Yummy Dessert

A few weeks ago I stumbled across a recipe for a ridiculously yummy dessert. I made it for Thanksgiving this year, and I wanted to share my findings with you. Its called Swirled Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bars. When you think about it, you really cant lose with this dessert. Its delish, and pumpkin is an aphrodisiac. This is what we call a win-win scenario. :)

Swirled Pumpkin-Cream Cheese Bars

Ingredients

• 6 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, at room temperature
  
  

Preparation

1. In a bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar until smooth. Beat in 2 eggs, pumpkin, and 1/3 cup water until well blended, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. In another bowl, mix flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and nutmeg; stir or beat into butter mixture until well blended. Spread batter evenly in a buttered and floured 10- by 15-inch baking pan.

2. In a bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat cream cheese, remaining egg, and remaining 1/4 cup sugar until smooth.

3. Drop cream cheese mixture in 24 evenly spaced 1-tablespoon portions over batter. Pull a knife tip through filling to swirl slightly into batter.

4. Bake in a 350° oven until center of pumpkin batter (not cream cheese mixture) springs back when touched, about 30 minutes. Let cool completely in pan, then cut into 24 bars.

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When I cut them up, mine ended up looking more like a cake as opposed to a "bar". So I need to figure out how to fix that. Other than that, everything was pretty simple.

Click here to get the nutritional info and all that jazz. And let me know if you end up making it!

Enjoy! :)

Zachariah Patrol

Earlier this morning I was sitting on my bed talking to Daniel on the phone. Well, I wasn't really talking. I was more so whining/complaining/crying about how I cant find a receipt to some pants that I want to return. (It has been one of those mornings.)

Anyway, during the phone conversation Zachariah had been in and out of my room and his room, switching out our belongings. But as soon as I hung up I realized that I didn't hear him bustling around anymore (That is NEVER a good sign). Almost immediately I realized where he was and went stomping down the hallway. I was already getting onto him in my best "You-have-no-idea-how-much-trouble-you-are-in" voice, and turns out I should have used my "Mommy-would-spank-your-butt-if-it-wasn't-for-that-darn-diaper" voice.
I was livid. And he was ecstatic. He has never been able to successfully unroll the whole entire roll of toilet paper. He has tried, but those darn parents have gotten in the way every time. So needless to say, he was in baby heaven. Until he saw how pissed Mommy was. (And I still haven't cleaned up that mess. I just piled the toilet paper on top of the toilet. Daniel is going to have a nice little surprise when he gets home. LOL)

Soon after the "toilet paper party" we were in the living room watching Elmo's World. I was sitting on the couch, apparently off in my own little world, when I hear a trash can tip over behind me. And yet again, I march over and find Zachariah enjoying a nice little "trash can party".


I am not pointing any fingers, but SOMEONE is falling down on "Zachariah Patrol" today. And if they keep it up this house may be a wreck by the time Daniel gets home.
:)

Collin Stone

My sister-in-law had her baby yesterday. His name is Collin, and he weighs 5 pounds 4 ounces and is 17 inches long. He was born 4 weeks early, so he is in the NICU right now so they can monitor him. But everything is going really well. I am so proud of Christie. She did a great job and has handled everything wonderfully. Daniel wrote a post about it over at his blog, so go check it out.

And now for a couple pictures...

Congrats Christie and Brian!! You have one adorable baby boy! :)

Bragging Rights

Bear with me for a bit, while I take some time to do a bit of bragging. :)

Zachariah got some Baby Einstein Alphabet Books for his birthday. He absolutely LOVES these books. Several times a week, he will bring them up to me and we will go through every single book (Each one only has three pages, so it doesn't take too long). I will start each book by pronouncing the sound of the letter that is on the front. Z picked up on that pretty quickly and he has been repeating the letter sound after us.

Well... now he has moved on to letter recognition! There are 8-10 of them that he knows. I will show him one of the books and he will actually make the correct letter sound! At 14 months old!! I don't know about you, but I was pretty darn impressed.

Below is a picture of the letters that he can recognize so far. I will try to get a video of it sometime soon. Its just too cute!

Can You Hula Hoop like this?

I saw this amazing six year old girl on Oprah last week. She was literally born into the circus and started hula hooping at 3 years old. Her name is Americus, and I think she is adorable. And she can hula hoop better than anyone I have met. :)

Click here to watch her preform!!

Birthday Shout Out

Just wanted to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my brother, Wesley! He turns 22 years old today... And yes ladies, he is available.

And these are the ghetto cupcakes I made him. Don't make fun. I was sick and I don't have any experience with decorating. So this is what I ended up with. lol

Happy Birthday, Wesley!

Wearing Daddy's Hat

I'm sorry... but I just can't get over how cute my child is. I mean really, I just cant get enough of the cuteness.

And I HAVE to find him a hat like this. Because it is just plain adorable.

The End.

Christmas Video

I saw this video on a friends blog this morning. I liked it so much I decided to be a copycat and put it on my blog as well. Thanks for the video, Tammi! :)
Enjoy!

Sick as a Dog

Some type of illness has been going around Daniel's office, and he has now brought it home. So needless to say, I feel like crap.

This is the first time I have been sick since having Zachariah, so lets just say it has been a bit different that being able to lay in the bed all day watching TV. Gone are those days....

First Hair Cut

Yesterday, I took on the challenge of giving Zachariah his first hair cut. (Though I would consider it more of a trim. He doesn't have a ton of hair to begin with.) He was a bit squirmy. He kept moving his head up and down, and then tried to swat at the scissors a few times. Amazingly enough, we managed to come out unharmed. At one point I thought I had accidentally given him a mullet though. But all is well. Hopefully the picture hides the unevenness of his hair. I still need to go back and get a few stragglers. But he had enough for one sitting, so I didn't push it.

Before:

After:

Honesty is the Best Policy

For the past seven months I have been struggling with depression. Sadly, I am just now starting to come to grips with that.

I thought that the depression would come immediately after having Zachariah. I had read up on postpartum depression, so I was prepared for it. Days, weeks, and even months went by, and I was just fine. But around his seventh month birthday, depression slowly started trickling into my life. I guess staying at home with virtually no adult contact during the day eventually got to me. I didn't want to admit that I was feeling depressed. I thought it was a sign of weakness. I didn't want people to think less of me. I didn't want people to think I was a bad mom.

So I kept ignoring it, thinking it would get better with time. Until just a couple weeks ago when a friend called me out on it. For the first time, I actually admitted I was suffering from postpartum depression. Talking with someone who has gone through this before has made a world of difference. For the first time in months I went a whole week without having an emotional breakdown. I enjoyed myself and my time with my family immensely. It was great to be myself again.

Don't get me wrong... I still have my moments. And I am sure it is not going to be smooth sailing from here on out. I am really going to have to work at this. I may eventually even need medication. But for now, I just need to talk about it. And so far it has helped.

So yeah. That's what is going on in my life right now. And if you guys don't mind, I think I may try to post about this more often. This "being real" thing is actually really satisfying. :)

1 800 SafeAuto

This is one of those commercials that I love to hate. It is really is a horrible commercial. But I just cant look away.

Diapers

We have a basket for Zachariah's diapers located on the first shelf of his changing table (picture below). The basket holds approximately 40 diapers, and I usually re-load the basket once a week. Sometimes I can go a bit longer... just depends on what he has eaten that week. :)

Unfortunately, since Zachariah has been walking, he has discovered the diaper basket. That being said, it is not uncommon for me to walk into his room and find this:

He LOVES to take the diapers out of the basket. He will stand there and throw them over his shoulder while mumbling something in Japanese (which is downright hilarious). Luckily, he has started helping me pick up the diapers. He will usually hand them to me one by one while giggling, but lately he has decided to put them in the basket by himself. Here is the problem...

Mommy likes the diapers to look like this:

Zachariah likes the diapers to look like this:

Ah well. Whatever works. :)

Portable Washing Machine?

I was watching The Today Show this morning, and heard an interesting segment on shopping carts. There was a study done, and it turns out that shopping carts are more dirty than toilets. I guess when you think about it, that makes perfect sense. I mean, hundreds of people touch the handle a day. A butt load of kids sit in the seats, and some might slobber, spit up, poop, or pee on them. Then there are the groceries that actually go into the cart! What if the uncooked chicken has a hole in the packaging? All of that, and grocery carts are not washed regularly... if ever. Gross.

So I guess it wasn't to far fetched for someone to come up with this product:

A washing machine for shopping carts. How smart is that? It has a 5 minuet cycle and over 300 washes per gallon! I guess I will be wiping down my grocery cart handle from now on... at least until I see one of these here in town. :)

Welcome to the Jungle

Confession time.
I always have to have the TV turned on. Even its just to have on in the background as I get stuff done, it is on... constantly. The kicker is that we only have one channel. We have not been able to justify getting cable, but luckily we live right down the street from a TV station, so we get NBC. And as long as I have The Office, I am a happy camper.

Often I will watch whatever show happens to be on, regardless if I like it or not. That being said, I started watching Lipstick Jungle last season. I didn't think I would like it, but watched it because I had nothing else to do. And before I knew it, it was added to my list of "regulars". There is nothing special about this show. Its not cleverly written, its doesn't have good morals, and it doesn't have the best acting. But it has good clothes and scandalous women. So I cant stop watching it. Sad isn't it?

So that is my Television guilty pleasure. What is yours?

My Boys

Like father, like son...

Immunizations

Zachariah's 15 month shots are coming up. Naturally, that has caused me to do some thinking about vaccines. There is a good bit of controversy going on about vaccines now days, and I am just now starting to do some research about it. So in the meantime, I want to know what all of you think about children getting vaccines. Do you think it is a good thing? Bad thing? Have your children been vaccinated and have you had any negative results from that?

I will post info as I do some more digging. But I really do want to hear what you think about it!

My jumbled thoughts

I have been quite depressed today, and I cannot seem to shake it. I blame most of it on the fabulous postpartum depression that has decided to run my life for the past 7 months... but I think part of it has to do with the election results. I have no idea what is going to happen. I do know that the world will probably not come to an end the day Obama is sworn into office. What I don't know is if he will be the downfall of this country, or if he will actually improve the way things are going. Don't get me wrong... I have a guess. But I just don't know. And apparently I have a real problem with the unknown.

I probably need to work on that.
Anyway. Those are my thoughts, jumbled as they may be.

My Little Toddler

He has been working at this for a couple weeks now, but I think it is safe to say that Zachariah is (for the most part anyway) walking more than crawling! It took him 13 months, but he has really gotten the hang of this walking thing. It is very bittersweet... to see my baby confidently walking down the hallway with a HUGE grin on his face. He acts as if he had been doing this his whole life. Its just the cutest thing.



We are oh-so-proud of this little man!

LOL

As of late, Zachariah has been having a little to much fun with our toilet paper. In hopes of putting a stop to the toilet paper unraveling, I went on a search for a cover.

I found this...

Every time you take some toilet paper out it makes a fart sound. I realize I shouldn't find this quite so comical... but sometimes I cant help myself. I guess that's what I get for being married to a middle schooler.