Pumpkin Spice Muffins

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Processed with VSCOcam with c1 presetI hesitate to bake in our house when it’s not for another person or occasion because I love to eat the things that I bake and so does my hubs and toddler K.  However, I had to make pumpkin spice muffins, it’s that time of year and fall flavors are amazing!  I kid you not, these are the most moist muffins you have ever tried.  I don’t know how they do it but it feels like they melt in your mouth.  I will be making these again for our Halloween party at the end of the month.  Just add some cream cheese frosting to the top and you have a pumpkin cupcake 🙂

Adapted from The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients:

1 cup All-purpose Flour
1/2 cup Sugar
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1-1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon Ground Ginger
1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon Salt
4 Tablespoons Butter, cut into pieces
1 cup Pumpkin Puree
1/2 cup Milk (We use hemp milk because of food allergies)
1 whole Egg
1-1/2 teaspoon Vanilla
Topping
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  I used mini muffin pans and made 24 minis and had enough left over for 8 large muffins too.

Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt. Cut in butter with a pastry blender. In another bowl, mix together pumpkin, milk, egg, and vanilla. Pour pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture. Mix until combined.

Fill the muffin pans (I did about 3/4 full for the mini and half with the large) and put topping over each unbaked muffin.

Bake for 10 mins for the minis and about 18 for the large.

You want to make these, I promise you won’t be sorry!

Glitter Pumpkin Craft

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My son has an addiction to pumpkins, currently we have about 6 of all different shapes and sizes.  I can’t help but buy them because they are so cheap and we can do a decent amount of activities with them.  We can draw a face on them, paint them, carve them, spray paint them, put stickers all over them, glue feathers and eyeballs on them (we did this and he took it all off once it dried), the list is never ending.

Today I decided to try something different and girly with “my” pumpkin.  I’m not crafty at all, although I would love to be, so this is super simple and inexpensive.  Kellan got to paint his pumpkin red and I took out some Martha Stewart glue and sparkles that I had laying around.  The pumpkins we got from Sprouts for $.99 and all I did was take a paintbrush, cover that bumpy thing with glue and poured sparkles all over it.  Voila!  You have the prettiest little pumpkin and it only took 5 minutes to complete.  We did all of this outside, of course, and now my patio is covered in fairy dust!  Enjoy 🙂

 

My Miscarriage – Light at the End of the Tunnel: Part 2

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We go home and I’m confused and I’m Googling the crap out of stuff trying to make sense of it all.  I call the nurse at the doctor’s office, she asks me when my last period was and I tell her I had one on March 1st.  She then asks me if I even want to keep the baby.  I have no words for this, of course I want the baby, we’ve been trying for eight months!  I can tell by her tone of voice that she doesn’t think it’s very hopeful either and she tells me to come in to get my blood drawn.  I break down and cry again after I hang up the phone.  If she doesn’t think it’s viable, then that’s pretty bad.  I want to be happy that I’m pregnant, I’m trying to stay positive but I can’t help but be worried.  I go get my blood drawn and the nurse wants to do another pregnancy test.  She tells me I must be farther along because it turned bright pink really fast.  This is exciting, that’s good news, until I realize that I’ve started spotting.  We Google and Google until I can’t take it anymore.  Some say bleeding is ok, some say it’s not, it’s all just driving me insane and none of it really matters anyways.

The next day I’m still spotting but the nurse says my levels are perfect and this nurse says to stay positive.  The weekend drags on and my spotting never stops.  I talk to a few friends and I feel better about the whole situation.  After all, bleeding is a normal part of pregnancy, it doesn’t have to mean something is wrong.  I have to get back to accepting that no matter what happens it’s ok, I’ll be ok, we’ll be ok.  And don’t get me started on the pregnancy symptoms starting to kick in!  I can barely stay up past nine, I’m taking naps with my son and I’m sick.all.the.time.  I hate coffee (which really makes being tired even worse) and I have an aversion to everything, except French fries, bread, any carbs really and ice cream.  None of my pants fit anymore and I feel like a bloated whale.

On Monday, I rush to the doctors to get my blood drawn again.  I have been feeling positive and looking forward to telling my family in person next week about being pregnant.  On Tuesday they call to tell me that my levels doubled which is great and I should come in today for an ultrasound because we should definitely be able to see something.  This is what I have been waiting for, this could be it, I might actually be able to see my little baby.

My husband and I are in the room waiting to see what appears on the screen, the nurse finds the sac and I ask her if it looks all good.  She hesitates and tells me she needs to look a little more.  She can barely see a yolk sac and there is no embryo yet.  She kindly smiles at me and tells me to come back on Friday for another ultrasound.  At that point, if there is no embryo, I have a blighted ovum.  My heart begins to feel heavy again, still no answers, still no good news.

I hate all this waiting.  I hate feeling sick, I hate not knowing, I hate laying in wait for a fate I have felt in my gut this whole time.  In addition, there is that little picture of what should be my baby – I stick it in on the fridge and pray.  As the days roll on, I am still bleeding and my hope begins to fade.  I feel so raw and vulnerable and I want this all to be over with, I just want to know, is it ok or is it not.

I wake up on Thursday and as I stand, I feel blood gush out and I run to the toilet crying as I pass a clot, a small clot but a clot nonetheless.  I text a friend because I cannot talk on the phone, I am crying too hard.  She tells me to try not to worry, she helps me to calm down.  I take it easy that day but when Friday comes around I’m done, I can’t take anymore.  There on the screen is nothing again.  The nurse says, “I’m sorry honey but I just can’t see anything.”  I hold back the tears and look at my husband as he strokes my hand.

As I leave the room she says, “I’m so sorry, I’m really sorry.”  The doctor tells us that with my levels and the size of the sac, that something is not right.  They should be able to see a baby and a heartbeat.  I feel heartbroken but relief.  Finally some answers and we can move on, no more laying in wait, grasping at straws.  One of my friends texts to say that we could always use another angel watching over us and I cry.  I cry to relieve the stress of this whole ordeal.  I cry because I’m so emotional and I cry because it’s over.  I know that there are good things that have come out of this and I try to remember those.  I can get pregnant and it will implant properly, this is such good news and I have to focus on the good.

I call my sister, my brother, and my sister-in-law to tell them the news and then I’m done talking.  I don’t want to talk anymore, I don’t want to think about it anymore.  The next morning I know it’s almost time and that afternoon I pass a large clot and I begin bleeding heavily.  The idea of what’s going on is killing me and I can’t fathom the idea that a baby was trying to grow but didn’t have a chance.  That night I bleed more and I pass even bigger clots.  I feel nothing physically but the emotional wear of it is enough.  When I wake that morning I feel like I’m in a cloud – I’m so depressed.  Church makes me cry and I want so badly to be out of this fog.  I want to enjoy life again – to move away from this experience and feel like myself again.

That afternoon I wake up from my nap and my prayers are answered.   I no longer feel depressed, I no longer felt sick, I no longer feel tired, I am no longer pregnant.

I went back and forth about sharing this experience because it feels so personal but had it not been for those that shared with me online and over the phone, I wouldn’t have gotten through it.  Never underestimate the power of being honest and vulnerable with your family and friends. For me it helped to have something bigger on my side too, to remember that this is all part of the plan.  I know that so many women go through this and sometimes it’s much worse.  I always looked at people who miscarried and wondered why it happened because they were so young or so healthy, it just didn’t make sense to me.  Truth is, I just wasn’t educated enough to know how common it truly is.   Miscarriage doesn’t mean something is wrong with me and I know now that it wouldn’t have mattered what I had done, I couldn’t stop this from occurring but most of all, it wasn’t my fault.

I hope that none of you have to go through this but if you do, just know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  Surround yourself with friends and family and they will give you all the love you need to get to the other side.

Have you suffered a miscarriage? Do you agree that it is important to share our experiences with each other?

My Miscarriage – light at the end of the tunnel: Part 1

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It’s Thursday and it’s early, too early to be up but there is Kellan screaming for dada to let him out of his crib and change his diaper.  That use to be cute the first time but now being woken up at 6am to a child yelling, not fun.  I have four more hours now to wait for surgery and I’ve never had surgery before.  I’m scared, I’m anxious and I’m freaking out!

Two days ago I went to see a doctor about our issue, we can’t get pregnant and we should be pregnant.  It was so easy the first time around and I know it shouldn’t be taking this long, 8 months is a long time and I feel something must be wrong.  We should have gotten a positive test in February, if it was going to happen, that was the month, believe me!  If it wasn’t going to happen, then I had to admit that I needed to get checked out, just in case.

I sit in the closet when I start my period on March 1st and cry because I feel such a loss.  I can’t explain it but it hurts more than any of the other months and I can’t stop, even though I want to.  I feel like I am too young to be having a struggle with getting pregnant again and I don’t understand what I am doing wrong.  I hold my son a little closer and I thank God for giving me him as a gift.  I have to accept that whatever is going to happen isn’t up to me.  I have to accept that it will all work out in the end.  When I finally go to see a doctor, he tells me I probably have endometriosis and we need to take care of it now.  So here I am, waiting to get laparoscopic surgery.

Four hours later I’m kissing my son and husband goodbye and heading back to get prepped.  I’m lying on a bed, in a gown waiting, waiting, waiting and listening to the whispers of the nurses.  I can hear them saying, “Is this normal?”  And I think she must be talking about me because I’m too young to be having surgery for endometriosis.  But then again, not everything is about me and there are other people in beds next to me.  I keep saying over and over again in my head, “There’s nothing to be scared of, you’re fine, God’s got this.”

The nurse comes back into the room and she starts asking me questions: What am I here for?  When was my last period?  How do you spell my last name?  Have I been trying to get pregnant?  Have I been pregnant before?

Then she tells me she’s stalling and now I know something is up.  My doctor is late, he is always late according to the nurses, that’s just his thing.  Then the anesthesiologist comes in (such a nice guy) and he sits down and asks me the same questions the nurse just did.  He looks at me after I answer them and says, “Diana, you’re pregnant.”  Everything goes quiet, my mind goes blank.  I gasp and start crying, he starts crying too.  I’m crying because I know something is wrong, in my gut, I know something is wrong.  I just had my period two weeks ago, after having two negative pregnancy tests.

They congratulate me and leave so I can call my husband.  He answers the phone, “Happy Birthday, I’m pregnant.”