First Bath Together

The girls had their first bath together last night. I don't know why we haven't done this yet at our house. We are at Grandma & Grandpa's and the last time we were here for Thanksgiving Cora was still small enough to do her bath in the sink. Well not anymore; she's such a big girl. The girls had a blast and it was so great to just wash them both and be done. The girls are going to kill me when they get older for posting this pic.

Dress Up

Maya loves to play dress up! I bet she goes through a million dress up outfits a day. She also likes to go home with her friend Madelyn after school. I can hardly believe that she is old enough to already go to a friends house to play after school but she is. The first few times I was super nervous but over the last few months it's gotten easier for me to not worry as much. I'm not worried about Maya being gone I'm worried about how she is behaving. But Madelyn's mom is a very good friend of mine and we try and switch off a few times a month. Maya really likes to have Madelyn come home with us too. They think it's neat to ride in each others cars. Here is a sweet picture of the two girlies that my friend sent me yesterday afternoon. Too cute! This is one of those pics they'll be able to put into their high school graduation senior dvd/video. Or where ever they'll be posting pictures from the past in those days.

Crib

Over the weekend we finally moved little sister into the same bedroom as big sister. Maya slept in the crib in her own room from the very first day she came home from the hospital. And all of her naps were in her crib too. With Cora it's been completely different. She slept in the bouncy seat for the first 5 months, the last few months she's slept in the pack n play both upstairs and downstairs. Cora has napped a lot in her car seat and pretty much all over the house. We've been trying for the last month to put the girls in the same room but every weekend we were going to try it one or both of them have been sick.  So finally we went for it and it worked pretty well. I thought it might help Maya with some of her sleep issues but not so much. It's still hard for her to go to bed and she still wakes up early. However, she hasn't called for us during the night so that's been nice. We're only on day 3 so we'll see how it continues to go.

Cora has done great sleeping in the crib. She's been sleeping from 8pm-7am. She wakes up a happy girl ready for the day! (Please excuse the bumper pad and blankets and please don't report us)

Recipe InSeitz - Quick Coffee Cake

I usually don't get anything besides a vanilla latte at Starbucks. But every once in awhile I'll also treat myself to a piece of their cinnamon coffee cake. Well this week I tried a new recipe for coffee cake. I wanted to make a coffee cake to enjoy with some friends over coffee and a playdate. I also wanted something quick and easy and something where I had all the ingredients in the house. I couldn't believe it but I even had the sour cream that was needed. I never have that in the house but had bought it to make something else last week and then I never made it. Anyway to my surprise this coffee cake ended up tasting so similar to Starbucks coffee cake! Super yummy!

Quick Coffee Cake
1 box yellow cake mix
3 eggs (as cake mix package calls for)
oil (as cake mix package calls for)
water (as cake mix package calls for)
2/3 cup sour cream

Topping
1 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1 Tbsp cinnamon (more if you desire)

Make the cake mix as the package states and add in the sour cream. Mix well and pour into a greased 9x13 pan. Mix together the cinnamon and brown sugar. Sprinkle 1/2 of the mixture over top of the cake mix and using a knife swirl some of the topping into the cake. Then top with the rest of the topping. Bake the cake as package states. I think I baked mine for 25-30 minutes at 350.

*I'm not a huge fan of adding nuts or other extra add ins but if you are then some optional ideas include; crushed walnuts, chocolate chips, blueberries, sliced strawberries, crasins.

Irish Girls & A Birthday

We are celebrating today with these ladies that are actually part Irish!

Happy St. Patrick's day!

We also celebrated with Daddy whose birthday is today!

Maya and Cora helped open the cards & gifts. Cora wanted to eat all the cards.

Daddy's favorite is brownies and ice cream. Maya wanted a candle in her brownie too.

Recipe InSeitz - Banana Mini Morsel Bars

I'm always looking for ways to use ripe bananas. One of my co-workers from ITeams taught me years ago to put ripe bananas in the freezer. Rather than using them right away or throwing them out I now put them in the freezer to use later for baking. So when I'm ready to use them I just pull them out and let them thaw a bit or defrost them in the microwave. I usually just make banana bread or banana cake. But I found this recipe for banana chocolate chip bars and thought it was another great way to use those bananas that are in the freezer just waiting to be used.  It calls for mini chocolate chips but I'm sure you could substitute regular chocolate chips and they would be just fine.

Banana Mini Morsel Bars

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 ripe bananas)
1 egg
2 cups mini chocolate chip morsels
powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 15x10 jelly roll pan.
Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Beat butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla in larger mixing bowl until creamy. Beat in bananas and egg. Gradually beat in flour mixture; stir in the chocolate chips. Spread into prepared jelly roll pan. Bake 20-30 minutes. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Sprinkle top with powdered sugar.

DIY Easter Wreath

Now that little Miss Maya is pretty much not napping anymore our afternoons can tend to be a little bit long. Some days she is better at just playing than others. I try and have some special crafts, stickers, or some sort of activity for her to do when the afternoons get a bit rough. I bought the stuff to make this little Easter egg wreath earlier in the week. And someone has been anxiously awaiting to help me make it. Usually I'm the sort of person that sees something in a store and thinks hey I could totally make that but then I just end up buying it instead. I'm so not the crafty person...at all! But for some reason I saw a wreath like this at a store this week and thought I'd give it a try and save myself some money.

Here are the raw materials...the bird's nest wreath, Easter eggs, mini sparkly Easter eggs, and the glue gun. Maya was most excited about helping use the glue gun!

Here's the completed project...and pretty proud that I saved myself about $10. That's about 3 small lattes from Starbucks people!

Spring Fever

Today 55 feels like 85! We took our first little afternoon walk and played outside just like it was summer out. We haven't done this since probably early November. We definitely have spring fever...and Cora has an actual fever to prove it. Poor thing. We've all been passing around colds and coughs since September. So ready for spring but I think it's suppose to snow again tomorrow. Winter just won't give up. The good thing about this time of year is that we get little glimpses of what is coming and with the added daylight it just makes things that much more hopeful! We will be able to put our coats, hats, scarves, and snow boats away one of these days. It may just be a few months yet...

First Bagel

We've been going for bagels on Saturday mornings as a family for quite awhile now. We usually alternate between Panera and Brueggers. I think Cora has gone with us since she was a week old. Well today was a big day. She got to chew on her very own bagel. And she loved it!

7 months

The months just keep moving right along. I can't believe Cora is 7 months old!