Butterbeer

During my recent quest for anything Harry Potter, to fill the void left by the movie series ending, I found a recipe for butterbeer, a popular drink in the books and movies. Although this drink is made up, JK Rowling tasted the drink that Universal Studios is serving to the lucky visitors of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and gave it the thumbs up. Of course Universal is sitting their butts pretty tight on THAT recipe so this is the one that came closest. (With a little tweaking by yours truly!)

Ingredients

2 liters of cream soda

1 cup of whipped cream

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons butterscotch syrup

4 tablespoons butter
Red and yellow food coloring (optional)

1/2 teaspoon rum(optional)

Instructions

Measure 1 cup butterscotch and butter in a microwave safe dish and microwave for 1 to 1 ½ minutes.

Let cool for 30 seconds.

Mix butterscotch mixture, cream soda, a few drops of  both food colorings, and rum extract. Mixture will fizz.

Mix 2 tablespoons butterscotch and 1 cup whipped cream until evenly mixed.

Pour cream soda mix into glass and top with a dollop of butterscotch whipped cream.

Enjoy!

My big girl

My baby big girl is growing up and it makes me sad. I love seeing the new things that she learns to do everyday but I miss that little baby she used to be. There's nothing to do but encourage her learning and soak in the rare moments when she just wants to cuddle and be my baby.

Ok. I'm done being sad! Let's look at her birthday party! :)

I made Loralei her own little smash cake.

And she went for it face first.

Because my little lady didn't like her hands being dirty.

Then we spent the rest of the night playing in the new toys she got for turning 1!

Postpartum Depression

My daughter is about to celebrate her first birthday and looking back at this past year I can't help but to compare it to my son's first year of life. Pretty much as soon as Clark was born I suffered postpartum depression. Not that I admitted it to myself let alone anyone else. I was embarrassed and ashamed that I felt even the thought of being alone with this beautiful baby would swallow me whole.

I had a long and hard labor with Clark. After 3 hours of pushing he finally came into the world and...he wasn't crying breathing. The silence was overwhelming. Thankfully it only took the doctors about 30 seconds to help him out.

I guess in the beginning I kept writing it off as the 'baby blues'. Like when I had asked my mama to stay with me for the first few days since my husband worked at night and when it got time for her to leave I was glued to the pillow crying my eyes out at the thought of being alone. She ended up staying a week.

Clark was born in winter so he was a sickly baby when he was young. Jaundice, asthma, colic, any kind of virus going around he would catch. That made him seem all the more fragile and every time he got sick it made me feel like an awful mother for not protecting him from it.

I had no confidence when he was younger. I wouldn't go anywhere by myself with him because I just knew something would happen and I wouldn't be able to handle it. I was so worried/depressed/ashamed that I couldn't appreciate the little moments that made up his first year. I finally admitted that it wasn't just the baby blues when he was about 9 months old and started taking anti-depressants. By the time it was his birthday I was a whole new woman mother and I am so thankful. I guess if I had to pick one word to describe how I felt Clark's first year it would be ashamed. For Loralei's first year it would be confident.

Her labor was short and easy. She has hardly ever gotten sick. She has asthma but she seems to have mostly grown out of it. As soon as we got home I was ready to go out with both kids and show her off to the world. I am in the floor playing all the time and I actually want to be around my kids. I don't feel the need to go out and spend time with other people because my family fulfills me. I guess I was confident because I knew that I could handle this whole 'parenting' thing. I'm not saying that every moment was a breeze but I have been cured of postpartum since before Clark was 2 and the thought of the woman I was 4 years ago having 2 kids is just scary.

Despite what some people think, postpartum depression is a real thing and I feel that it robbed me of his first year. The 'glass is half full' me feels that I have the rest of his life to make up for it and enjoy every minute of it!

http://postpartum.net/

Homemade Playdough

I recently found a recipe for homemade playdough on the website for Nick Jr. I also recently found out that my 3yr old son has an obsession with playdough. His imagination comes up with infamous possibilities for the little doughy blobs he makes. So...........here's the recipe.

Mix 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt, and 1 cup of hot water together in a large mixing bowl.

Add your choice of food coloring. (Clark's picked his favorite color.)

Mix until the color is evenly distributed.

(It looks like he's about to eat it. I promise he's not. He just likes to fill up cups with playdough.)

Enjoy!!!

P.S. This is a lot stickier than store bought playdough.

My first blog

I've never written a blog before. I never even really had a journal growing up. I had 5 siblings and an extremely close relatinship with my parents, so if I needed something out I just talked about it to one of the many people that was around. I still have that relationship with all of my family, but now we all have our own families and jobs so it's not always possible to get somebody on the phone. So I guess this blog is my way of having "someone" to talk to at all hours of the day because I have so very many things to talk about. I am a wife and a stay at home mother of 2 adorable kids. I also babysit kids at my house. If you don't have kids then you have no idea the amount of funny/frustrating/disasterous/beautiful things they can do.

Well, here goes blogging!