100 Things I Want To Teach My Daughter #63 Tea is the best medicine~

100 Things I Want To Teach My Daughter

#62 Bake Cupcakes..as often as you like~

Cupcakes can ultimately be the cure for anything. On crappy days, good days, sad days and quiet days I bake cupcakes.
Cupcakes can bring happiness to absolutely everyone in your life, I say bake them for family, friends and co-workers. If you find yourself having a hell'ish day, bake cupcakes.
They will always bring a smile to your face, and also to your loved ones faces.

I love baking them, really for any reason.

The best kind are home made, complete with homemade icing.

You know how much I love to bake. Sometimes I will bake for no reason. It can even be therapeutic. 

Someday when you are grown, possibly a wife and mother you may find yourself baking cupcakes as well. Involve your children, make it a fun activity. And then you can enjoy the treat on a Sunday evening before back to school. 

Or Fox, bake a batch of cupcakes on a Tuesday evening. Just for fun, before you and your family watch a fun Disney movie.

Take cupcakes to your friends, for no reason~

I have two homemade icing recipe's that I use for cupcakes. I will share them here with you. The first one Nana has always made, she learned from her mother.

I believe its called "Boiled Icing" its the kind of icing that I will need to show you how to make. Its a tricky one, very sensitive. One small mistake can ruin the whole batch.

You start with Brown sugar laid out on the bottom of a sauce pan, you drop some water into the brown sugar, just enough to wet the sugar.

On low/med heat slowly bring the sugar to a boil. DO NOT stir, only run a fork through the sugar to evenly dispense the heat.

While waiting for the sugar to boil, take 2 egg whites and using a hand mixer whip the egg whites until the egg whites are firm and stiff, forming peaks when fluffed. Add 1/2 teaspoon of Vanilla extract.

Once the sugar is boiled, and forming bubbles that pop, slowly poor the sugar mixture into the stiff egg whites while mixing with hand blender. Slowly poor the sugar, as the heat mixes with the eggs it will cook the whites. Keep mixing until the icing becomes thick.
I will show you this a few times, it took me awhile to learn how to properly make this icing. Once you mastered it, it will be a favorite amongst your family as well~

The second Icing recipe I got was from Jill, she was a nurse who worked with Braden but became a wonderful friend to the family.

It is a buttered based icing, and is your favorite. I LOVE it as well, I think the other recipe just reminds me of my childhood so I tend to favorite it more.

You will need:

1 cup of milk
4 TBSP of flour
1 cup of white sugar'
2 TSP of vanilla
Cook milk and flour slowly until thick, set aside to cool.
Heat butter with sugar, add vanilla
Add thickened milk, using a hand electric mixer on high until smooth.

This is one that I use all the time, and I love that it came from a dear friend.
Well Fox, that's about it. Keep these recipes and use when you need to share your love.

  

Oh Fox, you know how much I love my tea. You want to know a secret? Its the single most valuable staple in my day. It is what helps me start my day, it lifts my soul around 4pm and then it tucks me in a the end of the day. Brings me comfort when everything is unsettled.

 It was my 4pm witching hour drink while you kids were little. You will learn that when you become a mother yourself. There's the one hour a day when you will wish you were anywhere else but getting dinner ready with a couple tired, miserable, hungry, snotty children screaming at your feet.
The witching hour is a real thing...just wait!

It was my drink of choice when you would nap and it was my "night time" drink when I would be up through the night with my babies.

Tea has become the one word question I get most texted by friends and your dad.

Tea?

When I receive that text its a question that always brings a smile to my face.
Mostly because I know I get to see someone who I love.

When I was little my nana would make me tea, she would have it steeping all day on her stove. Why was it always better at my nana's? She drank it black, but she always had carnation milk and lots of sugar. It is my one true childhood comfort that made me feel loved, safe and comforted and of course I only had that at my nana's. My parents of course had tea at home, but I don't remember the carnation milk, I believe it is high in calories and my mom would have been cautions of that. Rightfully so.

I hope you know, when I become a grandmother I will continue on with that tradition. When you and Braden were little you both drank tea (so cute), and then Ethan came for sleepovers and he drank tea too. Always one of my favorite things to have together, especially on a cold day.

Find your fix Fox, tea was/is my comfort. Its my strength and its my wisdom. I have the best thoughts, feelings and lessons during a nice hot cup of tea. I have nursed babies, rocked children and snuggled sick babies while comforting myself with a nice cup of tea.

I have cried, laughed and cursed over a warm cup of tea. At the end of the day, tea is what settles my mind, body and soul.

Well my lovelies, I hope you have enjoyed this post as much as I loved writing it. Until next time, good night and god bless~

100 things I want to teach my daughter # 64 Make your own baby food~

100 Things I Want To Teach My Daughter   #64 Make your own baby food.

It's surreal to think of you as a mother as I sit here watching a scary movie on a Saturday night. But I know the day will come, and god willing I will be there to watch you maneuver through the hands down most important job of your life, becoming a mother.

Fox I am here to tell you becoming a mom is the best. You will never love anyone like you will your own children. I will say, a woman should love her husband with the same passion as her children. In reality, you do. Always and I mean always put your marriage before and above anything else. The best gift you can give your children is to love their father with a passion that could move mountains.

The second best gift is too and honestly the most important is to make your own baby food. Now in order to be successful with this you must be organized.

When I had Braden, it was your Aunt Sue who taught me how to do this. She was doing it with Josh and then Jordan. She told me to cook all my food, puree it, let it cool and then put it in ice cube trays.

 

I loved the idea. So I started with vegetables, moved to fruit and then meats. It was a lot more work than buying baby food but so much healthier, not to mention cost effective.  Each day I would take what ever meals I wanted for him/you during that day and let them thaw. Then when I had to make it a thinner consistency I would add some formula/breast milk to thin it out and warm it up. I will forever be grateful for that lesson in life. I want to pass that on to you fox. Make your own baby food for your children, of course that's something I would help you with when the time comes :)

 

 

There are so many more ideas these days for mom's and dad's. So many healthy treats, natural ingredients that benefit your baby.

 

 

I am certain by even the time you are feeding your children this will once again be different. Regardless of all the other options available to you at that time. Just promise me you will keep your children's meal time fun, healthy and practical. Not simple, quick and easy.

Some days fox its ok to follow the rules, its ok to take a break from cooking. Whether its you or your husband making meals, sometimes its perfectly fine to eat cereal, eggs, or pancakes for dinner. It's expectable and expected to cut corners on busy days.  There are no rules, do not stress yourself out with dinner plans and meal options.

My only advice to you is with a baby starting solids, make sure its healthy and homemade.

 

Well my darling, until next time..good night and god bless~

100 Things I want to teach my daughter #65~ Own a dog espcially while raising a family.

100 Things I Want To Teach My Daughter~

#65 Own a Dog while raising your family

 

Dear Fox, one of the best things we did while raising you and your brother was owning a family dog!

 

Harley was initially all for me, I had wanted a yellow lab my whole life. My god, I thought those labs were angels on earth. I couldn't wait to own one. My dream came true in 1998, March 7th we got the call that our litter of pups were born. Originally I wanted a girl, but in the litter there was only 2 girls and both had been spoken for long before we put our name down for one of the pups.
We were given the option for boy, I had never owned a boy dog before...how different could it be?

I remember you were just over one years old, Braden was 4 and we had a new 8 week old puppy. Thankfully I believe when we got him home things were stable. I don't think Braden ended up in the hospital so we had some time with Harley as a family and we bonded with him. The breeder sat me down and gave me these words of wisdom. Words that have stayed with me all the way until we got Ella and then it all went to shit. lol

She told me, being a young mom with a lot on our plate to always remember Harley is a dog. He is a part of our family but teach him to be independent. He needs to learn to be on his own. SO crate training began with him. That's not something we did with any other dog, even growing up my parents never crate trained.

The first two weeks were hell, we put him in a crate, in the basement far away from the family for 6 hours a night. Awful right?
In all honesty, it was the smartest thing we ever did. When I needed him to get out from under my feet let me tell you that crate was a god send. So my dearest girl, when you have your own puppy someday as hard as it may be...please crate train your dog.

I remember taking him out for his last pee every night at 12am and then dad or I would get up between 5-6am for the first month or so. We get him up take him out for a pee and most times stay up from there. If I were to do it again, we should have walked him at 12am and then again at 6am it would have tired him and then we could have probably gone back to bed for a few hours.

Eventually Harley joined dad and I in the bed, he would sleep at the bottom. I loved that, he was such a comfort.
Not only was Harley the best thing in the world for me, he was  the best dog for you kids. He LOVED you kids. You could see it in the way he looked at you. He knew exactly where to sit every meal time. Right at the floor of your highchair, and he also knew who to follow around when you had a cookie or treat.

 

 

We truly believe a happy home owns a dog, I couldn't imagine not ever having a yellow lab in our lives.

 

The purpose of this blog space is too leave to you all the words of wisdom or life lessons that I have learned over my life. I hope to have 100 Things to teach my daughter finished and left to you so someday you can read through this and have some laughs and possibly even some tears~

 

 

To finish off this post fox, when the day comes that have your own Harley my advice would be to start and end each day with a quick walk. Before your day begins, grab the leash and take your dog out for a walk. I promise you it will make your day and his begin much brighter~