Toddler Muffins {Recipe}

It's no secret that Allyson is a picky eater. The girl lives off of Cheerios, mac n' cheese, yogurt, string cheese, apple sauce and of course her favorite "fry fries". I feel like I've tried everything to get her to eat but she just is stubborn and would starve rather than eat anything. Once I bought Austin one of those super conveint little food pouches. She wanted to try and I thought, "Yea right! It's sweet potatoes. pumpkin and blueberry. You are not going to like this!" but gave it to her anyway. Much to my surprise she slurped it down and wanted another. Now she has one of those pouches a few times a week. It got me thinking about hiding veggies in her food she does eat.

Enter toddler muffins or cupcakes as Allyson calls them. Lots of good stuff in this muffin. I changed a few things in the recipe.


Ingredients

1/2 C butter, softened
1/2 C brown sugar
2 large bananas, mashed
4 oz jar baby food squash
1 carrot, grated
1 zucchini, grated
2 eggs beaten
1 C All purpose flour (the second time I made them I used whole wheat flour)
1/4 C oat bran
1/4 C ground flax seed
1t baking soda
1t pumpkin pie spice
1/2t salt


My cute little assistant



Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F. Grease 24 mini muffin cups or 12 standard muffin cups. Mix butter and sugar together until creamy and smooth. Mix in bananas, squash, carrots, zucchini and eggs. Stir in the flour, oat bran, flax seed, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, and salt until just combined. Spoon the batter equally into the prepared muffin cups. Bake 15-20 minutes until the toothpick comes out clean when poked in the center. Cool in the pan for 5-10 then move to wire rack. Store at room temp or freeze. 





My little taste tester LOVE them!!
All three kids will eat. My 16 yr old sister liked them. I made a second batch and tried them and they are actually pretty tasty. This recipe is a definite keeper!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

What's in my diaper bag?

I just got a new diaper bag yesterday! My old one had some of the buttons come off and I wanted to make a bigger one but never got around to doing it. Busy much?  It was lame how incredible excited I was to get a new bag. I mean I hate lugging around a diaper bag but having a cute one really helps.

In the bag there is 3 cloth diapers, wet bag, wipes, and a changing pad. Extra binky for each kiddo. Austin's sippy cup on the side. A bottle and formula. Sanitizer. Boogie wipes. Have you tried these? I used to think it was a bunch of crap and refused to try them. I finally tried them and oh my! I'm a believer! Extra outfit for AJ.

Snacks galore! We have 2 food pouches, Ritz crackers, Happy Creamies (Austin LOVES these!!) Earth's Best Crunching Crackers (veggie and cheddar) Allyson loves that they are Sesame Street characters.

Mommy has to have a place for her stuff. I just toss my stuff in top pocket. My keys, iPhone, wallet.

Depends on where we are going and how long we are staying we will add`more snacks/diapers and/or extra clothes.

Nothing out of the ordinary. What's in your bag? Anything crazy?

Linking with:

My little Valentine

I really like Valentine's Day. I like all the love in the air. Hearts every where. Candy everywhere. It's just fun. 

This year was so special to me because we have Austin. I get the privilege of being his 1st valentine. For the last five years Conrad has had that special bond with Aubrey and Allyson and then there was Heidi. This year I made his very own valentine chair back pack to put Valentine goodies in. (I made the girls their last year)

I love the way it turned out! 

iPhone Pic 

I wrote the kids little love notes or gave them some dollar section treat  each day starting Feb 1st. Well I finished making Austin's just a couple days before V-day but he had it in time for his first valentine's. 

He loves his card and new Red diaper! 

I can't believe this little fella will be ONE next month!! I got a little said thinking about St Patrick's Day coming up. It's going to be his last "first" holiday. 

Slow down time! 

What's in Yo fridge?

I'm liking up with Holly today. She got a bunch of grief about her empty fridge so now she wants to see what's in everyone else's fridge so she can compare.

Here's our fridge

Yogurt We always have yogurt in our house. It's one of the only things Allyson will eat for sure. Conrad takes it to work too.

Left overs from the last night and the previous night. Conrad usually takes them to work but he's been working an earlier shift so he's having lunch at 9 AM. I guess he doesn't think raviolis taste good at nine in the morning.

Brownie pops - I made these last night for dessert

Eggs - for breakfast

Juice - For awhile Allyson refused to drink anything but water (and milk but only after eating her cereal) She will now drink more juice and milk but only if it's out of a straw. One day why wandering around Target I found an Apple Carrot juice box with Big Bird on it. She loves them!

Water Bottle - Allyson's water bottle

Ricotta cheese - I'm making stuffed shells for dinner this weekend.

Salad mix and cut up veggies - I'm trying to eat more veggies and less meat.

Milk

Left overs - I swear they are still good!

Cake - Aubrey and I made a valentine's cake yesterday for dessert.

In the drawer there is a few different kinds of  cheese, pepperoni, lunch meat.

Veggie drawer has lettuce, cucumbers, a few red bell peppers. Carmel dip for my apples. Good stuff.

The bottom drawer has a 1/2 pound of bacon in it.

My freezer is an awful mess. There is some bags of breast milk in there. Mostly bread and tortillas. A few small potions of dinners I froze for later. Probably a ton of stuff to be thrown out. There is also different little baby teethers in there.

That's it! Nothing special, maybe those brownie pops. Those were good!!

Go take a picture of your fridge and link of with Holly!

Flashback

Valentine's Day 2011 

Look at how tiny they are!! Aubrey's cheeks and Ally is a teeny baby! 

Gosh they grow so fast! Slow down girls, slow down! 

Best App ever!

So I'm a sucker for all of the adorable things Aubrey makes me. In the last week she has made me like 95 valentines related things and that's just at home. She brings a ton of cute stuff home from school too.
The problem is that she wants me to save each and every picture she makes me. I want to save them too but I can't. I tried to contain it on the refrigerator and in a notebook but by October that notebook was over flowing!

I felt so guilty about throwing things away. I had to do it in secret because when she would see something in the trash she would ask. I tried telling her that I didn't have enough room on the fridge or in the book. "But Mom this is special."

Awww ... How could I throw anything away?!?

One day on good ol' Pinterest I found Artkive. It was the answer to my problem. I'm able to take a picture of the art work or worksheet, write a little bit about it and file it away. Perfect! It's organized by date. I can share her work with Conrad, my mom or his parents. You can add multiple kids so even Allyson's art goes in there. I feel so much better having it tucked away and organized. She even loves being able to get on and look through her work.

Oh plus you can turn their art into a book or what have you. How cool is that?!!

Why I love cloth diapers

I love cloth diapering my kids. love love love it! Never thought I could ever say that but it's true.

I started cloth diapering Austin for the money I would save. I never wanted to cloth diaper my kids. (I'm totally kicking myself for not doing it with the girls) I scooped up some diapers and started Austin in cloth. I did spend a lot in the beginning but I've gotten to the point where it doesn't cost me anything to diaper Austin. It was a bit later that I put Allyson in cloth diapers too. I was so tired of throwing away money on disposable diapers. She is just in Flip diapers and we are diapering her for free too. I have 2 little ones in diapers and it doesn't cost me a thing! 

Another reason I love cloth is because they are super cute on my kids!! Pink and purple diapers for Allyson. Blues and greens for Austin. The cute prints for each kid. You don't get that with disposable diapers. I love seeing Allyson and Austin's big fluffy butts too. 

Good for the environment. Honestly when I started this journey being green wasn't even on my radar. I had a 2 1/2 month old in cloth and a 1 1/2 year old in disposables, and just seeing the amount of diapers I was throwing away was just disgusting! Now I feel good knowing that I have Austin in cloth diapers and we aren't putting disposables in our landfills. I feel good starting Ally in cloth and knowing the same thing. I've read that cloth diapers is the gateway to living a greener life and that rings true at our house. 

Chemical Free - This wasn't something else I had considering when starting to CD. All those chemicals they use to keep babies feeling dry in between diaper changes. All right there on their little sensitive bottoms. Yea, I'll stick with my soft cloth diapers and knowing that it's best for their bottoms. 

Easy - It's crazy easy. With 5 people in the house and 3 of them being kids, I'm always doing laundry. So the extra 2-3 loads a week isn't even noticeable, plus diaper laundry is fun! You change their diapers the exact same way. They even make cloth diapers with the velcro so it's pretty much the same as disposables. Disposables go into a garbage can and my cloth diapers go into a pail. So far it's the same thing right? I just have to wash my diapers, sometimes I don't even stuff and fold them, they just stay in the laundry basket and I do it as needed. Easy peasy right? 

That's why I love cloth diapering. 

Why do you love cloth diapering? 
Linking up with the Cloth Diaper Blog Hop from My Cloth Diaper Stash. The topic this week is Why I love cloth diapers  

Potty Training time

Allyson has shown more and more interest in the potty. After most diaper changes she asks to sit on the potty. We sit on the potty before her bath. She's only ever gone once and that was at Papa and Nana's house.I never really planned on potty training Allyson this soon because I know that she's my stubborn little girl and she isn't going to be forced to do something she doesn't want to. I actually joke with Conrad that I will be potty training Austin and Allyson at the same time.

Allyson has shown so much interest  in it lately. I thought ok we are going to do this. This is her way of telling me she's ready. This morning we took her diaper off and she sat happily on the potty and nothing. We flush and wash her hands. It's all great great until we go to put panties on and the girl LOST it! She acted like they were killing her. Well that just put a damper on the whole morning of even trying. I asked her if she would like to go sit on the potty. Usually it would get a "yes. Potty!" Now it's just a sad little "no". I think we are going to put it off for a bit longer and then try again. Hopefully going to talk up the whole big girl panty thing and ditch the diapers.

Dreaming about Fluff

Today I'm linking up with the Cloth Diaper Blog Hop from My Cloth Diaper Stash. The topic this week is Your top 5 Cloth Diaper wish list 


I wouldn't say I'm new to cloth diapering. I think I'm new to branching out and trying new diapers. Partly because I have plenty of diapers in my stash now and well, money. Gosh darn that money issue.  For now I enter give ways and look for super great deals and just dream of new fluff for my little ones bottoms.

I really don't know much about the bazillion cloth diapers brands out there. In the beginning I was watching Youtube videos and mommas were throwing names and I was like overwhelmed, like whoa.  I mostly wanted cute diapers and to save money.

So I just look on Facebook and Etsy and just drool.

(Allyson)
There is this small/newborn Hello Kitty diaper that I just want to snuggle with. It's so cute. Plus, Aubrey likes it a lot too.

I reallly want this diaper for Austin to wear at his first birthday party.

and how perfect would a SF 49ers diaper be for this weekend? Or any Sunday??

A Dino diaper for Austin.



I want to have diapers for each holiday. I know, I know that sounds so crazy {Conrad has told me mulitple times how crazy I sound} but if I could have that, that's what I'd want. I just really want more prints in my stash. I just have a couple and everything else is a solid color.

I don't really have anything saved because I know we can't buy anything more right now. I just look and dream. I've been looking at training pants for Allyson. I think we are going to start potty training soon. She's starting to care about the potty some what. I can't believe this time is coming. I'm definitely looking forward to  not changing her but not the process of potty training. Hopefully she will surprise me and be crazy easy to potty train.