Sunday, March 29, 2015

Our Two Year Old




STATS:
Height: Can't remember but she is in the 50th percentile
Weight: 26.5 pounds (50th percentile)
Clothes size: 2T
Diaper size: Still 4's
Teeth: All but her back 2 molars
Sleeping: Has consistently slept through the night ever since her ear tube surgery at 21 months.
Eating: Completely weaned her from nursing just a couple weeks before her second birthday. We had a good run! Now she just drinks 2% milk and water and eats regular toddler meals, and by that I mean she eats the 3 things she likes.
Bathroom: Still slowly working on getting her potty trained. She has peed on her "potty chair" here and there for at least 6 months, but it's only at random. She definitely knows when she's pooping her diaper though, she has started to tell us: "Poop!!"
Playing: She can play with literally anything and have fun. She loves to read books both by herself and by us.

She also loves to play with household items and get them by herself by taking one of her chairs and reaching for whatever she can. Right now she has been taking two candles and some shave butter from Adam's bathroom and stacking them and smelling them over and over. Kinda odd, but seems harmless as long as I'm watching.

She also likes to use her toys for all the wrong reasons. Like flipping her hungry hungry hippo game upside down and taking it apart.




FAVORITES:
Favorite foods: all kinds of fruit, pb sandwiches, yogurt, spaghetti. I so wish she liked vegetables more!!
Favorite toys: her doll, stroller, "motorcycle" (tricycle), hungry hungry hippo game, kitchen set. She plays with just about all of her toys right now.
Favorite book: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (she has to take it to bed with her every single night)
Favorite movie: Big Hero 6




Went to the dentist for the first time last week. I don't think I have ever heard her cry that bad before. And she wasn't even in pain. Someone else was just trying to look at her teeth. I didn't know that was worthy of screaming bloody murder. Afterward she acted like nothing happened. She even bragged to grandma about getting her "teeth painted" with a smile on her face. Like whaaaa, who are you trying to fool?



I keep forgetting to write down all the witty/cute phrases that Mira has been saying. She truly is a little parrot. Here are a few off the top of my head.

  • "Daddy's working" - randomly, when no one even asked about him. She just likes to inform others.
  • "You're home!" - when Adam gets home
  • "I'm going to the gym" - when she's heading out the door to go somewhere. Spoiler: she's not going to the gym.
  • "That darn cat!" - this is from Big Hero 6 and I think it's her favorite part of the entire movie. 




Social: She is the friendliest girl in the world half the time, and the other half she is just sketched out by certain people and just yells "NO!" at them while throwing out the "talk to the hand" signal. It seems pretty random, so I hope people don't take offense. She loves playing with other kids her age and is also drawn to older girls who are between 5-10. It's adorable. She is often very type A personality and bossy when playing with kids. I try to intervene and tell her to basically chill out as much as I can. I'm interested to see how this is going to go as she gets older. 

Learning: She can count to 20 flawlessly. She can sing the ABC's flawlessly. She is recognizing letters. She consistently can point out L, M, N, O, W, X. All the other letters are a little more inconsistent and take some thinking. I've started teaching her 1-10 in Spanish; she speaks them very clearly. Knows all her colors (even grey and brown). Knows basic shapes including trickier ones like rectangle and heart. Okay, okay I'm done bragging!




Embarrassing moment of the week: I was going to call this lady about a house we just signed for (YAY!) and got the number set up in my phone to call. I set my phone down and Mira had come over and jumped on me. She had boogers in her nose so I tried to get them out with a kleenex and was yelling "boogie nose!" and other goofy things to get her to giggle so she'd let me do it. I kept repeating things about "boogies" really loud and in a goofy voice and then looked over at my phone, which was on speaker phone somehow, and I had apparently called the lady. The call had been in session for 33 seconds, so long enough to be listening. I grabbed the phone and said "Hello?" and she was still on. Sigh.... I wish she would've just hung up right away like a normal person. At least that didn't hurt our chances for getting the house! 


Thursday, March 26, 2015

Cajun Spiced Sweet Potato Burger Recipe


I had an awesome sweet potato burger at Tavern on the Hill here in Duluth. I figured it would be a cool recipe to duplicate and have at home, so I tried to see if I could find their ingredients online, but couldn't. Their website did say something about a cajun spice so I decided I could figure the rest out on my own. 



And hey, they turned out pretty bomb. Especially considering I've never made any type of sweet potato burgers at home before.

Ingredients:
2 large or 3 medium sweet potatoes, baked (fyi they are called red yams at our grocery store)
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 c diced onion
1 1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 C quick oats

Directions:
After baking the potatoes in the oven, mash them in a large bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients. Now line a baking sheet with wax paper and mold the sweet potato mix into patties and line them on the sheet (there is no non-messy way to do this). Refrigerate for an hour. Heat a medium sized skillet with some olive oil on it. Take out the patties and, using a spatula, place one at a time on the skillet and cook each side for about 5 minutes or until slightly charred. 


Get some of your favorite buns and toast them for a minute or two. Place the finished sweet potato patties on the toasted buns and relish with a red onion ring or some lettuce and this burger sauce

So good! Do yourself a favor and don't be shy with the cayenne pepper.


YUM!
Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Little Girls Springtime Fashion


1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 (now sold out, similar here) | 6 | 7



Thursday, March 12, 2015

Mira is 2!


Mira is 2 and more fun than ever! We constantly oogle over her cuteness and are impressed with her at the same time. 



We had a small party for her last weekend and she had so much fun. I hardly saw her since she was so busy playing with her cousins and her new presents. 








Likes:

"Reading" books
Playing pretend
Eating
Jumping
101 Dalmations
Hockey



Mira-isms:
Calls her butt "button"
Grabs my face and kisses me on the mouth, both my cheeks, my nose, my eyes, and sometimes my ears. So loving and sweet.
Telling people they're naughty



Emotional Growth:
Mira is aware of her emotions, not saying she handles them well but she at least lets us know when she's sad, mad, happy, etc. 

         

Finally gets to be forward facing :)



For those of you from Mira's party who asked, here are the recipes for the glazed ham and cheese sandwiches and the cake balls :)

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

HAIR: Managing Natural Curls


Curly Hair. We all hated ours growing up, and most of us love it now. 

Being a mom of a young child is a struggle with long hair sometimes. It gets pulled and stuck in places all the time. For a short while I did want to chop it off, but it would require too much maintenance since it would naturally want to fro out. I can always cut it down the road when I am feeling extra mom-like.

Now I really embrace my horse-like hair versus when I was younger, it was always in a gross looking wet pony tail. I love trying new products and I feel like I've tried a lot of them over the years. Most of the best ones I actually got as birchbox or sephora samples initially.

I switch shampoo and conditioner brands all the time. I have ones that I really like, but it's fun to try different ones. The conditioner that I keep coming back to, because it's only $2.99 and actually works really well is L'Oreal Paris Advanced Haircare Restoring Conditioner. But here are the hair products that I don't stray from.



Favorite deep conditioner: EVA NYC Hair Mask This seriously makes my hair soo shiny and silky.

Favorite Leave-in conditioner: It's a 10 Miracle Leave In Product. This has been a long-time favorite. It's gotten quite popular over the last few years. You cannot find a leave-in conditioner any better than this.

Favorite oil: Moroccan Oil Hair Treatment. Only if you want the best hair ever. I heard their whole product line is bomb, but I've only tried the oil.

Favorite dry shampoo: Amika Obliphica Perk Up Dry Shampoo. If I had to choose my favorite smell, it would be the Amika product line. This dry shampoo serves two purposes for me: it combats oily hair when I don't have time to wash it and it makes my hair smell phenomenal.

Hair mousse: I don't use it that frequently, but John Frieda Luxurious Volume Mousse has a great hold for curls. For a drug-store hair product, I was pleasantly surprised with the quality.
Thursday, March 5, 2015

Things I Learned This Week | 5 Things

1. My city is a terrible market for housing. 
Our lease is up the end of May. We are looking for a decent house or townhome that isn't a ran down "college kid friendly" party house, but one that also doesn't cost $2000 a month to rent. It's like there's no in between.


2. Once your kid is two, it is frowned upon if they go on a (playful) yelling spree at the library.
I realized today I need to start getting her spirited personality under control. It's starting to not be cute anymore when she is loud in public. I remember when people oogled over Mira doing, well, shenanigans I guess you could say. Now I get forced half smiles or straight up side-eyeing when she's doing funny business.




3. Mira didn't know what ice cream was. 
It was her birthday yesterday. I kept telling her "you get to have ice cream (frozen yogurt) tonight!" I got no response. I realized she has only had ice cream once while on vacation and has probably forgot about it. Her one memory of ice cream was revived with some Chilly Billy's frozen yogurt later that night. She mostly just cared about the pineapple chunks and marshmallow toppings.


4. I have the capacity to raise my voice at my child. 
6 months ago, even 3 months ago. I could never imagine raising my voice at Mira. Now that terrible twos are in full swing, I have done it. I always feel hella guilty afterwards. I'm trying to sort out when it's necessary to raise my voice and when it's not, like when I'm letting my patience run out.




5. I don't get sad when Mira has a birthday.
I always hear about moms getting emotional when their child turns another year older. I didn't get this when Mira turned one, nor am I feeling it right now, now that she's two. It's happy and fun to me. It went by fast, but not *too* fast. I have enjoyed the ride. I did, however, look at her today while she was sleeping in the car and shed tears. Tears of gratitude. Gratitude for how beautiful she is, how peaceful she was, how lucky I am, and how proud I am. So much love sometimes I just can't handle it.




Sunday, March 1, 2015

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups




 I tried some delicious peanut butter bars that a friend of mine had made and I HAD to make them myself. I was up for a challenge and wanted to have some fun and make them into peanut butter cups. It is actually much easier than I thought it was going to be. 

One thing I notice when I look at recipes is the amount of butter. It always seems so unnecessary. Two sticks of butter for something that has only 12-24 servings? No thanks. I always cut the amount of butter in half, at least. I either replace it with something or just cut it out all together and have a thicker, dryer consistency. I can deal with that, I have yet to be disappointed. 


So once again, with the original recipe, I cut out half the butter and half the powdered sugar. I also made a half batch of the peanut butter mixture from the original which was plenty. And there were singing angels at the first bite. No, I'm serious. Okay it was me. I was the one singing at first bite.




RECIPE

Ingredients:

1/2 stick of melted butter
1 C graham cracker crumbs
1/2 C brown sugar
3/4 C powdered sugar
1/2 C peanut butter
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 (11 oz) bag of milk chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl except for chocolate chips using an electric mixer. 
2. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners (you can use silicon or paper)
3. Melt chocolate chips in the microwave or using a double boiler. 
4. Spoon chocolate in each of the cupcake liners. Make sure chocolate is evenly distributed across the bottoms and you can do that simply by dropping the pan on the counter a couple times. 
5. Put them in freezer for 15 minutes
6. Take out and spoon in peanut butter mixture into each cup. Make sure peanut butter is flattened.
7. Spoon remaining mixture of melted chocolate on top.
8. Freeze for another 15 minutes.
9. You can take out of the freezer and remove the liners or leave them on, whichever you prefer.

Enjoy!


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