banging his collar around his neck), I was pretty mad...and I had a massive headache...Mason usually sleeps until 8:00/8:30, but I was hoping he'd sleep in...and maybe he would have too...oh, the life....
Well, Mason is napping now, and has been for 2 1/2 hours. He usually sleeps 1 1/2 to 2 hours...I'd say he's pretty tired, as he got grumpy about an hour after waking up (this usually takes about 3 hours, and that's how I know it's nap time)...here's hoping for a better night's sleep tonight!!!!

Oh and I guess I should update on the homemade lotion---it seems to be working pretty well. My heels definitely aren't as dry and cracking as they were last week, but they are still a little dry...I did miss a day or two though...anyways, I will keep applying it and hopefully within one more week they will be back to their soft selves!

I'm going to make this healthy chocolate muffin recipe this afternoon to bring to a meeting tonight, so I'll post on how it went in the next couple days! Wish me luck!

My Friday

Today I tried another recipe. I knew that I would be spending the whole day not at my house as they were finishing laying the flooring (pictures soon, I promise!), so I decided to try a different kind of recipe: lotion! The original recipe can be found here. Basically, it goes like this:

2 Parts Baby Lotion
1 Part Vaseline
1 Part Vitamin E Cream (I didn't have any of this, but I did have straight Vit E, so I squirted some of this in and added a little bit of another body cream)

Put everything in a bowl and beat with a hand mixer until it resembles icing. Scoop into a sealed container.

I decided to make this lotion because my heels have become really dry the last couple of weeks, and I read somewhere that this is great for feet. I just put some on tonight, so we'll see how it goes!

I also made another recipe this afternoon, but this time it was a food one: Cookie Dough Brownies. I made it a little differently than the one on her site, but it was still similar. I used a brownie mix, and then with the cookie dough, I added some vanilla and no chocolate chips (we were all out). I thought this would be a rich, yummy dessert, and usually I can eat a large portion when it comes to food like this, but with this one, I could hardly finish it. Derrick said it would be better frozen and mixed with ice cream, so I took what was left (almost the whole pan), chopped it up, threw it in a ziploc, and tossed it in the freezer. Should be good!

On another note, Mason has been pretty grumpy lately. He's been sick for almost two weeks, but seemed to be getting better (his runny nose is slowing down), but I think he may be teething...He had his second tooth pop up when he was first starting to get sick, so I'm wondering which one will come up next. He got his first tooth at the end of January. I'm kind of glad he didn't start teething until he was almost 10 months old, but I've heard that that means that now his teeth will come in a lot faster, which won't be fun! Mason has had on an amber teething necklace since he was a couple months old, but it didn't seem to be working very well for this last tooth, so I ended up buying him a hazelwood one--so now he wears two! It seemed to help, but he is getting grumpy again. Luckily, he still sleeps fine at night, but the last two days he has only been taking 30 minute naps (where he usually takes 1 1/2 to 2 hour one!)...oh the joys of teething!