Wednesday, March 4, 2015

The Little Things Thursdays: #101

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Welcome to The Little Things Thursday!!

If you are new, we like to take a minute to look back on the little things that brightened our week. So often we get busy and forget all of the things that we enjoy as we go through our daily lives. This is an opportunity to stop, remember, and enjoy those things! Nothing is too small...in fact, the smaller the better! That's the whole point! If you have a blog, leave a link in a comment below! If you don't blog, I'd love for you to participate by leaving a moment in a comment anyway. Ready?


1. FOUR!!!!
Caleb, Elijah, Ellie, and Abby

"How old are you?" "FOUR!" It's a pretty big deal at our house to be four. :) Their actual birthday wasn't much fun as the stomach flu swept through the family in a matter of hours, but we made up for it a couple of days later when stomachs had settled back down. We also had a birthday party for them the week prior that I still need to post pictures of! 

All that to say, right now I'm hearing lots of little voices reminding me that they are four. That's big kid level!

2. Oh....Wow. Major Fail.
So for the kids' birthday party, I decided that I was going to be really awesome and bake some allergy free cupcakes for the three people who were coming who couldn't eat regular cupcakes. Just to clarify, I used to bake professionally for a coffee shop, I've done a couple of wedding cakes, and many birthday cakes and other desserts. I'm a pretty good baker! So when faced with trying to make dairy/egg/gluten/oat-free cupcakes, I really didn't think it would be a big deal.

Oh....I was wrong.

Allergy-free baking is a WHOLE other ballgame. It is really, really hard. I tried a couple of batches with various versions using suggestions from the internet and friends. Oh my word. Allergy-free baking is not meant to be a strength of mine. Above, you can see the vanilla cupcakes on the left, and the chocolate frosting plopped on top on the right.

Let's just say that no allergy-free cupcakes made it to the party. None of our guests were expecting them, so it wasn't a let down. but I was still sad I couldn't pull it off.

Dear Kids: Never develop a food allergy or you will never eat cupcakes again. Love, Mom.

3. Elsa and Anna Purses
Abby and Ellie

The girls got Elsa and Anna purses from our friends, The McCleary's for their birthday! I love how intent Abby and Ellie were as they worked to make them look just right. I love even more how their personalities are completely reflected in how they colored them in. :)


4. Just So
Caleb is very particular about things. They have to be in the right order, in the right place, or in the right sequence, or he has trouble accepting it. I think it's an autism thing. But what a lot of people don't realize about kids with autism is that they are some of the SMARTEST kids out there! They just process information differently. Anyhow, Caleb is intrigued with a doll house that their cousin gave the girls for Christmas. Everyone has played with it, but Caleb has to arrange it. We walked past the room to find this arrangement set up by him. It's not about playing with the dolls. It's about making sure that everything is in its proper place in the house because that's how it should be.

The other kids? They just lose the pieces.


5. Refresh VoxBox



It's been awhile, but I got another product review box in the mail from Influenster. I love getting boxes from this company because they actually send full sized products instead of one-and-done samples.

This "Refresh VoxBox" has:

  • Beanitos Chips: Granted I haven't tried these yet, but the name sounds really close to "Beano". You know, that stuff you use for excess gas. I hope the chips are better than the name. All I'm seeing right now is "Eat me, and I'll give you phenomenal gas!" Let's hope I'm wrong. Eek! (these are preservative-free and GMO-free though! Yay!)
  • CoverGirl UltraSmooth Foundation: I've been very pleased with CoverGirl foundation in the past (I've tried several types!), but I would like this one a lot better if it didn't have so many chemicals in it. I'm becoming more and more aware of just how many unnecessary chemicals are in everything in my bathroom. So I guess my thoughts are, "I like CoverGirl, but prefer other brands over them for their better quality makeup."
  • L'Occitane Shea Butter Light Comforting Cream: I really like Shea Butter! Again, it's not all-natural, but I really like that it is Fair Trade. That is important to me! This company has a partnership with women in West Africa who make the shea butter. Knowing that this supports them is very cool!
  • Orgain Certified Organic Nutritional Shakes: I haven't been to Whole Foods yet to pick this up, but organic is okay in my book! My hope is that it tastes good though. I'm still on the hunt for a protein shake that tastes like an actual milk shake.
  • Montagne Jeunesse Face Masques: Um....the mask is black. Granted it's a Black Seaweed Peel Off Masque, but the color just kind of weirds me out a little bit. 
  • SkinnyGirl Tasty Nutrition Bars: I love foods that have decent nutrition that I can grab and go! Life with quadruplets doesn't stop!
  • Listerine PocketPaks: All I can say is...yes! These are way handy!
  • DenTek Fun Flossers: These are little flossers for kids. If I hold a kid down to floss his teeth, do you think he will bite me?
  • DenTek Comfort Clean Floss Picks: Clean teeth = happy mama. I still have a permanent bottom retainer in, so I'm pretty careful about keeping it clean.
Also, Elijah REALLY wanted to be in the picture with the products. Hehe! Such a handsome boy!

6. Young Living February Essential Rewards


I have to show off my Young Living Essential Rewards order from February. I recently got a zyto compass, and I came back with a SLEW of out of range biomarkers. Because of that, I mostly concentrated on supplements with this order and bought a few for Sean too. I even *gasp!* decided to try one of the all-natural deodorants. It's too early to tell if I like the deodorant or not, but the mere fact that I own it makes me a little nervous that I'm sliding on down that "crunchy" hill faster than I'm okay with. Lol! My main goal in my 30's is not to turn into a hippie....I say that as I sit here eating Girl Scout Thin Mints.....eh, I think I'm good. :D


Now it's your turn! What Little Things brightened up your week? Link up your post in a comment below and make sure you come back next week to play again!




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3 comments:

  1. I so hear you on the allergy-free cooking! In our case it is just egg but that is enough to challenge me. With cupcakes, or in our case muffins, I have found that if you add some soda, say sprite or something, they puff up nicely. With eggs, how you replace them depends largely on what you want to happen. For muffins, you want poofiness. Without that pop, that collapse in on themselves. For pumpkin pie, I have to add 6 Tbsp of corn starch to the pie filling, then cook it on the stove for it to set before I bake it. Otherwise I get pumpkin pudding in a crust. With meatloaf and cookies, applesauce is a great substitute. We made banana bread this weekend and I had to bake it extra long for the center (using applesauce) to fully cook and not be doughy. We made waffles and I had to add extra baking powder for those guys to get puffy. Crazy cake includes baking soda and vinegar which does the same thing as soda, otherwise your cake comes up 1/2 inch tall! So keep trying! With trial and error and online research, you eventually begin to figure it out. Brady might even do a 4H project on egg-free baking/cooking someday.

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  2. My ER order is mainly supplements this month, too! So happy that Young Living has so much to offer us to help us keep ourselves and our families healthy!! I also added Abundance to my order…so excited to give it a try!!

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  3. Hi! Been a silent reader for a while, (I share first and middle names with your girls! and my brother's name is Caleb!) but your bit about allergy baking caught my attention since its sort of been my day to day for almost all of my 18 years. In case you ever need the info in the future.

    Depending on the allergies, you can find store mixes without top-eight allergens (milk, soy, peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, wheat, and fish) OR, if you're really going for the homemade thing, there's a recipe my Grandma used to make for "Wacky Cake" and I've seen recipes online for it! Even without allergies I think it's worth a try. It's good! One more tip- if substituting milk, try hemp milk. My family's found that it bakes better than soy/other milk substitutes. And it's got tons of good stuff in it. :)

    Sorry for making such a long comment, I just thought you might like a little advise for the future!

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