Fun at the Park

(with the bright sun.)

Whole Wheat Muffins

Well, folks - I have ventured into the world of whole wheat flour!!
Since I've been making all of our breads homemade, I thought I'd go a step further in making them even healthier by substituting some whole wheat flour in my recipes. I made these muffins tonight, which is a recipe I adapted from one I found online and they were pretty good!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/3 cup apple sauce
• 1 egg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease bottom of 12 muffin tins.

Mix the first 6 ingredients in large bowl. In separate bowl, mix the milk, apple sauce and egg. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry all at once, and mix just until all the dry ingredients are wet. Don't overmix!

Bake for 17-20 minutes or until golden brown.

They're best served warm! I'm thinking they'd be delish with a streusel topping but I haven't tried that yet. I need a pastry blender first. Cutting butter with two knives is just too tedious for me.

In case you're counting, they're 119 calories per muffin.

This is What Happens When...

...you ask Hunter to check on his sister who just woke up from a nap while I get dinner in the oven. 

Kylee's Birthday Party

Kylee's birthday party was great! The theme I chose was polka dots, and it was such a fun theme to do!

For the invites, I just printed the info on card stock, and cut it to a square.Then I took polka-dotted scrap booking paper and glued it to the front. The "envelopes" were multi-colored CD jackets I picked up for super-cheap on eBay. Here is what the outside looked like:

 

 Here's the inside. I downloaded that polka-dotted font for free off the internet:

  

I made a polka-dotted birthday banner using scrapbook paper again:

 

 I also made little candy pouches with the scrapbook paper. I cut them into circles and glued them together using Elmer's glue, just leaving a slot open to slide the candy in. I let it dry for 24 hours before stuffing them with candy.

 

For decorations, we hung balloons and paper wheels from the ceiling. 

 

 The birthday girl LOVED the decorations. She kept looking up to the ceiling and talking about them!

 The polka-dotted cake was the most fun to do! My mom and I did fondant again, and it was so much easier than when we did it for Lightening McQueen. Some things we learned...using a KitchenAid Stand Mixer for the kneading is a life saver! Also, a full 24 hours of refrigeration makes it much easier to work with. Here is the finished product.

Kylee's cake just had buttercream frosting on it, and then I placed nonpareils all over it.

 We taped plates to curling ribbon and hung them on the wall for more decoration behind the cake table.

 Since it was a polka-dotted party, all the food was round. We had meatballs, a cheese ball with Ritz crackers, polka-dotted popcorn using this recipe, green and red grapes, cheese balls, and m&m's.

 

Here's a close up of the popcorn. It was SOOO good!

And here's the birthday girl! I don't have very many pictures of her though. She wasn't too cooperative for the camera.

 My mom and both of Greg's parents were able to come into town for the party, and we had lots of friends come too! I chuckled when I walked past the front door:

 As far as her cake goes, she was so exhausted at this point that she didn't eat much of it. She was actually falling asleep in the high chair!

 She did great though, and got lots of wonderful gifts. Thank you everyone who came to share this special day with our sweet baby girl!

33 Weeks

Not too much to report this week. I've had a couple people tell me I look bigger though. I'm not sure how I feel about this. They said it's just in my belly so I'm taking refuge in the fact that he's measuring normal size. 

Hunter has gotten to feel baby boy move and kick a few times this week, which really has been the first time he's felt anything. He gets a huge smile on his face when he feels it. I love it!

I think that's it for now!

Snuggling with My Babies

All three of them, haha. 

Wedding Vow Renewal

This whole month at church has been dedicated to the family. It started with the couple's retreat the first weekend in February and then we had revival which was geared towards the family as well. To end the revival, our church offered the opportunity this past Sunday night to renew wedding vows for anyone that wanted to. I'm so glad that we participated in it. After almost 6.5 years of marriage, I have such a better understanding of what those vows really mean. I loved having the opportunity to tell them to Gregory again to show him that I still mean them with my whole heart and am committed 100% to him for better or for worse. 

The picture was taken after the service. Isn't my man so handsome?! I'm so in love with him.