Evidence of children and recipe

I love the little reminders of having a little one in the house (aside from the dirty diapers and hand prints everywhere...). The extra hugs and kisses, the cup of crackers left in a random place, animals set precisely in the middle of coasters, hearing the ABC's or Twinkle, Twinkle being sung in the back seat, the little plastic caterpillar that finds it way into the strangest places, and this morning seeing all of the bunnies lined up in the windowsill:

or finding H making himself at home in a side table:

Or the big recipe of Snickerdoodle muffins that disappear way too quickly!

These muffins were just way too good to not share the recipe:

Snickerdoodle Muffins

• 1 cup Butter, Softened
• 1 cup Sugar
• 2 whole Eggs
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla
• 2-¼ cups Flour
• ¾ teaspoons Baking Powder
• ¾ teaspoons Baking Soda
• ¾ teaspoons Cream Of Tartar
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• 1 cup Sour Cream
• ¼ cups Buttermilk
• _____
• FOR THE TOPPING:
• ⅔ cups Sugar
• 2 Tablespoons Cinnamon

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Prepare a muffin tin with liners. (I learned the hard way that they are too fragile for just cooking spray.)

In a mixer, combine the butter and sugar and cream until fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and combine.

In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Add half of the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl and stir to combine. Add the sour cream and buttermilk and mix to combine. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix until you have a smooth batter.

In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon for the topping.

Use a 1/4 or 1/3 cup scooper and plop a scoop of batter into the bowl with the sugar and cinnamon. Gently roll the batter in the sugar and cinnamon. Place the ball into the muffin liner.

When you have completed all of the muffins, sprinkle the leftover cinnamon sugar onto the tops of all of the muffins.

Bake the muffins at 350ºF for about 15-18 minutes or until they are golden on top and just baked through.

Enjoy!

I found these on tastykitchen.com and love them. Aside from all of the cinnamon/sugar goodness on the muffins, the batter itself is soooo good! Moist, tasty, yummy! I think I will be using this batter recipe for other flavors: cranberry-orange, lemon-poppyseed, chocolate chip, and others by just changing up the flavoring and adding in the mix-ins.
This might also be my new go to recipe for those occasions when you need to bring a baked good.

here is a step-by-step photo journal of someone making these if you are interested

Catch me if you can!

I think we were all ready for a nap by this point!

Hat Day

We had a hat kind of morning around here. H will normally only tolerate a hat while we are outside, but every now and again must feel the need to keep one on all morning/day. Yesterday was one of those days!

This hat makes his cheeks a little more pronounced! Cute!

Walking in style

Fancy feet!

"butter jerry samich" (Peanut butter and jelly sandwich) and "choc-o-wat mee-ulk" (chocolate milk - we still have to find creative ways to get H to drink milk, he won't drink plain milk)

"Winnard, treat"
He loves giving Leonard a treat and filling up his food bowl. He will often come to me and say "Leonard, treat" or "Leonard food out" when he wants to give Leonard a treat or food. We have had to start telling H that Leonard is full - otherwise we would be giving him treats and food all day!

The not-so-hungry caterpillar

Apiwar!

Apiwar, chewewo.

Eat it.

Yum, yum.
(he ate the cheerio, not the caterpillar!)

Hand.

Daddy home!

Shoes!

I made a set of loafers for the new baby with this pattern from polkadotposh on etsy. They turned out cute, so I had to make H a pair too. I am thinking what a cute picture it would make to have both boys in these shoes and the hats I crocheted.....

When H saw them sitting on the piano this morning, he picked up a shoe and said "cuuute!"

H was playing photographers helper this morning.

An impromptu play date

The weather was so beautiful this weekend, we spent a lot of time outside. At first it was just us and H playing outside, but before we knew it, Henry from down the street and Harper from around the corner had come to play too!

There are a surprising number of little ones all born within about 6 months of each other in our neighborhood.

And a little picture of H.

We have a step stool by the bathroom sink, to make hand washing for H easier. Often I will find him in there making faces at himself or bringing his sippy cup in there to watch himself drink. He thinks he's pretty cute, and so do we!

Later on crafts

I've recently begun to worry that after baby boy #2 arrives that I won't be crafting for awhile. So, I decided to go ahead and make a few crafts from my list for H. They are all for when H is a little older, but I thought it would be great to make them now and pull them out when he is older, or if he is needing something new after the new baby arrives.

I kept coming across this tutorial for a "silly faces" set. So simple to make and so much room for imagination. This would probably be for way down the road - I am not sure when H would be ready to make all sorts of different faces with it. It just consists of four pages with four different colored ovals and a pocket with a lot of various felt cutouts to make silly faces or designs. I used the tutorial and pattern from Chez Beeper Bebe.

A "Gone Fishing" set.
I roughly followed this tutorial on Holy Craft. There are little magnets in the fish and in the worm on the fishing pole. Inside there is a pond, and two pockets: one for the fish and one for the fishing pole. I thought this could be great for car rides or just at home.

A "Spinny Speller." H knows his letters, but is definately not spelling yet. I liked the idea of this as a simple tool for spelling and it uses simple consonant-vowel-consonant combinations. You can just spin the blocks around and discover all of the words it can make! I used the tutorial from Counting Coconuts, but instead of writing on the letters, I used my Silhouette to cut them out.

Pssst! I made an extra but we only need one....does anyone want the mini one?

And a little crafting for the Mama...

A new purse (using the pattern from Robert Kaufman)

And a new face lift for my perpetual calendar. (The picture is a little dark, but the skinny blocks on the side have the days of the week on them and the ones on the bottom have the months.) It stays in the window ledge over my kitchen sink. After being a stay-at-home-mom for a little while I began to realize that my days were starting to blend together. After I made the first perpetual calendar, I found that it helps me to keep track of the days and feel like I am at least somewhat in touch with the world!