CuteKittyPunk

Ella is Born! Ella Antonetta Maria I finally gave birth to my second child - January 6th she arrived. Phew - glad that's over... little did I know that my attempts to breast feed second time around would fool me - it started out so pleasant - but now I feel the pain - in the nipples. I hate it now. I'm thinking if I continue to give breast milk it will be via the bottle/breast pump... otherwise, I see no problem with switching to formula. I hate that everyone says "breast is best" or "borstvoeding... natuurlijk" - yeah, I agree - it is cheaper and natural - but who is to say it's better. I'm not sure the pros out weigh the cons of this practice. I can still bond with the bottle - I know just how much she is getting - Dad can help feed - no leaky breasts - and the pros go on and on! I mean the only pros for breast are cheap and natural - that's it? Come on - I don't buy the whole it's healthier and the baby doesn't get sick as much bec

Late... but not too late for next year. Well, I wanted to make a new stocking for Mark as well... and I finished after Christmas. So it's completed way early for next Christmas - his last stocking was a bit too small to fit much of anything in it - except for white chocolate (his favorite). I wanted this stocking to capture his personality. He is one of those guys that would rather be not working, and be some place warm, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt and holding a camera... since photography has become his new passion... so that's why I made it the way I did. Perhaps it could use some Christmas ornaments in the palm trees - to dress it up a bit... or maybe just some coconuts :)

Baked Potatoes & Chili Something so simple that has become one of my favorite and easy to make dinner recipes is the bake potato with chili. You can serve this up for anyone, a Vegan, an Omnivore, and a vegetarian. I make my chili vegan style. Then I serve it with shredded Cheddar cheese and sour cream. Those are both a must in my opinion. My husband eats his completely veganized. Now for some delightful food fotos: With shredded Cheddar, sour cream, fried onions and steamed broccoli No milk products, only fried onions, fried mushrooms and lots of steamed broccoli

The Juice Maker Well, one thing I received for Christmas this year that I really like is a juice maker. It's not the best juice maker on the market - and because of that I cannot really make fancy juices with wheatgrass and stuff like that - but it was a gift and I cannot really complain because the whole idea of juicing stuff is still so new to me. I remember back in September that I did a post on home made grape juice. That was the best juice I had ever made. So delicious. So, getting a juice maker is lots of fun. For our first test - we just juiced two Elster apples. It was very sweet apple juice... a bit foamy, too. Apparently, the really good juice makers on the market collect that extra foam for you. We just sort of skimmed it off. For our second trial - we juiced a pineapple, apples and carrots. Wow, so yummy and the color so wild! For our third trial we juiced only carrots and then mixed it with orange juice from concentrate - added a tiny hint of honey, vanilla extract a

The Black and White Cookie "If people would only look to the cookie, all our problems would be solved" -Seinfeld I love this cookie. I remember eating them regularly at The Daily Grind -cafe/coffee shop in Baltimore. So yummy. So, I came across a recipe for them on vegweb.com. I've made it twice now and I gotta say both times I've been disappointed with it. So, I've set out to find other recipes for this delightful cookie. I've found one from Allrecipes.com and one from Epicurious.com. I will try them both and report back. Despite my not really liking the vegweb recipe - I still took photos - and we still managed to eat them all... they are just not as delicious as the orginal ones you get in a NY deli or coffee shop.

NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS Last year's and this year's resolutions. I bet there are a lot of bloggers writing their goals in today... it's a good day to do it - there really is nothing else to do on January 1st - besides eating, watching movies - and in our case - we've been building a fort out of blankets and pillows in the front living room. I just hope Kailea can focus on Shrek and leave the blogging to me :) So taking a look at last year's goals - i had many! I had goals in every part of my life: spiritual, temporal, weight loss - with conditions, artistic, etc. Some goals will definitely carry over into 2009. (1) 2008 goal : give up refined white sugar.... I did. Well, I don't buy it anymore or bake with it... it's definitely still in store bought or out-to-eat treats - but we don't buy it ourselves and we don't bake with it. I've been buying rietsuiker - aka raw sugar. It's brown. At the beginning of my pregnancy the smell of it really gross