Vistorus Interruptus.

As much as I hate to admit it I am a creature of habit.  

I like to wake up every morning, enjoy my coffee, check my Facebook and slowly ease into my day.

Get my burst of energy by the time Andy gets home from work to start cleaning & doing school with the kids, etc.  Everyday may not be the same but most start with coffee and end with me snuggling with my love in bed.   

Having my Mom & sister here visiting from California is so awesome but it definitely throws off my Mama schedule and makes me let things go I might not usually be able to.  And while sometimes that is hard for my Type A personality it definitely does make things seem even more organized when I get back to it. So after a week or so of not blogging I actually missed it!  But time is short so I'll do my favorite type of writing, a list.  

My [current] life in numbers.

[20] minutes until I hope to be in bed. 

[19] the age my sister Jordan turned today!

[18] days till my first Hawaii doula client is due.  

[17] the age my sister Sierra turned today!

[16] my stupidest age, so far & hopefully ever.

[15] pounds I have gained this pregnancy.

[14] days until I start school again.

[13] pages of Fifty Shades Freed I've read.  I give up, I'm over it. 

[12] ingredients in the recipe below.

[11] babies latched on at The Big Latch-On West Oahu I hosted on Friday! 

[10] years I have been with the love of my life. 

[9] years until I am a midwife!  I hope. 

[8] weeks left in this pregnancy! Give or take a little.....

[7] months we have been back in Hawaii.

[6] tattoos I have.  For now.

[5] strawberry shortcakes I made for dessert tonight. 

[4] days left until my baby shower!  Yeay! 

[3] kids I have, for just a little bit longer. 

[2] notifications I have on Facebook, last time I checked.

[1] God I love! 

And by popular demand......

Homemade Jumbo Nutter Butters! 

from www.cookiesandcups.com

Cookies: 

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup light brown sugar, packed

2 eggs

2 tsp. Vanilla

2 1/2 cups AP flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup extra sugar for rolling

Filling:

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 cup creamy peanut butter

4 cups powdered sugar

1 tbs. milk

For cookies:

[1] Cream butter, peanut butter & sugar in a stand mixer.

[2] Add eggs one at a time & then vanilla.

[3] In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking soda & baking powder.

[4] Slowly add dry mixture to wet in mixer, try not to over mix!

[5] When dough has come together roll into 1-inch balls and then form your balls into logs.  Ha. 

[6] Roll logs in sugar and place on ungreased baking sheet.  Keep them spread apart cause they get big!

[7] With a fork make a criss cross pattern on top of each log, while you're doing this pinch the log in the middle so it makes a peanut shape.  Very good. 

[8] Bake at 375 degrees F for about 10 minutes.

[9] Let cool on a rack while you make your filling!

For filling:

[1] Cream butter & peanut butter.

[2] Slowly add powdered sugar.

[3] Check consistency and add milk if you like, may take a little more or less or none at all. 

[1] Spread filling between two cookies & chow down!

Nutter Butter time! 

S'Mores Cookies & Ewa Beach Hidden Corner.

So a few weeks ago our church decided to have our monthly home group at the beach instead of a usual member's home.  Our church is small enough that after asking around it ended up just being our family, my Dad's family and a group of 3 coming from Waianae.  

First off, I should know if my Dad is in charge of planning something basically that means he will stress me out enough that I'll start planning and the whole thing will unravel with two Type A personalities getting grumpy with each other about what the other was supposed to do. 

We went down to Hidden Corner Beach in Ewa Beach.  

If you're going there from H1, either way you will get off on the Ewa Beach exit.

Follow Ft. Weaver Rd.  the big main road in Ewa Beach ALLLLL the way down.

Seriously, all the way.  You'll dead end.  To the left will be a Country Club [I believe?]

And on the right, a beautiful beach!

There's plenty of shade, picnic tables, parking and bathrooms/showers.

It can be rough there depending on the tide, the kid's played but Andy was tense the whole time worrying about them.  Such a good Dad. 

It was a beautiful night, the moon was out early & there were tons of airplanes flying by for some reason so the kids were entertained. A few tips.....

1.  Don't try and move the picnic tables.  They have concrete blocks on the ends.  Well they should....my Dad & I tried to move one and it only had blocks on one end, it was too heavy for us to get anywhere and when we finally set it down it was now lopsided.  :/  Awesome.

2. Pack tongs!  And skewers! And defrosted chicken.  If you plan to BBQ.  They don't have BBQs there so bring your own.  We made corn & chicken and ate them about an hour and a half apart because our chicken was frozen.  All components were delicious if not spaced out.

3.  Do NOT use Tiki Torch fluid to light you're grill.  Andy, my Dad & younger brother almost have the no eyebrows as evidence to go along with this tip.   

4.  Don't leave your shoes at one end of the beach at the beginning of the day thinking you'll just go back and grab them when you leave.  By then it's pitch black dark & someone had stolen Lily's brand new silver Converse.  I can definitely tell I'm becoming an older Mom because this infuriated me to no end, even more so when she shrugged and said "It's ok, I have more." What?! 

It was still a fun night, beautiful weather & scenery and time with our church family. 

Our attempt at making Smores with a quickly dying fire and plastic forks tho does bring me to my next recipe......

Smore's Cookies!

adapted from www.farenheit350.blogspot.com

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup butter, room temp.

2 eggs

2 tsp. Vanilla

2 cups AP flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup mini marshmallows

2 packages graham crackers

[1] In a mixer cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

[2] Add the eggs one at a time until combined, add vanilla. 

[3] Add in salt, baking soda and flour and beat until combined.

[4] Then fold in chocolate chips & marshmallows.

[5] Break the graham cracker sheets in half and arrange on cookie sheet.

You can put them close cause the cookie will pretty much stay on top of the cracker.

[6] Put a scoop of cookie dough on top of each cracker.

[7] Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes.  

Best served warm and you get the real Smore's flavor.  

Happy camping! 

Don't tell me what to do [or] why I hate baby sign language.

We have recently been teaching Oliver baby sign language, we went to a free preview class that one of my parenting groups had and we all enjoyed it, big kids and all.

I see the benefits of it, I really do.  It's kind of amazing to see a child that can't talk yet really communicate with you.  The problem is, I don't like being told what to do.  

Not by my husband, not by my kids, and yes I admit it, sometimes not by God.  So while this baby sign language could be an wonderful exploration into how much smarter your baby is then the next, it has become a twisted game Oliver likes to play.

We learned a ton of fruit & veggie signs at the class along with some easy basic like please, thank you, more, etc.  Oliver has learned MORE.  Oh sure, on occasion if he feels like it he will sign "please" and "all done" usually "all done" after he has thrown his plate of food on the floor so it's already pretty obvious.  But "more" is his favorite!  And eat, of course.  

It's a frustrating thing to have a 1 year old follow you around all day long signing eat, more, more, more, more!  Like a 4 year old that asks "Why?" constantly.  It's cute in the beginning, but after about 3 days you're going crazy.

I have no idea what he wants more of?  I ask him and he'll storm to the fridge or go to the pantry and randomly start pulling things off the shelves like Panko bread crumbs & fast acting yeast.  I honestly doubt he wants more of that.  So yeah, at the age of one I feel like he's just messing with me.

And he knows it.

Ollie trying to look innocent after demanding MORE, MORE, MORE! 

He finally conceded that more watermelon was actually what he wanted.  

But darn it my kids are cute & adorable and all that other proud Mommy stuff and no matter how much I might complain I love them more than I could ever imagine. 

So here's a recipe for some fun treats I made for them today, hopefully to take on a  zoo trip this weekend!

Honey Nut-O Treats!

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup honey

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1 tsp. vanilla

5 cups Cheerios [or generic Toasted O's like us cool Moms do]

[1] Mix the honey and sugar in a medium sauce pan.  Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.

[2] Let boil for about a minute until everything is smooth.

[3] Turn the heat off and add peanut butter and vanilla.  Whisk. 

[4] Add in the Cheerios and stir to coat everything evenly.

[5] Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto waxed paper and let cool!

I keep these in the fridge cause it's humid here so they take awhile to set up.
Edit: Also I suggest making these pretty small, while the kids liked the taste they are hard to eat!  I would just use a greased teaspoon and make small drops, you will get a ton that way too! :)

Have fun! 

The Nutella Chronicles: Nutella Swirled Banana Bread and Nutella filled mini donut muffins.

I am one of those people that grew up on Nutella.  I don't know how and I don't know where but we have always been a home with Nutella.  My Mom is a junk food junkie, not in a bad way [I love you Mom!] so this was just one of those things, her favorite way to eat it is with Walker's Shortbread cookies.  Sigh.

So I didn't go on a magical trip and discover it as an exotic treat, Nutella is a thing of memories & my childhood.  I hope my kids have those same memories. :) 

I bought a big 2 pack at Costco of the stuff a few weeks ago so I've basically been baking anything that has it, cause really why wouldn't you want a surplus of Nutella and baked goods?  

This is also my first lesson learned in blogging.  I found both of the recipes on Pinterest and like almost every recipe I make I tweaked it to fit what I thought would be better or for what I personally had on hand.  When I went to write this blog I hadn't pinned the exact recipes I used so I had to go through pages of recipes to try and find them so I could reference them here. Errr.  Ok blogging world, lesson learned.  I will start writing my recipes down!  There, you happy?

Nutella Swirled Banana Bread

adapted from www.barbarabakes.com

 

1 Cup mashed very ripe banana, about 3 medium bananas

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 plain Greek yogurt

1/4 cup butter, melted

2 eggs

2 cups AP flour

1 t. baking powder

1/2 t. baking soda

1/4 t. salt

1/2 cup Nutella

 

[1] Combine mashed banana, brown sugar, Greek yogurt, butter & eggs in a stand mixer and mix on medium until well blended.

[2] In a separate bowl whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

[3] Note: I made these into mini loaf pans, cause I had disposable ones and didn't want to clean up but you could use one big standard loaf pan here. It makes 4 mini loaves.

Slowly add flour mixture to wet mixture.  Mix until it just comes together.

[4] Grease pans, I make my own Pam type spray, and spoon batter into bottom.  About halfway up.

[5] Use about 1/8 cup of Nutella per pan, a little more won't hurt anybody.  Kind of layer the Nutella between two layers of batter and then put a big scoop on top.

[6] Use a butter knife or skewer to swirl the Nutella through the layers, I made the mistake of not swirling enough which gave my bread kind of a crispy Nutella top which I kind of liked.

[7] Bake at 350 degrees F, or 300 degrees if your using a Convection oven, which I am while my oven is out of order.  For about 35-40 minutes.

[8] Let cool on a rack, if you can wait that long!

Nutella filled Mini Donut Muffins

adapted from www.mochithoughts.com

 

   3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 egg 

1 1/2 cups AP flour

2 t. baking powder

1/4 t. salt

1/4 t. Nutmeg

1/4 cup Veggie Oil

3/4 cup low-fat milk

1 t. Vanilla 

Nutella for filling

 

[1]   In a large bowl whisk together sugar, egg, veggie oil, milk & vanilla.

[2] In another bowl whisk together dry ingredients, flour, baking powder, salt & Nutmeg.

[3] Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined.

[4] Grease a mini muffin pan with cooking spray and fill each one halfway.

[5] Using a teaspoon add a dollop of Nutella to each muffin.

[6] Cover Nutella with a little more batter each, try not to fill too high, I did and they came out ok but it could be a mess.

[7] Bake at 350 degree F for 12 minutes.

[8] When the muffins have cooled down for a few minutes run a butter knife along each edge.

Pop muffins out while they are still warm and then roll in cinnamon sugar! 

[1/4 cup sugar & 1 t. cinnamon]

Makes about 36 mini muffins.

Have a Nutella-licious day!