H54F: Baby Edition

Hello everyone!  I know I've been a bit MIA the past week but that's because baby Jude finally decided to join us!  After a little over 13 hours of labor my little one was born May 24 at 4.26 PM.  I won't lie, most of my Five is about him.  Enjoy the cuteness!

As always I'm linking up with Lauren over at From My Grey Desk.  Join us!

1.  My dear college friend and sorority sister Ravon and her "mister," as she calls him, Ronnie went on a mini-vacation for her birthday and while there they found this adorable onesie for Jude.  How fitting is this Beatles onesie?  They brought us breakfast and presented us with this amazing find and I can't wait for Jude to be big enough to wear it.  And by can't wait for him to be big enough, I mean that I just want him to grow enough to wear it and then stop growing.  He has already grown 2 inches since birth and I just want him to be little and snuggly forever!

2.  My beautiful son, Jude Harrison, sleeping peacefully in his hooded bear blanket.  The husband found this blanket on one of our trips to Buy Buy Baby and tried to be sneaky and slip it into the basket.  He needn't have bothered trying to be sneaky because I would have snagged one myself if I'd seen it first.  I'm pretty sure that it was even on my registry.

 

 3.  The husband and I love taking naps and snuggling with our sleepy baby bear.  Sleep is still a bit elusive to us at this point so we take every chance we can get.  It's even sweeter when we can cuddle up with him while he naps too.

 4.  Completely random, but yes, this is a picture of a peanut butter and banana sandwich.  I include this because I have not been able to eat peanut butter since getting pregnant with Jude.  It is really the only weird pregnancy food thing that I experienced but man did it suck major (insert your choice of profanity here) to not even be able to eat a pb&j.  I mean, come on. This sandwich marks my triumphant return to the land of peanut butter.

 5.  Last one of my sleepy baby.  Look at all that hair!  Yes, he gave me lots of heartburn in the first trimester and this acidic-gassy sensation in my chest the last two trimesters.  I even had the acid stuff while in labor.  It was awful.  Seeing him with all his beautiful hair makes it not so bad though.


I'm planning to write a series of posts that talk about my labor experience and being mother to a newborn, complete with more adorable pictures of my little one so stay tuned!

Hope everyone's Friday is as awesome as mine!

It's Pinterest Monday!

Hello all!  I hope that the Monday blues have not dragged you all down.  I must admit that even though I just finished day 3 of my work week, today was rough.  I work in a used book store that actually buys books (and DVDs and CDs and video games and magazines...) from the public and I spent most of my day flipping through boxes pulled from attics and basements and barns and garages and car trunks.  Let's just say that pet/human hair, dust, hay, mold, and general dirt do not make your merchandise worth more.  Ew.

Moving on.  Here are some of my awesome finds from the past week to help you shake off those blues and get ready for the week ahead.




Banana Cream Pie Milkshake

Chik-fil-A has one of these for sale and my mouth salivates every time I see their advertisement.  Unfortunately for me, I have gestational diabetes and cannot have one.  I know, sad face.  However! this may be the thing to save me.  I have found a carb smart ice cream that does not kill my blood sugar levels and with a little substitution of unsweetened almond milk for the regular milk, I think I might be able to have one of these beauties.  I'm going to try to make a more diabetic friendly version of this on Thursday so I'll report back and let you know if I'm still standing after it.

 

DVD Coloring Case

I always see so many cute things on Pinterest that require sewing skills and I can't sew worth a darn.  More sad face.  This craft perked me right up though because it requires adhesive glue and is needle free!  I am not much of an artist either but I love this idea of paper and pens and markers in an easy carrying case.  I see tons of DVD cases we have to discard at work because we can't sell the DVD inside and I'm excited to see that perhaps those don't have to go to waste any longer!  I think this would be a perfect DIY gift for kids!




White Texas Sheet Cake

I don't think I've mentioned all the blogs I follow, but the number is starting to rise the more I get on Pinterest.  This cake comes from one of my favorite food blogs, The Girl Who Ate Everything.  Christy always seems to know exactly what I need, and on this particular day she took me home to Texas, to my grandmother's kitchen.  Grandma was a wedding cake maker and the smell of cakes, especially white or yellow cake always takes me back to her.  I'm unsure if this recipe will be anything like hers but I'm willing to give it a shot.



DIY Cleaning Supplies

Jillee over at the One Good Thing blog has compiled some of her best, most effective DIY household cleaners.  I'm not much of a house keeper (although that nesting instinct is currently kicking my butt) but I love all of these ideas she has for more environmentally friendly and cheap cleaner alternatives.  I have not tried one yet, but it's on the list of things to do.  I want to compile a list of the cleaners that use the same ingredients so I don't have to buy a billion different things.  Look for an update on this soon!




Freezer/Bulk Cooking

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to tackle this freezer cooking thing that has gotten super popular on the internet.  If you don't know what that is, you can find out more here.  I will admit that I'm not going to be making an entire month's worth of food because I'm not that ambitious yet, and I haven't quite figured how to get that much food into my freezer.  I like making the food in two week intervals.  The moms over at Once a Month Mom have created all sorts of menus for different types of people including, Gluten-free, diet, traditional, and whole foods.  My plan is to mix and match the recipes from different menus so that we can get some real variety and I don't have to worry about my blood sugar going crazy.  OAMM has created all sorts of templates for you to use that include grocery lists and recipe organizers so I'm hoping for success!  Look for an update on this as well where I will go in depth in my experience with this.

I've got some awesome things lined up for myself to tackle while I wait for this baby to come and I hope this inspired you to get out and line up some projects of your own.  Or at least inspired you to make that cake.  Who doesn't need some cake?

You Can't Be Mad Making Friendship Bread

My weekend is here (woot woot!).  I don't get real Saturday/Sunday weekends because I work retail and real weekends are a distant memory from a time when I still had a curfew and mom paid all the bills.  Thursday is the new Saturday anyway, didn't you get the memo?  I'll send you another.  Anyway, weekend means cleaning, laundry, and time to actually cook and bake.  I made a variation of Amish Friendship Bread and am here to share!

If you don't know what Friendship bread is then you, my friend, are missing out on some easy and delicious bread!  The easiest way to understand friendship bread is to think of it like a chain letter with delicious bread as a result instead of doom and gloom.  You're given a sourdough bread type of starter that you squish and mash around for 10 days before you bake a super tasty bread.

I have only encountered two problems in this adventure.  The biggest problem being that you divide up your dough into portions to give to family and friends and so if you choose to keep a starter for yourself, you are baking every ten days and piling up more and more starter bags for people that will start to run in the opposite direction (or lose their sense of seeing and hearing) when they see that Ziploc bag in your hand.  I'm serious.  I've seen it happen.

Well, I knew I would run into this problem from the start so after a few minutes on Google I found that you can freeze your starter so that A) you always have one on hand without having to go through the ten day process and B) you don't have to keep finding people to hand starter bags to.  I have only been through two rounds and I doubled up a couple of my starters the last time so that I could make double batches of stuff when I have a party to go to or if I feel the need to feed my co-workers.  So far, my freezer has not been over-run with starters.

The other problem I ran into is that I knew that I would get tired of the regular recipe of bread.  As wonderful and tasty as it is, I (and more importantly my husband who has to suffer indulge my cooking ventures and who doesn't eat leftovers easily) like variety.  I found this awesome website, the Friendship Bread Kitchen, that has tons and tons of variations of what to do with your dough.  I made chocolate chip muffins that were awesome.  Today, I decided to make Banana Nut Friendship Bread.

You can find the full recipe here.  I only made a few minor adjustments:  I added 3 bananas instead of 2 because I had three and on hand and didn't want to be wasteful.  I had to add a stick of butter to make up for the fact that I only had 1/2 a cup of oil on hand and no applesauce (grocery time!).  I added about a tablespoon of cinnamon and 1/2 tablespoon of nutmeg just because I love the combo. 

I sprinkled the tops with cinnamon and sugar.  You do this in the regular Friendship bread recipe and I really liked the outcome.  I only made 1 loaf of bread and the rest was turned into a dozen muffins.  I baked the muffins for 30 minutes.  The loaf baked for about an hour and fifteen minutes.

Not only did the house smell amazing but the end results were moist and delicious!  These will make a great breakfast or late night snack!  I think these would be even more fabulous with chocolate chips in them because let's be honest, what isn't better with chocolate chips?

Got a Friendship bread story or recipe?  Share in the comments below!  I'd love to hear what people are doing with their starters.  Word on the street (aka the recipe collection from Friendship Bread Kitchen) is that waffles, cookies, and cinnamon rolls can be made from the starter.  Who's in?