Thursday: Easy Cheesecake! (No Bake!)

Are you ready for a cheesecake that's easy, quick, and unhealthy? (Sorry, it's just not possible to find a healthy cheesecake- your diet will just have to suffer.

Ingredients
*1 8 oz tub of whipped topping (thawed)
*1 8 oz container of cream cheese (softened)
*1 can of sweetened condensed milk
*1/4 cup of lemon juice
*1 graham cracker crust

Step 1: Mix the whipped topping, cream cheese, and sweetened condensed milk until smooth and silky.

Look! All done and yummy.

Ready to mix!

Step 2: Add the lemon juice and stir thoroughly until completely combined. (MAKE SURE THIS IS A SEPARATE STEP- ONLY ADD AFTER THE OTHER THREE INGREDIENTS ARE MIXED) The lemon juice reacts with the sweetened condensed milk (similar to my  4 Ingredient Key Lime Pie ) and makes it thicken. A LOT.

Step 3: Pour into a graham cracker pie crust and throw it in the refrigerator for at least an hour before enjoying.

Step 4: Feel free to garnish with strawberries, caramel syrup, chocolate syrup.... whatever makes you and your cheesecake happy. What'd I tell you? Easy! Five minutes, tops. And only four ingredients for the filling!

Wednesdays: Momisms 3

Wednesdays: Momisms 2

Wednesdays: Momisms 1

Tuesday Newsday: Baby Sure Loves Her Daddy....

Just love this photo

Tuesday News Days!

This week, Sam and I had our first date night in over a month! And our first time away from baby longer than one hour together. PERIOD! All other date nights were shorter than an hour! We saw the VOW…. Something that I vow to NEVER make someone else watch it.

Baby and Turtle pal

Baby and I made a trip to the mall for shopping and stopped to play in the play-yard. She was so strong and stood up holding on to the turtle. Sam was extra proud of her for spending time with a turtle, since Sam is always trying to make sure that his baby girl loves animals like her daddy. (I keep telling him that ALL little kids love pets and animals….) Plus, mommy got to buy an awesome white pencil skirt. Mommy… looks like a babe. ;)

We also had a fun time with baby’s cousin, as we had a really fun game night- Sam FINALLY learned how to play Phase 10! I just hope I can make Sam play it again.

Exciting week? Well, maybe not that crazy- but we did get to spend a lot of time together, just dad, baby, and I.

Snuggles...

Especially daddy and baby- which is good, since he will have her next weekend while I spend time with my sister's in Idaho at.... THE HUNGER GAMES PREMIERE!!! SO sweet.

Loves to sit with papa

Just laying on daddy...

Mondays: Why I Donate Breastmilk

I have a little 6-month-old pumpkin pie. She is tall and skinny, but has little rolls of fat on her thighs. In my eyes (I'm her mom....) she is just the cutest, sweetest thing in the world.

When she was just a few weeks old and I was slightly more emotional than normal, having just given birth. I was up late feeding her and watching the TV. Some doctor show came on and in the course of the story, a premature baby died. Being a new mom, this seemed like the saddest thing in the world and all I could think was that if I could help a little, tiny, helpless infant, I would.

Now, some mother's are very successful breastfeeding. Great for those of you that are. My little one and I did not fare so well and I ended up pumping exclusively. As time went on, it was clear that I made far more milk than my baby girl needed. I had heard that breast milk was something that could be donated and thought I might like to donate my extras, but first, I wanted to know more. I called a mother's milk bank and this is what I learned.

*85-90% of all donated breastmilk goes to babies in the NICU (neo-natal intensive care unit) who were born prematurely. Often time, these premature babies were delivered so early that the mother's body was not able to produce breast milk to feed their own child.
*Babies born prematurely have very sensitive intenstines and formula can eat away at their insides. This can be fatal

Ok, so I learned more than just that, but those were the things that stuck out and made a difference. I thought that if I had the ability to make extra milk and if this milk could literally mean life or death for a new baby, I couldn't think of a reason NOT to donate.

And bottom line, being a mom, I just could not imagine the feeling of watching my own little girl, writhing in pain in the hospital, all because she didn't have breastmilk.


Is pumping a pain? Kind of. Some times. ALWAYS. But, for me, it is worth it.

http://www.milkbankcolorado.org/

Thursday: 4-ingredient Blueberry/Blackberry Cinnamon Rolls

This is an easy and cheap way to make blueberry cinnamon rolls!

Ingredients:

1 cup of blueberries or blackberries (frozen or fresh)

½ cup of sugar

2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice (a mix of cinnamon and nutmeg is a decent substitute)

2 packages of refrigerator biscuits (homestyle or traditional- either is fine)

Step 1

STEPS:

1- Wet your hands slightly and take 2 biscuits- flatten/combine them as shown in the picture

Step 2

2- Combine the sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and berries in a saucepan on medium heat until warm

3- Spoon about 1 tablespoon of the berry mix on the dough and roll it

Step 3

Step 3

4- Place the rolled dough in a round, lightly greased pie pan

Steps 4 and 5

5- Once all of the berry rolls have been put into the pan, pat the dough down to flatten it slightly and sprinkle with a dash more of pumpkin pie spice

Bake your rolls at 350 for 17-20 minutes or until golden brown.

Spread some frosting on the top if desired, pull apart and enjoy!




PS- Don't forget Freebie Friday's this week, I'll be giving away a sushi making set!

Wednesday: The TRUTH About Being a New Mom

Yuuuuuuup.

Tuesday News-Days: Some-day Nursery and First Solid Meal!

Baby girl is on a 90-day Layaway...

This week, Sam, baby, and I are getting ready to move out of our small, basement apartment. Are we moving? Nope, not even close- but I know that we will be moving in the next few months and am preparing accordingly. 

SO, I am getting everything ready for my someday nursery.

Our new white crib!

Newest addition? This cute little white crib. I bought it at Burlington Coat Factory, and through a combination of gift cards, coupons and other discounts, it came at the low low price of $80! Take that white crib, add my rocker and ottoman and diaper changing station (a little extra paint) and I have the nursery ready to go!

Don't you think she'll be
happier in her own crib
than a pack-n-play?

Not that I HAVE a nursery, but someday when I do, I’ll be ready to go. I can see it now- white furniture, pink and turquoise for bedding, cushions, and curtains…. Just have to get a place to put it all.

Now, if a some-day nursery isn’t enough, little girl had her first solid meal this week- Rice cereal! She kept using the same sucking that she does to drink from her bottle to eat it, but couldn’t figure out how to keep her mouth closed while doing it. This, naturally, gave her face, bib, and me a fine, thin coating of milky rice cereal.

  

She definitely loved it, though. Just check out the pictures!

Practice makes perfect!

Getting ready...

Daddy RUSHED home to
give her the first bite

Sweatin' to the Oldies



Thanks for the leg warmers, Nell.....

My Monday Thoughts: Marriage and the Day I Almost Killed Someone

When I was in college, I worked as the evening manager for a stocking crew at a local grocery store. I was training a new employee (let’s call him Steve) and had made it to the back room, where the cardboard baler was. 3-4 times a day, the baler would be filled with cardboard from stocking the shelves and need to be emptied, so it was necessary for our new employee to learn how to make a bale correctly. I was ready to give Steve his first lesson in making a bale.

This lesson of mine? Almost cost Steve his life.

The basics to building a proper bale are simple: six strong, flexible wires needed to be wrapped around the bale while the machine smashed the cardboard down as much as possible. One slight problem, however, is that the holes where the wires needed to be put through in the machine would get clogged with cardboard. The solution? A long, heavy metal bar with a pointed end that could be shoved through the holes.

Steve and I were in the back, making a bale together. I told him to get in the back of the baler to make sure the wires went through as I pushed out the offending cardboard that was blocking the wire holes. I distinctly remember him asking,

“What if you push the bar through while I’m right here?”

To which I answered, “It’s easy- I’ll just shout out which hole I am punching out 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, etc.- and when I call out the number, make sure you aren’t behind that hole!”

I proceeded to lift that bar and shoved it through the holes with all my might, all the while shouting, “1^st hole!” “2^nd hole!” “3^rd hole!” and then “4^th hole!”. This was accompanied by a scream. “AH! You got me in the eye!” Steve was already quite the prankster and I told him to not joke about something so serious. He walked out from behind the baler, covering his face. I could already see blood streaming from behind his fingers.

I thought I wanted to die.

It wasn’t until after we made it to the emergency room that the story of what had happened came out. For some reason, he had been confused and when I said “4^th hole!”. He thought that I wanted him to see what was blocking the whole and he had PUT HIS EYE to the hole RIGHT when I shoved that bar through.

Through some amazing stroke of luck, the doctor told us, the bar had glanced off the bridge of his nose and scraped his eye lightly. He ended up with stitches on his nose and an eye patch for a few weeks, but otherwise was fine.

What made me sick to my stomach was how CLOSE that sharp, heavy pole came to piercing through his eye and into his brain. He could easily have died. This story still haunts my memory.

AND. Is a lesson in marriage.

Neither Steve nor I was doing something wrong. We both were doing what needed to be done to make a successful bale, but because we were not communicating correctly, I almost ended up killing him.

In marriage, both you and your spouse could be doing the right thing to making a good marriage (working for a living, taking care of your kids, running a good household), but if you have poor communication and cannot tell one another where you are and what/why you do what you do, you can end up killing your marriage.

Communication. It will literally make or break your marriage.

Friday: Easy DIY Earrings Organizer

DIY Earring Post

This is a great (EASY!) way to organize your earrings and only takes a few minutes and a few materials to make. I made mine when I found it hard to find my earrings in sets, since they always seemed to get lost and tangled in my jewelry boxes.

1- Cut out a thick piece of poster board into a rectangle

2- At the top middle of the poster board, make two small holes, about one inch apart.  Put a piece of tape over each hole (the tape helps to reinforce it so that the thread won’t rip through)

3- Thread your needle with embroidery floss and use the needle to puncture the holes you made at the top middle. Thread the floss through and make a knot on each end on the back.

4- Use a needle to make sets of holes (where your earrings will hang)

5- Put all of your earrings in the holes that you have made

6- Hang it up on a nail and never worry about where your earrings are!

Thursday: 4 Ingredient Key Lime Pie- Easy as Pie!

Gather:

*4 eggs yolks

*1 can of sweetened condensed milk

*1/2 cup of key lime juice (regular lime juice works, too)

*1 graham cracker crust

Mix the yolks, milk, and lime juice in a bowl until smooth, (add a little green food coloring if you prefer a more lime-colored filling) then pour into the graham cracker crust. Bake for 15 minutes at 350. Allow to cool. Garnish with meringue, whipping cream, or fresh limes. Refrigerate after cooling.

Enjoy! You won't believe that these four ingredients make such a creamy, rich pie- and neither will anyone else who eats it!

PS! Don't forget to check back on Friday for my next installation of Friday Freebies!!!

Wednesday: Kids Say the Cutest Things- No, Really!

Kids really DO say the darndest things! This week, for the Wednesday Lark, I want to share somethig from my family. My mother had the foresight to write down any especially funny or cute things that her 10 children said growing up and compiled it into two volumes of what my family calls ‘cute sayings’. Here are some family favorites (as told by my mom).

Trevor: “I drank the juice out of my gum, but I won’t swallow it down into my skeleton.”

Darby: (said about my friend Claudia after she left our home) “Mom, why do you call her Claudia? That is an uglish name and it has ugly parts to it.”

Trevor: I told Trevor to always stay my baby and never grow up, to which he replied, “I have to or I won’t ever marry and my wife won’t like it.”

Trevor: While at a family party, his favorite aunt came in her new security guard uniform and Trevor avoided her all night. When I told her that he shouldn’t ignore his favorite aunt, he said, “She’s not my favorite aunt anymore; she is a policeman now and we’d better watch out!”

Ben: I was reading Ben a story about a boy named Ben who gets bullied by a boy named Steve. Ben pointed to the name Ben in the book and said, “Is that me?” to which I replied yes. He said, disappointedly, “Oh, dang it, I wanted to be the mean one.”

Davin: I went on a walk with Davin and the baby, but Davin wanted to be carried. I kept telling him that I couldn’t carry him and push the stroller, to which he finally said, “OK! Then I will carry myself!”

Rebecca: When the boys were taking their time getting dressed, just waltzing in their underwear, I said, “Maybe you can wear just your underwear to church and start a fad.” Rebecca, hearing this, said, “I got my underwear on and I am NOT fat!”

Emily (me): “These are board books- when you are bored, you have to look at them.”

Spencer: “My friend had a cool show-and-tell today. His dad works at the dump and found a jacket for him! Why doesn’t dad work at the dump?”

Trevor: I asked Trevor if he wanted a baby sister or a baby brother and he said “I want a girl, cause we don’t need a boy baby, we already have Ben and I don’t want to get rid of him- he’s my best friend!”

Trevor: Trevor brought me a doll and said “Turn this into good.” and I said, “What?”, so he said, “Look at

I'm a REAL mom, now.

Surprise!

I’m pretty new at this whole mom thing. My little girl is less than six months old, but in that six months, we have been through a lot.



Fresh out of the oven

The first, docile, “I want 100 more of you sweet babies” days, the hours of screaming colic, the blow outs, first smile, rolling over, sitting up and all of those other moments, good and bad, that make up that time that you spend with your baby. I have felt that special, “I never understood how much a mom can love their baby so much until now” moment and felt like I was starting to get things.

It wasn’t until late last week, however, that I felt like I had finally arrived as a mother.

My baby girl was sick- fever, cranky, not sleeping. That was not too bad- but then she started to get night terrors. From what I read, they are sometimes triggered by fevers, but are still uncommon in babies. And let me tell you- watching a baby with a night terror is terrorizing- to the mom.

Brief explanation: she ‘wakes’ up, screaming and crying, like something is attacking her, but her eyes are tightly closed. She trashes and kicks, and though you pick her up, rock her, bounce her, sing to her, she just doesn’t respond.

Within 5-20 minutes, if you can get her to wake up, she will be totally fine, cooing and laughing, obviously no memory of what has occurred. But those few moments of night terrors, watching your baby writhe while there is nothing you can do?

My precious girl when she is not sicky

Awful. 

So, Saturday night, as I rocked my darling girl, I just prayed and thought to myself how very much I wish I could protect her little body. I wash, dress, change, tickle, and feed her, but there was nothing, aside from a little Tylenol, that I could do for her inside.

I held her tightly in my arms, just wishing I could take away her pain and onto myself, so she could be free. That was it! I realized:

I KNEW that I would rather suffer than watch my baby suffer.

I am a real mom now. Officially.

Baby 9-1-1

This is for my Saturday –Simple-To-Do entry. It’s for moms and dads everywhere, and easy as pie!

1. Collect:

*A onesie

*One pair of socks

*A small pack of wipes

*2 diapers

*Hand sanitizer

2. Just throw them all into a gallon sized Ziploc  bag and put it in the trunk of your car, truck, stroller, etc. Update it every few months by changing out the diaper/onesies. It costs very little to make, and I guarantee you that first time it comes in handy, you won’t be sorry.

5 Ways to Get Your Kids (or Husband) Eating Vegetables

RULE 1: DON’T let them into the kitchen while cooking or they will know the sneaky things you put into their food.

Trick 1: Spaghetti Sauce

When making your spaghetti sauce, pick a mild-flavored veggie (most any will do- carrots, spaghetti squash, spinach, etc.), steam it, dice it, and throw it in the blender and pour the puree into your spaghetti sauce. The red will cover your tracks visually and the blend of spices will cover the flavor. If needed, throw in a little extra garlic or onion powder to hide any trace flavors, so they won’t know your ‘special’ ingredient

Trick 2: Ham Fried Rice 

Use your favorite fried rice recipe, but with a few additions. Add 1/8 cup onions (VERY finely minced) per person eating and add it when you are frying the ham. Let it cook a little longer than normal, so that the onions become soft. Make sure that your ham chunks are a little larger than normal and add 1 teaspoon of chicken bouillon (Or a ramen noodle seasoning packet). The ham chunks being larger make them ignore the smaller onion pieces and the chicken bouillon gives it a yellow tint, covering the onions visually.

Trick 3: Mash Potatoes

Dice and boil potatoes, adding squash (after removing the seeds), making it 3 parts potato and 1 part squash (spaghetti squash, zucchini (make sure to remove the skin) and if your kids aren’t TOO discerning, butternut works, too.) After boiling until completely soft, mash and add (per 3 potatoes and one chunk of squash)

*4 tablespoons of butter

*½ cup sour cream (or 1/3 cup of evaporated milk)

*¼ cup of cream cheese (optional)

*Salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder to taste

They may not be light on fat… but they are delicious and more nutritious (secretly). If anyone comments on the slightly different color, simply tell them it’s due to the ‘extra butter’ that you added.

Trick 4: Barbecue Sauce

I use this one on my husband, who claims to hate tomatoes. When cooking up his favorite meat (chicken breast, pork chop, steak, etc.), I brown both sides on medium-high, turn down the heat and add, already mixed

*1 can of tomato sauce (for every 3 pieces of meat)

*1/4 cup of soy sauce

*1 tablespoon of cumin

*1/4 cup of brown sugar

*Salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder to taste

and then finish cooking the meat on low in this sauce. As it cooks, the water will evaporate, making the sauce thicker. When the meat is done, simply put the meat over potatoes or rice and divide the remaining sauce over it. They won’t know that your delicious ‘sauce’ actually gives them a full serving of tomatoes….

Trick 5: Taco Meat

Easy and fast, this is great for everyone that loves tacos. When adding your taco seasoning to your hamburger, simply put in 1/3 the water required (norm is ¾ a cup per packet, so put in only ¼ of a cup) and throw in one can of diced chilies for every 2 people eating. The strong flavor of the taco seasoning and the ground texture of the meat make it virtually undetectable. I told my husband, after a year of taco-making, that I add green chilies to his taco meat. He didn’t believe it until he saw me add them while I was actually cooking them.

Baby I Love

Princesses Only.....

America is Number.... Seven?

MSN recently reviewed some of the richest nations in the world. They posted online the top seven. Seven? Not top five, ten, or twenty? Nope, it was the top seven.

Why?

Because the United States was number seven.

So, naturally, they had no inclination to go any further. For if there is one thing we Americans are, it’s a little ego-centric. The center of the universe hasn’t been found yet, but when it is, we are all quite sure that it will be found in America. That’s why when MSN looked at wealthy, important countries, they knew their list only had to reach to America.

If America was the fourth wealthiest country in the world, then the list would have been the top four richest countries in the world.

And, according to MSN, it seems that being an oil-rich exporter is what puts nearly all of the other six countries ahead of the US.

So, dear America, if we want to bump ourselves up in the global wealth sector, we must either go totally green and use nearly NO oil and reply on other resources for energy, thereby giving no monetary gains to those oil nations, or else crack open every possible oil main we have and export ‘til the cows come home.

Gotta Love Rap?

Why is it that rap and R&B music is so catchy? Well, because they HAVE to be. If you could understand the lyrics the first time you heard the song, most people would abhor the music. So the music itself must be mega-catchy, so that people will listen to the music in SPITE of the lyrics.

To illustrate my point:

“I’m trying to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful- Damn, she’s a sexy bitch.” (From David Guetta’s ‘Sexy Bitch’) Wow. Really. You’re trying to find the words to describe someone without being disrespectful- do you KNOW the meaning of the word disrespectful?

“This ring here represents my heart and everything I’ve been waiting for, just say it, I do….All I want you to do is be my love….but forget your face, I swear I will.’ (From Justin Timberlake’s ‘My Girl’). That’s a win. Marry me, then I’ll forget your face.

And, of course…

“Yeah, Yeah, Yeah! Yeah, Yeah! Yeaah! Yeah, Yeah, Yeah! Yeah, Yeah! Yeaah!” (From Usher’s ‘Yeah’)

But then again, maybe women-hating and repetition is what you look for in music? Yet, the tune is so catchy, here we are, listening to the songs anyhow....