What Do You Do When Your Baby Won't Wake Up?

Take pictures of him and blog about it. Duh.

I talked about in this post how we have been dealing with the 30 minute intruder. Jack sometimes makes up for his short naps during the day with 1 long nap. During the first hour of this long nap I am very productive and grateful to get things done. The second hour I start to get lazy and catch up on blogs, facebook, etc. By the third hour, I start talking on the phone really loud, putting clothes away in his room, accidentally slamming the door, etc.

At two hours and 50 minutes into his long nap today he started to stir and I thought this is it, I can finally play with my boy, so I ran upstairs, threw open his door along with the blinds, and yelled, "Baby Jack! I've been waiting for you to wake up for SO long!!!" (Yes-I call him 'baby Jack' 90% of the time.)

He grunted a few times, shot his legs in the air, and then they slowly lowered back down to the crib while his head fell to the side and he passed back out.

Come on!!!

It all started with a hot cocoa craving....

It was Friday night.  I was craving some hot cocoa with yummy whipped cream.  And having a chocolate chip/coconut cookie to soak up the hot cocoa goodness wouldn't hurt.
So at 9:20 we set out on a trip to our grocery store that closes at 10 to buy milk, bananas (Ben wanted these muffins, almond extract, and heavy whipping cream to make the whipped cream.

We headed home excitedly anticipating the deliciousness to follow.

And then we realized we forgot to buy milk.
I guess that's what happens when you are too focused on taking pictures while grocery shopping.  You forget that you need milk to make hot cocoa.
So with 7 minutes to spare, we pulled a quick u-turn and Ben went in for the kill.

This is his "Oops I found the ice-cream aisle that you always try to hide from me" face.

I would say that the quest was quite worth it!! We both got a little 'dunk' happy with our cookies and have been enjoying the muffins every morning.  :)
So that is how we spent our Friday evening.  
How did you spend yours?

Out of town.

I'm home (Chicago) for the week and don't have any recipes to share, any tips about healthy eating, or any cute pictures.  Yet.
However, I do have a picture from my phone (not an iphone) of this amazingly cheesy, deliciously wonderful pizza.  It's the one I have dreams about.  It's also the one that I was referring to when I answered, "Chicago pizza" while living in Japan and asked what was the 1 thing I missed most about home.  Oops, sorry family and friends!!!

Side note: The fact that there is a Giordano's box and McDonald's bag side-by-side on our kitchen table is nothing unusual.

Double side note: Here is a conversation I had with my 17 year old brother, who was only half paying attention to me because he's playing Battlefield 3 on xbox 360:

Me: Matt, what kinds of food do you find in the fridge from fast food places on most days?

Matt: Um, I don't know, meat.

Me: Meat? What kind of meat?

Matt: BEEF

Me: What?! I'm talking about fast food places.

Matt: Oh! In our fridge? Oh um, chicken nuggets from McDonalds, hotdogs from the Dugout, Oh a headshot! This guy is so good with knifing, burgers from Les Brothers, I find a lot of salads from McDonalds in there. Ha my friend joined the game and I'm wrecking him, he only has 8 kills.  I have 70 kills.  He should be ashamed.

On that note.

Chewy chocolate chip coconut cookies

I meet a lot of couples where one person loves sweets but the other person does not have quite the sweet tooth.  This seems like a great balance--I wish Ben and I had that balance.  Or any balance.
We both love chocolate.  We crave chocolate. We used to order a dessert almost every time we went out to eat (which was just about every Friday and Saturday night).
Trying to cut out toxins from our diets has drastically changed our 'eating out' schedule, as well as how often we order desserts.  But don't be mistaken--we still eat desserts! And we even sometimes still order desserts from restaurants..usually for a special occasion, like a friend's birthday. 

yummy chocolate caramel brownies with ice-cream for a friend's birthday

The way that we usually continue to get our chocolate fix is through baking desserts at home.  There is so much more that you can control when making your own desserts (not including quantity eaten).  Take the recipe below that I found on the back of a bag of Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips.  I switched out the type of flour, decreased the amount of sugar, added unsweetened shredded coconut, and the cookies came out tasting amazing, but also much healthier!
So while it's still not healthy to eat a bunch of these everyday, it is much healthier to eat 1 or 2 of these when having a chocolate craving rather than eating a store bought or box dessert.
I made a bunch of these for Ben to bring to the guys/gals on their last day at the shooting range and from what I hear, everyone loved them! 

Have you made any 'healthy' desserts lately that are worth sharing?

Chewy Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies
modified from bag of Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup white flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375F.  Mix flour with baking soda and set aside.  
2. Beat butter with sugar and brown sugar at medium speed until creamy.  Add vanilla and eggs, mixing on low speed until incorporated.
3. Gradually blend dry mixture into creamed mixture.
4. Stir in chocolate chips and coconut.  Drop by tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheets (I used a Silpat mat).
5. Bake for 7-9 minutes or until golden brown.

mix dry ingredients

mix wet ingredients

nice and fluffy

stir in chocolate chips and coconut

perfection

best time to eat

ready to go to the range

dunking is not a choice, it's a must

Labor day weekend

We had such an amazing Labor Day weekend! Ben and I flew to Oregon on Thursday to visit family and just got home (last night/this morning) at 2am.  We ended up zigzagging around the country (because of course I made sure we got the cheapest flights) and had 2 stops both there and back.  But boy, was it worth it!!
My older brother moved to an area outside of Portland when I was still in high school, and I have enjoyed my extended vacations there ever since. Almost every trip I've ever taken there has been at least 2 weeks, lasting once an entire summer.  So this 5 day trip really did fly by. 
We spent most of our trip in Bend, Oregon staying at an adorable cabin in Sunriver.  It was such a fun time filled with playing with my almost 2 yr old nephew and 5 week old neice, hiking, catching up with my sister-in-law, relaxing, bike riding, cooking/baking, bonding time for the boys (golfing/fishing), and throwing rocks!!
I am already missing hearing "MIKKI" in the early morning and "dues dues dues" (shoes shoes shoes) from the little guy.  He could convince me to go outside and throw rocks at just about anytime of the day.

Noah's favorite activity--throwing rocks into water

Fly fishing in a caldera

Hiking the obsidian flow

Before leaving for our excursion, we went grocery shopping and filled a big cooler with everything we would need to make our meals for the weekend.  These muffins were so delicious that I woke up to Ben and John making them one morning because we were about to run out of our first batch!
We first made these muffins for Ben's work convention, so we made mini muffins since there were over 30 people (pictures below).  I couldn't find a muffin pan in the cabin, so we poured the batter into a 9x13 pyrex pan and the end result was still great--little muffin squares!  Of course I ended up finding the muffin pan once the pyrex pan was in the oven.

• We first made these using 1 1/2 cups wheat flour and 1/2 cup white flour (instead of all wheat flour) and that works as well...but obviously using all wheat flour is healthier (and just as tastey!).
• I did not even mash the bananas before putting them in the stand mixer--let the mixer do all the work!
• We always try to buy all ingredients organic when possible.

Mocha Banana Muffins
Recipe adapted from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients
1/4 cup softened butter
1cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
3 large ripe bananas
4 tablespoons instant coffee granules, dissolved in
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons ground flax seed
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup dark chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Mix butter, applesauce, sugar, egg, bananas, dissolved coffee, and vanilla in stand mixer until combined. 
3. Add flour, ground flax seed, baking power, and baking soda. Mix until well combined.  Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Spoon mixture into paper-lined muffin cups, well oiled muffin pan, or well oiled 9x13 baking dish. 
5. Bake for 18-23 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.  Cool on wire racks.

Makes 20-23 muffins

We found all of this at Publix

Instant coffee dissolved in water

Guilty pleasures

Guilty pleasures...I have a lot of them! We really try to eat healthy most of the time.  Ben likes to remind me that we do need a balance...and I do not mind finding that balance if it includes Indian food.

I grew up eating amazing, homemade Indian food on the weekends (and McDonalds, BK, Phil's Pizza, The Dugout's cheesedogs, White Castles, etc. during the week), so smelling curry powder, garam masala, and cumin when I walk into a building always takes me back to my childhood.  And makes me extremely hungry.

We have been looking for Indian restaurants in the area without success for quite some time now.  SO as you can imagine, I did not hesitate to buy a groupon a few weeks ago for Fusion when my happy little fingers came across it.  

The food was delicious! And yes, it was definitely a guilty pleasure as I am positive they do not use organic yogurt, organic spices, or hormone/antibiotic free/grass fed meat (I did opt for the veg. curry)..but we are allowed those every once in a while, right? 

My curry filled belly says YES! Or Delhi belly--as my sister likes to call it.  ;)

What are some of your guilty pleasures? Come on, I know you're not all perfect!!

perfect samosa

curry+naan+rice+lassi=pure joy

we try to eat only the desserts we make so we can control what is in it, but we could not help ourselves...would you be able to??