Ok, so these things are for real. No joke, delicious and indulgent and way too rich to be made in the big cupcake tins if you ask me.

Remember my Pinterest addiction? This is just the beginning.

With valentines day just passing, these seemed like the optimal treat for family and friends to snack on as my gift to them. Chocolate? Check. That’s pretty much the only requirement for valentines day if you ask me. So, obviously, these pass.

I ran across these on Pinterest (duh!) and literally made them that same day. Having a toddler in the house has made graham crackers a must have at all times, so Costco size of that means tons available for said recipe. Bakers in the house means butter and chocolate chips and sugar are always available. Always. We’re also semi-healthy and keep peanut butter around for quick protein snacks or for my toddler’s favorite peanut butter brown sugar oatmeal.

Truthfully, the recipe calls for salt, too, but I haven’t taken to the salted candy fad and skipped that step. So, with all the ingredients in the house, I took to the kitchen with intent. I admit, I could have used the food processor to crumb the crackers, but I was lazy and I wanted to do as few dishes as possible, so I did the ghetto smash-the-crackers-into-the-measuring-cup-and-hope-it-works dealio. There were some larger crunches, but no one complained and it didn’t ruin the snack, so don’t feel guilty if you take shortcuts for yourself.

End result. HEAVEN. Well, not really, but you get it. Be warned, though, that these are not to be boxed up and given as gifts unless they stay in the fridge constantly. They don’t even totally harden up, though I didn’t try the freezer. It’s not a bad thing either. Think of them as delicious little crunchy peanut butter truffles, because that’s the consistency. As I mentioned, they are rich – we found that a quarter of a regular muffin tin or, I’m assuming, a mini muffin tins worth would be the perfect bite.

It’s all microwave, no real skill or detail required, and super yummy results. Go make some!

Hello, my name is Daphne and I’m a Pinterest Addict.

True story. I sneak it all the time. Lately, I’ve been making a whole bunch of food recipes and ideas from Pinterest and trying my best to keep track of them, photo journaling the end results and making mental notes. My hope is that I’ll be able to add weekly updates as to what’s worked, what we’ve enjoyed, so on and so forth from the many ideas and experiments.

Stay tuned. I’ll post experiment number one (DUN DUN DUN!!!) in a few days. Yay!

So, it’s been a long time. Long, LONG time.

Happy New Year! Happy Chinese New Year! And Happy Fat Tuesday/Ash Wednesday! Happy Valentines day! Now, Happy Friday and Happy Birthday Brother-in-law!!

Ok, now that we’ve got the formalities out of the way, it’s been hectic. I’ve been feeding a new Pinterest addiction (more on that later), raising a toddler who’s learning enunciation/colors/letters/numbers/coloring/potty training/everything all at once, looking for work, nursing my husband through his lifeless job, and trying to maintain the house and keep looking cool. Sounds pretty fun, right?

After all of the presents my son got for Christmas, a box that carried home Costco groceries makes him smile. Yep, that’s where we’re at right now.

Off the topic, I’ve found Amazon to be one of my newest favorite friends. Granted, when I moved to California, and there were still Borders stores, Amazon definitely held a special place in my heart when I could buy all the books I wanted at a lower price with free shipping to boot! Amazon has recently become the go-to for everything, like my brother-in-laws birthday present. Ordered it like 4 days ago, expected it on the 26th of February at the original quote when we first purchased it and it showed up at our door today. Just in time. Perfection!

How was your Valentine’s day?? I hope it was amazing and full of love, or angst, whatever direction you wanna go with that.

We didn’t celebrate except with fond exchanges of the phrase. We’ll probably collect on “gifts” we pick out and buy for ourselves from each other soon, but it’s just more of an excuse to buy ourselves whatever we want in lieu of a seemingly pointless holiday. Yay, guilt free self indulgences!

Now if you’ve online shopstalked, you know that when things are no longer in stock, they are deleted from your cart and there’s some nasty red writing telling you that you failed and took too long, so the item in your chosen color and/or size is now gone. I’ve been religiously checking my cart and seeing exactly what is remaining, the lasting items slowly becoming the winning roulette choices for my money. Now is when it starts getting tricky, though.

On the second day of the new year, the sale officially launches in their stores. Yes, sadly, the stores don’t carry their clothes, so anything of that sort I have to purchase online. I took that into account, that some things are only carried online, but other things that are now no longer available are possibly carried in stores. Plus, the store may carry more items that can match as sets if I get there soon enough and if they even had them in the first place.

I’ve decided to brave the first day of the Semi Annual sale in the stores to see what gold I can gather with my own two hands, what types of deals I can mangle from the bins of chaos that result. As of this moment, I have yet to purchase anything from VS, online or otherwise, with the hopes that I’ll be able to score just what I want from the stores and that there will still be the remaining clothes I’ve been eyeing out still available online after my initial store shop. Here’s hoping.

I apologize, I let everything get away from me, lately. With the moving compounding upon themselves and the chasing and taming of a new toddler, it’s been much for me to handle. I kept thinking that I wasn’t doing it right or that I missed something from the Baby Tutorials, but alas, it seems this is just the ins and outs of parenting. Who knew?

From the slew of emotional breakdowns, to family gatherings that just never seem to end, it’s been a bit much for everyone else in the family, too, not just for myself. My poor son, battling the linguistics of speech while getting in new teeth in conjunction with just plain growing all around at the rate of a well watered weed, has been dragged through all the holiday hubbub just the same.

Oh yes, and I definitely can’t leave my husband out. He’s had his fair share (you know, since my emotional breakdowns become his real life drama) including back to back holiday parties, new job adjustments, completely conflicting social and professional schedules (night shift), all while trying to be Super Hubby. Yeah, he’s kind of got a similar problem to me, but more masculine. Needless to say, it’s been a tough adjustment.

In a perfect world, all the pictures of cookies, decorations, ornaments, etc would have been up day after day just as if nothing major were happening. I could have explained how we streamlined decorating the tree and how I included my toddler son in decorations that he, even at his young age, could enjoy and participate with us.

All this could have been done, but I am not super woman and, as much as I’d like to be, I am not Crystal at Money Saving Mom. Just the other day I had to remind myself that even she admits that she can’t do it alone and that she now has gotten to the point where she has a whole team working for her. Yes, team. I admit, I didn’t want to accept that the wizard wasn’t real – I wanted Crystal to be a single woman with superhuman abilities to make more time in the day to get everything just perfect all the time. And even she admits it doesn’t always happen, but I just kept dreaming. Granted, I’m sure at some point she was a one woman team (BRAVO!), but those days are gone, and I have to admit that I am not capable of reaching that goal alone.

Reality aside, now I’m just trying to get myself on track. Yes, the house is still a priority, as is my husband and our growing son. For now, though, I’m going to just get a little “me time” in on the blog. If I get a chance, I’ll definitely toss in helpful hints and tutorials as best I can, but I’m not making any promises. I’m just a girl, standing in front of the internet, asking it to let her blog.

It may seem a bit early for putting up decorations, like we’ve jumped the gun a bit, but we just couldn’t help ourselves. After admiring all the Christmas garb in the Sunday ads, I just had to get in on the action. Starting with the adorable USB powered decorations on sale at Target, it just spiraled from there. Lucky for us, too, my sister-in-law left up the lights she had hung last holiday season, so we already had a head start.

Surprisingly, even my sister-in-laws office is now decorated in a festive holiday spirit thanks to my eagerness. I opted to get her and her coworkers some little USB trees and a little holiday notepad to brighten their spirits. Of course, they were so excited that they got put up immediately after they got them this Monday. Yes, we’re totally guilty of decorating before Thanksgiving, just like all the malls and stores this year. Oh well.

I also felt that my son needed to be included in all the festivities this year, even though he’s not quite old enough and still a little young for a lot of it. Regardless, I picked up a couple of foam craft kits in holiday style and the window clings he’s seen hanging in the picture above. All in all, it was only about $5 for all of them and he definitely had fun putting up the window clings this morning. I can’t wait to start putting together the foam craft kits to his liking next.

My son may be a little young to do much of the holiday stuff, like hanging ornaments and picking out a tree, but I’m not going to let him be left out. Since this is one of my favorite holidays, I’m definitely going to keep making an effort to find him activities to keep him included and entertained just as we are during the holidays. Finding a few crafts and an activity or two for an 18 month old isn’t too hard, so don’t forget to include everyone, including your little ones, in the holiday activities this year!

I agreed to this particular diet because it has a large variety of foods you can eat and the restrictions are few and far between. The obvious no-no’s like fried foods, alcohol, and sugar are present, but they also cut out gluten and dairy with the exception of butter and cream that don’t have casein. There are also minimum daily requirements to get the correct amount of fiber and vitamins which doesn’t seem too difficult.

In preparation, I’ve tried preparing a couple recipes in the back of the book via her suggestions to get certain amounts of the daily requirements. So far, the majority of the recipes haven’t tickled my fancy. I’ll update through the days and go further into detail regarding my failed recipe experiments through the following days as well.

Drape blankets along the side of his Pack n Play to be quickly and seamlessly draped over our son while he sleeps without any complications

So we have come across a couple issues, it’s not exactly a perfect system. However, the two problems have their benefits and there are ways they can be fixed.

Possible issue #1: He pulls off the blankets when you put him down to bed.
Either this works to your benefit or you’re down a blanket or two. Sometimes he wraps himself up in a blanket and my work is done. That’s definitely helpful for us since that was the end goal anyway. I’ve noticed that a lot of times when he pulls one down onto himself, because of the way it’s openly draped, it ends up covering him quite well. If that doesn’t work, there are the multiple other blankets placed around to fill in for one down.

Possible issue #2: He wakes up because the cool blanket surprises him.
If he’s deep enough into his sleep, this isn’t really an issue and if he does wake up, he’ll usually go right back to sleep without any issues. Sometimes, I’m a little concerned he might wake up and take an extra precaution and lean up against his Pack n Play to use my body warmth to warm a blanket up a bit before I put it over him. I’ve noticed that a warmer blanket is less alarming a lot of times and usually doesn’t cause much of an issue.

That’s what we have found works for us. If you have another technique that’s successful for you, I’d love to hear it!

As I walked through the house that seemed like a sad reminder of the things I wasn’t able to accomplish, when I finally went into the bedroom and saw the laundry on the bed, I felt a little better. Sure, I didn’t get all that I wanted to get done, but something did get followed through from start to finish. The laundry, neatly folded on the bed, was a small reminder that I didn’t miss out on the time I did have to get stuff done that day, but instead, I got done what I could with the time I did have available. It was an accomplishment, small, but visible and something to be proud of that day.

So don’t ever feel defeated. Small battles to win the war against a dirty space get you where you need to be in baby steps. Sometimes, it’s all you have time for that day, but it’s ok, because it’s one step closer to your ultimate goal. Just remember that even if the entire house is a mess and all you were able to do was to clear off the dining table to relish in the glory of that clean table. Embrace it, admire it, be proud of it, and chalk it up to one more thing done on the long list of to do. You won another small battle. Pat yourself on the back. I know I sure did!

Sorry to be gone for so long. It’s been a tough transition and the move has taken a lot longer than intended. We have settled in to the North Shore of ‘Oahu, but there’s still so much to be done for everything to be where we would like them to be. Overall, though, family has been a great help and super supportive, which has made things a little easier to handle.

As for my son and his toys – he’s got a multitude of locations for them across multiple houses. Pictured above is his stash in the main living room on the North Shore. A full toy box, a wagon full of blocks, a giant care bear (courtesy of his aunty from her childhood), and his power wheels. There’s also his little corner in our bedroom. I used a couple bookshelves from a corner desk to organize his toys, but I’m hoping to get a little rug for the area, too, so he has a little play mat as well. Then he’s got a whole stash at grandma’s house, too, with another full toy box, a little ride on CAT truck, and a mini kitchen from little tikes that grandma got him from a garage sale. Needless to say, toys seem a little unnecessary this Christmas.

We are definitely stoked to have re-inherited our old diaper pail and this house is much bigger than what we’ve been used to in Hawaii. I’m enjoying the cleaning challenge. I’ve rearranged the kitchen cabinets, the fridge, the pantry, and, of course, the closet in our bedroom. Instead of using things one way, I tried using things for more than one thing. For example, the “bookshelves” that hold my sons toys in our bedroom is actually a corner desk so that I have some working space and a craft area, and the resulting legs are bookshelves used to hold toys and keep my son amused.

It’s been a fun time and I’ve learned a ton along the way. I’ve got some stuff to share, indefinitely, and am continuing to strive to do my best around the house and for my family. Undoubtedly, though, it’s so nice to be back home in Hawaii with some great family.