Find Your Happiness

This set of photos reminds me of the scene in the movie Baby Mama where the main character's sister is asking one of her children if the "dirt" on his hand is chocolate... or poop. She ended up licking(!) the questionable brown goop to find out the answer. Of course she already knew beforehand but it still makes me squeal at the thought that it could have been poop! (See video here ) As parents, we have definitely had our own share of disgusting moments. We have been peep on, cleaned explosive poop, and removed dried up chunky vomit. I can only imagine the dirt, bugs, and animals Nathaniel will bring to me when he's older. And add the fact that I used to work as a registered nurse at a trauma intensive care unit and that just brings up another level to my list of disgusting moments. But don't worry. This is chocolate from the homemade chocolate-covered pretzels I made last Thursday for St. Patrick's Day . We actually didn't let Nathaniel get s...

I was really looking forward to making all things green for St. Patrick's Day but when I woke up this morning, I was just exhausted. I didn't cook potato soup for dinner or bake green-colored cupcakes with rainbows like I had originally planned. Instead, we had Zuppa Toscana, which is Italian but it at least had green in it! I also served it with (whole wheat) garlic breadsticks since I might as well go for the Olive Garden theme. We don't drink beer so we had green Sprite instead! This has been a tradition for two years now since we went to Buffalo Wild Wings where they serve green beer every St. Patty's Day. I asked our waiter if he could do the same with a non-alcoholic beverage and ever since, I have been drinking green Sprite every March 17th :) Nathaniel had his own festive drink, too, with green milk! We didn't put as much dye but it still tricked him into drinking more milk :)  I also made another batch of the Green Candied Popcorn per Hubby's...

Freshly popped homemade popcorn is one of our favorite go-to snacks at our house. I love that it is healthy (low in calories with lots of fiber!) and since we pop our own, there are no added chemicals or preservatives. Lately, in addition to a little sprinkle of salt, I have been experimenting with different flavors by adding cinnamon, paprika, garlic powder, or chocolate. And when I came across this recipe from Skip to my Lou a couple days ago, I knew I had to give it a try. I was going to wait until St. Patrick's Day but decided why not make them this week and next week? :) In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons of butter. Then add 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1/2 cup light corn syrup, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar. Increase temperature to medium high and bring mixture to a boil, stirring constantly to dissolve sugar. Once mixture boils, add in 1/8 teaspoon green food coloring and stop stirring. Boil for 5 minutes. Do NOT stir!  Remove ...