Lately, I’m on an oatmeal kick.
The thing is, I don’t even like oatmeal–at least not in its “natural” form. You won’t catch me eating it as a bowl full of mush. Gross.
Put it in some baked goods, however, and I love oatmeal.
I’m on a search for awesome dessert recipes that contain–you guessed it–oatmeal. For a trip over to a friend’s house, I started with Allrecipes.com, and turned up this recipe for chewy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.
I spiced them up at bit by using a mixture of semisweet chocolate chips and milk chocolate/peanut butter chips, since that is what I had on hand. You could change these up by using a variety of different mix-ins–white chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, cinnamon chips, raisins, craisins, toffee bits, walnuts, etc. Go crazy!
These turned out lovely–they reminded me of a tasty cookie you’d pick up in a little cafe somewhere. And they were really easy to throw together, too, which always helps make a recipe a winner in my book!
Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
(Source: Adapted from Allrecipes.com)
Ingredients:
– 1 cup butter, softened
– 1 cup packed light brown sugar
– 1/2 cup white sugar
– 2 eggs
– 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
– 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
– 1 teaspoon baking soda
– 1/2 teaspoon salt
– 3 cups quick-cooking oats
– 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional; I omitted)
– 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (or any other mix-in you’d like)
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture until just blended. Mix in the quick oats, walnuts, and chocolate chips. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets.
3. Bake for 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Nora doesn’t have too many toys yet.
We put a handful of cute things on her “wish list” for Christmas gifts from the grandparents, and she got pretty much everything on it (she’s a lucky girl). But, she’s not yet at the age where she can really play with anything beyond rattles, teethers, and the little plush animals that hang down from the handle of her car seat, her bouncer, or her play mat. So most of the toys are still in their packages, waiting for the day when Nora can sit on the floor to play–which, sadly, is probably not too far off. (She’s growing too quickly!)
There is one toy, however, that we’ve already been able to enjoy.
Meet Scout.
Officially called “My Pal Scout,” this little guy is made by LeapFrog. Although it’s intended for ages 6 months and up, Nora is already fascinated by it. It sings, it talks, and the name tag on the collar lights up and blinks. It’s wonderfully stimulating for developing minds like Nora’s.
The funny thing is that EVERYONE loves this thing. I walk around singing the little songs to Nora all day long, whether Scout is actually around or not. “Me and my friend–NORA–we like to do everything together. We jump up and down… Jump! Jump! Jump!” I mean, seriously. Who can resist this stuff.
That’s the greatest part of this little guy–He comes with a USB cable that allows you to connect it to the computer to customize it. You can download the child’s name, which is then inserted into songs and activities when they play. You can choose the child’s favorite animal, color, and food, which are also used periodically. It’s simply adorable.
One of the paws plays recorded tracks that are meant to be some kind of an activity or question–like “I bet you can guess what animal I am–oink! oink! oink!” On the opposite side, there are fun songs, like the one I mentioned above with Nora’s name in it. You can also select some other songs from the software–there are 30 available, and you can choose which five to load onto the toy. The third paw plays lullabies (options are for 2, 5, and 10 minute increments) to help put baby to sleep.
Because it’s educational and interactive, older kids like Scout, too. On a whim last week, I stuck Scout in Nora’s bag for daycare. When I picked her up that day, our daycare provider RAVED over how much all of the kids loved it. She said it was a huge hit–and Mary loved it so much herself that she ended up going out to buy one for her granddaughter!
It’s a great little toy, especially for the price. Would you believe this thing is under $20?? And, in case you’re wondering… there’s a My Pal Violet, too.
(No, LeapFrog did nothing to solicit this review from me. I did not receive anything from LeapFrog. I just love the thing this much.)
Four weeks into our house hunting experience, and I’ve come to one conclusion:
House hunting is a pain in the ass.
It seemed so much easier the first time around; I was only 22 years old. We were less than a year out of college, both living at home with our parents, and both making shit for money, so our options were pretty limited. We had a very specific price range, and knew the area that we wanted to be in… which narrowed down our search to literally one neighborhood. Once we were ready to get serious about the search, we made appointments to look at three different units on the same day. We came, we saw them all, we made up our minds, and we bought one of them. It was that simple. Seriously.
This time? Not so much.
We like the town we live in. Because of that, we’d like to stay in this town. On one hand, that might seem like it makes things easier because it gives us a focus for our search, but really all it does is severely limit our options. And while we’re in much better shape financially than we were six years ago, Rockefellers we are not, so we do have a budget.
And here’s the thing: We’re kinda sorta picky this time around. You see, we’ve spent the last six years chipping away at home improvement projects at our current place, refining it to be the place we’ve always wanted it to be. Now that we’re essentially done with it all, well, we’ve outgrown our home.
All of the work–the painting (oh my god, THE PAINTING), the massive kitchen renovation, the bathroom, the floor project, the sliding glass door, the carpet–it’s all so fresh in our minds. We remember what a huge effort it all was, and we just aren’t ready to do it again. We want something move-in ready this time.
We want a decent kitchen.
We want decent bathrooms.
We want a two-car attached garage. (No compromises.)
We want a nice yard.
We want a deck.
We want a quiet street.
We want vinyl siding.
We don’t want to have to replace a roof or windows.
We’d love a fireplace.
We’ve looked at a few places and have been “meh” about them. It’s been a week or two since anything new has come on the market that fits into our parameters, and that’s just… frustrating.
Add to all of this that we also have to worry about selling our place this time around, and well, you’ve got stress. Our realtor is coming over this weekend to help us get our house on the market, and it makes me so nervous. Not to mention the fact that it means we have to do all this stuff in preparation to show the house–we need to declutter, we need to clean the nooks and crannies, we need to make the house less… ours. It’s a weird process.
House hunting (and selling) is a pain in the ass.
The changes in Nora over the last few weeks have been truly incredible.
I’ve been around a lot of babies in my life. But now that I have one of my own, to know like the back of my hand, to see her every day… I am in complete awe of the rate of development of a human infant in its first months of life.
Seriously, though. One day, she can’t do something. The next day, she can.
As an example, let’s take rolling from back to belly. She’s been rolling consistently from belly to back for a while now, but she couldn’t go the other way. For a week or so, we watched as she got closer and closer to flipping herself onto her belly. She’d crane her head and neck backward, she’d rotate her torso and her legs as far as she could, but she just couldn’t get that hip to swing over to flip herself. She was so close, but she couldn’t do it.
When we woke her up in her crib on Wednesday morning, she couldn’t do it. At bedtime on Wednesday night, she couldn’t do it. But then, when I went in to check on her sometime on Wednesday evening, after she had been sleeping for a while, this is how I found her:
Out cold, sleeping on her belly. With her arm stuck through the crib slats, to boot. Suddenly, she could do it. And now we can’t get her to stop. Here’s a quick video of her showing off her new skills:
Admittedly, she doesn’t quite understand what she’s doing yet–meaning she’s not doing it purposely–but still!
Oh, and remember when I was so stressed out about breaking her of the swaddle? (I was also stressed about all other things sleep, but that turned out to be related to a surprise ear infection!) Well, shortly after that post, we tried to put her to bed one night without her swaddle, and it.went.terribly. It was horrible, and my stress about the situation increased. But we figured why fix what isn’t broken, and continued to swaddle her.
A little over a week ago, we had her 4-month well-baby doctor’s appointment and mentioned the swaddle to Nora’s pediatrician. First, she told us not to worry about it. She said that if it’s what makes Nora comfortable and helps her sleep well, go with it. She said that babies WILL grow out of it and assured us that we would not someday be swaddling a 5-year-old child. However, when I mentioned to her that Nora had been busting out of it at least once a night for the past week or so, she said, “Well, maybe she’s telling you it’s time.”
That night, she was fussy from her immunizations, so we stuck with the swaddle. But the next night? We went cold turkey, replacing the swaddle blanket with a sleep sack. She slept from 8 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. with no problems at all. We were amazed. She did have some issues from 3:30-7:30 a.m., but we stuck with it, and the following night, she slept all the way through. What a big girl! (And such a freaking rockstar.) We haven’t swaddled her since.
One thing that Nora hasn’t been doing is “talking.” She hasn’t been a very vocal baby–she giggles, but we don’t hear a lot of cooing. But sure enough, suddenly, today… she was “chatting” all afternoon and evening. It was hilarious and so, so cute.
This is such a fun age. I couldn’t love her more.
I never thought I’d enjoy getting up at 7:30 a.m. when I don’t have to.
It’s true what Johnson & Johnson says, you know… Having a baby changes everything. :)
Saturday mornings are my favorite.
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
