Banana Nut Granola Bars

These granola bars are of the chewy variety. A great healthy on-the-go snack for toddlers and busy moms. Mix it up and add chocolate chips or dried fruit to your recipe to keep it interesting!

Banana Nut Granola Bars

Ingredients:

1 very ripe banana, mashed
2 Tbsp honey
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 Tbsp pure maple syrup
3 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
2 cups instant oats
1/4 cup toasted walnuts, chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 8x8 pan with cooking spray. You can a 9x13 pan if you don't have an 8x8, but only spread it to an 8x8 size. The mix will keep its shape.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the banana, honey, applesauce, maple syrup, brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and salt.

In a separate bowl, mix the instant oats and toasted walnuts together. Add to liquid ingredients and stir to combine.

Press mixture into pan, keeping it about 1/2" thick. Bake for approximately 25-30 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool completely. Cut into 8 rectangles and store in an air tight container.

Enjoy!

Miss M's newborn pictures are in!

Two photo shoots, seven hours and a lot of patience later... we got our newborn, sibling and family photos in! Here's just a few of them. Thanks to Nikki Criniti for her patience and expertise. Now to decide which ones to get canvas prints of to hang up in the house... I love them all!

The Arrival of Little Miss M!

They say a picture is worth 1000 words. I agree completely. Our little M was born on April 24th and we couldn't be happier to have her in our family. Here is her story in pictures.

 

 

Support for Breastfeeding

Saw one of my friends post an article about support for breastfeeding on Facebook, ironically a couple hours after I had this same conversation with another friend over lunch. I'm about to go through the breastfeeding adventure for the second time with my daughter who will arrive sometime in April. The first time was not easy. Actually it was extremely difficult and stressful for me. Going back to a workplace that was not "pumping-friendly" made it that much harder for me.

I was a first-time mom, with no friends or family with children at the time to lean on for advice, and I had the stress of knowing that my daughter's health and happiness solely depended on my ability to feed her. I was given a small room to pump in that backed up to my coworkers cubicles. Do you know how loud those pumps are? Very loud. And probably louder when your stressed about other people hearing it and knowing what your doing. The room had a large window which they just put a piece of copier paper over to cover it. I had to hide around the doorway for fear that people would see me. The door had a lock, but several HR, sales reps and managers had keys to the room. Many times, people would try to come into the room, only stopping once they heard me yell that I was in there. People would lock the room when I wasn't in there, which then sent me on a chase around the building searching for someone who had a key to let me in the room.

So my point? For those employers who think that nursing/pumping moms are taking valuable time away from work, hurting the productivity of yourself and others around you... maybe you should consider this. If you made it easier and less stressful for us to pump, we'd be spending less time searching for a place to pump and less time worrying about how we will be able to pump enough to feed our child for the next day.

I don't think the argument is between what's better, breast or bottle. I think it's that women should be supported no matter which method they choose. They should be supported at home, at work and in public.

Check out this article from the NY Times.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Today, my little munchkin's daycare had a Valentine's Day breakfast for the students and families that my husband and I both were able to go to. All of the kids got to hand out their valentines to their fellow classmates, which was so cute!

This year, I decided to opt out of the traditional sweets valentines, since Ky is not quite two. We don't give her sweets at home, so I didn't want to assume other parents wanted their kids to have them either. Instead, I purchased a variety of toddler sunglasses, and wrote tags that say "You're A SuperStar, Valentine!"


I didn't get to see the kids' reactions to opening them, but I hope it was a good one! I hope you all enjoy your Valentine's Day and get to enjoy something sweet!

We've reached Picky Eater status!

My daughter is quickly approaching two year old status (March to be exact) and I would dub her the typical "picky eater" that I was hoping she wouldn't become. Many books, articles and other know-it-all parents warn you that it will happen... I still thought we would avoid it. Besides, I'm not one that likes hearing another mom brag about her child's good eating habits. 

My daughter followed the "right" path to being a good eater. Breast-fed, started solids at 4 months old, introduced to all of the veggies and "green" foods as well as many fruits, was introduced to kid foods of all kinds. But at 14 months old, she hit a wall and became the exclusively fruit and yogurt eating toddler. And at 22 months old, she still wont eat anything green, any veggies unless I hide them in rice, or any meat. She loves carbs, dairy and fruit. But that's it. If I could just sneak some vegetables into her preferred food groups, we'd be golden!

For any parents that have the same issue as me, which I'm sure there are millions of, you might all find this book a good read. At the very least, it gives you something to think about or try that you might not have done yet. And it certainly validates that you are not the only one dealing with the picky eater. 

This book is available on Amazon!

Making An Alphabet Book

When my daughter was born in 2011, I wanted to find a way to capture a year's worth of photos in a snapshot. I was on Shutterfly making christmas cards for her first christmas, and stumbled upon the photo book templates they provide. I thought, what a great idea. A year's worth of ABC's to illustrate her life.

 Shutterfly provides a template with lots of additions you can choose, from page backgrounds to stickers. The template was very easy to customize. Our family members loved getting these as Christmas presents and it's become an annual tradition. I, once again, went back this year and created a completely different looking 2012 ABC book using the same template.

These are just a few samples pages of my first go-round with the project. 2012's book came out a little better, since I knew in advance to prep for what each letter would stand for. I choose to include some photos of events that take place throughout the year, and also stage some of my own.

If your interested in creating one of these photo memory books, check out the photo book templates at Shutterfly!