Hop on Pop

Our Princess was too excited that she could read almost an entire book by herself! Shoot, I'm just as excited as she is! We found a copy of Hop on Pop at the thrift store and I got it since I noticed it had lots of short vowel sounds. Its the one Dr. Seuss book we didn't own (didn't rank up there with Green Eggs and Ham, although now it may). Our Princess has been reading it to me all week and learning new words to boot! I'm looking into getting a reading curriculum to do at home in the afternoons, because school really does go slow with teaching to read. I read somewhere that children are ready to read long before they are ready to write...that kind of makes sense. I can't wait to discover some more with her!

Pumpkin-Chocolate Bread

I love the internet sometimes! I was sitting staring at a can of pumpkin and thought, What am I going to do with pumpkin? So I went online and at Meals.com I found a recipe that looks yummy...so I am going to try it and see if it is as yummy as it looks!

Here it is:

Makes 2 loaves...



nonstick cooking spray

1 cup (6oz) semi-sweet morsels

3 cups AP flour

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 3/4 cup gran. sugar

1 can (15oz) 100% pure pumpkin

1/2 cup canola oil

4 large egg whites



preheat 350; coat 8 x 5 inch loaf pans with spray

Melt morsels in medium, micro-safe bowl on High for 1 min.; STIR...morsels may not be melted all the way, if necessary melt in 10-15 sec. intervals until completely melted. (this is what the recipe says, but I did this step after the flour one...)

Combine flour, cinnamon, salt, baking soda and baking powder in large bowl; stir well

Whisk together sugar, pumpkin, oil, and egg whites in a large bowl. Gradually stir in flour mix. Add 1 1/2 cups pumpkin mix to melted chocolate, stir to combine. Spoon half of pumpkin mix into bottom of each prepared pan. Spoon pumpkin chocolate mix between the pans and top with remaining pumpkin mix. Smooth down top

Bake 1 hour or until toothepick comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 min. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.

You don't have to use the chocolate for this recipe (though who wouldn't??). You can leave it out and just bake for 55 min.

Well, it is really good, although a nice ganache drizzled on the top would not be remiss...and it looks just like the picture online!

**Also, I've recently (Christmas 2011) discovered it's really good with just chips throughout instead of melting them with the mix...
*** and I've also started making it with Cream Cheese filling... Oh My...

Success!!!

Our Oso is 3 months old exactly today and last night he slept from 9pm to 7am this morning... We've never had that. The girls went from 11 to 7 at 11 and 10 weeks respectively, but with the girls, we held onto that 11ish feeding until they were probably 5 months old for fear that they would wake up at 2 am. Last night we were a little off routine and he ate later than normal. I meant to feed him again before going to bed, because I was planning another up 'til midnight extravaganza, but I fell asleep. Then I woke up about 6:30 am (late) and realized he was still sleeping...YAY!! He didn't wake up until Our Fairy went into his room looking for her cowboy boots. That's my boy!!!

And he is always so HAPPY when he wakes up! That has got to be my favorite part! There is nothing better than walking into the room and hearing him cooing to himself and the HUGE smile when he finally sees me!

Super-Busy Weekend!

We had a super-busy weekend and I had to go back to work today for a break! Our Princess had a game Saturday, which they won AND she scored a goal. Then we went to CSU's homecoming "parade" and lunch to hang out with some friends from school who were in town. Then we went home and I got a call about the Disney Train downtown. It was a publicity train for the new A Christmas Carol movie. It was cool, but too difficult to do with two little girls and a baby. It was also very windy, which was good, because then it wasn't so hot! Afterward we went to work, came home and crashed.

Sunday morning we played hookie from church and went to my parent's church's Fall Festival. The girls loved it and we would have stayed there all afternoon, but we had to go to a birthday. Then we came home, moved furniture around, the girls crashed and I did laundry for the week until about midnight...

Oliver leaves for Nicaragua Sunday for a week. Its the first time we've been away from each other that long in our almost 8 years of marraige. I think the longest we've been apart has been 48 hours? I'm going to miss him a lot and I know the kids will too. He works every evening this week, so we won't get to see him that much before he goes. Hopefully the time will fly by and he'll be home safe and sound and swine flu-free before we know it.

Banana Bread

Our Fairy has been doing a unit on Curious George these last three weeks...we brought Curious George and his Adventure bag home for a couple of days and inside was the book, and scrapbook of her class's "adventures"--bike day, museum, library, "camping" as well as Curious George's adventures with each of the children in their home or wherever they happen to be during those few days they have him. Our family's big adventure was to go the the big kid playground (reserved for 1-5th graders) while Our Princess was at soccer practice. It was a cute idea.

Also inside the book was a recipe for Curious George banana bread...so far it smells great, hopefully it tastes great as well...I love banana bread warm with butter...mmmmm....

Anyways, here is the recipe!

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1 3/4 cup of AP flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup butter

2/3 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp cinnamon (optional--I did one with and one without...we'll see which is better!)

Set oven to 350.

Mix all the ingredients well, so there are no lumps.

Put in greased loaf pan.

Bake for one hour, or until knife inserted in the center comes out clean. I'd let it sit for a bit and cool off so that it holds together when you cut it. You can always nuke it to make it warm later.

Now, the one on the left was the better of the two...it has the cinnamon in it...we really couldn't tast the difference...it was cooked in the more narrow ( narrower?) clear loaf pan while the one on the right was cooked in a wider dark glass loaf pan. Oliver said the texture on the left was better.

Marco Polo

I felt like a good mami this week. Our Princess and I were reading a book about space and she was asking me about the sun. I'm not sure how it came about, but we ended up in the bathroom with a candle and an apple, which I had drawn a not-to-bad rendition of the globe on, on a shish kabob skewer. I explained how the earth revolved around the sun and rotated. I explained to her that while the sun was shining on South Carolina, it was night time in China. I thought it was interesting and she had fun turning it around the "sun" but figured that was all she would remember.
Tuesday morning, on the way to school, we were going down Ladson road and looking at the beautiful sky as the sun came up.
Our Princess says "I guess its nighttime in China now."
I think I like this!

Self-image

I am so ANGRY and FRUSTRATED that my beautiful little girl is starting to feel that she is not beautiful. She told me today that she didn't want to wear the dress she wore today because her tummy is big. That breaks my heart and I don't know how to manage that kind of situation. She is such a beautiful girl! We don't ever say diet, we eat foods because they are good for us, not because they make us skinny. We want to be healthy, not skinny. I don't complain about my figure in front of her (I rarely complain about my figure at all, what's the point?) I'm careful about wording things around my girls and don't criticize physical attributes of anyone. I want them to grow up with a great self-esteem and to love who God made them to be. I tell her that she is "fearfully and wonderfully made" and we tell her all the time that she is beautiful. I HATE those Nutrisystem commercials and change the channel every time they come on, even if she's not in the room. I do everything I can to make sure she knows that she is a beautiful girl inside and out. I hope she's not getting this from her friends at school or church. It is very common in the hispanic culture to give nicknames based on physical attributes that we as americans would probably find offensive. My father-in-law calls my husband el negrito because he is the darkest skinned of all his children. I get called la chele (white girl), my bro.-in-law el chino because his eyes are a little slanted. Its not meant to be mean, just stating the obvious. Yet if you've ever watched the spanish-language channels, they have more infomercials for weight-loss than I have ever seen and a couple of the moms at church are pushy on their pudgy daughters. My heart aches for them. I was a teenager who constantly heard that I was too big and when I think of how small I was then, I could scream. I don't want that for my little girl. I want her to know that she is beautiful and doesn't need to change anything. My heart just hurts at the thought that Our Princess is unhappy. I hope it was just a innocent observation and I am blowing this out of proportion, but what if it's not? A five-year-old shouldn't have to worry about her size. Sometimes I really hate this society that we live in...

Isn't she the most beautiful little girl in the world?