To Trim or Not to Trim?

That is the question I have been asking myself recently.

I absolutely love Zeke's hair -- beautiful, blonde curls.

But recently it has started to look a bit more...

crazy! 

Therefore, I have begun to wonder if it's time for a trim. It's starting to grow over his ears and it occasionally gets into his eyes... but... just. look. at. it. 

I love it! 

And I will miss it if it's gone. 

And I've heard that once it's cut... *sniff*... he'll look more grown up. 

We had a little fun with mousse today... 

trying to see how tall I could get it. 

And he's already acting more grown up. 

This is what we get when we say, "Show us your teeth!"

So really the question is: how long is too long? How many more weeks? (months?) can I wait? 

Your thoughts? I'd love to hear them! 

Cue 'Scrunchy Face' 

His hair hangs in the balance! 

LOVE this kid! 

To life... full of important questions :O) 

Toddler Muffins

A couple of weeks ago I reached out to one of my facebook groups for breakfast ideas for Zeke. He is not a picky eater at all and was happily eating what I made for breakfast each day, but I wanted some ideas for my arsenal. I was the one getting bored! Several ideas these moms suggested were smoothies, greek yogurt, fruit, banana pancakes, giant breakfast cookies, and these, Toddler Muffins. I entered the search on pinterest and found them quickly. I made them just a few days later and they were a success! Jeremiah and I really enjoyed them too, so we had to set limits for ourselves so we wouldn't eat all of Zeke's breakfasts! I enjoyed them best on the first day when they were fresh out of the oven. I tried them with a little butter one time and a little glaze another and actually preferred them plain! (Which is a surprise if you know me.) If you would like a good breakfast for your little one that increases his intake of fruits and vegetables (or even for you adults!) then you should give these a try!

Toddler Muffins
**From Deliciously Declassified

Ingredients:
1/2 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. brown sugar, or to taste (I used 1/2 c. and was happy with the amount of sweetness)
2 large bananas, mashed
1/2 c. pumpkin puree
2 carrots, grated (I'm not actually sure how many I put in, I had baby carrots I wanted to use up, but they were not overwhelming, regardless.)
2 eggs, beaten
1 c. all-purpose flour (I used Ultragrain flour)
1/2 c. Quaker oats
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. cloves (I don't always have ground cloves on hand, so I'll often substitute pumpkin pie spice and use a little less of the cinnamon and nutmeg.)
1/2 t. salt

HOW TO MAKE THEM:
In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until smooth.
Mix in the mashed bananas, squash, carrots, and eggs.
Stir in the flour, oats, baking soda, spices, and salt until just combined.
Grease 24 mini muffin cups or 12 standard muffin cups.
Spoon the batter equally into the prepared muffin cups (if you’re making large muffins, use a full ice cream scoop, if you’re making mini muffins, use 1/2 a scoop).
Bake at 375°F for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean- bake time largely depends on your muffin size, I only baked my mini muffins for 13 minutes.
Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.
Store at room temperature for up to two days, or freeze. (We ate ours quick enough, we just left them at room temperature. Next time I might actually double the batch so we'd have some to put in the freezer.) 

To life... full of sneaky fruits and vegetables! 

Clip of the Week

Oh how I love this kid so much! We are working on playing "gently" on the piano, but you can tell it brings him such joy. And that makes my heart happy!

To life... full of passing on my love for music!

P.S. Sorry it's to the side, I don't know how to fix that...

If you give a Moose a Muffin...

Two weeks ago I made a blueberry pie. When I was done putting it together I had leftover crust, so I rolled it out, cut it into strips, poured on a little butter and sprinkled them with some cinnamon-sugar. I baked them for awhile and then later that evening I started eating them after supper. I ate the first two and then remembered I had frosting in the fridge! So I took it out and heated it up so it would be easier to dip them in. I heated them up and it got pretty runny and I was reminded of the frosting they serve on the side of your dessert breadsticks at Pizza Hut. Then I really wanted some dessert sticks! A few days later I got online and started searching for a recipe... I went to all my usual spots and couldn't find anything! I was surprised. I figured other people would have a recipe for dessert breadsticks, but no.

I ended up choosing a recipe from Tasty Kitchen for Buttery Breadsticks. The recipe called for garlic salt, parmesan cheese, and italian seasoning. I just modified mine to make them dessert-y instead! They were really, really good! In the future I might serve them to a larger group because they were definitely best right out of the oven. By day 2 they were starting to get a little chewy. But we ate them nevertheless :0) By the end of the batch, I realized one of the reasons I was enjoying them so much -- they are like an unfurled cinnamon roll! Yeasty bread, cinnamon sugar, and frosting! Yum! I don't think that combination will ever get old.

Buttery Breadsticks 
*From Tasty Kitchen  by HSchultz
 (Directions are hers, pictures are mine.)

Ingredients:

Dessert Breadsticks! 

• 1 Tablespoon Yeast
• 1-½ cups Warm Water
• 2 Tablespoons Sugar
• ½ teaspoon Salt
• 3-½ cups All-purpose Flour
• ½ cup Butter
• Optional Sprinkles: Garlic Salt, Parmesan Cheese And Italian Seasoning (I mixed up some cinnamon and sugar and used that instead.) 
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• Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Dissolve yeast in warm water in the bowl of an electric mixer. Let stand for a few minutes until foamy. Then add sugar, salt and flour; mix well. Knead until smooth and elastic. Let dough rise for 10 minutes.
  Melt butter in the microwave for a few seconds at a time and once melted, pour half into a baking sheet that you have resting on a flat surface.
  Roll out dough into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick. Cut into strips using a pizza cutter, twisting if desired. Roll each piece in the remaining butter, covering all sides and arrange on baking sheet. (The dough is pretty stretchy, so I ended up picking up the strip and immediately folding it in half as I twisted it. It made it easier to twist and made them a more reasonable length.)

  

  Headed into the oven... 

  Sprinkle with garlic salt, Parmesan cheese and Italian seasoning a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. Let rise 15-20 minutes. Bake for 15-18 minutes.

  

  Warm and ready to be enjoyed! 

  The quick frosting I whipped up: 1 stick butter (needs to be soft), about 3 cups of powdered sugar, enough milk to make it the consistency of your choice, but usually start out with just 1 or 2 T. so it's not too runny. Whip until fluffy!
• These just might be one of my new favorite desserts! I love warm bread, especially when it's covered with butter, cinnamon sugar, and frosting! 
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• To life... full of "he'll want some jam to go with it" ideas. 
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February Resolution Wrap-Up

My verses: "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable and keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. It Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

**Only one mistake :0) 

    When Jeremiah suggested we memorize ALL of those verses, I was a little skeptical that I'd be able to get it all. But I just took it a line at a time throughout the month and kept adding on. It has ended up being very practical and useful for me to memorize as I struggled throughout the past month, at times, with being irritable and demanding and rude. It is powerful to memorize these verses and have them saved in my heart for difficult moments. I chant them when I want to react in a selfish way. I am trying to choose verses each month that are fitting and helpful for this phase of life.

Mileage: 46.55

     My sister got me a new pedometer just a few days ago, so I hope to be more successful with accurate readings. Also, the weather should be warming up, so I hope to be out walking and jogging more frequently. 

Total for 2013: 117/1300

To life... full of daily choices to improve my life.

Friday's Foto

Enjoying all our snow... Missouri winters > Texas winters! :o) 

Guest Post: The complexity of naming a fish...

My Roommate's 300 Gal. Hard Coral Reef Aquarium (2004-2005)

My first apartment was in Fort Collins, CO in 2004. My roommate at the time happened to be a huge aquarist. He had a 300 gallon hard coral reef tank in our living room (pictured), a 200 gallon soft coral reef tank in his bedroom, a 100 gallon planted aquarium in our living room, and various other aquariums throughout the apartment.  It was great! Truly the ultimate man cave, we lived on the bottom floor and had plants growing everywhere, aquariums in every room, we even jerry rigged the dishwasher's water line to top off evaporated water from the 300 gallon tank (who needs clean dishes when you have hard corals to take care of?)

My 10 Gallon Live Rock/Live Sand Aquarium (2004-2005)

This is my initial aquarium, with live sand and rock about one month in after install. I made the hood, rigged the lighting and let it cycle through the nitrate/nitrite cycle.






In 2005 I moved to Maryville, MO - I moved the tank and set it up in my dorm room. One night on a date with Tricia we went to buy some fish for my aquarium. Pictured below are the Clarki Clownfish and Purple Pseudochromis that we got, I had always referred to fish by species, however...

2005-2006

Tricia knew their names were Alex (the Clarki Clownfish) and Maria (the Purple Pseudochromis). The lower right hand rock has some great coralline growth on it that later showed some small zooanthid polyps and even housed a small fan worm.






When we got married, the tank moved again and sat empty for 3 years while we were in TX. I kept the sand and rock in a bucket and the tank on our porch.

For Zeke's birthday this year we decided to set it up again. He has always had a fascination with orange and his room is decorated with reef fish so naturally we got him a Clownfish (False Percula).

I set up the 20 gallon tank a few days before his birthday, added some live sand and put the rock in that had been sitting in the bucket the entire time. I made a new light hood for the tank, rigged the florescents on it. It has a biowheel hangon mechanical filter running on it now. In April I will add a protein skimmer which will help to get rid of dissolved organic particulates. We added the clownfish on January 27th, a gift from grandma, great-grandma, and Aunt T. A month later the tank is now towards the end of its cycling, currently having a small (large) diatom outbreak in the tank but I did a water change and added some blue legged hermits and the diatoms are slowly going away.

Zeke will sit and watch while I feed the clownfish every morning and he likes to pull himself up and look inside the aquarium.

In another month we will add a second smaller clownfish and possibly a small zooanthid. We will limit the fish in this tank to just the two clownfish and once I add the actinic bulb to it, we'll try to propagate zooanthids off of it as well as clownfish fry (babies). I have two ten gallon tanks that we will use to grow the fry into adults and the other for growing rotifers and algae that the rotifers feed on.

2013

His name is Bobby....










*Written by Juan