1,000 page views!

I worked last night and am working again tonight, but just happened to check my blog and saw that there were exactly 1,000 page views.  Wow!  I started writing because I'm addicted to reading blogs and wanted an outlet to share as well.  I really enjoy blogspot because there is a Stats section that tells you all about your page views.  I know that there are have been page views in Canada, the United Kingdom, Denmark, South Africa, and Russia.  Pretty amazing isn't it?  Both that there have been international views and that I can know this.

As I sit in my horrid blue scrubs typing this Munchkie and Munchkie's Daddy are playing in the lliving room and the giggles are too much for me to take.  Munchkie keeps running to me to "protect" her from the Saur-Saur (dinosaur) that is coming to get her.  I love her giggles and it does not make me motivated at all to go into work. I wish that I could just stay here and induce Munchkie giggles all night.  I realize though that I need to go to work so that Munchkie has a living room to giggle in. Apparently this is what life is about, doing things we don't necessarily like because we have to.

I enjoy that I have somewhere to write out my thoughts and how my day is going.  I like to talk about Munchkie and I think that there are actually people who like to read about our lives.  Thank you to all of my blog readers who have looked at my page and added to those 1,000 page views.  I will continue to write about my life as Munchkie Mama, Munchkie's Daddy's wife and a nurse and I hope you continue to read.  Have a wonderful day!

Oooooh!

I haven't been doing as well keeping up with my blog posts because every second Munchkie free is spent working on our Christmas presents.

Speaking of Christmas, our mail box has been stuffed full with holiday toy catalogs since November 1st.  The first day, the Target catalog slipped out of the handful of mail and Munchkie grabbed it up.  She immediately went to the couch and sat there flipping each page.  As each page turned she ooooh and aaaaah.  This catalog provided her with such entertainment and I was in awe of the genius marketing of Target.  She has flipped through this catalog an uncountable number of times now and it has provided literally hours of entertainment in our house.

The funniest part about this is that Munchkie has absolutely no idea what she is looking at.  She gets so excited and searches each page for what she recognizes. Exclamations of "doggy!", "kitty!", "car!", "Elmo!" "Saur-saur! (dinosaur)" can be heard from almost every room in our house.  Do you think that Target's marketing department envisioned my daughter spending endless hours pouring over their catalog with absolutely no interest in the actual toys?

I think one of my favorite parts of this age is how exciting every small thing can be.  Isn't childhood joy amazing and inspiring?  I wish that I could have such enthusiasm and excitement over a bow, or a pink toothbrush with Elmo and Abby on it.  Shouldn't we all take lessons from these small children?  Shouldn't we look around us each moment of each day and be so thankful for every small thing?  If we took the time to acknowledge the small things, I think we would each have the joyful and carefree life we wish we could have.  Maybe instead of focusing on what material possessions we "need" or want we can take a lesson from Munchkie and get excited for what we know and can recognize.

This season of giving I'm going to try to look around me for the small blessings instead of focusing on all of the things I have to get done.  Thanks Munchkie for such a valuable lesson!

Is it Munchkie or Mommy?

Our babysitter's son says that all Munchkie does is dance all day.  She looooves to dance!  He said that their family is a huge family of dancers.  So I emailed my mom and asked her to send a few pictures to me.  There is no doubt who's child Munchkie is! There was no nursery switch on the day she was born.  Here are a few pictures for your enjoyment.

Is it Munchkie..... or Mommy?

The distraught ladybug is Munchkie

The overtired Raggidy Ann is Mommy

The joyful tapper is Mommy

The couch dancer is Munchkie

I've Been Thinking About Trying Gluten-Free

So I've been thinking about going gluten-free just to try it out.  I've heard so many people say that they feel so much better once they go gluten free and I just want to see if it's true.  The problem is that I don't even know where to begin!  I really need to sit down and spend hours doing research and see what all gluten is in and then what I can use as alternates.  Who knew there was gluten in soy sauce?  Not me!  I got this blog post today and and thankful that she has done some of the research.  I will have to figure out when I can try this out, it will take some days to get it all straight I think.

Food for thought: Katie Learns About Gluten

Does anyone have any input about going gluten-free?  Any ideas?  Research that you want to share?  I'm and blank slate here!

A Change of Colors

A few weeks ago I started to notice a change of colors in stores.  The colors normally seen in the stores this time of year are warm tones- oranges, browns, reds and golds.  These are beautiful colors that make my heart warm.

I have decided that living on the east coast has made me appreciate warm fall tones because they are all around as the trees turn.  While these colors make me feel warm and happy inside, there are two other colors that really make me smile.

Red and green.

I LOVE Christmas.  As Munchkie and I were walking through the aisles of a store I just had to laugh, there are shelves of Halloween candy and costumes with Christmas trees and decorations just next to them.  We are just so anxious we can't even wait for one season to be over because we are moving onto the next.

I'm ok with skipping Halloween completely, so seeing Christmas trees instead of skeletons doesn't bother me (I am quite sad that we skip over Thanksgiving and the season of being thankful for what we have).  I start to think about Christmas months before I want to admit.  I used to love Christmas as a child because I knew that I would get presents, but as I get older I love the season because of what happens during the Christmas season.  People become nice, friendly, selfless.  The world becomes a better place when the colors red and green begin to show.  I love giving gifts to people, baking delicious things, spices and sweets wafting in the air.  I rounded an aisle to see the Christmas section being set up in the store and bent over to talk to Munchkie.  I said "do you know what season is coming?  Christmas!  You don't remember what Christmas is, but it's so exciting.  We have to remember why it's exciting, Jesus came as a little baby on Christmas day."  To which she responded in a very excited tone "Baby? Jesus?"  She may not get it quite yet, but I am looking forward to showing her how wonderful this season of giving is.

I've been working for a while on our homemade gifts for this year, but this week I realized I need to get serious and can think of little else. I came up with the last part of our gift today and immediately ordered online the supplies I would need.   We decided that instead of buying family and friends something just to buy something, we are going to give homemade gifts.  While sometimes they might be perishable and only last a little while, we put our thought, love, and time into it.  I know this means more than a random material possession.  I can't wait to lovingly put these gifts together with Munchkie.  I am looking forward to this time of making, baking, giving and sharing.  This year I will be teaching Munchkie, the sponge, all about what this season of Christmas means.  Bring on the red and green.  I am so ready!

Revision of Granola Bars

I made a new batch of granola bars last night for Munchkie's Daddy to take to work with him.  I think that they turned out better this time and Munchkie's Daddy says he likes them better.  He's not a sweet person so when I buy him bars he usually doesn't like them because they are so sweet.  He also said that they were very filling and held him over until lunch today, he wasn't hungry by 10:30 like he usually is.  I guess that's a good thing!  So here is my revised recipe.  You can look here for my previous post with recipe and here for Katie of KitchenStewardship.com's recipe that I adapted.  The basic jist is that you need 1 cup flour, 4-4/12 cups oatmeal or comparable ingredients (quinoa, puffed rice, slivered almonds), you need a sweetener which I substitute 3/4 cup applesauce (only using 1/4 cup honey), and then 2 cups of "mix-ins" of your choice.  This last time I cut out the butter without a problem, I think because the quinoa is so moist. You can use all kinds of things for mix-ins, coconut, chocolate, any kind of dried fruit or nuts, whatever sounds good to you.

Ingredients:
1 cup oatmeal
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup puffed rice cereal
1 cup dry quinoa
1 cup slivered almonds
1 cup dry cranberries
2 cups water
3/4 cup applesauce
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 and lightly grease a 9x13 pan
2. Cook the 1 cup quinoa and 2 cups water as directed on package.
3.  I crushed up the slivered almonds in a ziplock bag until they were crumbs and little pieces.
4. Mix together applesauce, honey, vanilla, baking soda.
5. Add oatmeal, flour, quinoa, almonds and then puffed rice.
6. Last add the "mix-ins"- cranberries, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds.
7. Press the mixture into the pan, pressing firmly with your hands to ensure it is tightly in the pan.
8. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until light brown on top.
9. Let sit for 10 minutes
10. After 10 minutes, cut into 20 Quaker Chewy granola bar size
11. Do not take out of pan until completely cooled.
12. Store in an airtight container.

And drum roll-
Nutrition facts:
Serving size 1 bar, servings per batch 20
Calories 141
Fat: 5.1g
Saturated Fat 0.6g
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 0g
Sodium 66g
Total Carbohydrates 20.5g
Dietary Fiber 2.3g
Sugars 4.9g
Protein 4.5g

Not so bad!

Cleaning is not so fun

When I was college I used to love cleaning.  My roommate would come into our room and ask which class I had a test in because my method of procrastination was to clean.  I also made a little bit of money cleaning a few people's homes because I enjoyed doing it.  Then I graduated and had a whole house to clean.  I did not enjoy that so much. 

Obviously cleaning is something we have to do, but I just don't enjoy putting elbow grease into anything, as evidenced by my earlier post on not liking dishes I would rather just put it off.  Now I'm trying to make my own cleaning products to help clean better without the elbow grease or the fumes.  This is the research that I've put together to create my own cleaning products.

Homemade Dusting Spray

1 cup white vinegar with 1/2 teaspoon olive oil

All Purpose Cleaner

• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 2 Tbsp. baking soda
• 1/4 gallon (1 liter) hot water
• a few drops of essential oil (optional)

 Daily Shower Spray

• 1/3 cup rubbing alcohol
• 1/3 cup hydrogen peroxide
• 2 squirts Dr. Bronner's
• 1/3 cup white vinegar
• few drops tea tree oil
• few drops essential oil (optional)

I really like Dr. Bronner's and so I use it for a lot of things.  I have an old dish soap bottle that foams and so I put a few squirts of Dr. Bronner's and fill the rest with water.  I use this to clean my my dishes.  I also use Dr. Bronner's diluted in a spray bottle to do some cleaning.  

I also use vinegar for a lot of things.  I add it in the dishwasher as a rinse agent to prevent buildup from forming on my dishes.  I use it with my laundry in place of a fabric softener.  The best thing about vinegar- it has antibacterial properties AND you can buy a gallon for under $2. 

We also have almost eliminated paper products.  I say almost because I have quite a bit of paper napkins and I'm not going to just throw them away, so we're using them up.  I also just recently found a hidden roll of paper towel that Munchkie's Daddy had because he just couldn't handle the thought of paper free cleaning.  I read Simple Mom's article about a paperless kitchen a while ago and wanted to try it out.  She said the key is to make sure there are rags handy.  For us there had to be rags handy and a laundry basket handy.  I keep rags of different textures and sizes for all different kinds of cleaning in a bucket on the counter, under the paper towel holder, so that it is easily accessible for spills or cleanups.  I then have the laundry basket sitting out that is just for dirty rags and towels so they can go right into the basket.  I wash all of the rags every couple days on the sanitary cycle of our washing machine. 

We've now been doing this for several months and it's been working out really well.  Between our homemade cleaners and rags we have eliminated several different expenses while helping the environment out a little bit.  This doesn't really mean that I enjoy cleaning any more, but at least I can be a little creative while I'm doing it.  Just a few more ways I can be green, economical and of course, clean.