After I made my mom’s birthday cake, we had a bit of marshallow fluff and dark choclate frosting leftover.  I had to think for about 3 seconds to figure out what to do with it.  Yum!!!  And no fire required.

Are you as surprised as I was?  Coffman baby #6 is growing in a safe place.  We should get to hold him or her sometime towards the end of April.  My family responded as, “It’s about time.”  My husband’s mother said, “Oh, my word.”  Which was pretty much what I said.  The chidlren are sooo excited and are being as helpful as children can be and sometimes a little more.

So, forgive me for not posting quite as often or as interesting as I once did.  I’m hoping that will change now that the frist trimester is behind me and I’m on to sunnier days.  So you will understand now why my recent photos might have included paper plates and why I’m searching for easier ways to do what I used to do the hard way :).   More freezer meals and make-your-own mixes for me.  And as I share what works maybe that will bless you too.

While I’m looking forward and dreaming about a future birthday, we’ve been busy celebrating some birthdays of loved ones near.

We tried to burn the house down Sunday to wish my mom a happy 64th, and she surprised us by still being able to blow out all her candles with one breath.  Her cake was from a Betty Crocker Dark Chocolate mix, made with applesauce and egg whites instead of oil and whole eggs.  Then we filled the center with marshmallow cream and frosted it with Dark Chocolate frosting from Aldi.  The marshmallow cream slid right off the cake and I had to use a LOT of toothpicks to hold everything together.  But the taste was worth it.  Tomorrow I’ll show you what we did with the leftovers :).

Brandon turned 3 today.  (Yes, I realize there are 5 candles on the cake–oops!  We fixed it as we were lighting them.)   His cake had an oreo crust and was filled with strawberry, rocky road, and mint chip ice cream with oreos and peeps in the filling.  The frosting was cool whip and topped with spree.  A small slice was plenty, but VERY yummy.

Today is the day we babysit my cousins, so we made it a casual party with balloons and homemade pizza.  What a blast and not near as stressful as a party with invitations and expectations :). 

We have 2 more birthdays to go and I’m dreaming of new varieties of ice cream cake to make :).  That would be a welcome new tradition at our house.

P.S.  Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for the free Grocery Shrink ebook and Slow cooker recipe book set.  Click here and read to the end to learn how to enter.

There are 4 birthdays in my family over the next 2 weeks.  I’m swamped and I normally bake special cakes for each occasion.  It feels so overwhelming this year that I decided to try something new–ice cream cake!  I searched the web and found this video.  It’s long–something to watch and enjoy like you would a Martha Stewart or Rachael Ray episode.  The cook is adorable and I love her stories.  I’ll admit I even sniffled back a tear a couple of times, but when you watch it you’ll wonder why in the world…? I’ll tell you why on Tuesday, the day little Brandon turns 3 :).

Because of how difficult it was to post a comment, I’ve extended the giveaway through October 18th, Monday evening at 10:00 PM central time.  And we’ve made commenting easier.  So keep your comments coming!

I’m so excited to tell you about our new sponsor! 

Miloud Home Accents features gorgeous items for your home in every budget category.  They make their best deals the most visible on the site so you can make the most of your home decor budget.  To top that off they are offering Grocery Shrink readers an extra 10% off any order! 

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I love supporting a business like Miloud Home Accents.  They are family owned and operated and have 6 children, 3 girls and 3 boys, that they support through this business.  I tip my hat to anyone who has 6 children and can manage a business on top of that! 

Here’s what I love about Miloud Home Accents:

1.  Their merchandise is top quality and on trend.

2.  Their prices are lower than average because they carefully control behind the scene costs.

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Take a look and leave a comment telling me what your favorite item is.  On October 15th I’ll do a drawing  from the comments to give away a FREE Grocery Shrink Ebook Set for you or a friend.

My parents have an acre in the city with 8 apple trees, 3 cherry trees, 2 pear trees, 1 nectarine tree and 2 pear trees.  They also have rasperries, blueberries, blackberries and Asparagus in addition to a large summer garden.  This year they decided it was time to get a cider press.  It came in pieces and they varnished it and lovingly put it together.  It’s beautiful!

The cousins washed the apples

And took turns turning the handle

The mothers cut the worms out

While the boys turned a PVC pip building set into rifles….

Grandpa and the Girl’s made the cider

I’m really loving the blender batter idea.  This morning I made a second go at it.  I’m using raw sour milk as the base, so added a little honey to help the taste.  Yesterday we made pancakes.

Today we made waffles.

Here’s the recipe I used for the waffles

3 cups sour milk

2 1/2 cups whole, unground grains.  I used 1/2 cup wheat berries, 1/2 cup thick cut oats, 1/2 cup long grain brown rice, 1/4 cup rye berries, 1/2 cup amaranth, and 1/4 cup millet.  I’m dreaming of what grains I can buy in bulk and then pre-mix into recipe size portions.  This would be so fast to grab and blend in the morning.

2 Tablespoons canola oil

2 Tablespoons honey

3 eggs

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

I blended everything in my blender (I have a VitaMix but lesser blenders will work too.)  It took mine 1 minute to turn everything into a smooth batter.  Less powerful blenders will need 3 minutes.    Then I poured 1/3 cup into each side of my Belgium waffle iron and let the lights do the rest.  I liked mine topped with plain yogurt and kiwi and a little drizzle of maple syrup.  The kids used plain homemade syrup.  (1 cup of water and 2 cups of brown sugar, cooked until the sugar is dissolved.)  They were delicious! 

If you leave out the eggs, vanilla, salt and soda.  You can let the batter soak overnight and add the rest in the morning.  This frees up a lot more vitamins.  For more information check out Sue Gregg’s site:  http://www.suegregg.com/

I’m off to my mom’s to make apple cider and for lunch we had blender pancakes.  I love that I can start with fresh whole grains, not flour.  And a blender works without a grain mill.  We liked them and I can feel good about the nutrition.  For the instructions go here:  http://www.suegregg.com/recipes/breakfasts/blenderbatterwaffles/blenderbatterwaffles.htm

Lovely pictures coming soon.

Easy to make and easy to play!  Grab 2–$1 decks of Go-Fish cards from Dollar General.   Use a sharpee to write on them.  We used phonograms, but I could see this done with state abbreviations or periodic chart element abbreviations.  Although the original game had 4 matches to a set, we did ours with 2 so we could get more information in.  Play just like you would Go-Fish but ask for the card by letter sound(s) or name of state etc.  They’ll be begging to play. 

I put on weight easily and take it off slowly.  If I’m not careful I can gain 5 lbs in a week, and it’s not water weight.  I’ve learned since I was a child that I need to be careful with my food choices if I want to enjoy being a normal sized person.  I’m excited to discover, thanks to my husband splurging on the new taco bell tacos, that corn tortillas not fried make great soft taco shells.  Here’s the kicker:  1 4.5 inch corn tortilla has 30 calories!  My old flour tortillas have 150!  Just making that 1 change saves 120 calories per taco and I usually eat 2, so 240 calories saved on the meal.

I used them today for lunch fajitas.  The filling was 3 mini-bell peppers sauteed with 1 sliced green onion.  I tossed in a 4 oz bag of chicken strips and topped them with cilantro, romaine lettuce and salsa.  I didn’t even miss cheese.  The whole meal was very filling and had a total of 228 calories!  That included 26 grams of protein and a lot of vitamin C.  It was pretty too.  Forgive my paper plate.  I’m being a terrible example, but I have excuses all thought up.

I’m trying to hold to a 1500 calorie diet.  It’s up from the 1200 calories I’ve been on for the last year, but it’s still hard.  To keep my blood sugar and blood pressure at good levels, I eat every 2-3 hours or 6 small meals a day.  I aim for a 250 calorie breakfast, 200 calorie snack, 300 calorie lunch, 200 calorie snack, 450 calorie dinner, and a 100 calorie snack before bed.  I also try for a good amount of protein in each meal, between 10 and 20 grams.  I know there is a controversy about how much protein is necessary, but after 10 years of pregnancy and nursing I found myself severly deficient.  I am more comfortable getting plenty of protein and taking extra calcium and doing some weight training to help my body use it than dealing with the symptoms of low protein.

Here are some 200 calorie snacks that I love:

1 cup of skim milk and 2 full rectangle graham crackers

1 ounce of colby jack cheese and 4 wheat crackers

1 medium apple and a tablespoon of peanut butter as a dip

A long stalk of celery filled with 1.5 tablespoons of peanut butter and dotted with 10 raisins

1 ounce baked pita chips and 2 tablespoons of hummus

3 ounces of water packed tuna, drained and mixed with a teaspoon each of pickle relish and plain yogurt, spread on 5 wheat crackers

1 mozzarella cheese stick cut into cubes mixed with 10 almonds, 10 fresh sugar snap peas, and 2 Tablespoons of craisins

3 baby bell pepers sliced and sauted with 1/2 cup egg whites and a sprinkling of parmesean cheese. (This one only has 85 calories!)

Okay, that’s all I have and I’m ready to try some new things.  Do you have any other ideas for me?