Some Healthy-ish desserts- whole wheat and oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm just copying these recipes from my old blog so that I can have them here and I just might pin them so I can find them easier later on too.....not sure how I feel about pinning my blog though.  

Chocolate Cheesecakes

This one is from the Taste of Home Healthy Cooking. This one if made as directed would only have 5 grams of carbs-Perfect for Diabetics. Of course I didn't use the sugar substitute and it only made 18 cakes instead of 24. So it came out to more like 18 grams of carbs which is still pretty good for a dessert. And they were pretty tasty.

-24 miniature vanilla wafers or gingersnap cookies (I used regular sized vanilla wafers)
-1 pkg 8oz reduced fat cream cheese
-Sugar substitute equivalent to 1/2 cup sugar ( I loved that they didn't just say 1/2 sugar substitute that way I could just use sugar)
-1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted and cooled
-1 tsp Vanilla extract
-1 egg lightly beaten
-1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
-4 tsp confectioner's sugar ( I used more than that and added some vanilla to my cream)
Chocolate curls, optional (I didn't do this, it never works out for me anyway)

1. Place wafers flat side down in paper lined miniature muffin cups; set aside.
2. In a small bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar substitute until smooth.
Add chocolate chips and vanilla; mix well. Add egg; beat on low speed just until combined. Spoon about 1 Tbsp. into each cup. Bake  at 350 for 10-12 minutes or just until set. Cool completely on a wire rack. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
3. In a small bowl, beat cream until it begins to thicken. Add confectioner's sugar; beat until stiff peaks form. Top cheesecakes with whipped cream mixture ; garnish with chocolate curls if desired.

1 cheesecake: 65 calories, 5 grams fat, 20 mg cholesterol, 50 mg sodium, 5 g carbohydrates, 2 g protein

Whole Wheat & Oatmeal Chocolate Chip-Walnut Cookies

My friend made these for me a few years ago. If you want a healthy cookie these are the best I've had so far....they take care of the craving but they just can't always replace a delicious unhealthy cookie but every once in awhile. :) 

1/2 c Applesauce

1/2 C Butter

3/4 C sugar

3/4 C Brown Sugar
2 eggs
2tsp Vanilla

2 C Whole Wheat Flour

2 1/2 C oatmeal

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 c walnuts (optional)

1- 1 1/2 C chocolate chips or raisins

Mix wet and dry ingredients separately and then together. (next time I make them I would probably cream the sugars and butter first, then add wet ingredients and then the dry ingredients). Add nuts and chocolate chips or raisins. Bake on a greased cookie sheet at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Do not over bake. Let cool on pan for a couple of minutes.

Happy News for a Happy New Year- Gender Reveal Party

Happy New Year!

We celebrated our New Year by finding out if our baby would be a boy or a girl. PS. we're pregnant. Haven't shared it on the blog but we shared the news already on FB.  We had some friends over (at my parents home since an apartment is not made for any kind of entertaining) for a New Year's Eve celebration and the gender reveal. I've been wanting to do this for at least a month so I had been scouring blogs and pinterest for ideas but we didn't 100% implement the plan until a couple days before. We were afraid not enough friends would be in town. The day before the ultra-sound, we thought we weren't going to do it but I found myself depressed thinking we weren't going to do it, so we went forward and hoped for the best.

I'm so happy with how things turned out. I just wish I had taken pictures- I was too busy running around and my camera decided to die.  I wanted it to be a New Year's Eve party not just a gender reveal party, I think we did pretty good balancing it out... I hope. ;)

These are the pictures I was able to get as people were walking through the door.....
At the entrance to cast their vote...we used their vote to divide into teams for the games.

(In the basket are fun size Hershey bars with the "HE" and "SHE" colored in pink and blue with a thank you note on it. I actually did a small party favor! Something you always see on the fancy party blogs but who really gets that done in real life? And I actually did a small one! Ha! :) 

The dessert table...simple. Didn't get the appetizer table. So much yummy food there...I loved how I stringed the gold and silver balloons over the buffet-super simple but it turned out festive.  oh well. (this is me documenting maybe I'll just remember it by reading it without pictures. 

I tried to quickly snap a picture of Boo and I using the photo props before my camera died so it ended up blurry....but you get the idea. They didn't end up getting used for pictures but the kids played with them. (I had a hat and Boo had glasses)

I had 4 balloons hanging along one of the wide entry ways into the living room. (they had numbers on them....4-3-2-1...like counting down but you really couldn't see them). Anyway, inside each balloon were the games that we played. We popped them as we went on through the evening. We played 2 truths and a lie of 2012 (I think they all seemed to enjoy that one), a couple rounds of Pictionary, Minute to Win it games, and Guesstures.  

The winning team....which ended up being the Boys (the ones that voted that we were going to have a baby boy)., got confetti poppers to shoot off at our midnight (8:30 so the kids go home and go to bed). 

I had thought long and hard how to do a cool New Year's Eve Gender Reveal. I saw on one blog that they did fireworks. How cool would that be??? They would have either pink or blue fireworks! So cool. Unfortunately, fireworks are illegal in Lincoln. I figured it wasn't a good idea to have the bishop blatantly disregarding the law in front of several people from church, so we scratched that. I thought about a balloon drop but couldn't figure out how to hide the pink or blue balloons from the party until "midnight" drop.

So I thought I'd do confetti but struggled with how to implement it until my dad on New Year's Eve made a confetti shooter out of PVC pipe.  We gave him the sealed envelope from the ultra sound tech a half hour before so he could fill it with the appropriate color and at "midnight" shot it off the balcony (is that the right term? not sure) that over looks the living room.. It was pretty cool and messy with all the confetti poppers that everyone else shot off plus the PINK confetti from up above. yep PINK. we're having a girl!

yep PINK. we're having a girl!

It definitely made celebrating the New Year more exciting by finding out awesome news for our 2013! I'm so glad so many friends were able to make it and play with us that night. 

A Few of My Favorite Things

So far this has been the best Christmas in a long time.... I know Christmas hasn't even come yet but everything is better with a little kid who is just discovering the magic of Christmas. And when they discover it they help us find the magic too that has some how disappeared over our teenage and young adult years.

I already posted about playing in the snow....I haven't really done that for several years...I remember playing games in the snow in college but before that who knows when! Not that I was rolling around in the snow much but it was so much fun to see how much Boo loved it. She's asked to go play in the snow everyday. When she gets out there running around in it, I love how she says how much she loves it as she prances around. 

Yesterday, we made a snowman, named Fozzi. I haven't done that for probably 20 years, not joking. It turned out dang cute, in my opinion.

Granted, it had the help of the snowman kit I made for my siblings and obviously one for myself. This is why before we went to bed, we went and took his face and buttons off. I didn't want any stupid people stealing it...not that it's worth anything but I really love it and don't want to have to make anymore. And lets face it, people are stupid and take meaningless stuff.  

I'm also in love with getting Christmas Cards in the mail and hanging them up. It just feels me with joy getting a card from loved ones. 

Boo doesn't get to go out too much when it is dark outside...especially out on residential streets. A couple of weeks ago we were driving to a friends house through residential areas and she saw Christmas lights. SHE LOVED IT! She was so excited to see a simple porch have a few strings of lights on them. I am so excited to take her tonight to see houses that have gone all out.

I'm loving this Christmas season. I hope the day lives up to the season...

I might post one more time before Christmas....maybe if not come back afterwards I promise to post then. I've got a few more thoughts to share.
Merry Christmas if you don't hear from before then!

Let it Snow

So this was Boo's first time really playing in the snow since last year she did not like the snow much at all. I'm really glad that I bought her the snow pants and gloves. Thankfully she can barely squeeze into the snow boots I bought her last year and didn't use much. 

Lots and lots of fun! She keeps asking to go outside and play. Unfortunately standing out in the cold isn't the most exciting thing for me. I wish the snow was wet enough to make a snowman or a snow ball or something. But she isn't board of trudging around in the snow and picking up frozen chunks.

Maybe I'll get some pictures of the projects I worked on this Christmas season....maybe by the end of the day or Monday or something. :)  I will be posting a few more things on here in the next week or so. :) promise.

Fall

Apparently fall has come and gone. Today I was getting out the Christmas decorations and putting the lights on the tree as I listened to Michael Buble's Christmas CD while the snow was falling sideways in Nebraska fashion.

Here are our picture highlights of the last several months. Ha. Sorry. I'm not good at blogging anymore.

Trip East with the parents:

Riding the Dells in Wisconsin

Birthday Pizza

Kirtland Ohio

Boo's Birthday:

The Blindfold: :)

Pin The Bow on Minnie:

 The Pinata:

 The Birthday Girl:

The Grandparents: (LOVE IT!)

Halloween:

 Above Trunk or Treating. LOVE THE YELLOW SHOES!

Getting the Christmas Tree:

 So cold!!! We gave up trying to find a tree in the "forest" and went back to the cabin to get a pre-cut one. 

Playing with the Beard that came in the bag of toys they gave her at the tree farm:

Well, I guess that catches us up. Without much commentary. :) We are generally well and happy. We are happy we were able to spend Thanksgiving with my parents and my siblings who came to visit.

Goodbye Fall.

Emergency Preparedness

Since I've had a nagging feeling for sometime now to get emergency prepared here is my plan.

*  Water - I want another pack of bottled water and if I can find a place to hide it a bigger container of water. I want to also buy some filtration bottles.

*Food-  I'll beging to buy Food Storage items from the church (#10 can stuff) to build a substantial 3 month supply...I decided since we don't have a lot of extra cash that this was going to be my birthday gift...it will be a gift not to feel this nagging, worrying feeling!

                      - I will also be assembling 72 hour food kits

* Light- I want to make these candles. Make sure I have all necessary flashlights and batteries and matches for the candles.

* Clothing- Put clothing and toiletry supplies in designated bag(s). And additonal blankets or items to keep warm.

* Tools-an extra can opener, pocket knife, figure out a way to cook from our home with out electricity....decide if we need a camp stove or something else like it.

*Emergency Plan and Documents- I like this websites ideas and thoroughness. I liked the idea about making a plan for different amount of notification time for evacuation. She divided out responsibilities for each person based off the alloted time. (if you look at her 26 week plan you may get overwhelmed. I have to start with these few ideas and then get more elaborate- i need to get started.)

*Survival Guides- I don't have a very good memory. So all the things I have read say about purifing water is already gone- so it would be nice to have all that information in one place when I need it. So I want to either find a good guide or make one.

As I do each of these things I'll post about what I'm planning or have done. Maybe it will help someone else but if nothing else-it gives me some accountability and a place to write out what I've done.

until next time friends

August Dinner Calendar

I'm getting all spiffy with my dinner calendar and I thought I'd share it for anyone who needs a little help figuring out what they are eating this month. I always love getting ideas from others-heck, that's why half of these are from Pintrest! I never stay right on with the dates on the calendar it just a nice guideline to go off of. I also went with a lot of easy meals since I really don't know when GG will be home for dinner and on those days I really don't feel like cooking.  Unfortunately, I don't know how to attach a PDF document on here so that the links to the recipes would work. If you are really interested in a recipe let me know-or the ones with pictures you'll find on my Pinterest board.

HAPPY EATING!