Zucchini Bread

It's been a while since I've posted any recipes but I've been having a craving for zucchini bread : ) And just had to make some so I figured I would share it with you. It's really moist and delicious the boys just gobble it up and so do I probably more than I should.  It never seems to last very long in our house.

Zucchini Bread

• 3 cups of flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 tsp ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup of oil (can substitute applesauce if you like or do half of each)
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 tsp vanilla
• 3 cups shredded zucchini
• (Optional) 1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 325° degrees. Spray two loaf pans with nonstick spray or grease and flour them.

Sift flour, salt, baking powder,  baking soda and cinnamon in a bowl. 

Beat eggs, oil, vanilla and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients and beat well. Stir in zucchini and (nuts if desired) until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake for 50-60 minutes or until tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes then remove from pans and cool completely. 

Enjoy!  If you try it out let me know what you think : ) What's your favorite kind of bread to bake?

8 week pregnancy update baby #4

Sorry I'm late at getting this up. I'm actually 8 weeks 5 or 6 days today. Not much has changed since last week. I'm still really nauseous all the time, bloated and gassy that's always fun. I'm still really tired.

As far as new symptoms go I've been getting some headaches here and there. I'm not one to get headaches rarely ever so that kinda sucks. I don't really take medicine barely ever I just don't like to so I've just been sucking it up. Last night I woke up extremely dizzy the room felt like it was spinning and I just felt really nauseous.

That's the first time that's happened but I'll be bringing that up to my doctor at my appointment this Saturday. I'm thinking that my irons low. I always get low iron so hopefully it's nothing and just normal symptoms. Also I don't think I mentioned this last week but smells are really getting to me some I just can't stand. From foods, fragrances, cleaning products, garbage seem to be just overpowering at times and make me sick.

This Saturday is my first doctors appointment so that's exciting. I'm not sure if I'll be having to go more often than normal like my last pregnancy (with little man) but I guess I'll find out soon enough. Baby is the size of a large raspberry this week so growing like crazy : )

That's about it and I'll let you know how the appointment goes in my 9 weeks update. The picture isn't that great it was early morning and the lighting wasn't the best. My 2nd son was actually my photographer for me which was really sweet : ) and he just used my phone.

Winter Breaks Over

Winter break is officially over for us. We'll actually it was supposed to be over one Monday but we've been getting hit hard with winter weather. We got well over a foot of snow and have had arctic cold. Monday was -22° and with the wind chill felt like -40°. Tuesday was -15° and today the low was -11°. It's getting better but still so darn cold. So due to it being so crappie they cancelled school on Monday and Tuesday, not that I would have sent the boys anyway if they hadn't.

Let me just say it's tough getting back on track with the school schedule when you've been off for a while not only for the boys but for me as well. This morning they had a little bit of a hard time staying on track with getting ready. Of course they would rather play and watch cartoons so a few reminders were needed : ) Hopefully they don't come home bombarded with a ton of homework but we'll see.

How has the weather been for you?

7 Weeks Pregnancy Update Baby #4

This is gonna be my first pregnancy update for baby #4. According to a online pregnancy calculator (it goes by the first day of your last period) I'm in my 7th week. Unfortunately I'm not one of those lucky people that barely has any symptoms : ( Apparently blueberry size baby's have the ability to suck every last ounce of energy from me : )

Pretty much since I first got pregnant I've felt like carp of course I didn't know that was the reason at the time though. I have terrible "morning sickness" which for me means all day and night. I haven't actually thrown up yet but I constantly feel like I'm going to.

I'm always tired and low on energy. I'm hungry all the time but can't eat much due to feeling nauseous all the time. There are some things I just can't eat they make me sick even thinking about it. Garlic bread and apples are some to name a few. The apple one is really weird but hopefully that will end up going away.

These next symptoms I'm going to share with you might be to TMI but I'm just trying to keep it real with you : ) I've been so bloated and gassy it's awful there's times it's so bad I look like I'm at least 4-5 months pregnant or at a few to many tacos ; ) Another lovely symptom has been constipation. I'm having to pee all the time and waking up multiple times threw out the night feeling like my bladder is going to explode lol.

Just a FYI that might help someone else out. I've been taking these gummy prenatal vitamins instead of the regular pills since I was prego with little man. The doctor recommend them to me since the other ones would make me so sick.

7 weeks baby facts
• hands and feet are starting to emerge from developing arms & legs.
• baby has doubled in size since last week.
• 1/2 a inch long and the size of a blueberry
• mouth and tongue are forming

That's it for this week. I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone for there well wishes and kind words : ) I really do appreciate it and love reading your comments so thank you so much!

BIG NEWS!!!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and got to spend quality time with family. I actually got a little surprise my self right before Christmas. Looks like baby #4 is on the way!

 I was quite shocked to say the least. Even though this was not planned nor were any of my boys. It is still a welcome blessing. You might have read an older post here that kinda explains everything.

I'll probably be posting weekly or monthly pregnancy updates to document everything. I know they say you should wait until 12 weeks before you announce it but I feel anything could possibly happen at anytime not just within the first trimester.

I haven't had my first ob appointment yet due to him being on vacation but according to a pregnancy calculator I'm 7 weeks. The boys took the news good and are actually excited to have another baby join the family. Little man is to little to even understand but hopefully he'll do good with everything : )

MIA and 2 Birthday Celebrations

It's been so long since I've posted anything or even just been on any kinda social media related to blogging. Things have been busy.... well there always busy and chaotic but even more so lately. I'm sure you all can relate : )

Between the boys, school stuff, sickness,  regular everyday chores and errands, holidays, birthdays ext. I've just hadn't had time or energy to post anything. I have missed it though. Things are still busy and the holidays aren't over yet but I hope to get back into posting more often at least a couple times a week.

On another note both of my older boys have celebrated there birthdays well the actual day anyway they both fell on school days this year. We still have to do the whole fun weekend stuff with them.

I just can't believe how quick time has gone by! I know I say that all the time but I really can't. It seems like not so long ago I had them and they were toddlers. Know here they are 10 and 8 were already in double digits how crazy is that!

I don't know if I mentioned this before or not but the boys birthdays are only 5 days apart. It's kinda crazy having 2 December birthdays 5 days apart and so close to Christmas. I kinda feel bad for them they have to wait all year and then bam it's there birthday and Christmas all at the same time.

So since there birthdays fell on school days I tried to make it as special as possible. They had a more special breakfast (not just cereal). I made homemade waffles and stuck candles in them and we sung happy birthday.

They get to bring in a class treat on there birthday but it has to be store bought. They both decided on vanilla long John donuts with Christmas sprinkles. So we brought those in when I dropped them off at school.

 I also let them pick what they wanted for lunch and then me and little man brought them lunch (one picked culvers and the other picked taco bell) and we sat and had lunch with them at school.

I made them both there birthday cakes like I do almost every year. One wanted angry birds the other wanted batman and spiderman. I only had from the time the boys went to school and got home to make there cakes. And that's including bringing them lunch and of course taking care of little man. It was a little challenging and there not the best looking cakes but the boys loved them and appreciated them so that's all that matters : ) I  decorated the kitchen and had there cakes done by the time they got home from school.

They both decided this year that they didn't want to be surprised with presents. They wanted to pick them out there self so when they got home I  asked them were they wanted to go and they picked walmart. They both had a set budget but could pick out whatever they wanted with in there budget. We had dinner again they got to choose what they wanted and then of course cake and ice cream.

Sorry this is a really long post! Here are some pictures from there birthdays : )

Halloween Class Treats!

Sorry this post is a little late but I've been having issue with logging in.  I hope you all had a great Halloween : ) I just wanted to share really quick the Halloween treats we made for the boys classes. I had good intentions as always to get things done ahead of time. But like always I procrastinated till last minute.

So I had to throw something together for both of the boys classes. There not aloud to bring any homemade treats. So this is what I came up with. My oldest has a small class so that's why he got full size candy.

The bat treats I made using ca kit kat bar, black card stock, white card stock, googly eyes, glue dots and tape. I measured the candy bar and cut a piece of paper to wrap around it. The bat wings I just free handed and traced to make enough. I added a cute bow for the girls and his teacher/helpers.

The mummy's are reeses cups wraped with streamers and googly eyes. I used glue dots to attach everything. I'm happy with how they turned out : )

DIY Costume Fail......So Far

This is the first year I've ever attempted to make my boys costumes myself and I'm not so sure that was such a good idea. They've always been batman, spiderman, clone trooper that kinda thing. But this year they decided they wanted to be the red and green ninja for lego ninjago.

They wanted to actually be like the ninjago minifigure. But we've been so busy I didn't think I would have time to make 2 lego costumes. So we compromised and decided to make them just not like a lego figure.

I ordered them karate gi uniforms from amazon and just figured I'd dye them green and red and add stuff to make it look like the ninjago. Sounded easy enough. Well I was wrong. Let just say it's alot hard then it seems to get the right colors.

I got rit fabric dye from Walmart and tulip fabric dye as well. The first time I dyed them they seemed good till I washed them and the dark green faded to a really light almost mossy green. The red ended up fading to pink. The boys were less then thrilled so I bought some more dye to see if I could darken them back up.

Well they did get darker just not how I would have liked them to. The green is manageable but the red is still a wine pinkish berry color. So I'm gonna try and see if I can fix it one more time. Cause I don't think my oldest is to keen on being a pink ninjago.

If you have any ideas or suggestions please let me know I'd appreciate it!

Soft Pumpkin Cookies With Icing

These are one of my favorite pumpkin recipes. They are so good you can't have just one ; ) They make the house smell amazing when there baking. The boys love them! They taste great plain or with icing.

Soft Pumpkin Cookies

•  2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
•  1 tsp baking soda
•  1 tsp baking powder
•  1 tsp cinnamon
•  1/2 tsp nutmeg
•  1/2 tsp salt
•  1 1/2 cups sugar
•  1/2 butter or (1 stick) softened
•  1 cup of Pure Pumpkin
•  1 egg
•  1 tsp vanilla extract

Glaze

•  2 cups sifted powder sugar
•  3 tbls milk
•  1 tbls melted butter
•  1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350° and line baking sheet with parchment paper or grease.

Combined flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a bowl. Beat butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until well blended. Beat in pumpkin, egg and vanilla until smooth. Gradually add in flour mixture and blend until well combined.

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto prepared baking sheet.  Bake for 15 minutes. Cool completely before icing.

Do you have a favorite pumpkin recipe?

We Have A Walker!!!

For the past week and a half little man has been walking! He had been standing up with out holding on to anything for a little while know but one day he just decided to take a step. We were blowing bubbles and he was standing up holding his bubble wand and in a blink of an eye he went to catch one.

He took a good 6 steps before plopping on his bum. Well since then hes kept on trying : ) He's doing really good and is just so proud of himself smiling ear to ear (so am I). He's growing so fast it's really bittersweet.  While I want to watch him grow and see him become this amazing little person part of me wishes I could prolong the baby stage at least for awhile longer : )

Boogie Wipes Review and Giveaway

With allergy and cold season in full swing and having 3 boys full of boogies. I was more then happy to do a review for Boogie Wipes. If you have little ones then you know how much mucus one tiny person can produce : ) 

My boys suffer from allergies and since school has started they've had colds. Which means there poor noses  have had times were they have dripped like faucets. Using regular tissue really makes there poor noses raw and sore. Boogie Wipes have really saved there little noses! My older boys would much rather use them than tissue and they really like the Great Grape sent.

I really wish I would have tried these along time ago and saved my boys from sore noses and dried snot faces. 

Boogie Wipes are hypoallergenic, super soft, paraben free and gently enough for all ages. Boogie Wipes are made with natural saline designed to gently dissolve the mucus from common colds, allergies and everyday boogies.

They are available in Great Grape, Fresh Sent, Simply Unscented, Magic Menthol (for extra stuffy noses) and Boogieberry. They come in 10 ct, 30 ct, 45 ct, 90 ct canister and 12 ct.

You can check them out and follow them on facebook and twitter. You can find coupons and sign up for there newsletter at www.boogiewipes.com

Disclaimer: I was not compensated for this review. I was give the above mentioned products for review purposes only. All opinions are 100% my own.

Boogie Wipes was generous enough to offer 1 reader (2) packs of 30-count wipes (fresh, grape, menthol or unscented combination varies). Open to US, Canada and Australia Only. 

Entry-Form

Sick Kiddos :(

The boys have been sick AGAIN since this past weekend. They just can't catch a break.  I swear since school started I've had either a sickie or recovering sickie. And then poor little man is teething like CRAZY. It's like all of a sudden all his molars decided they were ready to pop out.

This time it started with my middle boy on Saturday. We were out shopping and he was shivering with goosebumps saying he was freezing. I thought it was just cause the store was a little chilly but of course that wasn't the case. Later that day he was burning up with a 103 temp and that's pretty much how the whole weekend went.

By Monday he was still running a 103 fever and just miserable. He ended up missing school Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday we went to the doctor and found out he has a double ear infection. So know he's on antibiotics for that. He said he was feeling better Wednesday and wanted to go to school.

Then on Wednesday my oldest came home looking terrible and threw him self on the couch saying he didn't feel good. He fell asleep almost immediately and started with the same exact symptoms his brother had. So he ended up staying home today.

Little man has been miserable to I'm not sure if it's just teething or he's not feeling good either or a lovely combo of both. Either way he's not sleeping good, his brothers aren't sleeping good and I'm lucky if I get 3-4 hours. Lately it's been about 2 1/2-3(that's not straight sleep either it broken up threw out the night).

So I'm pretty much a zombie and my brain isn't functioning very much anymore lol. I'm not even kidding it's getting pretty bad. There are so many stories I could tell but that would take forever :) The dentist called today  and asked if I was my middle boys mom and I answered this is (my middle boys name) not this is his mom but that I was him.

 As I was driving to drop my son off at school there's a 4 way street and only the 2 sides have to stop. I didn't have to but for some reason I thought I did and none of the other cars were going.  I'm thinking to my self what are you doing why the heck aren't you going. Then I realized DUH there not going cause my ding bat butt is just stopped in the middle of traffic!

I can't even speak correctly or remember simply words. I'll be like that you know you know what I mean. I've called my kids the wrong names multiple times :) Hopefully everyone will feel better soon and start to get at least a little more sleep before I loose what little bit of sense I still have.

Poor things :(

Raspberry White Chocolate Oatmeal Bars

Happy Friday! I'm so glad the weekend is here. I love baking anytime but especially in the fall/winter. There's just something about your house filled with the smell of baking I don't know I just love it : ) Any who I wanted to share a yummy raspberry white chocolate oatmeal bar recipe with you. There really easy to make and are just full of buttery chewy flaky goodness.

Raspberry White Chocolate Oatmeal Bars

•  1 3/4 sticks of salted butter, cut into pieces
•  1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
•  1 1/2 cups oats
•  1 cup packed brown sugar
•  1 tsp baking powder
•  1/2 tsp salt
•  10-12 oz jar of jam or pastry filling (what ever you prefer)
•  White chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350° degrees. Grease a 9×13 baking pan. Mix together the butter, flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. Press half the mixture into the prepared pan. Spread with jam or pastry filling ( I don't like to much so I just did a thin layer but put as much or little as you like). Sprinkle the remaining half of the oat mixture over the top and pat lightly. Bake until light brown 30-40 minutes (30 was perfect for me). Top with white chocolate chips pressing them in lightly to stick ( you can also just add them before you bake but they will get browned slightly). You could also melt the chips and drizzle it over the top so it looks prettier :)  Cool completely before cutting.

Enjoy :)