Who wants Pancakes???

Our little Rooster head does! Oh yes, that is his nickname that his daddy gave him! :) About 5 out of 7 days a week my little boy is asking for Pancakes.. And now he has added BACON to that request as well. Sweet boy! :) 

So here is a morning of making our pancakes. Many times we use our Bosch blender from nutrition lifestyles to make our pancakes from our whole wheat. But in the mason jar below, we still had some fresh wheat that we had ground up the day before that we needed to use. 

I was out of egg- so we used flaxseed mixed with water. YUM! 

My little helper. He loves to help with anything and everything-- and he is GREAT at it! 

But what he really loves to do is EAT THE PANCAKES! Eat he will. He will eat 5-7 pancakes at a given time. This is wonderful. He was breastfed until 20 months old, so food didn't interest him like normal kids. 

So my question for you is.. what is your favorite food to cook with your child? Leave me a comment and let me know! I need some new ideas! 

Also, don't forget about the GIVEAWAY. It ends on Friday! 

Kids and Veggies

Until recently, I have struggled with getting my little guy to eat his veggies. He was breastfed until twenty months old, so real food really did not interest him. Lately though, he has been eating pretty much anything you put in front of him AND asks for more! :) What a blessing for this mommy. 

But the question always arose- how do I make sure this little guys is getting the nutrients that he needs? Well, I use my juicer. He doesn't get juice often. I never buy it. I don't think he needs all of that extra sugar in his little body... heck, he is already hyper enough! :) I love it. But we love to juice together. And we did this week. 

(I would post more pictures of us juicing together, but some of my daycare kids are in it... and I don't want to put their pictures on my blog.)

We gathered apples, carrots, and celery for our juice this day. We cleaned the fruit and veggies. Then we cut off the edges. Ok, I cut the edges off. The kids had a lot of fun knowing we were going to make our own juice. 

This is what the juicer looked like after we finished juicing. All of the veggies and fruit you see above has now been juiced and that is what was produced, in the cup container. Just enough for three kids cups and two adult cups. YUM!

My little rugrat drinking his juice. Seriously, if you are one of those that said you would get a juicer from nutrition lifestyles, I highly recommend it. It is so great for you, PLUS it is so very fun to juice with your kids. Also, you know exactly what you are giving your child vs all of the store bought juices. Seriously, those can't be THAT great for our little kiddies. 

This was my cup. Hubby had his own as well. It was gone within seconds. We don't add anything else to it, we drink it straight from being juiced. YUM! 

This is the remaining compost. This is my least favorite part about the juicer. I don't really like to clean it, but if you do right away... it literally takes 2-3 minutes to get all of the parts clean. We love our juicer and we try all kinds of different juices... you should try too! 

Don't forget about our GIVEAWAY! We don't have that many entries. Make sure you enter AND tell a friend! 

-C

GIVEAWAY & Guest Post!

First off I just want to say "Hello," to everyone over here at Natural-Nurturer and also say thank you for letting me come hang out with yall today! 

I am really excited to share about these wonderful muffins that I baked last night! Since I got my new red, shiny Kitchen Aid Mixer for Christmas I have had a ton of fun baking.  I have kind of been on a muffin kick though...which I don't mind since I love breakfast.  So I have been baking my muffins at night time, and then having them ready for the next morning...that might not be as nice as right out of the oven muffins, but they have been pretty dang good! 

So this morning we got to eat these wonderful French Toast Muffins! They were so yummy, and very fun to make.  Also, they didn't take long at all, I always love baking things that don't need to be fully mixed, but call for you to leave some lumps in them. It makes things a lot easier.  This may come from the fact that I have never owned any kind of electric mixer at all.  I have always hand mixed everything that I bake, and that gets very tiring, so you can see why I prefer these types of things.  

Anyways, I have brought the wonderful French Toast Muffin recipe over here to share with all of you guys! So take some time to make these wonderful muffins, you don't even have to eat them for breakfast, have them at a party, or for dessert, anything...they are great! 

French Toast Muffins

First you will need: 

Muffin Mix:

1/2 c. sugar

1 1/2 c. all purpose flower

1 1/2 tsp.  baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/3 c. melted butter

1 egg 

1/2 c. milk

Topping:

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. melted butter

1 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Preparation time: 10-15 min.

Bake time: 20-25 min. 

Recipe Servings: 9-12 muffins

First you want to sift together all of the dry ingredients into a medium sized bowl.  (I first put mine into my mixer but then realized it wouldn't have taken very long just to do this one by hand) 

Then add all of the wet ingredients to the same bowl

Combine and mix all of the ingredients, but do not over mix.  Leave the mixture a little lumpy

In a muffin pan put muffin liners or grease 9-12 muffin tins (I made 9 muffins, you could probably make a dozen if you wanted, they would just be a little smaller)

Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until the edges begin to turn a little brown (mine baked for the full 25 minutes)

Muffin Topping

For the topping, 

In one small bowl, mix together the sugar and cinnamon

In another small bowl, melt butter

While the muffins are still hot dip each individual one in the butter and then roll them in the cinnamon/sugar mixture to coat the top

*If you are able to, you can dip the entire muffin in the butter and cinnamon mixture, it makes them even better! 

**You may have some of the mixture left over, if you do use it to dip the muffins in while you eat it!

Then enjoy your wonderful creation! 

I hope you all enjoy this wonderful recipe as much as my family and I have! And if you do try it out stop by over at Natural-Nester and let me know what you think! 

Thanks so much for letting me come visit! 

NOW....for the GIVEAWAY we have been telling yall about! 

I am so excited to share with you this awesome kitchen tool that you can win FOR FREE! You do have to go through a few hoops to get entered… but it is a great tool to have in your kitchen. I use my regularly. Also, I am so excited that Nutrition Lifestyles  has partnered with us to offer this amazing giveaway to you.

Our first ever giveaway is a Lequip Professional Stick Blender with all of the attachments.

This tool is so amazing. I have used it to mince veggies such as onions, cilantro, and even tomotoes. We really enjoy using it to help make our salsa. I have also used it when making baby food. The uses for this tool are unlimited. The website describes this tool as:

“An ideal blender for daily use. Slim ergonomic design with soft-touch easy-grip handle. Stainless steel body. Removable, interchangeable blades for mincing, beating, chopping, aerating, and whisking. It also includes a multi- chopper/grinder attachment.”

Please go to the website and read all about this awesome little tool! I think every kitchen needs one. YOU could be the lucky one to get it for FREE!

You have so many ways to enter! (leave a separate comment for each entry that you make, so you could have up to 6 entries/6 different comments)

1) LIKE Natural-Nurturer on Facebook

2) JOIN the Natural-Nurturer Blog

3) LIKE Natural-Nester on Facebook (and let her know that I sent you)

4) JOIN the Natural-Nester Blog

5) Share this contest with your friends on Facebook or twitter

6) Go over to the Nutrition Lifestyles website and look at their products then come back over here and let us know what your favorite item is! 


Make sure that you comment on the blog that you have liked both facebook pages, subscribed to both blogs, shared the giveaway on facebook or twitter, and went to nutritionlifestyles.com and commented what you would buy and why!

Giveaway ends Friday, Jan. 20th at 10pm, CENTRAL TIME.. 

GET READY: Tomorrow is the Giveaway!!

Hey Ya'll! 

Get ready, because tomorrow I am doing a great giveaway! YOU have helped me reach over 100 likes, therefore, I am doing an awesome giveaway FOR YOU! You will have many chances to get your name in the drawing... all of those amazing details come out tomorrow! Yay!! The giveaway is something that I use very often and for many different things. I can't wait to share with you! 

I will be partnering up with Natural-Nester to do this awesome FREE Giveaway to our followers! So be sure to check back tomorrow for all the details on how to enter! 

Go ahead and check out our facebook pages! And share the page with your friends and get them to LIKE us to! 

Here's the link to Natural-Nurturer on facebook, and here's the one to Natural-Nester, so go check those out! 

A Little HINT!

Tomorrow we will both be featuring each other's cooking blog with the recipe included, so we will be giving away some awesome kitchen supplies from Nutrition Lifestyles, so go ahead and take some time to go check out their awesome supplies there! And come back tomorrow to find what item you could win! 

Toddler and Choices...

Do you give your toddler choices? What they want to play, eat, do? I have been reading one of the best blogs ever for the past few months, Play At Home Mom, and they have some fantastic ideas! 

One of the blogs that really caught my eye was setting up an area where your child can choose their snacks. So, I have taken the time to set it up. It has been working very well in my home. My son goes to the door and wants me to help him open it, and he chooses what he wants. 

The first things that he does when he wakes up is get a snack, usually a baggie of cereal, and then watch one episode of cartoons as we wait for our daycare friends to arrive. 

This is his shelf in the pantry.

Applesauce and Crackers

Cereal and Crackers

Fruit bowls, dried fruit, raisins

Squeezy fruit, fruit bowls

It has been working so well. I know he is going to be so excited when he wakes up tomorrow to a new stock of snacks for him to choose from. I love watching his little eyes go from one to another to make his choice. It is so nice to have him pick what he wants.... less work for me! :)

He already had his own drawers with his cups, plates, bowls. But tonight I spent some time to organize them. I will be checking them and making sure they stay organized. I know he will appreciate the organization more as well. 

When he helps me unload the dishwasher, he is really good at putting his things in his drawer, hence the reason it looks like the one below. 

Organized...

My pantry... It needs some work. THAT, is my next project. I have some ideas on how I want to organized it.. I will share when it is completed. 

Way too excited about finding the bulk section in a local grocery store. All of that pasta cost me LESS than $5.00. Amazing. 

This is my sons area in the fridge. He has gogurts, cheesesticks, blackberries, and strawberries. 

He is going to LOOOOVE it! I hope this helps someone. Remember to check out that website! 

-C

Candy and Color Fun

The teacher in me wants to make sure that my sweet boy has a good, founded education before he starts school- either public or home schooled! As we started working on potty training at 18months old, I had these small baking Reeses pieces... and decided to have some color identification fun with it! 

First I took a piece of paper and drew two lines in it, giving it three columns.

Then I put the colors on top and we talked about what color they were and we matched up each candy with the correct color. 

Can you tell that he loved it. He had so much fun. Oddly enough, my smart little boy- Got.It. You will be surprised what your young one actually comprehends if you model it for them. 

A different day, we did it again. This time I used note cards.... same concept. He loved it. 

When you can't figure out what to do with your munchkin, look in your baking cabinet and see what educational fun can be had! 

-C

The Rocking Chair

As I sat with my tired little boy today and began to rock him, my mind began to wander... and for the remainder of today I have just thought and thought and thought about this theme... the Rocking Chair. Just bare with me.

I have loved rocking my sweet one since the day he was born. Actually, I spent many hours rocking him, in his nursery, while I was pregnant. After my brother died, I would spend a lot of time in that room remembering, wishing, crying- alone. I love rocking my baby, in the womb and out. Today I started thinking that I don't rock him enough. I began to dread when he is too old to want me to rock him... or too big to sit in the rocking chair with me. I am so thankful for these sweet times in the rocking chair. He is so busy now that he really only lets me when he is tired, upset, or sleeping. But I love it nonetheless.

Then my mind went to my mom and how she doesn't have that luxury of having her son around anymore to rock even if she wanted, he wanted, or he was small enough. My heart hurt for my mom and made me hold my baby boy even tighter. The pain my sweet mom must have felt when she heard the news that her son, her baby boy, was taken from this world. My mom is truly the strongest woman I know and I hate she had to go through this.. continues to go through this. I hate that all my mom has left are memories of rocking her baby. I know she has such great memories though. My mom, along with all of the other moms that have lost their child way too early in life.... my heart hurts, but I pray they all have great memories of rocking their child.

What about those moms that never got to rock their baby? Those moms that prepared for the arrival of their bundle of joy only to have their baby taken from them as soon as they delivered. Or the mom that lost her life giving birth to that baby that would not be able to walk with their mom. Or the mom that never got the chance to truly embrace the joys of pregnancy or dream of rocking their baby. The mom that wasn't able to hold their baby as they grew and rock them to console them, to put them to sleep, just to love them. And my heart hurt.

What about the moms that have been able to bask in the greatness of pregnancy and a newborn? The moms that, like me, have enjoyed rocking their sweet one, day in and day out. But the same moms that get the terrible news as their baby is growing that their baby is not going to make it? The moms that have to rock their baby until they can't rock anymore because they don't know how much longer they really have. Again, my heart hurts. What about those moms?

What about the women that have tried for months or years to have that baby to rock? Those women that have put their whole being into trying to have that baby to rock- but can't? These women that can only dream of seeing those two lines on a test, seeing their first ultrasound, watching their belly grow, feeling that first kick, feeling the onset of labor, and birthing a baby? The women that can only DREAM of having that child of their own to rock in that special rocking chair. My heart hurts.

What about the women that have lost their sweet husband before they were able to have that baby together. The women that had already planned what their life was going to be like with their sweet man and then he doesn't come home from war, from work, from errands? The woman that will never be able to share in that with the man of her dreams because he was taken all too soon from him. What about them? It hurts my heart.

Then my mind began to think about those babies, kids, young adults that have never had the luxury of having a Mommy rock them. Never having a mom that cared enough to treat them the way I treat my baby. To have a mom love them the way I love my baby. To have a mom dote on them like I do mine. What about those babies that grow into adults and struggle on a daily basis because they didn't have a mom like I did, like I want to be? What about those kids?

Or the babies that have lost their Mom way too soon... at birth or after and have never been able to have their mom rock them, hold them, love them. What about them? What happens?

Then it hit me. It hit me today like a ton of bricks. It comes from the song I sang many times in my Youth Choir and Drama "Jesus has a Rocking Chair." How often I forget that. I forget to let Jesus Christ rock me during the good times and the bad times. The amazing feeling I get when rocking my sweet boy is only a grain of what the Lord feels when I ALLOW Him to rock me. Why don't I give up and let Him? WHY do I struggle with this so much? Am I the only one that struggles so bad with this?

In each example that I talked about above, I know someone personally that has been there. Did they, are they letting Jesus rock them? Why do I have such little faith? I know that the Lord wants to love me, admire me, dote on me, smile with me, laugh with me, cry with me, hold me, and rock me- just like I do my sweet one. Why is it so hard to let him.

My girlfriend has a sweet daughter that rocks herself to sleep. We laugh about it. But I began to think about this again this afternoon... maybe she is just feeling the arms of Christ around her and the comfortableness of Him... as she rocks herself to sleep. Oh ye' of little faith. Maybe I should begin rocking myself to sleep as I pray to the Lord. I am positive that He will help me understand that He is right there with me, with his arms around me, rocking me.

The rocking chair is so important to me. I don't think I will ever sit in our rocking chair again without thinking about all my thoughts today. Putting it on paper just does not give my thoughts justice. I have had so many thoughts with it. Jesus is here to rock me. When I feel like I can't go on, that my heart is broken, that I am tired of trying, that I don't know where to turn, HE is here rocking me. I need to feel it. Lean upon Him. Rest in Him. Let Him.


What about you?



"Jesus Has a Rocking Chair"

Many hopeful Moms and Dads try to have a child of their own,
some never get the chance, others do and see them grow

There are some who are expecting that precious baby soon

but then it's gone before it ever leaves the safety of it's momas' womb

JESUS has a rocking chair and HE holds that precious baby with oh such tender care
HE takes the place of Mom and Dad, HE's the greatest parent a child could have
Don't worry about the children there, JESUS has a rocking chair

There are those who have a boy or girl a lovely gift of GOD,
But sickness or a tragedy takes them from their parents arms,
Mommas wish for days gone by, daddys long for that lost child
But children are not lost when you know where they are

JESUS has a rocking chair and HE holds that precious baby with oh such tender care
HE takes the place of Mom and Dad, HE's the greatest parent a child could have
Don't worry about the children there, JESUS has a rocking chair

She was 18 and not married,expecting her little one
But in her time of confusion she took the life of her son
Since then, JESUS forgave her and HE took all of her shame away
Still she cries missing her baby but she hears the angels say

JESUS has a rocking chair and HE holds that precious baby with oh such tender care
HE takes the place of Mom and Dad, HE's the greatest parent a child could have
Don't worry about the children there, JESUS has a rocking chair