Summer Reading

(notice the tiny foot with the pink painted toenail??)

So I've decided that the type of books I read definitely changes during the summer months. Not sure if this is due to a Southern Literature reading challenge I participated in a couple of years ago, or for some other reason. Regardless, I now find myself looking for lighter, fun Southern-type fiction to read during the months of June-September. Luckily, my local library has lots of fun summery reads--yay libraries! In the queue for this summer are several books by Fannie Flagg, several by Sarah Addison Allen (a new author to me), and a book I've been hearing about for several years-Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore. Later this week, I'm planning to make a blackberry/raspberry cobbler, complete with Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream...sounds like a good combination with summer books, right??

Whole Wheat Banana Muffins

I saw this recipe last night on the really great blog Heavenly Homemakers (another Matt and Laura couple!), and thought it would be perfect to make this morning, as I had 2 VERY ripe bananas that needed to be used. I added a few extra spices, and I think they would be even more delicious with either nuts, mini chocolate chips or raisins (if you're a raisin type of person...which I'm not). Emily especially loved them!

1 and 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 cup mashed ripe banana (about 2-3 bananas)
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup melted butter
2 eggs

Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. In a separate bowl, mash bananas, and add honey, melted butter and eggs. Stir into flour mixture.

Spoon batter into 12 lined muffin tins. Bake at 400 for 18 minutes.

(Please excuse my food photography. The photo above shows one muffin cut in half with butter melting on it. It looks much better in real life!)

Marbled Chocolate Cheesecake Brownies

I had a leadership meeting for my MOPS group last night and I signed up to bring dessert. I thought it would be fun to try a new recipe from my new cookbook. Anna has this cookbook, and we made a few recipes from it when I visited her in the spring. She gave it to me for my birthday and there are approximately 500 cookies, bars, cakes and breads that I need to make in it! Anyways, these brownies did not disappoint! I do have 2 little pieces of advice: #1 when you are marbling the brownies and cheesecake batter together, do it several times. I didn't "marble" enough, in my opinion. #2-don't eat these brownies until they are 100% cool. Even better, make them one day, and don't eat them until the next day. I know that sounds weird, but I ate one warm, and was sad that they didn't turn out very well. But I ate another one a few hours later and it was delicious. I ate one today and it was devine! So here's the recipe:

Brownie ingredients:
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1 and 1/2 squares unsweetened chocolate (1.5 oz)
2 cups flour
1 and 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream (I used yogurt and it was perfectly fine!)

Cheesecake Ingredients:
1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tblspn vanilla (yes, NOT teaspoon)
1 cup (6 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions:
1. In small saucepan, combine the water, butter and chocolate; cook and stir over low heat until smooth. Cool.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, baking soda and salt. Add eggs and sour cream; beat on low until just combined. Stir in chocolate mixture until smooth.
3. In another bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla; set aside. Spread chocolate batter into a greased 15x10x1 in baking pan. Drop cream cheese mixture by tablespoonfuls over batter; cut through the batter with a knife to marble. Sprinkle with chocolate chips.
4. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 min or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Cut into bars.

(And here's just a picture of Emily being cute.)

Catching Up!

It's so difficult to believe that my tiny little Emily baby is now 1!! We had a little party on June 11, and I think we all had a great time celebrating Emily's birthday and watching her eat an entire cupcake (strawberry with cream cheese frosting). Her well baby appointment went well. The best part was that she got to stand on on the big scale. She looked especially tiny and cute standing there in just her diaper :) Her 9 month and 1 year stats:

9 month: weight-18 lbs, 5 oz (40%), height-26.75 in (23%), head-17.5 in (63%)g

1 year: weight-20 lbs, 6 oz (38%), height-28.25 in (23%), head 17.75 in (50%)

Emily has changed dramatically in the last couple of months. She started crawling when we visited the Letvin's in North Dakota when she was 9.5 months old. Once she figured out how much fun being mobile was, she didn't want to stop with crawling, and took her first steps right around 11 months. Now, she is walking all over the place, and sometimes even tries to run. She is a much happier baby now that she can get where she wants to go! Emily also "talks" constantly these days. The only actual words she says are "uh oh", "hi" and "dada" but she has her own version of a few other words like "diaper" and "thank you." Her biggest frustration these days is when she wants something and can't communicate what it is. She still does a few signs (more and milk), but hasn't started doing any others, even though we've been working on a handful of them for months. She has her own little language and just jabbers non-stop! So cute to hear her little voice!

We are down to nursing just in the morning and before bedtime. Emily isn't a very big fan of cow's milk, but she loves yogurt, cheese and cottage cheese, so I think she will be able to get a good amount of calcium, fat, protein and vitamin D, even if she doesn't drink much milk. She's still a great eater, and is pretty open to trying new foods. She loves all fruit, cheeses, and breads. She also does pretty well with chicken, pasta and some veggies. Peas, carrots, green beans, squash and sweet potatoes are her favorites, but she isn't a big fan of avocado, broccoli, or tomatoes. We'll keep trying!

Emily has become quite a good sleeper (yay!) She sleeps anywhere from 10.5-11.5 hours at night, and takes two naps that usually total 2.5 hours. She is starting to show signs of going to just one nap a day, but I don't think she's quite ready yet. So funny thinking back to the first 3-4 months of her life and how most of my life revolved around getting her to sleep and to stay asleep. I'm sure there will be other sleeping issues over the next few years, but I'm glad we're well past the newborn sleeping!

Well I've written a mini-novel, so I'll call it good for now! Matt and I are loving Emily's cute little voice and personality these days--she cracks us up every single day! We feel so blessed to be her parents!