Firsts

Last week Roman learned to blow on a whistle! He also blew a kiss to me for the first time. I captured the second on video. I will do my best to get it up here soon.

Homemade "clif" bars

I made some clif like peanut butter bars today. I have a ton of peanut butter and oats to use up. I altered this one up a little too because I cant follow it to the T. I will be making them again because I found some rice cereal to use.


I found the recipe here. I like that its no bake, but you do have to use the stove a little tiny bit.

1 cup Uncooked quick oats {I used old fashioned and did almost 2 cups to make up for lack of rice cereal}
1 1/4 cups Rice Krispies {I did not use them - I used 1/2 cup of corn flakes and crushed them in my hand to mkae them smaller}
1/4 cup Finely chopped roasted peanuts
3 Tbl Flaxseed meal (ground flaxseed) {I ground my own flaxseed - I dont think it was as fine}
1/4 cup Finely chopped dried dates {I used prunes}
1/4 cup Honey
Dark brown sugar {Used normal plus half splenda brown sugar}
1 tsp Vanilla
1/3 cup Peanut butter {I used crunchy}
1/2 tsp Ground cinnamon

grease an 8-inch square pan

1.) Combine oats, Rice Krispies, peanuts, flaxseed meal and dried dates in a large mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly.

2.) Heat ¼ cup of honey with 2 tbsp. dark brown sugar over medium-high heat in a small saucepan, stirring constantly, until the mixture begins to boil. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in 1 tsp. of vanilla, 1/3 cup of peanut butter and ½ tsp. of ground cinnamon. Blend well.

3.) Pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients, stirring well to coat everything thoroughly. {I used my hands at the end made sure to butter the pan ahead so you can just press it in} Firmly press the Cliff bar batter into the pan and cool it to room temperature on a wire rack

4.) Cut into 12 bars, and tightly wrap them individually in plastic wrap. Store the bars in the refrigerator. {I made 8 bars. I didn't wait till it cooled all the way and I pressed them together with my hand more in a mini zip lock.}

They are so good! I LOVE THEM> I am going to make more and double the recipe so I can use up all this peanut butter and cereal. I wonder if they will freeze?!

Upset baby new recipe.

This morning I made an overnight french toast with some left over cranberry walnut bread using the following recipe. Roman was just throwing a fit because he ate his breakfast first while it was in the oven, then I shared some with him but when it was gone he was VERY upset. Stomping his feet and pouting and yelling about it. It was pretty funny. I guess he likes this one too.

adapted from this website. I have made another pumpkin one before and it is SOOO GOOD! We topped both with whip cream and agave/maple syrup. I have yet to make the crust on either. I dont think it needs it, but I am sure it would only be that much better. I do like the cubes of bread in this one.

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole milk
• 3/4 cup milk
• 3 large eggs
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• squirt of Agave nectar
  
• 1 tbl ground cinnamon
• 5 cups cubed crusty bread (I didn't measure.. it was just the rest of the loaf I think it was over 5 though)
  

Directions

Night before

• In a bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, yolk, salt, agave, and cinnamon.
• Add the bread cubes to the dish you will be using.
  
• Pour milk mixture on top
• Cover with aluminum foil and refrigerate
  

Next morning

• Take out of fridge and let come to room temp while oven heats up
• Preheat oven to 350ºF
• Bake until custard is set 25 to 35 minutes, depending on bread
• I topped mine with some cinnamon and sugar before I put it in the oven. I had to mix around my bread crumbs in the mixture before I went to bed. I had so many they didn't all get soaked. When I put it in the top layer became pretty crusty, but it was still good.
  

Things Roman has put in my boot...

Since its winter out I have my boots close to the door. Roman likes to put things in them. I decided I should start to post more of the little things he does so I never forget. Just now as I decided to write this he walked over to me happily carrying my boot and about to stick the toe in his little mouth. Lucky me, I grabbed it just in time, then he came back with the second one in his mouth. EWW.. gross. He got me. Good job Roman.

The first time this happened it was magnetic letters from the fridge. I went to put on my boot and had to dump out about 7 letters to get my foot in. Today he had put his shoe inside my boot and was carrying it around. He has also put his shoes inside the cereal box. He is our little squirrel. He likes to stash things around the house. He also has a few places in the kitchen that has things of his. One drawer and one cabinet. The drawer has sippy cups and bowls and a few little food pouches that we take on the go. It also has all the pacifiers he would not take. He likes to pull all those out and test them another time, then then end up all over the place.

Those happen to be the boots that Roman loves to play with. I will say that he does like to play with any shoes that happen to be around. This is the same face he made in all 3 photos with Santa. I would have bought all three if it wasnt so darn expensive! I think its wrong how much it costs to take ONE photo with Santa. This is his first since we didn't so it last year but that's okay because he was santa last year.

Walking because of the Cast

Roman took his first steps on October 3rd. He didn't seem that interested in doing it alone until the end of October when he fell while taking two steps to the couch and hurt his poor little arm. He didnt even fuss when it happened. He wouldn't put weight on it to crawl that night and would cry when he did. I was worried and kept an eye on it for the weekend. Sunday my mom found that his forearm was slightly swollen. So Monday I took him to Grandma Corona's work where they took an Xray and found he had a small fracture. The Dr. said we could put a cast on to protect his arm and to keep it from hurting him. So we did it.

I took some video of him getting the cast, and I am glad I did because I was behind him and could not see his face. Oh so cute. He was so good! He pulled on it at the start and at the end he was getting bored sitting there. He did so much better then I would have ever thought having it on too! He pretty much stopped crawling that day because it was not as easy to crawl with the cast. SO I can say with most certainty that he officially started to walk on Nov 1. AKA the day of the cast. It was off by Saturday.

The fractured bones.

I can't even see them in this photo.. thats how minor

We went to a park the same day and he seemed just fine!

Roman turned one!

I really am horrible at this blog thing. We moved to Va. Roman turned 1 year old. Tony got a new job. We drove to Va from Tx. Roman started to walk. Roman got his third tooth. Did I mention we moved from Texas? SOO I have some blogging to do about this. I will leave you with a few pictures from his 1st birthday party.

Playing with his new toy car. Seeing Tony the first time in over a month too!

Yes it does look like that candle would be fun to touch..

But its not.

Yes that happened. He was scared but had no injuries from touching the flame.

(I took the picture because I knew his hand was okay but it still makes me frown seeing it)

He recovered just fine

He was still very unsure about the cake. I think I ate more off my fingers then he did.

He would not touch it himself.

Not the first birthday cake experience we had hoped for, but it sure is memorable.

MORE posts to come!

September Update in Photos

since I have not filled in the blog world I thought I would make this post to inform my future self of the past few weeks. I think I made a few small updates, but I will post pictures from the past month now!

Roman took his first steps yesterday! I took video on my phone too and Tony got to see it minutes after it happened. I took a few pics also. We were at a tennis thing for Hunter and we later headed to the fair. He walked to my mom who was holding a chip that he wanted. He didn't get the chip, but he seemed excited about it! We had just been around another walking baby the night before.

Roman and I hung out in a park and took some 11 month pics last week

Took some pics with Grandpa Corona

Said bye to Tony as he left for his new job in Virginia

We also said bye to the Corona family too (and my parents)

He will talk on the phone.. or anything you give him

Romans reaction to the animals!

We went to Oktoberfest in Addison

Tony is so silly

We went to Grape Fest in Grapevine

We went to a bike race downtown Dallas

We saw Dr. Oz there too

We celebrated Tony's Birthday

We practiced walking, but it looks much more intense then it was.

Gotta love those food pouches! He just sucks them down!

We went to Grapevine for a town bike festival

We went to the TCU game at the Cowboys stadium