An IG friend, primalfamily, responded, “So sweet! It’s good to have a life paced by breast feeding.”

How true that is.

(Isn’t he SO BLONDE? I can’t get over the blondeness!)

For the most part, I don’t have to be certain places at certain times. It happens occasionally… an appointment, or a meeting. But mostly I let my kids lead. At this point that mostly means Anneliese’s need for naps (she must be growing or something, because her afternoon naps are crucial to her mood) and Joseph’s nursing “schedule.” (There’s no schedule there.)

I nursed Joseph after our parenting group meeting, but he was crying again wanting to nurse by the time I made it through the Starbucks drive through before heading home. He had seemed to calm down by the time I got through and stopped the car, so I drove to my LLL leader’s house (I was going to get some eggs from her; she has chickens!) and then nursed him, with the side doors and the front door of the van open to the warm air, the breeze floating through.

We listened to the cows lowing across the street, the birds singing, and music softly playing on the radio. It was a lovely moment, and I am glad I had the flexibility to take it.

Plus, who can say no to baby snuggles?

I’m a giant Pinterest fan, and when I saw this donut recipe, I had to re-pin it even though I didn’t have a donut pan. But the idea of donuts was sowed in my mind, and I couldn’t stop thinking of them… so I ordered this donut pan (recommended by my twitter friends), and now the donut-seed in my mind has come to fruition. These grain-free triple-coconut delight donuts are husband-approved, and really quick to whip up.

Why triple-coconut? Because they’re made with coconut flour, dried coconut, and coconut oil. And the flavor is delightfully coconutty without any of that weird fake “imitation coconut extract” flavor. Because that’s coconut you’re tasting.

I will be making them again.

Here’s the recipe, with my changes (of course… I can hardly make anything as-is) and thoughts.

Grain-Free Triple-Coconut Delight Donuts

Donut Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1/4 cup unsweetened dried shredded coconut
• 1/4 cup xylitol
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 6 eggs
• 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
• 1/2 cup milk (I really want to make these again and see how they taste with PINEAPPLE JUICE instead of milk!)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste

Donut Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Combine all ingredients in a bowl until well-blended (I used my stand mixer with whisk attachment). Let the batter sit for a while. (Coconut flour recipes generally benefit from this because it allows the flour to absorb more, and it’ll give a less grainy texture to the finished product.)
3. Fill your donut pan with the batter. The original recipe and the pan instructions say 2/3 full, but I filled them all the way… I just made sure to scrape off the “hole” part so they would have nice holes in the middle. I got 10 donuts out of this recipe, which means I had to do them in 2 batches (and may invest in another donut pan soon).
4. Bake for 20 minutes.
5. Allow donuts to cool in the pan about 10 minutes before removing.
6. Remove donuts and dip the tops in the coconut glaze.
7. Eat right away, or refrigerate to help “set” the glaze.

Glaze Ingredients:

• coconut oil, melted
• powdered sugar

Glaze Method:

1. Dump some coconut oil in a bowl.
2. Dump in some powdered sugar.
3. Stir well.
4. You want it to look like a runny frosting, and taste like sweet coconutty goodness. Add more oil or sugar if needed to get to this point.

Mine was lovely.

Waffles, cuddles, playtime and books, sweet cards from the babies, a beautiful necklace, chocolates, and time to paint my nails…

…a long shower, a few moments to organize my craft area a bit… and a delicious home-cooked dinner (I cooked it. But I love to cook. And my sweet husband did the dishes, as always, which I appreciate every day he’s home).

…but mostly, spending a quiet day with the three people I love most in the world, all together… was the most wonderful thing.

Topher, my best friend, my awesome partner in life, and the most wonderful co-parent.

Anneliese, who I had wanted for as long as I can remember, who made me a mama, and who continues to make my heart grow every day.

Joseph, who I’m just getting to know, but who has always belonged in our family, and who I love fiercely and deeply already.

I couldn’t have asked for a better Mother’s Day.

At bedtime, I like to recap the day for her while we snuggle and nurse. Normally she just listens while she nurses… but last night when I started to tell her about lunch… “Then we had lunch! You had a banana, and some ham, and peas…” she joined in and said excitedly, “wahwah ffah!!”

Until then, I never really knew if she “got” what I was doing when I recapped the day at bedtime… now I know. She totally does. AND she remembers things she feels are significant. It might seem like a small thing, but I LOVE that she can use language to communicate stuff like this, instead of just identifying objects or telling me something she wants. Language to talk about an event in the past? Way cool.

Today while we played outside before dinner, a neighbor’s little boy came over and played with Zora, then started kicking Anneliese’s ball around the yard. He would kick it in one direction, chase after it, then kick it back. He did this for a while and Anneliese thought it was hilarious. At one point, he gently kicked it to her, and she baby-kicked it (it moved like an inch) before giggling and running back to her Dada.

So tonight during my running recap, she joined in twice. The first time, she said, “Dada!” (He has been working long hours and she hasn’t seen him much lately, so him being home in time for dinner and before she went to bed was special today.) The second time, she said, “Baybee…ball!” (She calls every kid a baby, even the 5th graders playing at the elementary school near our house at recess.) Watching the boy play with her ball, and getting to play with him a little was a significant part of her day, I suppose. Something different and exciting.

Something memorable.

I can’t wait to hear what moment of tomorrow will be the most important for her. And the next day. And the next day.

I’ve been asked about a zillion times “WHAT IS THAT CAKE!?!” followed by “I MUST MAKE IT AND PUT IT IN MY MOUTH NOWWW!”

Well it’s really really good.

This is the cake I was GOING to make while in labor with Joseph, but that didn’t quite happen… So I made it a few days later (I think he was 3 days old), while Joey slept in a sling.

Before Joseph was born, I decided to try out a different chocolate cake recipe. This one comes from Elana’s Pantry, with some changes because I don’t use all of the same ingredients she does. Topher and I liked it a lot, and I decided to go ahead and make it Joey’s birth day cake.

Elana’s Chocolate Cake (My Way)

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup coconut flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 10 eggs
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup xylitol dissolved in 1/2 cup hot water
• 1 cup melted coconut oil
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• Butter for pans

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Sift together coconut flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda.
3. In the stand mixer, blend together eggs, honey, and xylitol-water. Drizzle in the coconut oil while still mixing. Add the vanilla extract.
4. Add dry ingredients to the mixer a bit at a time, until everything is combined.
5. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans. Be generous.
6. Pour the batter into the two pans and smack them on the counter a few times to make sure the batter is even and there aren’t bubbles in it. Or just because that’s what I do when I make cakes…
7. Bake 35ish minutes. Possibly a bit longer, but with coconut flour cakes, I tend to err on the side of less. A toothpick should come out clean when poked in the middle.
8. Let the cakes cool in the pans all the way, and they’ll come out easily when you need to frost them.

What’s that between the layers and on top? Why that would be my friend Joni’s amazing peanut butter frosting (blogged by my other friend Erin). Except that I used less sugar, and cream instead of milk (because I had it and I love cream, not because I’m anti-milk), and it was quite the yum.

It’s easy.

To-Die-For Peanut Butter Frosting

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, soft
• 1 cup natural peanut butter, smooth
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• a couple “glugs” of cream (until the frosting is the texture you like)

Method:

1. Toss the first three ingredients into the mixer and whisk until combined and creamy.
2. Add some cream and continue mixing until it’s smooth and spreadable and delicious.

And that chocolate on the top and the edges? (I’m no frosting expert… please excuse the mess.) That’s my easy microwave dark chocolate ganache.

Dark Chocolate Ganache in the Microwave

Ingredients:

• a few Tablespoons butter
• a cup or so of dark chocolate chips, or chopped dark chocolate
• cream

Method:

1. Microwave butter and chocolate about 30 seconds, then remove and stir. If necessary, microwave in 10 second increments, stirring each time until all the chocolate is melted and smooth.
2. Then pour in cream a little at a time, stirring to completely combine after each addition until the ganache reaches the consistency you want.

And that was Joey’s birth day cake. I have a feeling it will make an appearance again in August for my husband’s birthday. He was a huge fan. He also loves his cake cold, and the ganache and peanut butter frosting both change texture into something marvelous when you put this cake in the fridge (see the top picture for cold cake)! Perfect with a glass of milk.

I wish they still made them the old way. Because this is one of the ones they had… and I bought it, not knowing exactly what I would use it for. Until I decided it would make fantastic curtains in my little girl’s room.

They were SO easy to make, since I mostly just cut the fabric in half and cut it to length, then hemmed the cut edges.

I had a bit leftover from cutting the panels to the right length, so I decided to make a liner for Anneliese’s laundry basket. It had been bugging me for a while that there was no way to wash the (attached) fabric on the inside of the basket. So a removable liner was an easy solution.

Basically, for the inside, I traced the bottom of the basket and cut an oval to match, then made 2 rectangles and sewed them to the bottom. Since the basket’s sides don’t go straight up and down, I pinned the side seams with the liner in the basket, inside-out. So when I sewed them, it fit perfectly.

After that, all I had to do was sew on the Matryoshka panels and some twill tape to tie bows with, and I had the perfect laundry basket liner for Anneliese’s bedroom.

Then I hit the sewing machine. I made some giant rectangles out of my yellow and white fabric (from fabric.com), and lined them with white flat sheets from wal-mart.

I hung them on the curtain rod using these, which just make it SO easy to make your own curtains.

Yay! Brightness!

I also got chevron fabric at fabric.com, and used it to make some simple half-curtains for above the sink and the small window in the dining area.

When the curtains were finished, I needed to re-cover the chair cushions. These are so easy it’s ridiculous. I un-screwed the seats and pried up the old fabric (so long, Jessica Jones)…

…it was lovely having you in my dining room. But it’s time to move on.

And then just stapled on the new fabric. Simple!

I covered two chair seats with each fabric.

(Oh yeah, this is when I was still pregnant. Sorry, y’all… so behind on blogging this stuff.)

And then one weekend, my sweet husband spray painted the chairs white. He did NOT want to. Men have a gene that makes them morally opposed to painting wood. But he did it. And then admitted it looked pretty great and cheerful in there. And it does.

I LOVE my new bright dining room.

Having a whole new person join your family obviously causes some changes. And when that person is a nonverbal, floppy, helpless, tiny poop machine who wants to nurse 20 hours a day (well, almost)? It can cause some stress. If you let it. I’m a pretty “chill” person when it comes to stuff like this, and while I have had a couple of freak-outs (when my husband was about to go back to work and I was imagining doing naps and bedtime and errands with 2 kids and one me), I’ve mostly been pretty stress-free.

Here are some things that have helped me the last few weeks:

1. Letting my husband help at night. I often hear about stay-at-home moms who won’t let their husband do any “baby work” (especially at night) because it’s not their “job.” I think that’s kind of crazy. We are equal parents, and we both work hard, even if it’s in different ways. In the weeks after Anneliese was born, I did ask my husband if he needed me to let him sleep instead of waking him for help at night sometimes (especially if he had an early flight the next day). He told me no, that I should wake him for things like diaper changes or anything he can help with, so I did. After a while, he told me he basically slept through diaper changes and other nighttime “errands” I sent him on (refilling my water mostly; nursing makes me thirsty!) and often had no idea whether he had been woken up or not. If I’m up for several hours each night with the baby, he really doesn’t mind helping out for a cumulative 15 minutes or less per night.
   And if your husband doesn’t offer to help at night? Ask him to. Like I said, you’re equal parents. You’re not asking him to do anything beyond what a dad should do. It’s not unreasonable to get a bit of help, EVEN if he’s the breadwinner.
2. Being flexible. Whatever expectations you have about what babies are “supposed” to be doing (sleeping through the night, anyone? HA!)…whatever hopes you have for a daily/weekly routine (at least right away)…whatever expectations you may have had for yourself as a mother (the famous “I would NEVER…”)…be flexible. Be willing to let go or change course if you need to. When a storm comes, trees that don’t bend break. Stay flexible and bend with the wind, and you’ll do just fine.
   We set up the co-sleeper a couple days after Joseph was born, but he’s probably only slept in it for a total of 6 hours. He prefers to sleep on me or beside me in our bed. That’s fine. If I weren’t being flexible about sleeping arrangements, and kept trying to put him in the co-sleeper, I wouldn’t be getting ANY sleep. Instead, I get a decent amount every night and I get to cuddle my new baby.
   This goes for older kids too. I’m not a huge fan of TV for kids, but Anneliese is going to be watching more these days, I’m pretty sure. Today it was a Sesame Street clip of Feist singing “Counting to 4” about 100 times. And some “Dada stories” (videos of her dad reading books). If I need some help from the TV tomorrow, it might be Signing Time or something…It’s not ideal, but it could be much worse. (Please no Dora or Wiggles or Barney or Teletubbies in my house!!!)
3. Taking care of myself. I’m one of those weird people who can forget to eat when she’s busy or stressed. In college, there was a weekend I had to study a LOT for a bunch of tests, and I had papers and presentations due on Monday. I actually forgot to eat all of Saturday, and by Sunday afternoon, when I realized I needed to get some food, I fainted in the line in the cafeteria. Ridiculous. When I was teaching first grade, I would often have something like a can of corn or a yogurt for dinner. So dumb. NOT healthy, and it DOESN’T help with stress levels when your body doesn’t have the most basic things it needs.
   So what seem like small things–like making sure my cup of water is nearby and full of cold water all day so I’ll drink more, and paying attention to eating a variety of healthy foods throughout the day–aren’t such small things after all. (Fruit is great, but a day where all you eat is fruit? Not so great. Variety is key.) And since I’m breastfeeding, making sure I have good nutrition for myself is important for my kids too.
   At this point, getting enough sleep isn’t necessarily something I can control, but if both kids are napping and I feel tired, I should nap too, even if it means the hall bathroom is dirty for another day.
4. Enjoying my kids. How sad would it be to focus so much on survival that I forget to enjoy my children? Super sad. So I don’t. I have sweet toddler conversations with Anneliese, kiss the back of Joseph’s soft, soft neck and breathe in his yummy newborn smell, happily accept sparkly star stickers being stuck all over my legs, and marvel at how tiny newborn fingers can be! It would be easy to get overwhelmed and stressed if I forgot why I was doing what I’m doing. By actively enjoying my children, I keep the focus where it should be. On family. On moments. On happy memories-to-be.

And since today was brought to me by Feist and the number 4, I’ll stop there. 1-2-3-4 chickens just back from the shore, 1-2-3-4 penguins that were by the door, 1-2-3-4 monsters walking ‘cross the floor…

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There used to be a picture where that empty box is. I have no idea where it went. And I use Headway Themes, but when they changed to 3.0 it was basically a full rewrite of their program, so there wasn’t a way to upgrade from 2. They keep saying the “bridge” is coming, but I decided to finally just switch to 3 and redesign the site.

One annoying thing about the way it was is this… I had to make multiple navigation menus, and create different pages for my main categories (Recipes, Family, etc) with a sub-menu for each page.

Here’s the new design. Updated mini-bio WITH a picture, smaller logo to take up less space, favicon working again (it hasn’t been for a while), larger thumbnails for posts (I like pictures)…

And the drop-down menu with subcategories and sub-sub categories. I’m pretty excited about it! I’ve played with it on my phone and iPad too and I think it looks better than the old design on mobile devices. What do you think?

There are still a couple inconsistencies I need to fix in the design, but I’m glad to have it live!

Here, Anneliese was wrapping Joey’s “baby” in a burp cloth as a blanket. Then she pretended to nurse the baby. After that, she folded another burp cloth on the floor as a bed, and lay the baby down on it and said “night!” I mean, I know where she learned those things, but what clicked in her brain to tell her to mimic those actions as “the mama”?

And here, her wooden duck is nursing… on her toy car’s headlight, which apparently is a good enough nipple for a wooden duck. Anneliese said “nurse! nurse!” while carefully lining up the beak with the headlights.

And obviously the car needs a driver… so she stuffed this mouse into the handle of it before pushing it around the coffee table.

A friend sent us this wooden shoe toy, and even though it’s clearly not a shoe, Anneliese understands that it represents a shoe. And she tried to put it on her foot, while giggling between announcements of “ssshhhhhoe! feet!”

And back to her “little mother” instincts, after carrying her baby doll around in her boba mini for a while, she took it out and strapped it into her high chair (she’s very good at buckling buckles!) while announcing “ssstak!” (snack)

Here, she’s carefully stirring stuffed tomatoes in a pot. She brought me one in her toy ladle when her soup was done, to taste.

And just before I took this picture, she had been feeding spoonfuls of dried coconut to Sophie the giraffe, saying “ahhhh” and then making *CHOMP* noises as she touched the spoon to Sophie’s nose.

I’m really not sure how the imagination develops, but I’m loving every moment of getting to witness it. And I’m so glad (and proud) for the sweet, nurturing behaviors Anneliese is showing in her pretend-play. It makes me feel like my husband and I must be doing something (or a lot of somethings) right.