Pinspiring Friday!

     This week's edition of Pinspiring Friday is all about holiday sweets. All of the recipes were ones that I found on Pinterest, which is now my go-to place to find recipes for desserts. 
     On Wednesday night after a particularly trying evening of putting Owen to bed (he was up until almost 9!), I decided that we needed a special treat to drink while relaxing for another hour or so before we went to bed. I have had this recipe pinned on Pinterest for a while now, but had been waiting for a good night to try it. Nutella Hot Chocolate! If you have a special someone (or want to get a special someone), make this for them and they will love you forever. Especially, it seems, if that person is male and has the last name Rumely. For some reason, Rumely men all have a thing for Nutella. 

Yummy...

     All you do for one generous serving is mix one cup of milk with two tablespoons of Nutella and then heat it over medium on the stove while whisking it smooth. It tastes so very good and I burned my tongue because it was so tasty that I couldn't wait for it to cool before drinking it. Tim has said that he would think it an extra special treat if he had a thermos of this waiting for him before work one morning. Not so big of a deal until you consider that Tim leaves for work at 5 a.m. Talk about a special treat! Anyway, this is a fantastic take on hot cocoa and tastes a million times better than powdered hot chocolate mix. And when you make it, an angel gets its wings.

Here was my inspiration for the Nutella hot chocolate.

      I also made two batches of cookies last night that I found on Pinterest. The first were Double chocolate cookies with a peppermint patty surprise. They were fairly easy to make though forming the dough around the peppermint patty was kind-of difficult because the dough started to warm up and get all gooey. They turned out really tasty though. Here is a photo of my finished cookies.

See the peppermint patty inside? After my caramel-stuffed apple cider cookies, I am a sucker for cookies stuffed with things.

    The other batch of cookies were hot cocoa cookies. They are really yummy because the cookie has sort-of a gooey chocolate center almost like one of those molten lava cakes and then even more chocolate and a marshmallow on top. Oh mercy. Anyway, I highly recommend either (or both!) recipes if you are looking for a delicious new Christmas-y cookie.

Melty delicious goodness...

Pardon my freaky hand and dirty-looking nails (that's chocolate under there, not dirt by the way). I just wanted to show the melting marshmallow and chocolate.

    And to finish us off, here's a picture of a sleeping baby. Because he's adorable. And I don't need any other excuse to show off more photos of him. Plus, that morning he slept until 8:30 a.m. and I felt the need to document it.

Have you ever seen more smushy and kissable cheeks in your life?

Owen and the peas

     Sometime in the past month, Owen has decided that he no longer likes peas. Strangely enough, when he was 6 months old, I would have said that they were one of his favorite foods. So the other night after struggling to get him to eat them for what seemed like the five millionth time, Tim and I just decided to let him have at it. The resulting pictures are what happens when you let your eight-month-old try to feed himself. We didn't start taking photos until he had already started so you don't get to see the whole thing, but I tried to provide captions so you get a sense of how it went down.

Let's see, I have a bowl and a spoon...now what?

Alright, now to scoop up some of the green stuff.

And put the soft side into my mouth! This isn't so hard!

Wonder if there's a faster way to eat this? Maybe if I just carefully tip the bowl into my mouth.

My bowl is almost empty. I must have been hungry.

All done! How'd I do Dad?

Wait a minute? How did this get here?

It was in my bowl and then... oh, I see.

Well, no sense letting it go to waste. Impromptu finger painting session!

A masterpiece, if I do say so myself. Also, it makes quite good hair gel.

And there you have it. A full and happy baby in need of a bath.

Owen is eight months old!

I'm eight months old!

At eight months old, Owen was (based on our scale at home):

Weight:  18 pounds,  13 ounces, 50^th percentile

Length: 27.5 inches long, 50^th percentile

     He didn’t have an official doctor’s appointment this month so all measurements were done by us at home. He didn't gain much weight, but he is crawling around a ton now, so that may be part of it.

Eating:

     Owen is still drinking five or six ounces of breastmilk at each feeding. He eats every three hours still until his last feeding in the evening. He eats a meal of pureed fruits or vegetables or rice cereal two times a day, in the morning and in the evening. He doesn't eat as much as the baby books suggest that he should eat at each feeding. He still enjoys apples, pears, peas, and sweet potatoes. This month he has tried butternut and acorn squash, peaches, and prunes, all of which he likes. We have started trying to give him finger foods to eat. He loves Gerber Puffs, a puffed rice cereal-like snack for babies. We have also tried Gerber Yogurt Melts, but Owen choked on them the first time we gave them to him because they apparently don’t melt as fast as the package says. It was very scary so we won't try those again for a while. One time when I was making beef vegetable soup, I gave him some cooled cubes of potato to eat, but he didn’t like them. He is still practicing chewing.

Eating Puffs for the first time.

 Sleeping:

    Owen has been sleeping through the night most of this month, though he has a tooth coming through now so he typically wakes up once or twice in the night because of that. We still swaddle him when we put him to sleep, but he breaks out of it during the night. Many times we put him in his crib when he is drowsy and we play the bedtime music on a stuffed animal that he has and he falls asleep before the ten minutes of music are up. Other times, we rock him to sleep. He naps twice a day now for anywhere between 30 minutes and two hours. His first nap is typically at 9:30 or 10 in the morning and his second is around 3 p.m. I generally just put him in his crib when he starts to get cranky and turn on his stuffed animal and he falls asleep on his own.

Other Things I Want to Remember:

     Owen is wearing nine month and size 6-12 month clothing. He wears size 3 diapers. He still doesn’t have any shoes, but he is size 3. We have tried shoes on him in stores, but it is nearly impossible to put them on him because he keeps curling up his toes. 

     Owen’s hair is getting thicker and darker. Sometimes he will wake up and the hair on the top of his head is standing up and no amount of mommy saliva will keep it down. His eyes are still a beautiful dark hazel color. 

     Owen began teething again this month. His top left tooth has popped through, and his top right will probably not be too far behind. He has been drooling a ton and chewing on everything he can get in his mouth. He also grinds his two bottom teeth against his top tooth. 

     Owen has been “crawling” up a storm this month. He still doesn’t crawl in the typical hands and knees way, but he definitely manages to get around. I cannot leave him for a second unattended now or he will find his way into trouble. He has gotten very fast at his method of crawling. He also frequently gets up on his hands and toes, which we call doing planks, which is an exercise.

      Owen babbles more now. He is still experimenting with the different noises he can make. He started blowing raspberries this month and in addition to the “Buh-buh-buh” noise, he has started making a “Puh” sound. He also "growls" at his toys a lot, which sounds like "Errrr...."

Owen is "growling" in this picture.

     Owen is disinterested in basically every toy that he has now and prefers playing with anything else he can find around the house. I have lately been giving him various kitchen utensils to play with instead. And when I am in the kitchen cooking or doing dishes, I let him play in the Tupperware cabinet, which is the only one that doesn't have a cabinet lock on it. He is really attracted to cords from laptops, my breast pump, the lamp, etc. and will try to get them frequently. So we have to keep an eye out for that. He recently found the spring doorstoppers and enjoys playing with those so we've removed the rubber tips so he can't pull them off and choke on them. He also likes chewing on the rubber wedge doorstop that keeps our bedroom door open. (I Lysoled it). He has become interested in the electrical outlets, so we have started plugging those with the plastic protector thingies. Owen knows which things he is not allowed to play with and if he sees me coming to keep him from them, he starts crawling faster and makes frantic panting noises as he tries to get to it before I can stop him.

    Owen can now recognize our faces in photographs. Whenever we hold him in the kitchen near the fridge, he will look at the photos on it and get really excited. 

    Owen still loves bath time and particularly enjoys playing with his two rubber duckies in the tub. I also bathed him in the sink for the first time this month, which was pretty cute, but not something I will do frequently. I have started using Aveeno bath products for Owen because I read online that there are two known carcinogens in Johnson and Johnson baby shampoos and while they have removed those chemicals in some countries, the company has yet to do it in the United States.

     Here are some pictures from Owen's eight month photo shoot. It's becoming harder and harder to get pictures of him now that he's on the move so much.

The photo shoot starts with a new backdrop to keep the Christmas tree out of view.

Haha! Mommy's crazy antics while trying to make me smile make her look ridiculous.

Then I tried to make a break for it, but Mommy brought me back.

My top left tooth is poking through and my top right isn't going to be far behind.

Another escape attempt thwarted.

Hey Elephant, remember when you used to be bigger than me?

My pretty eyes get compliments all the time.

Weird noises make me smile.

Have you ever seen cuter baby feet in your life?

And then I found the sticker.

Hahaha! And you thought I would leave the sticker alone this month!

We finished the photo shoot with an impromptu game of peekaboo.

Don't worry, I'm still here.

Oh, hey Daddy!

What's missing in this picture? I'll give you a hint. It starts with an "S' and rhymes with ticker.

Pinspiring Friday!

     I finally finished Owen's shadowbox of newborn memorabilia today. I am really happy with how it turned out. Tim helped me a lot when it came to laying out all the items because I had a hard time figuring out how to fit them all in. That whole thing about guys have better spatial skills is totally true. We hung it in Owen's bedroom above his rocking chair so now all of the walls in his room have something on them. I was able to fit in a picture of Owen, the identification card from his hospital isolet, his blood pressure cuff, his newborn hat and socks, his footprints, his measuring tape, his pacifier, and all of our hospital bracelets (we had five in all).

Here's the finished product!

The new view of his room from the door. Now I just need to finally get some curtains!

Now it's hanging above the reading nook.

Tasty Thursday

      Last week was a home run as far as our dinners were concerned. Every recipe (new and old) was so good and pretty much every meal had enough leftovers for both Tim and I to be set on lunches as well. The chicken pot pie soup was so yummy and warm and comforting. Especially after our busy day of visiting Santa and getting our Christmas tree and poor Tim having to wrangle the tree into the tree stand. I'm very proud of him though because I think the worst curse word he used while doing it was "Fudge muffins." Whatever that means. The biggest dinner shocker was the Autumn penne pasta with sauteed brussels sprouts. I was a little worried about the brussels sprouts, but it turned out really good and Tim even went back for seconds. High praises for something with probably the No. 1 most hated vegetable in the world in it. Also, and as another plug for the Easy Mulligatawny from last night, Tim had to choose between taking taco meatloaf or the soup to work for lunch and he chose the mulligatawny. And that is the highest recommendation I could ever get for it. 


Thursday: Chicken tortilla soup. This is a recipe from Pioneer Woman Cooks that I've had my eye on for a while, but have not made because of the number of ingredients in it. But now  I've started shopping at a cheaper grocery store (Winco), I can get canned goods for much less than I could at Albertson's. Plus, last week I bought more than 13 pounds of chicken breasts for less than $12. That's less than a dollar a pound! I love my new grocery store! Also, they have a super awesome bulk section where you can buy flour, beans, sugar, spices, candy, nuts, and so much more without having to buy an entire box of something. 

Friday: Leftover soup. Tim will be playing in a charity golf tournament this evening so it will be better if he can just eat leftovers before he goes off to play golf in the dark! The golf tournament is part of Movember (Mustache November), which raises awareness for men's cancer research. 
Saturday: Chicken pot pie with cheddar crust. This is a recipe from Food Network that I have made a couple times before. It is hands-down the best recipe for chicken pot pie that I've ever made. Plus, we already have chicken, carrots, celery, and cheddar cheese leftover from meals that I made last week and I don't want them to go to waste. The only problem with this recipe is that it takes a good deal of time to make the crust and chop all the vegetables and my kitchen looks like a hurricane went through it afterwards, but it is so yummy and makes a ton so we'll have plenty of leftovers. 

Sunday: Leftover chicken pot pie. 
Monday: Crock pot Italian turkey meatballs. This is a new recipe from the blog Skinny Taste. I am really looking forward to making it because I've always wanted to make meatballs, but I've always been a little apprehensive about it. We'll eat it with pasta and steamed or roasted broccoli.

Tuesday: Chicken and white bean enchiladas with creamy salsa verde. I made this the other week and I made some changes to it because I thought it was going to be too spicy with two jalapenos in it, but after I baked it the spiciness wasn't as noticeable and I want to make it again to see if I can't get it to the perfect level of heat.  

Wednesday: Slow cooker chicken rice curry. This is a recipe from McCormick's, the company that makes all the spices and stuff. I'm pretty certain that it's not the most authentic recipe or anything, though I think there are probably a bunch of different versions of the dish. All I know is that I love the flavor of curry and I also love using my slow cooker. The recipe uses bone-in chicken breasts so I'm hoping that will help the chicken not dry out as much. I generally have a problem with boneless skinless chicken drying out when I make it in the slow cooker.