Winter Carseat Safety!

Winter Carseat Safety!

As winter has arrived, I feel the need to remind or inform some parents of some winter no-nos for carseat safety!

1. Winter Coats: Thick winter coats or snowsuits can compromise your child's safety. In order for a childs carseat to function properly, the straps need to remain tight against the child's chest. It is unsafe to put a thick coat, snowsuit, or blanket on under the harness of a car seat because in a crash the coat would compress, making the straps too loose and possibly allowing the child to be ejected from the seat. Also when compressed the straps are not tight against the child making the child lurch forward more in a crash, not keeping the child in the safe position they should.

2. Bundle Me Bags - A big No-no, but sadly sold regularly at local stores as a great winter alternative. Again they are unsafe to have in an infant carseat as they have too much padding between the baby and the back of the seat. This padding would also compress in a collision, causing the fit of the straps to not be tight enough to safely protect a child.

Check out this video to see more info

Solutions:

1. Put your child's coat on backwards while driving. No need to zip up, place your child in their seat without a coat and simply put their coat on backwards, left open.
2. Purchase a nice warm, fleece jacket. A good quality fleece jacket is good in temperatures of up to -40c. (Great ones available at LLBean!)
3. Put a blanket over your child, as long as its not interfering with the straps.
4. Make, or purchase a carseat poncho, or even use a snuggy!
5. For infants, a safe alternative to the Bundle Bags are simply using the kind which goes OVER the seat known as a Cozy Cover, in which nothing is placed inside the seat (pictured below). So you can dress your baby in something warm, then put a blanket over them if you wish to keep them warm, then stretch this over their seat, has a small flap to lift up to see your baby!

So overview:

No-Nos = Big Bulky Coats & Bundle Me Bags:

Winter Alternatives that work!! Covers, Light Fleece Jackets and car seat ponchos!!

Blueberry Popsciles!

Couple days ago we made some yummy, super simple Blueberry Popscicles!

In our trusty Magic Bullet, I whipped up some Vanilla Yogurt, Fresh local Blueberries and a little milk up. Poured it into the popscicle mold and froze it over night. Next day we had yummy Blueberry Popscicles after supper! Kids LOVE them!

Rainbow Cupcakes!

We recently had a family day and Button and I set out to make a delicious desert. We decided to make Rainbow Cupcakes! Its super simple but a little messy ;)

First make up some white cake mix and seperate it into a couple bowls, depending how many colours you want.

Next take some food colouring and make a couple colours of your choice up.

Next scoop one colour at a time with a spoon and put a little bit in each muffin tin. Layer in different orders to get different results!

Bake according to instructions!

Put on icing and enjoy! Kids LOVE them! As you can see from the background mess of this pic ;)

Banana Oatmeal Pancakes!

I made these this morning for the boys (pics to come, i need more time on my phone to email them lol)

Banana Oatmeal Pancakes

Ingredients

•1 cup (250 mL) large-flake oatmeal

•1 cup (250 mL) whole wheat flour

•1/4 cup (50 mL) brown sugar

•1 tsp (5 mL) each baking powder and baking soda

•1/4 tsp (1 mL) each salt and nutmeg

•2 ripe bananas

•2 eggs

•1 cup (250 mL) plain yogurt (we use Vanilla)

•1/2 cup (125 mL) milk

•1/2 tsp (2 mL) vanilla

•1/4 cup (50 mL) melted butter or vegetable oil

1. In a large bowl, stir oatmeal with flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. In another large bowl, mash banana with a fork. Then whisk in eggs and yogourt. Stir in milk and vanilla. Make a well in oatmeal mixture. Pour in banana mixture and stir until blended. Then stir in butter or vegetable oil.

2. Drop batter into by 1/4 cupful.

Fruit Rollups!

So I decided this morning to set out on a mission to make my own Fruit Rollups (or Fruit Leather). Was a little worried about this one... but I think it worked out decent!

Button wasnt a huge fan of them (but hes in a I hate everything mood lately) but Bear & I both liked it (which is huge cause Im a picky eater ;)). Waiting on DH when he gets home to give us his verdict.

So this is how they're made!

In a blender, blend strawberries until an even liquid. (I used about 10 strawerries, next time Ill do more to make more)

No more chunks!

Spread out on a greased pan, I decided to do small circles, next time I might do the whole pan...

Bake in the oven at 150f for 2-3 hours, checking to see when its finished. When its done it will no longer be sticky (in the middle, outsides cook faster).

Finished product:

And the taste tester:

Shortbread Cookies

This week I had a craving for shortbread cookies. Ive never been able to get these right, so I decided to turn to the always reliable all recipes . I found one to try that's super easy and had great comments, read a bunch of comments to see what they had to say and went for it! Recipe doesnt make very much (maybe 12-15 small cookies) so adjust or double if you're looking for more...

Ingredients

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C.)
2. Combine butter or margarine, flour and confectioner's sugar and beat for 5-10 minutes. (I only did 5 minutes, they looked right then)
3. Drop from teaspoon onto cookie sheet.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 15 to 18 minutes (I did 15 minutes, from what I read from others, bake until the tops start to golden, otherwise they will be crumbly. I did this and they turned out perfect!)
5. Make sure to take them off baking sheet to cool on a cooling rack. If you leave them on the baking sheet they will continue to cook from the heat inside the baking sheet. If the tops are golden, this shouldn't be hard, cookies from start firm and transfer easily.

Enjoy!

Healthy Blueberry Muffins

My kids love to have muffins for breakfast, or a snack, so yesterday morning Button and I decided to make some Healthy Blueberry Muffins from a new recipe I found online. They turned out good, not as fully as they said they'd be but Button says they taste good! lol It's a variation of a recipe someone found online, which they substituted whole wheat flour instead of white (I actually used 7 grain flour cause I was out of whole wheat), canola oil instead of butter, and plain yogurt instead of sour cream. Heres the recipe we used:

Healthy Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup plain low-fat yogurt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Steps:

1. Pre-heat oven to 425F. While you wait, grease a 12-cup muffin pan (or line with paper baking cups, I use silicone baking cups from Epicure). In a large bowl, whisk the oil and sugar until combined. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Whisk in the vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together (flour, baking soda, and salt). Add the dry mixture to the egg mixture in two batches, alternating with the plain yogurt. Add in the blueberries and fold gently.
2. Fill the muffin cups half full and bake for 12 to 15 minutes (I found in my oven I had to bake them longer, I think I was about 18 minutes). Remove from pan and let cool. Yield: 12 muffins (I got 14!).
3. ENJOY!

My little naked chef (he does have bottoms on for the record ;))

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Super Awesome Chocolate Chip Cookies!

We made these awesome cookies last week and they were super good! Chewy and yummy! I even just made some more this morning!

Here's the recipe we used!

Super Awesome Chocolate Chip Cookies!

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

Sift/Mix together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted/mixed ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Roll into balls. Place on cookie sheet & bake until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy (approximately 11-14 minutes). Do not overbake. Cool cookies on sheets until able to lift without breaking. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

We also froze about half of the uncooked cookie balls on a cookie sheet for a couple hours, then I put them in baggies in the freezer so when we wanted some cookies I could just pull a couple out and bake them!

Lemonn Meringie Pie

This Tasty Tuesday Button and I set out to make Daddy his favorite pie, Lemon Meringue!

I was feeling ambitious and decided to make my own pie crust for the 1st time. So onto the internet I went looking for recipes. I settled on Martha Stewart Perfect Pie Crust. I thought it would be easier than it was... so Im gonna try another recipe next time, sorry Martha not so perfect! lol

The lemon filling

The meringue

All cooked, lol looks burnt but I swear its not lol

Jaime was nicely surprised by his pie! Button tried it for the 1st time. He thought the meringue was marshmellows so that went over ok, but once he got to the lemon he made a face and said "Mama, this isn't delicious" haha Guess he wont have the same favorite pie as his Daddy!

Pretzels

This past week Button and I set out on an adventure and we made pretzel! I used the recipe from here.

Here is the dough rising

Showing how to make the pretzel

Button trying to make his own! Cute little success it was!

Going into the oven!

Looking good coming out! YUMMM!

Button trying out his masterpiece

So it was a great success here! Kids really seemed to enjoy them. It made a HUGE batch! I made 24 large pretzels. I think next time Ill try it with half the recipe and and I might try it with white flour. I usually bake with whole wheat for the boys but I just cant eat whole wheat myself, the smell makes me gag. So Id really like to try it out too with white flour so I can try it ;) I might also buy some sea salt for the salt on stop. YUMMY! lol Go try it out for yourself!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Yesterday I was in a baking mood so I made some muffins and some Chocolate Chip Banana bread. I had 3 bananas that weren't doing so great so I knew they weren't going to last long. The Banana bread went over great with the kids! Button kept asking for more Brownies lol Ive been looking for a good recipe cause mine always ends up with a hard top and hard on the sides, this time I made it eggless using applesauce and some 7 grain flour. It turned out super moist! The top isn't hard at all, Im super impressed! Here's a picture before Button's 2nd piece!

Recipe for Eggless Chocolate Banana Bread

3/4 cup of Flour

3/4 cup of Whole Wheat Flour (which I was out of so I used the 7 grain)

3/4 cup of Sugar

1 Teaspoon of Baking Soda

1 Teaspoon of Salt

3 Ripe Bananas

1/2 cup of Applesauce

4 Tablespoons Butter, melted

1/4 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

1/2 Cup of Chocolate Chips

1. Mix the 5 Dry Ingredients

2. In another bowl, Mash Bananas, stir in butter, vanilla & applesauce

3. Mix both bowls together. Makes a thick, clumpy batter

4. Fold in Chocolate Chips

5. Bake for 45 minutes

6. Cool & Enjoy!