"Eat Your Veggies" Mac n Cheese

Okay I don't post recipes.....ever.  First time for everything right?
Last summer I checked out Deceptively Delicious which is a cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld that gets your kids to eat veggies.  I actually found a lot of good recipes in it (and promptly entered them into my onetsp.com account) but my favorite one is her mac n cheese recipe.  It is sooo good.  The problem right now is Walker and I have cut back our carbs.  That means macaroni is a no-go.  A few weeks ago I pinned a recipe for mac n cheese using cauliflower instead of noodles.  The problem with that recipe is that it called for some things that I just don't buy, like Kraft singles.  I cannot stand those.  I'm sorry, I think they're gross.  And is it really cheese?  Well I digress....sooo this past weekend I had a great idea- use the mac n cheese recipe from Deceptively Delicious but just use the cauliflower in place of the noodles.   The result?  A yummy comfort-food recipe that is low-carb and really not too terrible for you!  I will add that I was really hoping to write in here "and even my picky 2 year old gobbled it up!" but....she took a few bites and promptly asked for "tiken" and ketchup.  ::sigh:: Anyway, Walker and I enjoyed it; hopefully you will too.  :)

Ingredients:

• 1 head of cauliflower (this made enough for about 4 servings; if you prefer to use pasta, you need 16 oz of macaroni)
• nonstick cooking spray
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 cup nonfat milk
• 1/2 cup each carrot puree and squash puree**
• 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 8 oz reduced fat cream cheese
• 1/2 tsp salt

Directions:
Chop cauliflower up and steam until tender.
While the cauliflower is cooking, coat a large saucepan with cooking spray and heat over medium heat. Add the oil, then the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture resembles a thick paste but has not browned, 1-2 minutes.
Add the milk and cook, stirring every now and then, until the mixture begins to thicken, 3-4 minutes. Add the vegetable puree, Cheddar, cream cheese, and seasonings, and stir until the cheese is melted and the sauce is smooth. Stir in the cauliflower and serve warm.

**The original recipe called for cauliflower puree.  I didn't really want to put cauliflower puree over cauliflower so I substituted the squash.  Really, you can use whatever mild-tasting vegetable puree you want.  And it doesn't even have to be 2 different vegetables- just as long as you have a cup of puree in there, it should be good.

Nutritional Info (based on 4 servings)
Calories: 476
Fat: 34 (okay I know this is high but I used regular cheese; if you use reduced fat cheese you can cut this down quite a bit!)
Carbs: 21
Fiber: 6
Protein: 23

And I will add that neither Walker nor I needed anything else to eat with dinner- it was very filling!

Surgery for Our Girl

The title makes things more scary than they are, but here's the deal: Last week I took Taylor to an audiologist and an ENT.  They determined that she had fluid in her ears and enlarged adenoids and both needed to be fixed.  So this Friday at 7 AM Taylor will be getting tubes in her ears and her adenoids removed.  I know it's a really "standard" procedure but it's hard for me not to worry because she will still be put under general anesthesia.  So if you happen to think of it on Friday morning, say a quick prayer for Taylor (and me!).  Thanks!

and Lucy is sitting on my lap dying to get to the keyboard so I'm going to let her have at it:

mn   m,nb     f                    tr,      n                   gy                                               cc

(someone really likes the space bar)

Retraction

I'd like to print a retraction.  In December I gave the Recipe.com app rave reviews.  I should have used the app a little bit more before writing that post.  Since then I've discovered several problems with this app.
1. While you can sync between phones, you cannot sync to the website.  For whatever reason, this does not work with my phone.
2.  Sometimes you add an item and it doesn't show up on your list.  So you add it again....and again...and again.  Finally you give up and tell yourself to remember that item (which as any mommy out there knows, is impossible to do with mommy brain).
3. Scan the barcodes to add items?  Um, yeah right.  At first, I tried scanning Aldi brand products; it didn't recognize them.  And I thought "well okay, they're not as common."  But then I tried scanning name-brand products....that didn't work either.
4. The store specials listed are often incorrect or out of date.  Perfect example: last week it told us that the Green Giant boxed vegetables were on sale for 10/$10 at Meijer (which just happens to be my favorite sale because we LOVE eating those).  Imagine our sadness when we get to Meijer to find out they were most definitely NOT on sale.
5. There is no way to add a quantity of something.  This is a problem as I often need to know how much to get of something, not just what the item is. 
So sadly, I will be deleting this app from my phone.  I had such high hopes for it.  I did email the creators to let them know of all the problems I've had with it and I got some standard response on how they were working to fix those issues and they hoped to have them resolved shortly with a release of an update.  I'm not holding my breath on that one.
So back to paper lists we go.....

I'm 10 Months!

Hey everyone,
I thought it would be more fun to write a monthly update from my perspective, rather than Mommy's.  Oh yeah, this is Lucy by the way. 
So what have I been up to the last month?  Well I discovered that my arms and legs can do a whole lot more than I thought they could.  On Christmas Day, I finally figured out how to get from my belly to a sitting position.  I'd been working on that for months and now it seems so easy.  I don't know what took me so long!
And I've also learned that crawling with your belly off the floor is much better than doing that army crawl thing.  For one, I can get places much faster, and two, my belly doesn't get rubbed raw when mommy forgets to put a onesie under my shirts.
Oh and did you guys know that if you put your hands on something above you, that you can pull yourself up and see a lot more stuff?  It's so cool!  I can't believe I've been missing out on it for so long.  Mommy even put together a fun table that lights up and plays sounds.  It used to belong to Taylor and I guess she missed it because sometimes when I'm playing with it, she comes over and shoves me out of the way.  I definitely don't like that but Mommy and Daddy are pretty good about telling her not to do that and giving her a different toy to play with.
I still love eating fruit and vegetable purees.  One day Miss Monica tried giving me mushed up spaghetti....who is she kidding?  I tried spitting out every single bite.  It's not her fault though...Mommy thought I would like it.  Mommy thought wrong.  Maybe I can try it again once more of my teeth come in.
Yep I said more teeth.  I finally got my first tooth the other day.  Man, those things sure do hurt.  They kept me up a lot at night and I thought it was only fair to keep Mommy and Daddy up too.  That's what they're there for right?  But now that it's broken through, I've been sleeping much better.  In fact, they put me back in the crib in the nursery.  I guess they were worried I would wake up Taylor and then she wouldn't go back to sleep without her pacifier.  I'm not sure what the big deal is about having a pacifier....I love mine!  Although, for some reason I'm only allowed to have it for sleeping.  Maybe it's to keep me quiet at night.
I sure do make a lot of noise.  I love jabbering to anyone who will listen.  And I love imitating the fun sounds my sister makes.  Like right now, she'll do this high pitched scream and it is really fun to make that noise!  I plan on doing it a lot more.  I'm also working on some words.  Mommy and Miss Monica are pretty sure I know the word "ball."   I think they want me to work on saying "dada" and "mama."  Well I sometimes say those, but not necessarily when I'm talking to Mommy and Daddy.
Oh you might be wondering how big I am.  Well, Mommy weighed me and I was around 16 lbs, 13 oz.  Mommy doesn't think that's right though, but I told her the scale at our house wasn't accurate.  I guess we'll just have to wait until my next  check up to see what I weigh.  But I'm still pretty small.  Taylor is too, but I definitely have more rolls than she ever did.  Mommy loves squeezing my "chunk" as she calls it.  I don't mind it too much- it kind of tickles!
 Well, I think that's enough from me.  I have important things to do like chewing on some plastic animals, and investigating the crayon I saw roll under the recliner.  I'll see you all later!

Make Your Own Wipes

Okay, here is the promised post on making your own wipes.  I'm going to apologize right away for the lackluster pictures.  It's way easier for me to take pictures on my phone and email them to myself than to bust out the big camera, import the photos, and convert them to a readable file.  Plus the picture sizes end up being huge, making the uploading process to blogger a very lengthy one.
Anyway, here is what you'll need to make your wipes:

1 cup hot water
1 TBS olive oil
1 TBS baby wash (if you use cloth diapers, make sure you use an all natural baby wash!)
few drops of Tea Tree oil
paper towel
container to hold the wipes

I cut the paper towel roll in half and removed the cardboard middle.  This is a lot harder than it sounds.  I used a bread knife so it wasn't a neat job by any means.  And I swear they super glue that cardboard tube to the last sheet of paper towel!
Once paper towels are cut, place half in the container (old formula container in my case; man I've found some good uses for those!).

Notice I hid the ugly frayed edges on the bottom.  :) 
Now it's time to mix up the solution.  Add the olive oil, baby wash, and tea tree oil to the water and stir to mix everything up.

After everything is mixed, quickly start pouring the solution over the paper towels before the liquids separate again.  Now this part is tricky because you want to saturate the entire roll without making it so wet that the paper towel tears when you try to pull a sheet out.  But if you do it right, you should be able to pull sheets up right from the middle (kind of like clorox wipes!).

Now you don't have to use them this way.  You can unroll the paper towels and fold them into a regular wipes container and pour the solution over them that way too.  Or you can keep the solution in a spray bottle and just spray dry wipes (paper towel or cloth) as you need them. 
I will say that obviously paper towel is thinner and doesn't hold together as well as the commercial wipes.  So you will probably end up using more for a dirty diaper than you would otherwise.  I still think making your own wipes is more economical but I haven't crunched any numbers.  Obviously if you do cloth wipes and a wipe solution, that is more economical. 
There are many recipes out there for wipe solutions; I just picked the one above because olive oil is good for the skin and tea tree oil has disinfectant properties.

Finally, I Figured It Out!!

I know I've posted about Taylor's diaper rash before.  It's been an ongoing battle for....a long time.  Even when she was in disposables we had to deal with it.  When we made the switch to cloth diapers, I was hoping it would get better since I've heard cloth diapers can help with diaper rash.  Unfortunately, it wasn't the case. 
Then I thought "well it gets worse when she poops" so I blamed her poop.  But you can't tell a child not to poop.  And I wasn't about to start elimination communication and hold her over a toilet to poop. 
We tried so many different diaper rash creams too.  I finally got one I was excited about: Grandma El's.  I read really great reviews online.  It came shortly after we went on winter break from school.  And her rash cleared up.  Her butt looked great over break.  And I thought "YAY!  We found the answer!"  Then, within the first few days of her being back at daycare, the rash was back and it was bad.  Our daycare provider said "well she did poop a lot today," but I knew that couldn't be the only reason.  Lots of kids poop lots of times every day and they're fine.  There had to be something else.  Then I started thinking about winter break and our diaper changing routine.  I realized that over break, we used cloth wipes with a homemade wipe solution for all diaper changes except poopy ones.  I formed a hypothesis: Taylor was having a reaction to the chemicals in the disposable wipes.  So this past weekend, I made up a fresh batch of wipe solution and used a roll of paper towels to make my own disposable wipes and we started using those.  Then on Monday, I brought the container to daycare and asked our provider to please use those instead of the other wipes.  And you know what?  Taylor's butt is getting better!  It's not like an overnight change, but it is definitely better.
So I guess the point of this is, if you've been battling diaper rash, it might be the wipes.  You can make your own (and my next post will be on how to do that!) or find some "natural" wipes.  I'm not entirely proficient at making my own disposable wipes (and they are rather thin; I plan to elaborate on that in the next post) so I think I'm going to try these wipes from Walgreens and see if they irritate the girls.  They are more expensive but I'd probably just use them for daycare and still make my own (and use cloth ones) at home. 

A Look Back

I guess I'll jump on the blogging bandwagon here and post something about 2011.  It was a pretty good year for us I have to say.  Let's just do a summation with pictures. :)

Sometime last January I decided Taylor's bangs were too long.  This is the result.  Lesson learned: don't cut your child's hair unless you are a professional!

Also last January I got to meet some of the wonderful ladies from CFPN in person.  I cannot express how much love and support I've gotten from them!  (If you're interested in joining, check out the blinkie on here)

Definitely not the most flattering picture of me but I love this picture of Miss Lucy and I (thanks Jill for capturing this one!)

I know I've already posted this picture on here but I love it because it shows what I worked so hard to achieve: a baby in milk coma :)

From our trip to NC.  12 hours in the car with two under two is horrible challenging an accomplishment.

My yummy birthday cake from my 30th birthday (my golden birthday mind you)

Taylor's first time trick-or-treating.  She did very well with going to people's doors, not so great on actually saying "trick or treat."

 Taylor turns 2!

Lucy's first Christmas

2011 was a very good year for us and I have so many more pictures I could share, but the picture uploader is being slow and I'm getting bored :)  Here's to a great 2012 and we hope God blesses you many times this year!