Water-tastic birthday gift!

One of  Z-baby's cute little buddies just had a birthday.

Which makes me so so sad because he turned two and he is only 8WEEKS older than my baby girl!

Gah! Where does time go!?

I digress, so when I asked his mamma what he needed for his birthday she said sippy cups!

Being a mamma myself, I am all about the practical gifts, but having been a kid once I feel the need for a little excitement too!

So the girls and I hit up Target.

And of course the dollar section lured me in like a siren in the sea...

Lucky for me I found the excitement I needed for little man's gift.

I bought the bucket/ shovel combo, pack of three squirt guns, large shovel, and water ball for a dollar each.

That is four bucks y'all.

Four bucks to take a practical gift and change it to a fantastic gift!

I grabbed some letters from the scrapbook section and added his name to make it a little more special.

Then I shoved in two sippy cups to  make mommy happy!

I was so pleased with the results...

and I LOVED the price tag!

Does it seem like all the children in the world were born during the summer months to you too?

I swear we have like 500 birthday parties to go to in the next month.

(Z-baby's included!)

Much love

Mommy timeout

Do you ever wish timeouts for mommies existed.

Or even better-

when Zadie is having a rough time we often ask her if she wants to go to her crib and read (look at books).

She nearly always takes us up on the offer and she spends fifteen or twenty minutes in solitude looking at her books. When she is done she calls for me and I come and get her.

Generally it really helps her feel better.

Sometimes, okay all the time, I wish I could take those moments too. 

Here is what mine would look like:

via

Swinging in this...

Sipping on this...

via

Reading this in peace and quiet...

Today I would pay A LOT of money for a timeout!

Having a two year old is exhausting.

I swear her mood swings are worse than mine when I am PMSing ;)

I LOVE my two little munchkins to the moon and back,

but this momma is tired today.

So I am going to take the 20 minutes my girls nap at the same time to eat a handful of chocolate chips and drink a coconut water while envisioning a beach in Jamaica.

And hopefully when they wake up I  will have patience and tons of energy!

A mom can dream right?!

;)

So what do you do to unwind? Any mommy tips you wanna share about dealing with a two year old?

Any sleep you want to send my way :) 

Much love

Criss-cross baby dress

Poor Mattie is sorely lacking in summer clothes. She was born in the complete opposite time of the year from  Zadie which means I have a plethora of 3-6 month winter clothes, but in this 100 degree weather that just ain't gonna cut it! ;)

So the other night I whipped up this cutie patootie dress. 

I mean, is there anything more sweet than a cute little baby bootie sticking out of the back of one of these little dresses!! I found this great sailboat fabric on clearance at Joann's and I snapped it right up. The pink contrasting fabric was from my stash.

I used this pattern my grandma had in her collection. I think I may be slowly defeating my fear of commercial  patterns. Honestly, if I had to choose I would always go with an instant download from ETSY. With all the pictures and detailed instructions you just cannot go wrong!

I wasn't blogging around the time when I created this little beauty in the nursery, so I thought I would share now. I am no artist so the fact that this actually turned out how I envisioned it had me over the moon!!

Happy Tuesday

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whole wheat oatmeal carrot cookies

Have I told you lately how much I L.O.V.E. cooking and eating in the summer time?!

All the fresh ingredients make the farmer's markets explode!

And I seriously think that knowing you may have to squeeze into a bathing suit any moment curbs the ole' appetite a bit !

Lately our farmer's market has had an amazing selection of fruits and veggies in their discount section-

Which just so happens to be favorite section at the market :)

So, I have been stocking up!

The down side to the discount section is that you have to use that food pronto or it will spoil on you.

Luck us, that is a perfect excuse to use our juicer!!

A lot of times I feel a little guilty using the juicer because I waste all the pulp-

A smoothie is just so much cleaner and uses pretty much the whole fruit.

But if you add a little planning the juicer is not wasteful at all.

You really get two items for the price of one!

That is where these cookies came in-

I had several bags of carrots from the discount section that were dying to be juiced.

Before I juiced them I took a second to see if I could find a way to use the pulp.

I found this recipe and it is A.MAZ.ING.

Ingredients:

(adapted from cdkitchen)

1 cup honey

1 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups whole-wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon allspice
2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
2 cups raisins
2 cups grated carrots

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 

In a mixing bowl beat together the honey, oil, vanilla and eggs. 

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and oatmeal and blend well. 

Then stir in raisins and carrots. Add the liquid ingredients to the mixture and blend well. 

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto an oiled cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown. Remove the cookies from the cookie sheet and cool them on a rack before storing.

This recipe makes A LOT of cookies. So, I divided my dough into 3 sections. I baked one, and I rolled the other two into logs, wrapped them in freezer paper, and then I froze them. I have since eaten ALL the cookies (cooked and frozen) and they were delish! I just let the frozen dough thaw for a few minutes before I sliced them up and popped them in the oven!

Enjoy!

P.S. Some good stuff to juice with carrots- an apple, a handful of grapes, or a juicy tomato. Yum!

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