Pajama Day

Esme and I had a pajama day today.  We were supposed to have a play date, but Esme had a snuffly nose and was C-R-abby so we cancelled. Better to stay at home.

First item of business is to try on Daddy's shoes and make sure they work.

Most of the morning we just hung out and watched Esme's favorite - Handy Manny.  I even got a few snuggles in. :)  Those are fewer and farther between these days so I will take them when I can get them.

Later in the afternoon we took a bath.  Esme likes them again now which is definitely a good thing.  As usual, she loves to sing - especially in the tub with the good acoustics. :)

She's a natural musician!  

Overall, it was a good day and even though Esme didn't feel that great.  Next Monday we will hopefully be able to get out and about and have even more fun!

Weight Watchers Fruit and Honey Bars

I've been wanting to make these bars for a long time.  They are sort of like a homemade energy bar.

In fact, I've carried the recipe around with me for at least a couple of weeks.  Some of the ingredients are a little tricky to find.  It calls for unsweetened coconut.  This was not to be found at Cub or Target, however I did find it at Whole Foods (can I say how excited I am that one is opening in Minnetonka soon!).  I also found the unsalted pepitas there.  

The rest of the ingredients I either had on hand or was able to get on my normal shopping trip.  There were three adaptations of the recipe offered and I sort of mixed them all up.  Here's the result, I think they turned out pretty good.  4 points plus each.

Fruit and Honey Bars

Serves 20

1/3 cup honey

2 large eggs 

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup old fashioned rolled oats

1/2 cup instant nonfat dry milk

1/2 cup each 

• shelled unsalted pumpkin seeds, unsweetened shredded coconut, ground flax seed, dried apricots (chopped), dried cranberries

1/4 c. whole wheat flour

2tbsp wheat germ

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350*F. Line a 9" square baking pan with nonstick foil. Beat honey, eggs and salt with a fork in a small bowl until blended. Put the rest of the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. 

Add the honey mixture to the dry ingredients and pulse until mixture is slightly moistened. Press dough into baking pan until in is uniformly even. 

Bake until center is set, and edges are lightly browned. Let cool 10 minutes. Using foil, transfer the bar from pan to cutting board. Cut into 20 1 1/2" bars. Let cool completely, peel off foil.

They are pretty good.  Good enough that I had to hide them from myself and ate more of them than I should.  Believe it or not, next time I would make it without the chocolate chips.  They were ok, but not great.  And they should be great to be worth the extra point.  If you leave off the chocolate chips it's 3 points plus.

I will definitely be making different variations of this in the future.  Enjoy!

The girl's got skills!

Esme continues to get more and more independent.  She's getting better and better at eating with a spoon.  Yogurt is a favorite.

Next she'll be cutting steak with a knife!  

Playtime or Work???

Esme's favorite thing right now is the sink.  It's kind of funny that she goes back and forth between hating water and loving it.  For the moment (luckily) she loves it.  Especially when it's in the sink.  She will rinse the dishes and pour water from one cup to another.  She's constantly asking for more bubbles.  At first I put dish washing soap in but she was not satisfied - it wasn't what she wanted.  Actually what she wanted was the water turned on and running fast. so it made bubbles in the water.

 It's always important to wear eye protection when doing the dishes. :)

Hopefully she always enjoys doing dishes this much!

Music Class with Grandma

Esme has been going to Musikgarten with Grandma Barb for a long time now.  Thursday mornings at 9:30.  I've gone once or twice with her but this last week.  Mamoo got to go because she was in town.  She took a few pictures. :)

 

The music class is definitely having an affect on her.  She's always singing and dancing and humming.  I love it!  The great news is that Ginni (who teaches the class) also teaches piano lessons.  So Esme will have someone she knows to teach her!  Yaaayyy!

Still a Gangster!

Remember this?  Well, Esme is continuing her gangster look.  Somehow I think might not be what Minnie had in mind when she designed her hat...

And yes she did put the hat on by herself each and every time.  There was no posing by Mommy!  Thanks Papa and Mamoo for the hat from Disney!

Long night

Esme woke up last night just after midnight.  I rocked her for awhile and she would just not fall asleep.  She would sit and stare out into space, half way between sleep and awake.  Finally, after trying several times unsuccessfully to put her to sleep, she and I went downstairs.  I laid on the couch and she played and played.  She danced, sang, hopped and was WIDE awake. At about 5 am Aaron took over and I went and laid down.  He said he'd wake me up in about an hour when he left for work.  I woke up at about 9:30 and the house was quiet.  It turns out that after I went up to sleep, Esme grabbed a box of graham crackers and was holding onto it like a teddy bear.  She fell asleep in her chair like this.

So Aaron took her upstairs and put her to bed.  She slept until about 11:30!  Let's hope this pattern doesn't continue...  I don't like it one bit!