Sick of Kids Gym birthday parties???

I don't know about you, but I am growing a bit tired of the standard birthday parties.  How many ball pits can you play in?  This weekend Diane's friend, Sadie, invited her to a Gem Mining Party. Tim the gem man brought his mobile gem truck to Sadie's house and each of the kids went home with a bag of gems, brilliant!!

Tim waited until all 15 kids arrived, then he welcomed us into his mobile gem mining truck.
It was a cold day outside, but inside it was toasty.



15 kids fit perfectly into the truck.

Each of the kids got one large bucket of sand to start with and a blue shovel.  The kids then scooped out a bunch of sand into their sifter.  Then they turned their sifter sideways and pushed it into the water.  The gems, and other goodies were left in the sifter.  Each kid had a small plastic bag hooked to the wall, which you can see on the left side of the above photo.  The kids were able to sift through two large buckets of sand. 

In front of each station was a chart, showing all the rocks, fossils, and gems you could find.

Each child was so excited when they found an arrowhead.

All the kids had so much fun!! Many proclaimed, best party ever!

This photo shows all the goodies that Diane found.  Whoever found an arrowhead had the option to make it into a necklace. Suprised that we came home with a pink arrowhead necklace?? Me neither.

The party ended with the birthday girl banging open two small geodes. The kids were amazed at all the crystals inside.  If you are in Maryland and you need a cool idea for a party, give Tim a call!

First snowstorm this year

Our dog had so much fun in the snow today.  The kids did a little sledding and the dog went crazy for the snow. What fun to watch!

Potato Latkes for the win~

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah. I hope that those of you who are celebrating are enjoying delicious Hanukkah fare.

My friend Jane was nice enough to give us an enormous amount of potatoes and 3 dozen eggs so it was time to make the latkes.  This is Jane's recipe. It is awesome.  Enjoy!!  And just a note. These are not healthy, they are not vegan, and they are not typical food that is ever served in our house.  But since it is a holiday, we are eating latkes tonight.

Jane's Latkes
4 potatoes
1 onion
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1/4 tsp pepper (optional)
1/2 cup flour
Clean, peel and grate the potatoes.  Soak them in cold water twice then squeeze out as much water as possible.  Grate the onions into the bowl with the clean, dry potatoes.  Add in the rest of the ingredients.  Fry in a pan of very hot oil.  Eat with applesauce and sour cream.

Pumpkin Walnut Muffins with Swerve

Today we tried to pretend that it is Fall. Outside it is a sunny 70 degrees, but in my kitchen it is smelling like Fall.  These pumpkin muffins were easily made sugar free with Swerve Sweetener.  This recipe is also free of oil and butter.  I do not feel badly at all giving a few of these muffins to the kids as a breakfast or dessert.  These rated a 9/10 from Alex.  Next recipe will be a 10/10!

Sugar Free Pumpkin Walnut Muffins
Makes 12 regular size muffins

1.5 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup Swerve sugar substitute
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup pumpkin
1 egg
1/4 cup applesauce
1 cup milk
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.  (Both kinds of flour, sugar substitute, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.)

Mix wet ingredient in a separate bowl. (pumpkin, egg, applesauce, milk)

Combine wet ingredients into dry ingredients.  Stir until almost blended.  Sprinkle in the walnuts.  Mix up a few more seconds.  Put batter into regular size muffin papers.  Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes. Check with a toothpick to see if it is done.  Enjoy!

A few quick notes:
*You can easily use only all purpose flour, just use 2 cups!
*You can use 1/4 cup of oil if you are not into the lower fat taste of applesauce substitute.
*You can use an egg substitute (flax or chia egg) as well as an almond milk and these will be vegan!

Sugar Swerved Cookies

On to recipe #2 with my new Swerve sweetener.  Alex gave the brownies a 5/10 rating. So I was determined to try again and improve my score.  I next attempted a sugar cookie made with swerve.  Alex gave these a 7/10.  He is such a good sport that he always eats everything I make for him.  Later this week I will be making a muffin with swerve.  Hoping for an 8 or higher!






Sugar Sweve Cookies
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup Swerve Sweetener
1/2 tsp vanilla
3 T milk
1/4 cup butter, softened on the counter for a while

Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl. Stir in wet ingredients.  Make dough into small cookies.  Bake at 350 for 7-9 minutes.  Watch that they do not burn.  They will continue to firm up on the pan for the next ten minutes.  Allow to cool then eat with a glass of milk!

Swerve on in to some sugar free brownies

This past week I got an email from Mamavation that they were looking for 10 bloggers to be ambassadors for an up and coming brand called Swerve Sweeteners.

I read more through the email and I got really excited.  I have a 15 year old son, Alex, who has POTS Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.  Part of his recovery has been to cut out all sugar.  His terrible headaches have almost gone away completely by removing all sugar from his diet.  But 15 year old boys want to eat dessert.  Alex used to love his cookies, brownies, donuts and cake, just like his other siblings.  But over the past year, Alex has had a few sugar free candies and one sugar free cake (thanks Jane).  But the sugar free substitutes are awful.  Splenda, Malitol, Aspartame, Sucralose.  I have had no success baking with those products, and they are not healthy at all.  We have experimented with liquid stevia, but Alex is just not enjoying the results.

I applied to be one of the lucky ten bloggers who will get to represent Swerve for a month. I really feel like I will be the perfect choice.  We need to cook with this product NOW! 

Since it will be a while until the lucky bloggers are chosen,  I went to Whole Foods yesterday to look for Swerve.  I could not wait any longer to try it. Here it is on my local Whole Foods shelf.

For $9.99 I bought a 16 oz bag of granulated swerve.  It looks just like regular sugar does.  It can be substituted for sugar 1:1.  Whole Foods also had a confectioner's sugar Swerve as well, which was $10.99.  If this product tastes amazing it will be worth the price.
These brownies are in the oven right now.  They will be cool by the time Alex gets home from school.  I really hope he likes them.  Sunday I am making a brisket, and using the Swerve in place of the brown sugar. Stay tuned for more recipes!!

Sara's Swerve Brownies
2/3 cups Swerve Sweetener
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup applesauce
2 T coconut oil
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 and prepare an 8x8 pan.
In a small bowl combine swerve, cocoa, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Stir to combine.
In another small bowl combine applesauce, oil, egg and vanilla.  Mix well to incorporate.
Pour your wet ingredients into the dry.  Mix just until combined. Pour brownie mix into your prepared pan.  Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the top feels firm.

Snapchat?

My son Joey (17) told me today that I had to get the app Snapchat.  He told me it would be so much fun to be able to send pictures to each other.
So not wanting to make him mad, I downloaded it.


I think I am just too old for this.
I have been trying this app all morning and I do not see the appeal.
For those of you who do not understand snapchat, you take a photo, then you have the ability to draw or write on said photo.  Then you choose who you want to send it to in your contacts (another words, other people who have the snapchat app)  BUT, here is thing that makes snapchat cool to the kids.  When the person you sent the picture to gets it, they can only open said photo and see it for three seconds.  Then poof, it disappears into thin air.  For a busy Mom like me, I would rather be cooking, playing with the kids, reading a book, or trying to finally beat level 350 in Candy Crush Saga (grrrrr).

The best part of the app is the photo editing portion. Haven't you always wanted to draw on your photos?  I cannot wait to see what pictures Diane will create when she sees this new app.

What do you think of snapchat?  I will be sitting here trying to think of something creative to send to Joey.