oatmeal applesauce cookies

Well it's Monday, and here is another not so memory, not so milestone post.  In fact it's another recipe.  Unlike the last it doesn't have a memory attached though.  However maybe a memory will grow in the future.  The hubs and I really enjoy this cookie and today was Cohen's first time trying them.  He ate two before supper and a half after.  So who knows maybe this will be a cookie I often have waiting on him when he gets off the bus down the road.  Yeah yeah I know I'm stretching to make it fit into the milestone/memory monday.

On to the recipe already...

Not Iced Oatmeal Applesauce Cookies
(without the raisins please)

4 tablespoons butter

1 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup chunky style applesauce

1 1/2 cup old fashioned oats

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Cream butter and sugars.  Add egg and applesauce, mix until blended approx. 2-3 minutes.  Mix in oats, flour, soda, powder, & salt.  Using a 1 1/2 inch ice cream scoop, drop dough onto baking sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for 13-15 minutes.

So I guess now is where I should say that this recipe is not my own.  I know shocker right?  It's Martha's.  She makes her's with an icing, I was too lazy to make it the first time I made them.  They tasted fine without so I've been lazy ever since.  Also she puts raisins in her's.  I don't eat raisins.  I blame my mother.  I blame my mother for not liking rice for 22 years as well.  I mean really how can you eat it when your mother talks about how it looks like maggots.  It really messed me up, that is until I overcame it.  Now I eat rice, and all is well.  I still don't eat raisins though.  At least I eat bananas!

Make them, then eat them.  You will like them.

it's monday again

That could only mean one thing.  It's memories and milestone time. 

The kid has been jabbering for a couple of months now.  Everyone keeps saying "he's going to be talking soon".  Well I wanna know what soon is in terms of days or weeks.  He is slowly picking up new words.  The first word that he's said, and used for any length of time was tractor.  I think that fact alone would put us in the category of a redneck family.  He has said words in the past like Reagan, but it only lasts a few days to a week.  He is also saying duck and truck and I'm thinking that's it for right now.  

Anytime he sees a cow he will moo.  Sometimes when he sees a horse he will moo, sometimes he will neigh.  What can I say he's hooked on mooing.  

He loves Word World.  Yes I know this makes me a bad mother, for letting my child watch TV, but if you've been reading the old blog you know this isn't the only thing that makes me a bad mother.  

He recognizes letters.  He doesn't know any of the letters, he just knows they are letters.  He loves the alphabet. He loves to hear it sung and is starting to sing along now.  He also just loves letters.  He points them out and says "b", which I've decided is his term for ABC's.

He is also able to turn out quite the tantrum, complete with throwing himself on the floor and kicking and screaming.  Case in point the Michaels trip last week.  I've started letting him walk around stores instead of riding in the cart, if it's going to be a quick trip, well I was planning on being in and out of Michaels.  It would have been a quick in and out too, had the kid participated.  We start out in the paper aisle.  I just needed a few sheets then we'd be moving on.  Well Cobra decided he needed some of Martha Stewart's glitter.  And I don't know if you've bought any of Martha's glitter but with it being Martha and all it comes in a glass bottle.  Obviously the kid didn't need it.  So after trying to convince the little guy why he needed to come with me, and walking off saying bye (when does this ever work?), I grabbed the kid from off the floor where he had been on his belly screaming, tossed him under my arm...still screaming, and headed to the paint brushes.  Then we proceed to play the whole game all over again.  

Me telling him to get up.  Him laying on his belly screaming.  Me pretending to walk away.  Him seeing his new freedom and running from here to there touching everything.  Me trying to entice him with the paper and brushes I'm buying.  Him not falling for it, but falling on the floor screaming again.  Me picking him up and running for the register.  

Oh what fun that was.  See Heather it's not just your kid.  The tantrums are perfectly normal...they are aren't they???

milestones and memories

Today's memory is in recipe form.  Cupcakes from Cobra's first b-day bash.  I made them again this weekend and thought I'd share.  

Take all this.

Do this.

Then bake.

Then take all this

Do what I did up there.  Hey there were tornadoes that broke up my little cooking session, so frankly I think it's ok that I didn't get pics of every stinkin step.

Frost.  Then get these.

Eat.

Look at that technique.  Look at that hair.

And here's the recipe in case anyone would like to try them out and I strongly recommend you do.  More importantly it will be recorded.  Therefore it will be easier to find next time I decide to make them.  I won't waste 30 minutes trying to find it in my email box then get sidetracked and finally delete the over 10,000 emails I've been saving to...apparently read sometime I don't know.

White Almond Sour Cream Cake

1 box white cake mix

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup granulate sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

4 egg whites

1 1/3 cups water

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 cup (8 oz) sour cream

1 teaspoon clear vanilla flavoring

1 teaspoon almond extract

Mix all dry ingredients by hand using a whisk in a very large mixing bow.  Add the rest of the ingredients and beat on low speed for 2 mintues.  Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes.

** I used a spring box cake mix in the cupcakes above.  I also used pure vanilla extract, not clear vanilla flavoring.

Buttercream Frosting

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 tablespoon meringue powder

1 teaspoon almond extract

4 cups (1 lb) siftened confectioners sugar

2 tablespoons milk (more or less for spreading consistency)

In a large bowl, cream shortening and butter.  Add almond extract and milk.  Gradually add sugar one cup at a time, beating on low speed.  Add meringue powder.  Scrape sides often while mising.  Don't overwhip.  makes three cups.  Will keep in fridge up to  weeks when stored in air-tight container.

** I don't sift anything.  Martha one time told me this was unnecessary, that whisking it in a bowl a bit was just fine.  Martha who you ask?  Stewart of course.  Ok maybe she didn't tell me per say.  She told her whole viewing audience and I was one of them.  And maybe I just think I heard this and really didn't but I swear my brain is telling me that I did indeed hear it.  So I live by it now and so far everything has turned out fine.  For his party I didn't use almond extract.  In the cupcakes I just left it out and in the frosting I replaced it with vanilla.  I wasn't sure if the kids at the party would like the almond.  But both ways are yummy.  Also my frosted cupcakes have been sitting out on the counters since Saturday.  I understand that there is milk in the icing and that made me go "hmmm" for a minute but then I remembered when my mother was down for Cohen's birthday she kept the cupcakes out and surely she wasn't trying to kill us.  I mean we have no money so there would be no point.

I hope you guys enjoy them as much as we did.  They were a hit at the little man's birthday back then, and I'm certainly enjoying the batch I whipped up this weekend too.  So thanks sis for finding the perfect cupcake for our littles' bdays and thanks Brenda for sharing it with us.  This is one thing that I will always associate with not only Cohen's first birthday but also Morgan's.

milestone monday

This time it's all about me.  What possible milestone could I have achieved you ask.  No I didn't take my first steps.  I started the 30 day shred.  I actually started yesterday...ok ok I started Friday but between the fact that it kicked my ass from the start and Cohen not participating, I don't know why I thought I would be able to get a workout in while he was awake, I gave up after only a measly 8 minutes...this included the warm up.  I know sad right?  We were pretty busy Saturday, what with a birthday party, a family nap time, and dinner out followed by ice cream, so I didn't get around to it.  We were pretty busy yesterday but I knew I would always be busy so I made the time.

The hubs actually did it with me, I don't know which of us sucked more, all I know is we both sucked pretty bad.  He texted me around lunch with "I'm sore".  I love it.  My reply, "Me too".  As I sit here I am sweating from today's workout.  I still sucked not quite as bad but pretty close.  2 down 28 to go.

milestone monday

Cohen is a runnin'!  He has been for maybe a week or so, I guess he could pick up the speed before that but nothing like he does now.  He also knows when he is doing something he shouldn't be.  Put the two together and it makes for an interesting day.  At first you think he's sitting on the floor playing quietly then a few minutes later you decide maybe he's playing just a wee bit too well by himself.  So you get up for further investigation and notice that the tot has two DVDs.  He of course sees you coming and sprints across the room, tossing the DVDs on the ground as he kicks up the dust.

He has officially gotten the cup thing down.  He's been drinking out of a cup for a couple months at meal times, only water no milk...milk would be too hard to clean.  Hey if he spills water the table and floor get a mini cleaning it's a win win.  So anyway, now that I'm saying this it's going to happen tonight, but he hasn't spilled the cup in at least a week.  He still enjoys sticking his hand in as well as dropping random bits of food into it but no spills.

Oh and I almost forgot Friday was his 15 month check up.  He's 25 lbs. and 32 inches tall.  I know he's in the 75 percentile on weight.  I can't exactly tell you his percentile on height I swear the Doc said 75-90 percentile, which seems like a pretty big gap there, so I'm just going to go with 75 percentile because that's what he was last time.  Supposedly he's right on track, even though the nurse and Doc kept saying 5-10 words at this age and kept acting like he could say that many when in fact the kid knows 2 words, momma and dada, and we told them this numerous times.  And for the record I haven't heard dada in a while and he uses momma for everything.  For yet another record I'm not concerned I was just sayin'.

Go check out Project Simplify and get ready to get all that paper clutter taken care of for good this week!

milestone monday

So I'm totally cheating here.  I didn't get time...scratch that, I didn't make time to post yesterday on Monday so I'm going to back date this...I'm so bad.  

Yeah so anyway, what's the little guy up to these days?  I can already see that milestone monday isn't going to happen each week.  It's tough to find something new each week, I mean sure my kid is a genius but come on.  I will try though.  Anyway so we are working on using a potty.  Notice I didn't say I'm working on potty training, I'm not...not officially, not yet.  I decided about a month ago that since Cobra takes a bath right after dinner, where he would have been downing liquids, it would be a good time to start setting him on the potty, which we did.  The first two days the "pee pee" was a no show but on the third day it made its appearance, genius kid I tell you.  So gradually I've been increasing the times we've been going potty throughout the day.  Most days he will use it 3-4 times.  Now the fams, they think I'm crazy for trying to potty train a 15 month old, but I'm not trying...not officially, not yet.  I'm just getting him used to the idea, and hoping maybe he'll make a connection before I start trying, which I'm not...not officially, not yet.  This summer, I'm going to start potty training the kid.  I will then get regular undies, and give it the ol college try.  Until then we're really ho hum about the whole thing.  Set him on there, see if he'll go, give him a potty prize (a mini m&m...ok two mini m&ms) if he does.

He has also conquered chairs.  He can climb onto our dining room chairs, which means he can also climb onto our dining room table, yeah it sucks.  The nice thing is that I now pull a chair into the kitchen, toss him up on it, and I have a helper...

...or a strawberry thief.

Caught him red-handed

I ordered this handy dandy contraption that goes under a chair to raise it up so that when a child is sitting at it they are up high enough to the table.  Aka...no booster seat.  It arrived Saturday, yeah that's right on a Saturday, nice huh?  I was impressed.  So now not only can Cohen climb on the chairs he sits on one at meal times like a big kid.  Ok ok about 40% of the time he sits, about 50% of the time he stands while we yell ask him politely to sit down, the other 10% is that time in between sitting and standing where he is squatting trying to decide if he'll listen and actually sit down.  Maybe the booster seat would've been nice for a few more months.

milestones and memories

Since the point of this here blog is to capture our beloved memories, I've decided that on every Monday I would try to give a little update on what the kid can do now.  Yeah I know super boring for any readers but hey this is going to make it into a book one day and these are the things I'll want to read about.

So here goes nothing...Cohen has recently learned where his tongue and ears are.  When asked where his tongue is he will stick it out, almost like he's trying to touch his nose with it and start making a la la la la la noise, and not a nice sweet la la la, oh no a la la la sound that a big burly monster would make.  I can proudly say I taught him this, all but the touching the nose bit, I totally made the la la la noise when I started trying to get him to do it.  I don't know why he started trying to touch his nose with his tongue but sure enough every time he does it the same way.  The ears...well he still needs work on the ears.  He did it beautifully at first.  Ask him where those ears are and bam he'd start tuggin' at them.  The tuggin' turned into sticking his thumbs in his ears, and slowly that has turned into just sticking his thumbs on his cheeks.  The other "mommy thinks is super cute" thing he does is he recently started clapping.  Yeah I know my kid is almost 15 months old and I am so proud that he just recently learned this.  It's not even so much that he has learned to clap, of which his cousin who is only 4 days older has been doing for at least 6 months now, it's that he claps at himself.  His latest is that he stacks things on top of one another and looks at me so proud and claps, to which I start clapping and say YAH!!!  Goofball, that one is.