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Jessica Acs. Crazy Happy Chaos

Jessica Acs. Crazy Happy Chaos

A little bit of everything. Life, animals, family, crafts, recipes.

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Jess

Hidden Veggie Recipes for Picky Toddlers (& Kids of all Ages!)

February 13, 2014 by Jess 1 Comment

hidden veggie recipes for picky toddlers and kids

It was literally only a few months ago when Ava was eating everything we put in front of her and I remember boasting proudly that she did so. Well I sure learned my lesson, now she has become much much pickier with her food. She has also learned that having 3 dogs and a pig sitting under her chair are great friends, as they happily gobble up any evidence of her not eating her food. Therefore, because I refuse to let her eat only bananas and mac n cheese for every single meal, I have had to get creative with adding veggies into other foods. Here are a few of our go to meals that so far have been a great success! It also works for hiding veggies from my husband too! He loves these meals as much as Ava does πŸ™‚

My newest favorite (and this will now be my go-to rolled cookie recipe! Yep it’s that good!): (click on the photo to see the recipe)

(all of my recipes are posted at Homeketeers now, and you can print them out directly from there if you’d like to πŸ™‚ )

This muffin recipe is also a new favorite, they are so moist and delicious!

 

This oatmeal is really tasty and Ava loves it! It’s a great way to get some veggies into her first thing in the morning:

 

We make these latkes in our house all the time! They are good for any meal, any time of the day πŸ™‚

 

These Broccoli Cheddar Sweet Potato Pancakes are soooo yummy!!!

There are a bunch of neat ideas of healthy additives to jazz up mac n cheese:

I have some more hidden veggie recipes that I’ll get posted up here soon. I also have a bunch of other great healthy recipes for toddlers on my Toddler page here.

Enjoy! πŸ™‚

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Filed Under: Kids/ Babies, Recipes

Randomness Today in Our House/Zoo

February 13, 2014 by Jess Leave a Comment

Today Ava still isn’t feeling 100%, far from it I think. Back to the Dr we go tomorrow. *sigh*

So we stayed home all day, and Ava had a PJ’s day.

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She asked continuously for a muffin and it’s so hard to say no to her when she asks so nicely “Pease??? Pease???”

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When I do say no, this is the pouty face she gives me:

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The muffins are pretty healthy though so I admit I did give in quite a bit – to an extent! (the muffins have veggies in them! See recipe here)

Β While Ava napped I made a huge batch of cookies for Valentine’s Day. Well actually I made 2 slightly different recipes that I created this morning. I love how both came out but I actually preferred the one with spinach in it! Yes spinach! I think I’ve been having too much fun lately creating new recipes with hidden veggies. The cookie recipe (both recipes are dairy free) without the spinach is here and the one with spinach is here.

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All 3 of us went crazy for the cookies later, they turned out really really good!

Ava loves to look at the fish in our kitchen. They are actually the fish from our pond outside but we decided we’d bring them in for the winter – I’m so glad we did! With this crazy weather we’ve had the last couple months, there is no way they would have survived out there. (even though they did survive out there last winter). Yes their names are Moby, Goldie and Fanny. I’ll let you guess who is who. Aren’t we original with our naming? And yes that’s a piece of muffin in Ava’s hand. Of course.

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Our patagonian cavy, Waldo, came by for a visit today. There was a point where he wandered away and I didn’t see where he went. I checked under his usual places like under the table and behind the chair in the living room. Nope and nope. Then I said it… “Where’s Waldo??”. Ugh. Why on earth did we name him Waldo? lol

(It turns out that Waldo was down the hall checking out Ava’s room but I quickly brought him back to the living room)

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A little bit later Ava and I skyped with my Mum. Of course as soon as we turn skype on, my usual chatty child clams up and no matter how hard my mum and I both try to get Ava to say something, to say anything, we barely get a “hi” whispered out of her and a small wave of her hand.

Next was bedtime for the kiddo but since Steve was out working tonight, I had another helper…..

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But as you can see, Norman wasn’t much help at all.

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Sweet Dreams!

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Filed Under: Animal/ Zoo stuff, Daily Life, Recipes

Right around the corner

February 12, 2014 by Jess Leave a Comment

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Once again, Valentine’s Day is almost upon us. I overheard Steve talking to Ava about it yesterday and when he said ” I get to have two Valentine’s – you and Mummy!” – I almost melted into a huge puddle of mush right there.

I have to admit that Valentine’s Day has never been a happy occasion to me until Steve came along. It holds sad but dear memories in my heart as my grandpa died on Valentine’s Day 15 years ago. 15 years. Hard to believe it’s been so long. I can still hear his voice, still see his smiling face, and still feel him holding my hand as he told me he loved me – mere days before he passed away. My grandma lived for many years after but she passed away before I moved away from Canada. I miss them both so much and I’m sad they never got to meet Steve or Ava. I know that they would be sad that I moved so far away from home but they would be happy that I was following my dream. Sometimes I so clearly see my grandma in Ava and it takes my breath away.

So back to this Valentine’s Day πŸ™‚

I have recently posted some fun Valentine’s DIY projects over at Homeketeers:

This Heart Banner is my favorite as Ava helped me create it with her first ever finger painting!

 

I also got out my alcohol inks again and had fun creating these hearts:

These Love Bugs were a fun and quick little project too:

One last one, this is a super quick and easy garland to make using scrap pieces of fabric:

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Filed Under: Crafts, Tutorials

Free Party Printables – Disney’s Frozen

February 10, 2014 by Jess Leave a Comment

I just wanted to share this great deal:

Free {Disney’s Frozen} Party Printables set – the add on set that is regularly $1.99 is FREE for the next 2 days πŸ™‚

I recently saw this movie and it is now one of my very favorite Disney movies! If you haven’t seen it yet, add it to your list! It’s a must see πŸ™‚ Even my husband really enjoyed it too.

 

Filed Under: Freebies & Printables

Ready….Set….Go!

February 6, 2014 by Jess 4 Comments

Since I haven’t blogged this past month I thought I should follow along in Stephanie’s footsteps and participate in a Blog Your Heart Out post. Why not?

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Here is my random photo: one of our baby hedgehogs. We now have 6 hedgehogs and we’re keeping all of them. πŸ™‚

Here I go!

1. Β One of the newest things Ava has been saying this week is “Ready…Set…Go!”. It’s pretty hilarious. To us anyway. πŸ™‚

2. This past month has been rough. Ava has been sick for over a month and this past week both Steve and I have been really sick too. Never before has it hit me more how incredibly hard it is to be sick and have a sick baby at the same time. I know this is just the start of it, but when you get no sleep at night, your battling a fever & nausea and all you want to do is close your eyes and pass out… but you can’t cause you have a tiny human to look after still. And a whole whack of animals too. I so wish we lived closer to my parents. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so lonely and secluded as we did this week. Ok enough whining, moving on now.

3. An embarrassing amount of dishes had accumulated in the sink from the previous 2 days. Really though, the last thing you want to do when your head feels like it’s going to explode is stand in the kitchen washing dishes. Since I was feeling much better yesterday I managed to tackle this task and then I continued on a cleaning spree throughout the entire house. It felt really really good.

4. While doing the dishes, Ava was playing happily with her Leap Frog magnets on the fridge and the dogs & Norman kept asking to go outside. I was constantly letting them all out and then in again almost right away. Norman is the worst one right now. He hates the snow and cold and does not want to go outside at all right now. I don’t know if he keeps forgetting its cold outside or if he is succumbing to peer pressure from the dogs but he is right there with them begging to go out. However, as soon as he gets outside he turns around and starts banging on the door to come back in. Yes, he actually bangs on the door. He gets up on his back 2 legs and throws himself and his 2 front piggy hooves right into the door. I’m actually a little surprised he hasn’t busted that door down by now, he’s so darn heavy.

5. We have so much snow here now that it’s almost taller than our dogs. Crazy. They don’t seem to mind though and they have made a nice path for themselves all the way through the yard over to the fence where they bark at our neighbors dogs. Steve has cleared an area for them all near the back door but they still have to run over and pester those other dogs.

6. Bananas. All Ava wants to eat right now are bananas. She asks for them all day long. Then has a meltdown if we say no, but we can’t let her have endless bananas. Clearly she does not get her love for them from me.

7. High Fructose Corn Syrup. I was super disappointed lately when I went to give Ava some infants Tylenol and I saw that it contains HFCS. Really??? Why?? I try not to give her anything with that crap in it and something I trust like Tylenol contains it. However now that I check labels for everything, I found that the Up and Up Brand from Target (equivalent to infants tylenol) does NOT contain HFCS. And it’s dye free as well. Win-Win. Thank you Target. I suppose I will forgive you for the giant hassle last month with the security breach of our red card.

8. Coconut Oil: I can’t say enough good things about this stuff. I have officially ditched all kinds of face creams and I now only use coconut oil. In the past I have tried them all: all natural creams, expensive creams that promise stuff they never delivered, extra sensitive creams, etc. Now that I have been using the coconut oil as my only face “cream” for months now, I can safely say that it’s wonderful. I have had only 1 blemish in the last couple months, whereas I was getting numerous ones continuously with all the other creams I used. Plus there are no chemicals in this stuff so I feel much better about putting it on my skin. I buy the organic kind and a little goes a long way – this stuff lasts for so long so for the cost – it is really really cheap. I have one jar in the bathroom that I use for my face, one in Ava’s room that I use as diaper cream for her, and one in the kitchen that we use for cooking. Awesome awesome stuff.

9. I haven’t done any giveaways on here for awhile so I’m going to get one up here soon – for some scrapbooking supplies and a copy of my book.

10. I have been working on a bunch of new toddler friendly recipes so I will get those into a post within the next couple days. I have also created some yummy family dinner recipes that are healthy and low in sodium. πŸ™‚

11. It’s February already. How the heck did that happen?

 

Filed Under: Daily Life

Our Holiday Recap

January 22, 2014 by Jess Leave a Comment

I really should have blogged more in December, that way I wouldn’t have 200 photos to show in this post. Just kidding, there aren’t quite 200 photos. ha!

So here is our December recap:

We started out by celebrating an early Christmas in Indiana at my sisters with my family:

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Then a few days later my parents came to Illinois to spend Christmas with us. We got to do some fun things around Chicago such as spending the day at the Museum of Science & Industry:

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We also visited the Volo Auto Museum for the first time, it was actually really cool. They had all kinds of cars/vehicles from the movies and TV so that was fun to see:

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We got to have lots of great family time! Some random pics:

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Our raccoon came in for a visit one day to meet my parents. πŸ™‚

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We played with baby hedgehogs because we could and why not? Aren’t they just the cutest little pincushions you’ve ever seen?

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We bought a huge turtle pillow for Ava but the dogs claimed it before we even had a chance to give it to her. It has now been moved to our room and they sleep on it every single night. Except Moose, he sleeps right next to me.

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Angus has now claimed the pillow.

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This little train “Toot” was the overall hit out of everything (for us adults too!). You should have seen how much fun we all had as we set it up for Ava on Christmas Eve. I just have to add that this was a fabulous $4 thrift store find! Score!

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Zoey is patiently waiting for her turn on the turtle.

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Steve reading “Twas a Night Before Christmas” on Christmas Eve

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My favorite photos from Christmas Morning:

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Family Photos:

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And a few more randoms:

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Well I think I got pretty close to 200 photos on here anyway! I think I probably took a couple thousand throughout the Holiday…

Filed Under: Animal/ Zoo stuff, Daily Life

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