Dear Baby....things we will never do/always do

Dear Baby,

Your Dad and I had a nice discussion this week. We talked about things we would never want to do (if we could help it) and things we would always want to do (if we could help it.)

We talked about things our parents made sure they did for us and I compiled a list from there.

1. We will go to any Little League Games/Soccer Games/Dance Recitals, etc.
2. We will read a book to you every night before bed.
3. When we tell you goodnight, we will always tell you we love you.
4. We will buy you something (every once in a while) that is not on the sale rack.
5. We will push you in school. (Sorry, we are both teachers!)
6. We will not give up on you even when you are a crazy, emo teenager. (Maybe you won't be crazy or emo, but even so, we will still love you.)
7. We will make sure you know that you are beautiful/handsome.
8. We will eat dinner together around the same table.

Obviously, you aren't here yet. I don't know if all of these things will be possible all the time because I have never been a parent before. I know I will try my darndest to make these things happen.

We have waited for you for a long time and we are so excited to meet you! We can't wait to see the lovely person you become.

Love,

Your Mom

Homemade Granola Bars No Bake First Attempt

Today, I had a hankering for granola bars. Not the Quaker kind, but the yummy, nutty, chewy, homemade kind.

The last two summers I lived in Michigan my parents had a membership to this beautiful golf resort in northern Michigan, Garland Lodge and Resort.



Yep, that is one of the courses. I hit many a golf ball in that water.

I really hate golf, but I love spending time with my family--and as the darling drink cart girls would come around I found that they had these amazing homemade granola bars. Those granola bars were the reason I would go golfing. I think they  were about $4 a piece, but they were worth every penny.

So, I googled and googled and found a recipe that I liked a lot. It wasn't a Garland recipe, but they are probably a lot healthier.

http://freezeyourwayfit.blogspot.com/2011/03/clean-eating-healthy-homemade-granola.html

I had to go to HEB anyway and got my list of ingredients together. I actually bought almost everything I needed in the bulk food section sans the Rice Krispie cereal and the chocolate chips. I think the bulk food section is the way to go--it is so much cheaper and I got a lot of organic stuff.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup dry roasted peanuts or other nuts
• ½ cup roasted unsalted sunflower seeds (I actually got the student mix from HEB because it had the peanuts, sunflower seeds, raisins and  BONUS: pumpkin seeds!)
• 1 2/3 cups raisins or other chopped dried fruit
• 1/3 cup chocolate chips
• 2 cups rolled or instant oats
• ¼ cup toasted wheat germ (optional) (I did not use because I couldn't find it in bulk)
• 2 cups toasted or puffed whole grain cereal (I use Arrowhead Mills Puffed Millet. You can use Rice Krispies in a pinch but they are not whole grain) (I did the Rice Krispies)
• ½ cup creamy natural peanut butter or other nut butter (I used reduced fat HEB peanut butter)
• ½ cup honey
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Yes, there are seven steps to this recipe. The person who wrote this recipe has beautiful step by step instructions with pictures. For the sake of time, I followed her pictures but didn't think to take my own.

ONE: Coat a 9x13 inch pan with cooking spray. Combine peanuts, sunflower seeds, raisins, chocolate chips, oats, cereal, and wheat germ in a large bowl. Mix well.

TWO: Combine peanut butter and honey in a large microwaveable bowl (tip: Use a 2 cup glass measuring cup. Pour the 1/2 cup of honey in first and then just drop plops of peanut butter in until the level reaches 1 cup. This saves you from measuring out the ½ cup of peanut butter and making another utensil dirty).

THREE: Microwave on High for 1 minute, stir well, and microwave for an additional minute or until bubbling....(in true Katie Fashion, I forgot about the extra minute and it was more than ok.) Add vanilla and stir until blended.

FOUR: Pour half of the peanut butter mixture over the dry ingredients and mix it for a good 5 minutes until it's almost completely coated.

FIVE: Once it's totally mixed, pour the other half of the peanut butter mixture in, scraping every last drop out of the measuring cup. Repeat the slicing and mixing again. The mixing is so important because anything that is not sticking together going into the pan will likely not stick to the bar coming out.

SIX: Once the mixture has formed into a fairly solid ball, transfer it to the prepared pan. Press down firmly (it helps to coat your fingers with cooking spray). Really put some muscle into it because you want the granola mixture to be actual bars and not crumbs.

SEVEN: Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour to harden...it may be best to keep them in overnight...but I couldn't wait that long. Cut into 16 bars. 

As you can see, we had to sample a few. But, they are delicious! They did break apart a little, but that is what I get for not measuring the peanut butter. I admit, I just eyeballed it.

NUTRITION INFO:
Per 1 bar serving (cut into 16 bars)- 293 Calories (95 Calories from Fat), 11g Fat, 2g Saturated Fat, 0mg Cholesterol, 5mg Sodium, 44g Total Carbohydrates, 5g Dietary Fiber, 22g Sugars, 9g Protein, 0% DV Vitamin A, 1% DV Vitamin C, 3% DV Calcium, 11% DV Iron

And a baby makes three..well, four if you count Chauncey

Well, it is official. After almost nine years of marriage, my hubby and I are having a baby.

A baby was totally out of the question up until…well, I turned 30. There was a time when I thought; maybe we would never have kids?

We were always too poor, we didn’t have enough time, we were too selfish, and we had any and every reason not to have a baby.

Until...we finally grew up.

Yes, we now have a nice house with fenced in back yard for our doggie and potential baby to play in, we have two cars that work (that we are still paying on), and we both have decent-ish jobs as teachers. Mr. Campbell is finishing up his masters degree this summer in Administration, I finally have a job that I like, and my parents are moving to Texas this summer—so it is as good a time as any.

I am almost 12 weeks along. Our official due date is October 28, 2012. I am hoping to be off for maternity leave until after we get back from Christmas break. I have about 8 weeks banked, so I should be ok. (I am keeping my fingers crossed that I won’t have any crazy complications or have to go on bed rest.)

Truly, I am starting to feel better as the pesky first trimester is coming to an end. However, it still doesn’t feel real. Besides a growing belly, my brain has not fully processed I am pregnant. Maybe I am waiting for flashing lights, or some sort of figurative lightning to strike my brain to say, “hey there, this is finally real…YES, there is a baby in your belly!”

One of my friends told me, it will start to feel real when I feel the baby kicking for the first time. She said the first flutters “feel like a June bug is flying around under the covers of your bed.” I am totally paraphrasing her, but, I think I have it fairly close.

Yesterday, my mom sent me this really cool Pregnancy Calendar from Hallmark. Leave it to my mom to find something like this; I can keep track of all sorts of memorable moments along the way. It has room for pictures and includes some really cute stickers, and funny quotes. For example, “Hormonal changes in your body can cause major mood swings. Try exercise, plenty of sleep, and doing things you enjoy…which at this point may include crying, cursing, and/or throwing things.”

I think I need to take a little time to start working on this calendar. I want to remember this pregnancy and all the fun stuff/not so fun stuff about being pregnant.

Maybe, in a few more weeks this whole baby thing will seem real?

May technology be ever in your favor

This week has been stressful on two accounts. One was literally my hotmail account and the other is the robots that we are trying to program in my Gateways to Technology class.

As for the hotmail account, I realized yesterday that someone/somehow I had spammed a bunch of people. I think someone got a hold of my password and started sending out SPAM in my name. I think that is how it all works. I know, I am a technology teacher--but when it gets into acronyms and codes and such, I am absolutely no help. On another note, from the 50 or so people that got SPAM from me, the only one to respond was my father. I thought that was quite humorous.

So, anyway, because of the SPAM issue, my hotmail account got blocked. At first I was thinking, ok, no big deal. I will just change my password. Sadly, I had not updated my email address on my hotmail account--so when I tried to reset it, the email that was on my account was my old AOL account...from 1999. I haven't used that account in over ten years. Funny, my old password still worked on that. I guess it is more proof that I should change my passwords more often.

Yes, I did learn something today.

And now for the robot rant.

We have these VEX kits and we have been working on them since the beginning of February. We have different activities that we need to complete and the kids really seem to like to build different mechanisms.

The next task was to actually start writing programs to make the robots run on their own. I had put in a work order and one of the tech guys came out.  I knew that I needed to get updates in the lab. He said he fixed something, so I took him for his word. (I later realized he half fixed one of the 29 computers in my lab.)

Our district has some serious security features and won't allow downloads of any kind. This is good on one hand, but, bad if you want to download programs to run robots. I spent three days this week trying to troubleshoot to get these robots to work. I had kids write different programs. I tried loading and reloading programs. I had one of my super GT sixth graders work on it for about two hours--but even he couldn't figure it out.

I put in another work order (this is actually work order number FIVE for these issues) and the tech guy is coming back this weekend. But, it seems like it is a download issue and since I don't have administrative privileges, I can't get these dumb robots to work.

On a positive note, my kids did a quickwrite about troubleshooting today. I think every single student understands what it means to troubleshoot because they lived it firsthand...all...week....long.

I really, really, really want to skip the programming bit and start our next unit on energy. I can totally handle energy. This unit doesn't involve running/writing any programs and I don't have to get around firewalls, I think I will be ok.

How many more days of school are left?

Oh, 38. I got this.

May your technology be ever in your favor. (Cause it hasn't been in mine.)