Ghouls and Zombies and Worms, Oh My!

Halloween is on Thursday! I am so excited for Alexa's first Halloween. Her costume is ready to go and so is her treat bag.

In the spirit of this ghoulish holiday, I decided to look up some little kid safe snacks. I found TONS of options online. After combing the internet for some super cool (read: inexpensive and easy) snacks to make, here are my three favorites...

Ghost Toast - I plan on using raisins instead of currants.

Apple Pie Salsa - I mean seriously, this just looks delicious.

Bowl of Worms - there are so many options with this one and the sensory stimulation is awesome!

I also had to include Monster Paws because let's face it, they are so cool and who doesn't love a good popcorn hand, but please be aware that popcorn is not safe for kids under 3 years old.  

Peanut Butter Pizza Recipe

Ingredients:
2 Rice Cakes
2 teaspoons Peanut Butter
Raisins

Directions:
Spread the peanut butter on the rice cakes and top with the raisins.

This easy, delicious and healthy snack is also really fun to let kids make on their own! You can have tons of different toppings - chocolate chips, yogurt covered raisins, nuts. Whatever your heart desires.

Mommy Makeover - Week 3

All of the Baby Weight Be Gone posts will now be called Mommy Makeover. I'll post an update on how I am doing and my total weight loss every Monday!

Week 2 was a total disaster. I was really disappointed that I didn't lose more weight in Week 1 and really lost my determination this past week. The scale was spiting me, so I decided to be spiteful too...I barely walked, totally neglected to do Tae Bo, but did in fact do the Strength Training routine. Guess who I hurt? Yup, myself. It's a good thing that I am not stubborn at all!

Well, after a full week of slacking off we decided to take a hike with the little bean. It was her first hike ever and she did amazingly well. We were gone for nearly 3 hours and hiked just shy of 11 km. Let me tell you, I was in PAIN when we got home! Every single part of my body hurt, but it was a good hurt! I feel like the hike kind of made up for my super slacking ways during the week. And for every horsefly bite I received on the hike,  I learned that if I was in better shape I could have walked faster and then I would not have nearly 40 itchy, hot, painful horsefly bites ALL OVER my entire body!

Walking. HAHAHAHA yeah right. I barely did any additional walking this week. I can give you all of my excuses: no time, too tired, too hot, cranky baby...but that's all that they are - excuses. I will try to be better this week.

Tae Bo. It was more like Tae Not this week. God, I am really starting to feel bad about how much I slacked off last week :/

Ab work out. Finally, something I did in fact do!! I worked really hard at the Strength Training routine this past week. I think for Week 3 I might even up the ante and try some of the "Make it harder" options. I even added the other ab work out in one day last week!

Food diary. I have stuck to the food diary even though I feel like it's kind of turned into my very own mean, older sibling. It's always mocking me for the bad food choices I make. It points out every extra calorie I eat and all of the snacks I have. The only nice thing it ever said is that I drink a lot of water. It is so rude!

Chocolate. Yeah, chocolate is getting it's own header! I think I did an okay job cutting down on my chocolate this week. I ate a lot more fruit and it was totally satisfying. I might actually overcome this addiction! I would also like to announce that I did not eat a single piece of chocolate on Sunday! This is HUGE! I might finally be on the road to chocoholic recovery.

Weigh in.  Ok, so after this morning's weigh in, I have lost another 1 kg! After two weeks I am now down 2 kg, or 4 1/2 pounds! This actually made me smile today. Yes, this is a loooooooong and slooooooooow process and I am all about easy and quick results, however, slowly, but surely the weight is in fact coming off. Go Mama go!

Healthy Snacks. Here are my 2 new healthy snacks for the week...
1. Banana Oatmeal Bars
2. Frozen Watermelon - Best summer treat! Super refreshing and could it get any easier? Cube a watermelon and freeze it. Oh happy day! I even stuck some in a glass of water for a nice, ice cold, refreshing drink.

New/Updated Goals for Week 3:

Stop being lazy and actually walk this week - 30-minute walk 4-5x per week
Get off the couch and do Tae Bo (at least 3x per week)
Amp up the Strength Training at least 2x this week (so 2x hard, 2x normal)
Keep up the food diary
Attempt to limit to one chocolatey snack per day (this is a goal in progress)
Lose 1kg (2.2lbs)
Come up with at least 2 more healthy snacking options

Banana Oatmeal Bars

My friend Christine sent me this awesome recipe! It's super easy to make (like 2 minute prep) and tastes amazing! I hope you enjoy it too.

Ingredients:
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 cup applesauce - (I used one medium pink lady apple and used a cheese grater to make it into applesauce, it came out to exactly 1/3 of a cup.)
2 cups of oats
1/4 cup of almond milk
1/2 cup of raisins
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon

Mix all of the ingredients together in the order they are listed and then bake in a circular pan (pie pan) at 350 F (180 C) for 20 minutes.

I looked up all of the ingredients on a calorie counting website and for the entire pan it came up to about 800 calories. I used a circular pan and cut the "bars" into pie pieces. Based on the calorie counter, it's about 100 calories per pie piece.

**Note - this is not an exact calorie count. I was just curious to know how "healthy" this snack really was. For me, it's an A+! It's sweet, but healthier than a chocolate bar!

FroYo Update

My homemade FroYo experience has not been as great as expected...

Ingredients - awesome. Easy recipe - awesome. Delicious, creamy frozen treat - FAIL.

I left the yummy FroYo in the freezer over night and now it is a brick of frozen ingredients! Apparently, you do need to follow the online recipes to a T. I am sad now. I really wanted delicious FroYo goodness. Maybe it really only needs to freeze for like 2 hours?! If that is the case then these recipes get a thumbs down in my book. I like to prep stuff ahead of time, so when I am craving that sweet (chocolatey) taste, I just need to grab something out of the fridge, freezer, or cabinet.

Maybe it's possible to make some slight adjustments to my doctored recipes...adding crushed ice and blending the entire combo for an instant, ready-to-eat frozen treat? Must buy more Greek yogurt!

And onward I go in my quest for delicious, but healthy snacks...

FroYo

The new fad this summer in Linz is FroYo...that's right, frozen yogurt. The fad that hit the US in what, the 90s? We're a couple of decades behind over in this part of the world. Actually, to make it worse, apparently frozen yogurt was first discovered in the 1970s! Way to join the party Austria. FroYo is exactly what it says, frozen yogurt. It is all natural, no sugar added yogurt that is frozen. I'm pretty sure all of my American family and friends just cringed...no sugar added? Gross. Actually, it tastes pretty amazing with fruit.

Here is my take on frozen yogurt based on a recipe I saw on...guess where! Pinterest. (Pinterest should really pay me for all the free advertising I do for them on my blog! haha) Anyway, here is the original recipe: Honey Peach Frozen Yogurt. For a number of reasons (no peaches, no ice cream machine) I doctored this recipe to what I had in my house.

Honey Nectarine Frozen Yogurt

Ingredients:
4 small nectarines, peeled and cubed (ends up being about 1 1/2 cups of nectarine)
200 grams of plain Greek yogurt ( about a cup)
1 teaspoon honey

I peeled and cubed all of the nectarines, then put them in a container to be pureed using a hand mixer.

After the nectarines are pureed, add the Greek yogurt and the honey and puree again.

Place into a freezer safe container and freeze. Not sure how long it needs to be in the freezer for, but I plan on freezing it over night.



Raspberry Banana Frozen Yogurt

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of raspberries (I used frozen)
1 banana
200 grams of plain Greek yogurt

Puree the raspberries using a hand mixer, then add the yogurt and slices of banana and puree again. Place in freezer safe container and freeze overnight.

I originally was just going to add the raspberries to the above recipe, but decided to add banana to cut the sourness of the raspberries and ended up leaving out the honey all together.

Strawberry Fruit Popsicles

Ingredients:
1-2 cups Strawberries
1 cup Water (as needed)

Wash and de-stem strawberries. Add half of the water and puree using a hand mixer. Add more water if necessary. Freeze in popsicle trays. Taste just like Edy's Whole Fruit popsicles with NONE of the added sugar!!! I am planning on using this recipe with a variety of different fruits this summer. I think the measurements for different fruits might vary.

Makes 4 ice pops.

Banana Peanut Butter Ice Cream

This is another recipe I found on Pinterest! It is so easy and healthy to make.


Banana Peanut Butter Ice Cream

 Ingredients:
1 Banana
1 Tablespoon Peanut Butter

Slice one banana and place it in a freezer safe container until frozen. (I usually freeze it over night or freeze a bunch of bananas in individual containers so I have them ready when I want to make this recipe.) Add the frozen banana slices and the peanut butter to the blender and blend until the mixture is the consistency of ice cream. You will have to stir the mixture and then blend again 2-3 times.

I have also substituted Nutella for the peanut butter since my husband doesn't like peanut butter.