blue berry sourcream coffee cake...

So when I hosted the twilight birthday brunch I made this coffee cake and there were a few requests for the recipe, monkey butt is obsessed with it and the whole rest of the family and so I figured that this recipe is just too darn good to keep to my self. It is healthy too 3 ww points her slice. Since I sorta fudged the recipe I made pictures to illustrate then things I made up.

Here is what you will need to make the coffee cake light sour cream, polaner blue berry preserves, brown sugar, butter(slightly chilled), and Kruestez fat free blue berry muffin mix and 1c water what is not pictured here half c. flour (I used whole wheat flour) and a over preheated to 350

So the box mix comes with a can of blue berry's rinse them and set them aside. Then add 1c water to the mix and when mixed add berry's.

Then add three heaping spoons of light sour cream

Then three smaller heaping spoons of preserves

pour the mixture into a 8x8 pan I like to spray it with cake release so I can get it onto a platter.

Then you need to mix together half cup brown sugar half c whole wheat flour and quarter c butter. I find the easiest method for this is with your hands. and the butter is slightly chilled it is easier too.

Then sprinkle over the cake and bake at 350 for 45 minutes



This is the finished product

this is great and it is very moist and yummy...let me know how you like it.

Sunday Sunday Sunday..

So today was family dinner and I am super stuffed to the gills. I just got home form family dinner. We had burgers with blue cheese on them yum yum. I love it. It was sorta my birthday dinner with the family. I made the Guinness chocolate cake again since I love it soo much. I am happy I have soo much.

My sister gave me my present the pioneer woman cook book. I love it soo much and am soo excited because I heard that black heels to tractor wheels is going to be made into a movie and Ree may be played by Reece Witherspoon which would be perfect. I love her soo much and am soo excited for it. If you haven't read the story of her and how she fell in love with her Marlboro man you need to. :)

Isn't she cute :) Every one needs this she really makes every thing fool proof and I love every recipe I have made of hers speaking of which tomorrow I will post my recipe for my blue berry ww coffee cake.
Here is my project that I am working It is starsky jr. I am making it to celebrate monkey butts first year of big girl school. I have been wanting to start one for a while.

Speaking of which I am going to go snuggle her and watch some tv since she has spring break we have been letting her stay up a bit later as a treat. Last night we watched meet me in st Louis and short circuit tonight we are watching undercover boss. :) I hope every one is having a great weekend.

What was I thinking wed.

So Yesterday I was looking around on a new favorite blog Thats So Cuegly and she cut her hair a while back and it was soo freakin cute. Now some of you who may not know me personally might not know I was a licensed cosmetologist. So was Mrs Cuegly. So she had cut her own hair (I know I emailed her to ask) and so just like I like to do I cut off more then I can chew come 12:00 last night I was standing in my bathroom surrounded by a mountain of hair. I did it I cut my own hair. I did fairly well but I went today and had a girl get the bottom neater and check the back. :) So here it is...

Ignore my goofy smirk so this is a cute little flip on the bottom..

here is with cute flip and some back combing...

and here is full out peg bundy bar hair. Have a good night guys :)

Fo Juliana

Okay so I finished Juliana today. It is very nice. I love how soft and cozy it is and all the different ways I can wear it. I went with s.s. sleeves with a picot edge. I thought it was more delicate and matched the look of the pattern better then the two by two ribbing it called for. I also opted for 3/4 sleeves. I am very happy with it and very happy it is over lol. I am not so happy with the pics of it but that it what happens since it is Tuesday and I am on my own with out the hubby (unless I want to let the 6 year old take the pics ...nope not really)

Here is how it looks when it is wrapped and pinned in the back...

Here is tied in the front (allot like what I saw the detective on castle wore last night)

Here is kinda twisted in the front and then tied in the back very cute also...

as you can see lots of styles I will get lots of cute outfits out of this one

and the last very exciting thing of the day is that I got a package from Lynn at fiddlesticks. I am very excited about willing this. (the goat ate a big bite out of the candle shortly after this pic was taken btw) I will have to let you know what I do with all the yummy yarn :)

Well I have had killer allergy headache all day and am going to call it quits early :)

Reasons I love my life today...

I am feeling pretty darn blessed today and enjoying my birthday. These are some of the reasons why..

Diet soda and chocolate cake. (yeah I know lol I am one of those people but the chocolate cake is a splurge it is usually just diet soda) I love love love this Guinness chocolate cake it is only getting better it is rich and thick (but not overly sweet) It is almost like cheese cake

Delicious malabrigo yarn. YUM YUM YUM

The fact that I am done with the body of juliana and just knitting the sleeves which are almost done. :)

Fire monster has been a good girl today and who wouldn't have a brighter day with that smile...

watching monkey butt read books to her self all on her own that she has never read before. She is too smart :)




The stack of great little treasures my knitters and monkey butt brought me :) Coffee in the new blue mug was awesome this morning a new fav...

and this one is a doozie My hubby. I love him soo much. I am going to miss him today but I am very thankful for the fact that he is working hard for us. He is such a great guy handsome sweet thoughtful and I am soo in love with him its crazy. Yesterday night I sent him to the store to grab diapers after I threw dinner in the oven and since it is less then a mile away I figured by the time he got back I would be able to pull dinner out. well a while later I realize the cheese on top was very VERY dark and he was still gone. What the heck was taking him so long he only needed diapers!!! Well about the time he walked in the door and I was dishing every one and complaining that he took so long he gave me this...This is huge because for one it is adorable and matches very well for two I wasn't expecting anything because money is tight and my party was my present. and for three

He took time to find this book. He talked to me about it early in the weekend and found it with out me being any the wiser...


He knows the way to my heart lol (nothing like a vampire hunter and a severed head on my birthday My heart is all a flutter)

Lovely day with lovely ladies

What more could I ask for

So the New Moon Birthday Brunch went off with out a hitch. It was wonder full seeing my favorite ladies in the world. They are just the best people I have ever met. I have missed knitting with them soo much but with Monkey butts school it is just to hard I can't make it. So it was just a joy to see them all today.

I apologise for the poor photo quality today I couldn't find my camera and had to use my phone.

Here is a very poor picture of the spread we had in the end. It was great. You can even see fire monster eating a cupcake in the back ground that the lovely Jean brought her and the flowers she brought me. (well almost flowers..I can't wait)

Here is fire monster and the adorable cupcake Jean brought her that sucker lasted her all day she would come back and eat on it every now and again.

Here is the blue berry sour cream coffee cake it was very good and very moist. I loved it I still have lots left.

Here are the chocolate pumpkin chocolate chip muffins with cream cheese filling. They were good but there were so many other goodies I took all the left overs of these and put them into the freezer (they freeze great for healthy snacks or hubby's lunch they are 3pts)

Here is the Chocolate Guinness cake it was great and it has a great cream cheese frosting. I was nervous but it was very good thick and rich. I will make it a yearly tradition for st. patties day.

I also made cheesy hash brown casserole and cheesy olive bread

And this was my little take away treat for the ladies some magnetic bookmarks and a card with skittles (they make a hot air balloon). It was sooo soo wonderful. I had a great time seeing everyone. I couldn't have been surrounded by a group of more wonderful women. After they went on their way and hubby went to work me and fire monster fell into a food coma and she napped until 7 and I lay there stuffed to the gills dozing and knitting. and now we are laying on the couch watching walle and hanging out (since she took like a 4 hour nap and she usually doesn't nap at all) but it is great she has been a great little buddy today and all it all I couldn't have had a better day. great friend great food great family what a life I am soo blessed. :) I hope all of you feel as blessed as me today

and the winner is...

Today was the big day.
I did the drawing with fire monster since I got a belly full of cake and yummy goodness and forgot when my knitter were here.

So I went back through the blog and wrote down the name attached to each comment and folded each piece of paper the same way and stuck it into my giant Seattle mug..
and had fire monster pick a piece. And the winner is..

Amy J:) and since I was feeling especially great and giving and a bit groggy since I was full of Guinness cake I drew a runner up....

Mrs Lynn you are the other winner. Get a hold of me soon with address's or I will get a hold of you

CONGRATS

For the love of my knitters...

Because I love you guys soo much...
I was a tizzy of cooking tonight. I baked my butt off from 7:30 until now. I have my new moon birthday brunch tomorrow with my knitters. I am fully convinced that they are the most wonderful people on earth and I am not worthy so I show my appreciation by baking my butt off. But that was the end of my night. The beginning of my day was fire monster waking up at 5:30 a.m. We fell back asleep probably close to 7 and when monkey butt got up I told her to just grab a bowl of cereal. She saw my phone on the counter and called her dad (not a big deal) She proceeded to tell him that she had to wash dish's to eat breakfast because it was only her and the cat up and all the dish's were dirty (translation her favorite bowl was dirty in the dish washer but we can all see how bad this looks lol). So she started the dish washer smart girl and ate her bowl of cereal and started a annoying barbie movie I refuse to watch anymore . I was up half hour after her.

We got her on the bus and then Fire monster had a friend over. A little boy in our neighborhood name Nik. She had soo much fun and then left about 4:00 and they both had turned evil out of the tiredness from being nice and playing too hard. Then the hubby went to nap for a bit and we grabbed groceries and got the show on the road.

Here is the chaos in my kitchen at the beginning...

Here is the blue berry coffee cake...

Here are the pumpkin chocolate chocolate chip muffins with cream cheese filling...

and the Guinness chocolate cake. I also have a breakfast casserole in the fridge and pioneer women's olive bread. I also cleaned up the big mess lol. I am going to figure out the points for my ww ladies and hit the hay. :)

Oh yes and I forgot I had to add something to the list of thing fire monster/ the goat ate yesterday she choked on a penny and we had to give her the Heimlich and it didn't come out through the mouth but she quit choking...so we are still waiting. and she is back on the suicide watch that girl is going to be the death of me yet.

A ray of sunshine after some rain on my parade

Have you ever got really upset over something and cried sooo hard and can't stop and don't know why. I don't know if it is a girl thing I don't know if it is just a me thing. I think it was a culmination of things. These are the main things I think were the cause my grandma passed away two days after my birthday what would be 6 years ago but it still sorta gets to me, some comments were said and with my heightened emotional state made me feel like my family saw celebrating with me as a hassle and not worth taking time(which as a mom you really only get one day a year to look forward to people celebrating you am I right), and just some other things that have been said mostly about fire monster and the way she is sorta treated and reacted to and I will be the first to tell you that she is a rough kid, she is my hard one but It still hurts to have family not want anything to do with her and not say nice things about her (even my hubby really gets his feelings hurt by that )and it slowly added up and they exploded with me in tears for the entire evening and afternoon from 3:30 on yesterday. I cried and cried and then cried some more. I didn't get done until about 10:30 my face was raw I cried so hard.

I don't cry very much and maybe I just need a good crying out after being dry for a while but this was ridiculous. I sorta tried to go about my business my hubby to since he finally got a night off only to have his wife crying all over the house. I got up and still felt a really blah today. I am fine mostly about the birthday thing really I don't like to celebrate it and never want a big hoopla but it all got to me some how. I only cried a bit this morning and have been dry ever since but whew it was a rough one.

I moved on with my day and this is what happened then. It was beautiful here in MN. We went to the park for a while and played it was fun to watch the girls with all the kids in the new neighborhood. Since we moved in Nov. no one has really been outside until now so they are finally starting to meet some Friends.

Here is firemonster climbing the rock wall all by her self (she has been practicing all winter by climbing onto the counters this was a piece of cake lol)

Here is monkey butt just hanging around and doing her own thing.



here is me teaching fire monster to swing like a spider as a I used to call it.



Some one brought a bucket and shovel and this is I forgot how much she loved to just fill a bucket with rocks she could do that all day.

Before we left while monkey butt was at school and I was doing laundry I made a batch of these they are called brownie drop cookies. I don't think they were anything to write home about so I am not posting the recipe but it you are interested I will send you a like. :) they are one point though that is nice. Speaking of weight watcher I did work out today I did legs and made up my abs day from yesterday I found this great ten minute Pilates from hulu I have a feeling I may be sore tomorrow. Here is the link (hey you can do anything for ten minutes right??)http://www.hulu.com/watch/38648/yoga-and-pilates-pilates-abs#s-p1-sr-i0

I did my legs and did that twice today. I made my hubby do it with me the second time and it was even hard for him :)

And since this is a knitting blog I thought I would actually give you guys what you come here for and show you the progress on juiliana. It is taking forever to get the last part of this done. I still have to do the arms but I think I am just going to do some ss. for the sleeves. Well I am going to work on it I only have 3 repeats left until I bo. (woohoo)
I promise no more bawl baby stuff I don't know why bdays get me soo worked up and emotional.

busy busy busy

So back to single parent (well for two days a week)

So I have been busy around here. I am trying to do a bit of extra cleaning and the hubby is working 6:30a.m. until 10:00p.m. on Monday and Tuesdays. So I have been working over time too. I got lots of cleaning done yesterday. I busted my hump all afternoon and while I was scrubbing showers and tubs and vacuuming blinds fire monster emptied all her clothes out of her drawers and all the movies from her cupboard (twice) yesterday!!! I did work out yesterday and this was dinner. It is one of my stock easy low calorie easy cheap meal. Everyone eats it too, which some times seems like a miracle.

I usually use whole wheat penne, one bottle of spaghetti sauce (this was hunts canned not as good as my usual classico but it was less calories so I thought it would give it a shot but the olive and mushroom classico is great) I cook the noodles drain mix with one bottle of sauce and then cover with 3 cups of cheese and sprinkle with pasta sprinkle from penzeys (Italian seasoning) and bake at 400 until the cheese melts. Easy cheap healthy and good. 1/6th of the dish is 6 points.

I got woke up by fire monster this morning at 6:00a.m. She doesn't do well with out daddy around. I told her to get back in bed she said"NO I am going to see my daddy!!" So I let her and that was it no more sleep for me. I got to close my eyes for a little bit because I ran out to get The Princess and the Frog from redbox. I was hoping it would buy me a bit of a nap but nothing solid. So the rest of the day on 5 hours sleep. I am used to my girls getting up at 9:00 So I typically stay up getting stuff done I want to do and with Ben working both jobs on these days I pack his lunch and set up coffee for the morning and what not, half the time I even work out once I get them in bed So I look forward for that time. I didn't get as much done today as I would have liked not a whole ton of extra cleaning and I did bake and get a bit of knitting though. I am almost done and will be working on the sleeves soon but I am not sure I am going to be able to wear it on Saturday. It just goes soo slow some times.

Dinner today was a bit more tricky the girls wanted ramen noodles. I just didn't have it in me So I cheated. I used shirataki noodles and pulled the good old Folgers switch on them. Shirataki noodles are 0 points and they are made of tofu they look like Spaghetti or ramen. You find them in the veggie section of the grocery store by the tofu. I rinse them for one minute(while plugging my nose because they stink at first) Then I toss them in a bowl with water and cook them in the microwave for two minutes I drain them and make them how ever I want then. I have made stir fry and a few other things with it.

So the way I cooked them today was what we call Rachel Ray Ramen. She was saying how bad ramen is for you and to cook it in broth and add a beat egg to make it like egg drop soup. So that is how we did it this time. We cooked the noodles with chicken broth and when it was boiling I added two beat eggs. The girls chowed and had no idea. Fire monster ate 3 bowls!!! Wow huh. I could barley tell the difference.

Then I wanted to make some sort of treat for the girls but I didn't want to have to go to the grocery store and I wanted it to be some what healthy so I was searching sparkpeople.coms recipe base. I found funfetti cookies. I made those and they are two points. You just take a cake mix add 1/3 c canola oil. and 2 egg whites. make into inch balls smoosh a bit and then bake at 375 for 8 minutes. They were okay but I would like a bit more cookie for my points. I am sure I could do bit better with more options but it worked.

This was the finished product. I hadn't read the part about smooshing them yet so they were a bit puffy and gooey in the middle. Defiantly smoosh. Other then that I am barley getting to sit down and monkey butt is sitting beside me coughing her head off. I am not sure she is going to make it to school. And I am very much in need of sleep after this morning. I am going to try some different cookies tomorrow and I have a delish sounding recipe for my knitting birthday party on Saturday. I am very excited for that and very excited to know my hubby will be home for the evening tomorrow. That will be great. :)