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Homemade Pancakes

Posted by Delightfully Doable on 24 September, 2013 No comment

Please, let me start by saying, you must start making your own pancake mix as it is easier than driving to the store and spending a couple bucks on premade mix. AND…. it’s way healthier and taste better. I learned this the hard way…. (click here)

Ingredients:

5 cups flour
¼ cup baking powder
4 TBSP Sugar
1 TBSP salt

Mix ingredients together and store in a glass container. Once a cozy Saturday morning comes your way and you decide to use your mix, make sure you have milk on hand to make you mix and lots of butter not only for the skillet, but for the top of the cakes before you drench the cake in real maple syrup.

This sounds so good right now, I want to make them right now even though it is 10:30 at night. I’ve been crazy hungry lately and for anything. Don’t know why, but last night I ate three ice cream Oreos, Skittles, Swedish fish, and an entire bowl of popcorn; I even reheated the leftover kernels to see if the would pop. They did and I drenched them in butter and devoured every last kernel. Can’t tell you why, but this has been my evening the last two weeks which may be why tonight pancakes sounds delicious. I wont make them, heaven knows I don’t need them, especially late at night while the rest of the family is sawing logs.

The blessings in loving our precious children

Posted by Delightfully Doable on 23 September, 2013 No comment

Do to my rant the other day about bullying in school (click here) I really felt it was important to discuss the blessings in loving our children. Loving our children seems to be a given. Don’t we all love our kids? Of course we do, but how often do we continually exercise this love. Are we constantly telling them “no,” correcting behavior, asking for respect, don’t touch that, don’t hit your brother, don’t you talk back to me, go to your room. All of these statements ring oh so true to a parent. Teaching your kids respect and love is probably the hardest job out there. We are responsible in grooming our kids so that when 18 short years later, they will maneuver through this world with aspirations, respect, confidence, encouragement, and feeling a place in this big world. How often do we teach our kids through actions verses words? Unfortunately I hate to say it but our actions take precedence most of the time and not always in a positive way.

Do we love our spouse the way they deserve to be loved, giving tender, compassionate love? These are the times we want to hold dear and in the forefront of our minds. When I stand at my own gravesite tomorrow or 80 years from now, I want my obituary to be a positive influence to those around me. When my kids stand at my funeral to speak about my life as a mother, I hope they only have positive things to say about my love for them and their father and the influence I had on those around me! I don’t want to live with regrets. I want to make this life not ordinary but EXTRAordinary, who’s to stop us, only we are our biggest battle.

Carolyn Mahaney once said “Motherhood can be both exhilarating and exasperating. It can present us with a delightful experience one moment and a baffling encounter the next. There are days when we can’t imagine doing anything more rewarding. Then we have days when caring for our children feels anything but significant.” The moment in the hospital when your baby is plunged into your arms an immediate love overpowers you and strengthens your desire to care for this infant no matter what life brings. The miraculous life that has just been handed over to you gives immediate protection and indescribable love. No one needed to come along side my husband and I and teach us how to love our precious bundle. It just happens. Over time, things do change, our patience gets tested, the never ending cries of the newborn, sleepless nights, terrible 2’s, 4 year old tantrums, 10 year old disrespect, and you got it….those teen years that baffle your mind to no end. Has your love changed, absolutely not, but has your attitude changed? Our affection can quickly fall to the way side as parenting tends to take over.

Let’s try and mesh parenting into a tender, passionate, affectionate love that God has called us to with our children. This type of parenting will forever change the hearts of our little ones, discipline through godly love and tender affection is what our children are craving. Their little minds struggle to express their feelings and emotions and need a safe haven to develop those outlets. How as a husband and wife can you begin to implement this change in your family, well for starters begin with one another. My husband and I saw this in a movie once and it was pretty funny but we actually saw a lot of truth behind it. This little boy told his sister “hey that was a put down, you owe me 3 put ups.” I can’t remember the movie it was in but it stuck with us. We use it jokingly but in reality it’s a very positive thing to do. How often do we give positive feedback throughout the day, you will notice your perspective change simply by implementing three put ups. It may sound childish but we all need to bring ourselves back to reality and not think we are above the right to be respected and give respect.

Proverbs 13:24 states that lack of discipline is a result of hate. No one would use such words towards their children, but why do we think its okay to allow them to rule our families. They need constant correction and love to gain a healthy perspective on life and boundaries needed in this world. Tenderness will soften anyone’s hearts, especially our children’s. If we discipline in love and always end with a hug and a kiss, they will one day see our reasoning for our actions and ultimately still feel that love from us as parents. If we discipline out of anger and hatred their precious little hearts will tend to grow hard and calloused. Unfortunately this is true in our own family, my husband grew up in a very tough environment, and not an ounce of tender love and affection was given to him, precisely the opposite. My husband longs to give that tender love and affection as that was never passed on to him. I’ve seen him struggle with something that is a direct result of his parents. Why can’t we spare our children everything possible and do what we are called to, and hold our children with the highest level of commitment. I heard it once said, we would lay our lives down for our children, but then why aren’t more parents choosing to be involved with bettering themselves, so in turn we will positively affect our children’s lives. I thought that was so profound. How can we honestly raise up a child in the way he should go, if we aren’t going in the correct way as their own parents. Let’s not be shy to the fact that we all need some teaching throughout our lives, whether that’s in retreats, counseling, mommy groups, daddy workshops, etc. Take the opportunity to grow yourself and your marriage to better love our children with that tender, compassionate love they so deeply desire.

I know my son is only 14 months old. I haven’t encountered the terrible 2’s, 4 year old tantrums, 10 year old disrespect, and those teen years. But what I do know is that every day that passes with my son, I know I hold dear. I treasure the opportunity to be home with him, capturing these precious moments as each day passes knowing I am his biggest influence, his biggest advocate and his biggest fan. As he is my first and only child right now, I long to get this down to the best of my ability by preparing for those years to come. I want to begin that tender, affectionate love now, so I don’t have to learn once we’ve gone too far. My confidence is in the Lord, each child needs to be parented to their personality but that doesn’t mean at 14 months old, my child shouldn’t be parented with that tender love as well. He’s just now learning that there are consequences to his actions, he doesn’t understand why, but he knows there are certain things he can’t do. Probably the best stage to start the affectionate love as he doesn’t understand that he can’t hit me directly in the face out of excitement. Teaching these new boundaries are not easy but I want him to feel a bond and respect towards me as we embark on this journey together.

Moment of Truth:

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

We are given the tools; take heart as we embark on this journey of being blessed by our children and blessing them back. We have this hope, now let’s use the tools God has promised!

Bleached Flour

Posted by Delightfully Doable on 22 September, 2013 No comment

What does that really mean? We buy our flour from Costco, and as my husband was carrying the big 25lb bag into our house he read “bleached flour.” What’s the mean, he asked as I was helping carry in the other boxes of Costco goodies. I told him it didn’t sound good but was actually pretty surprised to see that word on Costco’s bag of flour. Normally Costco is really good about being healthy, chemical and preservative free.

I know I’ve read many recipes that call for “unbleached flour” thinking “duh” who would buy the other. Well I’m that person; we all make simple mistakes or get into such routines that we don’t truly pay attention to what we are doing in life. This goes for everything, our marriage, children, friends, and even food. I took the time to look this up and realized it’s a chemical process they do to flour to make it whiter. Wow! I can’t believe the little things that are so toxic to our bodies that we simply ignore or don’t pay attention to. I’ve been in a good routine for awhile with the items I purchase without giving much thought to it. Clearly, I had overlooked this bag of chemical flour for quite some time. To my dismay, I realized routine isn’t always best.

Same goes for life, we get stuck in routines of marriage, kids, school, sports and much more that we lose sight of reality. Don’t get stuck in the mundane routine of life and let busyness take over. We were made to be still and listen yet we get out of this habit instantaneously. I was realizing this morning how our weekends have become filled with entertaining in the evenings and household chores during the day. This isn’t always bad, especially since we just moved and all, but when it becomes a weekly chore week in and week out, we need to refocus again. Weekends were created for relaxation and enjoyment. It’s good to spend that quality time as a family going to the park, enjoying dinner together, watching a football game, and just being. So when you buy the same bag of flour week in and week out and years later finally, your eyes are open to the harm that you have neglected unintentionally for years. Take a step back and reevaluate your “routine.”

School Bullying

Posted by Delightfully Doable on 21 September, 2013 No comment

School Bullying

Please watch the video above before reading.

Yesterday morning on GMA there was this touching story on this little brothers deep desire to stop his twin sister from being bullied at school. He wrote an early letter to santa begging for his sister to be happy again. The poor little girl said she doesn’t know why she is being bullied but that she feels as if she were to die, everyone else would be happier. This broke her mother’s heart and she immediately said she would do anything to protect her and keep her happy. This is a mother’s greatest fear!!!

After I saw this, I couldn’t help but shed some tears. Ever since I had my own precious child, I can’t watch things without crying; stories like this are so real and literally break my heart. I beg for parents to teach their kids respect and love. They need to honor their peers and walk along side students who may appear different than them. This starts in the home. Parents are the ones to blame for the lack of respect and bullying in kids. I see on the news all the time “trying to stop bulling” but you can’t stop it when the parents are the ones teaching them that kids aren’t good enough, not cool enough, overweight, socially awkward and so forth. We wouldn’t have these issues if parents told their kids how to be nice and respectful to other people. People are in all different shapes and sizes, personalities, introvert and extravert; all of these are what makes the world go around. If we didn’t have differences we’d all be robots. Every person is unique and precious in their own way. We MUST stress this to our children and it must begin in the HOME.

This is something that a mother never wants to go through. I never want my child to be bullied and struggle through childhood being embarrassed and not wanting to go to school. Heart wrenching. I also do not want my child to be a bully; I would be mortified if my child bullied because there’s a poor innocent child suffering and losing any self confidence that may have existed previously, and secondly, it’s a reflection on us as parents not doing our job. I agree 100% that bullying has got to stop, but the parents are the ones that have to step in take control of bullying. I have seen parents use their kids to show off, ‘one-up’ another family, be the highly looked upon family in school, have the most athletic child, drive the most expensive car and so forth. It’s absolutely absurd how parents aren’t confident in their own lives and now this is reflecting on their kids and teaching them at a very young age that everyone else is below them. Reality check, you have got to work for what you have. Kids do not need financial and material things passed down to them; they need to experience what hard work truly is. They need to work for themselves and learn how to appreciate what they have. Now I’m not saying, don’t buy your child an iPad or a cell phone, what I am saying is what age are we allowing this, and what are they doing to earn these items. There is always a balance.

Veggie Burgers

Posted by Delightfully Doable on 20 September, 2013 No comment

My dad came down to help build our laundry room. He raised the ceiling, added walls, sheetrock, electrical and much more. I did have a helping hand as my husband was out of town for work; I was standing on a ladder, holding a HUGE, HEAVY piece of sheetrock above my head while my dad nailed it down. There were a couple moments I questioned what would happen if I dropped it, that would not have been a pretty site, my thoughts led me back around to that NOT being an option. My arms were burning; the weight upon my shoulders while holding this wobbly giant on a wiggly ladder was definitely a lot of pressure as I knew dropping this would be a disaster and prolong the process immensely. If you know much about me, I hate heights and wiggly heights none the less. I also have what I call Popeye and buh-bye arms. I get the Popeyes from carrying my son, and the buh-byes haven’t changed. J This technique with my dad challenged the buh-byes rather than the Popeyes I already had.

While he was here he was sharing with me his new invention of yummy veggie burgers amidst our love for beefy beef burgers. He actually made it sounds pretty tasty and worth trying. Take a look and see…

I make my own buns and this is the recipe I use. Depending on my mood and what I am making I add either poppy seeds or cheddar cheese and mix it directly into the dough.

Buns:

3/4 c. hot water
2 T. oil
2 T. sugar
2 t. instant yeast
1 t. salt
1 egg
3-4 cups flour
Poppy seed (optional)
Cheddar Cheese (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all the ingredients in a standing mixture; I use Kitchen Aid. Beat till smooth and flour is fully mixed throughout. Add enough flour where the dough is slightly sticky, but doesn’t stick to your finger. Knead for about 5 minutes. If you are adding poppy seeds or cheddar cheese add this now. Divide into 8 portions and roll into 8 balls. Place on well greased cookie sheet and press down with the palm of your hand to flatten slightly. Cover with a tea towel and let rise till doubled. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

Insides:

Avocado
Tomato
Cucumbers
Onion
Pickles
Lettuce
Blue Cheese crumbles
Blue cheese dressing

Slice the buns in half and brush with butter and garlic, broil in the oven or BBQ until lightly crispy. Spread Blue cheese dressing on each side of the bun and sprinkle blue cheese crumbles on top. Add slice avocado, tomato, onion, pickles and lettuce and enjoy.

Sounds simple and it is, and it’s very tasty. Thanks to my dad! :)

Breakfast Bake

Posted by Delightfully Doable on 19 September, 2013 No comment

I normally make granola to have on hand and send with my husband for breakfast throughout the week. I send him with berries and milk, or berries and yogurt so he can have a variety with his granola. Although lately he has wanted something else and is worn out on cereal; I normally will send him with breakfast burritos as an alternative but because they require more eggs I wanted to think of something different this time around.

I decided I would make an “egg bake” since I could use it throughout the week rather then make something every night to help save on time. He has also been trying to eat completely different as he wants to lose a few pounds before our trip in two weeks. This being said, I am pretty limited when it comes to his “diet” because he likes to take extreme measures; no dairy, no carbs, no sugar… Well if you haven’t known, most things have carbs and sugar. He finally said he was willing to let me simplify recipes to a healthier version eliminating refined sugars.

I used what I had on hand and came up with this “breakfast bake” that sounds so original. J There are so many “breakfast bakes” as I’m sure everyone else is unsure what to call it, as am I.

Ingredients:

1 lb lean ground turkey
½ onion chopped
3 garlic cloves minced
½ yellow pepper diced
½ red pepper diced
1 cup sliced mushrooms
8 large eggs
1 ½ cup coconut milk
1 tbsp flour
Salt and pepper to taste
Corn tortillas
Shredded cheese (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a skillet combine turkey, onion, garlic, peppers, and mushrooms and cook through. While that is cooking, in a 9×13 greased pan lay down corn tortillas to cover the bottom, overlap so that you have a good thick layer on the bottom as a crust.

(I started making little burritos, don’t do this, the corn tortillas fall apart)

(Just cover the entire bottom with a thick layer of tortillas and lay mixture on top)

In a small bowl whisk eggs, milk and flour and add salt and pepper. Turn skillet off and add egg mixture and mix.

Dump the mixture on top of the tortillas. Lay another layer of tortillas on top of the mixture over lapping to get that thick “crusty” layer. Sprinkle with cheese and bake for 30-40 minutes until egg mixture doesn’t wiggle anymore.

This has lasted all week long for us as I send it with the hubby and my son and I eat it in the mornings as well.

Do we live in a stable?

Posted by Delightfully Doable on 18 September, 2013 No comment

So we moved officially three months ago now. We have had an odor ever since we moved in but hadn’t known why. The wind would blow just right that we would get a whiff of something nasty. Now we remember this occurring since we very first moved in considering my son’s birthday was a week after we moved, and while we sat on the back porch for dinner, the smell was very potent. Here we are three months later and the smell was a leaky sewer pipe. It wasn’t from our actual sewer though; it was all kitchen disposal garbage that has been down there for several months cooking. Our homeowner’s policy wouldn’t touch it because it has been a gradual growth not a quick broken pipe. After getting quotes from three different companies I decided the theme was the same; this must have been ongoing for quite some time and I decided I would call the gentleman that did our homeowners inspection. Let me say, they weren’t too happy with me, but I felt this was very clear they had missed this leaking pipe. All evidence pointed to this; the smell, water, and three companies telling me so.

They hemmed and hawed about this event as I’m sure they didn’t want to take responsibility, now I finally called the owner of the company as I was unpleasant with the blame of other people rather than just taking responsibility for this mistake. I was very polite but honest with them and simply asked for them to take care of it. I wasn’t out for their money; all I want is a simple fix.

Here we are three weeks later, definitely a long process. Finally today they are here taking care of the issue and now our house smells like a manure pile; literally!!!! It’s so bad, all the doors and windows are open and its pretty cold out. They did tell me that food debris is actually worse than real sewer. I now believe this statement. It’s pretty bad! Luckily we are done with the smell by the end of the day! Now….even worse news…..they said not only is there a TON of spiders down there, they are HUGE, HAIRY and NESTING!!!! GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fury, creepy crawlers are my worst nightmare. I have an abnormal fear of spiders, to the point so much so I should seek counseling. They said it was so bad they would actually throw a couple spider bombs under there for us. What is very frustrating is that we have a pest control company we hired when we first moved in to help take care of this issue. I’ve had to call them every couple of weeks to come back out and treat for slugs, spiders, beetles, you name it, we’ve got it. I’m not very happy with their service as we have paid over $400 for a year and have had no success.

(Here is the waste they had to haul out….)

(Here is the pipe with worn through holes…definitely something that occurred over time..)

Needless to say, we are taking action and going to fix a few problems promptly.

Buffalo Chicken Wrap

Posted by Delightfully Doable on 17 September, 2013 No comment

So due to our sewer getting fixed and the manure pile being carried in garbage bags through our living room, I decided the smell is a complete diet trick and dinner may not be cooked tonight. (Click here to read about our sewer) Well, I actually can’t even use our sink due to the pipe being broken so I am going to resort to Buffalo Chicken Wraps tonight for an easy quick dinner since we all will need to eat at some point. Now I truly am not hungry as the smell is filling our house and making it seem as though it’s a stable and not a house anymore, but when that point comes this will be roughly a ten minute meal.

I buy rotisserie chickens from Costco as they do not pump hormones into their chickens, they are huge and produce a lot of meat and most of all provide quick meals on the go. I also buy white corn tortillas from Costco as they are very healthy, very few ingredients and they don’t fall apart when you roll them up. I normally buy white flour tortillas but had a sample of this and they are so tasty and better for you.

To be honest, I attempted one for lunch but quickly lost my appetite.

Buffalo Chicken Wraps:

White Corn Tortillas
Romaine Lettuce
Provolone Cheese
Sliced Tomatoes
Rotisserie Chicken
Franks Wing Sauce

Heat chicken in microwave for 30 seconds and toss chicken in a bowl with ¼ cup wing sauce and coat evenly. Depending on spice add more or less sauce that fits your taste buds. Coat a skillet with a little EVOO and place tortilla in pan and allow to lightly brown. This will make it taste more like a burrito than a cold chicken wrap. Place toppings in tortilla, wrap up and enjoy.

Serving with sautéed kale as we are addicted to this side lately and it’s so healthy for you!

A mother’s worst nightmare

Posted by Delightfully Doable on 16 September, 2013 No comment

This weekend did not start off right. At 2pm on Friday I experienced the worst thing a parent could ever experience. As I walked into my son’s room 3 ½ hours later, confused that he was still sleeping, I walked into a nightmare. As I approached his crib my son was having convulsions that kept him from being able to sit up. I quickly grab him to have his head fall forward without an ounce of control. He was shaking so badly, and to see my helpless babe without the ability to hold his head up was a very weak moment for me. “Cooper, Cooper?” I cried as I tried to get a response from him. “Cooper, look at mommy, Cooper what’s wrong?” Without being able to gain a sign of response, I quickly thought maybe he was dehydrated. I tried to nurse him, and as he was lying in my arms his eyes kept rolling in the back of his head. Finally, he looked at me and started to cry. I quickly called the doctor as this started to subside; had it not, I would have called 911. The doctor told me to come in immediately.

On my drive to the doctor, I tried calling my husband to find out he was in a meeting. I was panicked; unsure what to do besides rush him in immediately. Let me tell you me deep love/hate for doctors, as I had to wait an hour just to be taken back to the room and an additional half hour once taken back; my deep loath for doctors began to sink in. My husband was on the phone with me fearful of the news we were about to hear. He finally couldn’t handle it anymore so he left work early and joined me right after the appointment. The doctor told me what I witnessed was probably the aftermath of a seizure. This is what I didn’t want to hear. I don’t know why a 14 month old baby would be having seizures, something else is than wrong. I had to stop my thoughts in their tracks hoping and praying that it was a ‘one and done’ deal; no more would happen. They couldn’t perform any tests while at their clinic, they would have to send us to the children’s hospital, where there he would stay the night and be monitored. Now the Doctor didn’t think we needed to do this yet. His words to me sounded numb; “he won’t die from seizures, so if he keeps having them we need to monitor him and find out why, but until than I don’t know that it would be the best decision to send you directly to the hospital without having seen it myself.”

My questions were endless, my frustration towards the doctor showed, I wanted answers, not “what ifs.” The only possible other solution was that it could be a virus, causing a seizure for some unknown reason. Neither of these answers were beneficial to me. He told me as the night progressed Cooper needed to gain full mobility back otherwise that would be a sign of something else because side effects of seizures are temporary. So all night we had to watch Cooper and evaluate his “wobbliness” so to speak. Now once my husband met up with us, he definitely noticed Cooper was a bit slower; he had fallen 4 times and knocked his head each time. Poor guy!

We decided against taking him in that night as he was still playing and was thoroughly tired. Now Saturday was pretty normal other than him being completely exhausted and having a big bruiser on his cheek from hitting the edge of the coffee table the night prior. Sunday on the other hand, he woke up crying which is never a good sign with him. He is the baby that will play in his crib for an hour before you truly need to get him. He’s refused to be put down all morning and was definitely not his normal Cooper Man self. We took off for church anyways, hoping for a change in scenery to put a smile on his face. There happened to be an all church barbeque following the service with some great entertainment that we wanted to attend.

Side note: We have been having sewer problems since we moved into our new house, now we didn’t know this until 2 weeks ago, but apparently this has been an ongoing issue for quite some time. Due to this information I decided to call the gentleman who did our home inspection as we had taken his word for all the activity under the house or lack thereof. He was supposed to be coming out Sunday at 2pm to evaluate this concern.

Due to this information we had to leave the barbeque early and get Cooper home for a nappy-pooh. Unfortunately, along with all of this “garbage” going on, for lack of a better word, as my husband was holding him he commented that Cooper was burning up. Burning up was an understatement, as we gave him Tylenol and even though that’s a fever reducer his temperature was still 101. He was so flushed and cranky. I laid him down for his nap while trying to juggle calling the advice nurse and talking to the home inspector at the same time. My eyes were getting watery, my emotions were worn on my sleeve, and everything together made me turn on the faucets in my eyes. I was crying out of concern for my child and the fact that we have a terrible sewer smell we’ve been dealing with for quite some time that financially wasn’t in our cards. $4500 was the staple price three companies had given us for this issue. Prayers that the home inspector takes responsibility for this and fixes it would be a huge blessing. (We still have heard).

The advice nurse finally called me back an hour and a half later, thankfully Cooper had been sleeping. This conversation was quite long. For liability reasons she had a lot of “advice” without being able to tell me exactly what to do. She knew my concern, knew I didn’t desire to take him to the hospital overnight if there truly wasn’t something big going on. She also knew I would pick up in a heartbeat and stay overnight as long as we needed to make sure my son was healthy. Torn between being an “over reactive parent” or an “unconcerned parent” was my struggle. She advised I watch him for a few minutes at a time if he slept longer than his normal nap considering that’s when we experienced the aftermath of his original episode. Since my son has been so restless lately while sleeping I figured I couldn’t get away with this. Luckily he woke up after 2 ½ hours. This time around, his temperature was 103. I’ve never seen Cooper so lethargic and never want to see it again. This active little boy can’t sit still, until now. He laid on me for quite some time just crying and helpless. He would also get restless and rollover and lay on the floor on his blanket and could not stop crying. He was so uncomfortable yet I was utterly helpless. This broke my heart and I wished I could do anything, anything in the world to take it away from him. Now with this response, the nurse did tell me that it actually doesn’t matter the degree of the fever, the bigger concern is if they are uninterested in their toys and you can’t hold their attention. This is exactly what was happening.

An hour later, my husband went to put on his jeans and pack a bag to head out to the hospital. Within those couple minutes we walked to the bedroom Cooper decided to try and play with a toy with a lot of intermittent crying. This behavior was a good sign, not lying on the floor and actually moving around was a huge blessing. Now I was concerned with his lack of fluids and food intake, but knew if we could get him to move around a bit, he would be bound to get thirsty. As the night progressed he got a little bit better and his fever dropped to 102. Enough to the point I felt okay with putting him to bed hoping for the best.

We put him in our room to monitor him and unfortunately he was so restless that every time he rolled over, sat up for a drink, and whimpered I was wide awake. I actually got no sleep, but given the circumstances I was totally fine with this. Tired, of course, but my baby was more important.

This morning he woke up with a fever of 100 degrees, I decided if the fever didn’t break we would definitely head in today no matter what. Well….by 1:30 when he woke up from his nap, the fever had pretty much broken. YAY!!!! The immediate concern was now alleviated, but the concern that my son still may have suffered a seizure still remains. We do have to watch for ANY neurological signs that may be slightly off to keep track if there is a bigger issue going on. The doctor did say it could be one and done, but we won’t know until more time passes and praying for no reoccurrence. I feel better knowing he’s getting his personality and strength back, but hoping for a full “recovery.” Praying for protection of Cooper and his health and that he will continue to grow and be a strong, healthy little boy.

I love you Cooper John Cook! I’m thankful I get to stay home with you; you are the light of my life.

Lemon Scrumptious Bars

Posted by Delightfully Doable on 15 September, 2013 No comment

We had some friends over for dinner on Friday night. It was a last minute decision because we were both free and hadn’t spent some time together as families in quite awhile. I am not too sure why, but I have had the worst sweet tooth for the last two weeks. Insanely bad! I have had absolutely no discipline, and not only during the evening when I choose to enjoy my treats, I’ve ventured into the mid morning sweet indulgences as well. So not good for me, but I haven’t seemed to stop this poor habit nor truly desired to, although I’m sure the scale would prompt this to happen sooner rather than later if I stepped on it. Funny how scales quickly show the indulgences of a couple weeks yet when you are good for months prior, the scale still never moves.

Enough of my rant, I chose to make lemon bars since my sweet tooth has been acting up lately it chose something tart instead of my usual affair with chocolate. Even my husband who isn’t a big lemon bar fan devoured this dessert quite promptly. Our guests said the combination of the crust and the glaze made these by far the best lemon bars ever. I must say, this was a very true statement. Today is Sunday and in only two days a whole 9×13 pan has been conquered. We decided they were perfect with our cup of coffee this morning and we might as well finish the pan; neither of us thought it was a good idea for them to sit all day, why not enjoy them now.

You must try this recipe even if you aren’t a big fan of lemon bars.

Lemon Scrumptious Bars:

Crust:

1 cup butter
2 cups flour
½ cup powdered sugar
1 tsp grated lemon peel

Blend together in a standing mixer and press in a 9×13 greased baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Meanwhile make the filling.

Filling:

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
¼ cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ cup lemon juice
1 tsp grated lemon peel

Combine everything in a standing mixture and pour atop the half baked crust. Bake an additional 25-30 minutes or until light golden brown and the middle doesn’t jiggle.

Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar
2-3 tbsp lemon juice

Combine the glaze and layer on top of the bars once they are FULLY cooled. Place in the fridge to harden glaze before serving.

These taste the best the next day to be honest. They are delicious the night of but something about them sitting over night makes them that much better.

Enjoy as dessert or truly with a cup o’ jo in the morning. Scrumptious!!!

I must pay tribute to sohowsittaste.com