Manic Mondays -- When Fudge Goes Primal

I had to take last week off blogging; grad school is already devouring large chunks of my schedule.  Not that I’m complaining – I adore school, and if I had unlimited resources, I would be a perpetual student.  But it does mean that most nights I have to choose between finally sleeping and doing non-school things (like cleaning and blogging).    

However, I took the past two weekends to carve out a little time to revamp our family’s eating habits.  Well, at least make an attempt to start revamping anyway.  Since my most destructive eating habits rear their ugly heads when I’m stressed (read: studying), and because I’m tired of fighting perpetual fatigue, I’ve gone primal.  Or paleo, or ancestral – depends on who you’re reading. 

But with Valentine’s Day coming up, I couldn’t stand the thought of doing without chocolate.  So, after talking to my epically primal Brother- and Sister-in-law (these two are insane health nuts – I aspire to their awesomeness) I found this great recipe for primal fudge at Practical Paleo.  I tweaked it a teensy bit, and am in love with this treat.  So much so that I had to hide it in the back of the fridge – lest I eat them all before Thursday. 

The Firefly helped, and is now totally into Paleo.  At least the treats.  We’re still working the veggie side.  After a taste test, the kids were complimentary [I said it tastes like dark chocolate and reese peanut butter cups had a delicious baby]; but did admit that these little gems are “NOT Nana fudge.” 

No, dear ones, they certainly aren’t.  But they’ll do in a Paleo-pinch.    

 

Paleo Fudge:

1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup creamy almond butter
1/4 cup raw honey
2 tablespoons vanilla

1. Begin with melted coconut oil [yes, I attempted the boiling water bath most purist suggest; but eventually I got tired of waiting and exposed my pure oil to the radiation of the microwave.  Baby steps, people.]

2. Blend all ingredients together in a blender [if you have food processor, I’m sure this would be easier.   My poor blender almost burned out the motor because it’s so thick.  In the end I had to use the good ole fashioned wooden spoon, and then plastic spatula].

3. Pour into paper-lined muffin tin cups, filling half-inch full. This made 10, though they are very big!  I would even say fill to quarter-inch full and double the recipe.

4.  Chill for 30 minutes [I let mine sit overnight]. When firm taste the Paleo goodness! Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator.  Don’t worry, they won’t last long.

Party like it's 2013

The midnight balloon

Funny thing: I’m still suffering from holiday-hangover.  My classes just started (keeping my fingers crossed that my fin-aide goes through—I filled out the wrong form, true to my imperfect self), though the minis have been back at it for weeks now.  The what-day-is-it fog is still very thick since most of our activities are different; and the Officer’s schedule just changed (it’s that time of year, people) so I’m even more confused than normal.  All these things culminate to mean that I have no clue what day it is.  At all.  So much so that, as you know, I haven’t sat down to pen a blog post in almost a month.  I feel a little twinge of guilt about that, but again, an identifying premise for this blog is Mommy-imperfection.  So at least I’m nailing that. 

Since I’m convinced that I packed my muse up with the Christmas lights, I’ll show you what the kids and I (the Officer took part for a bit, but had to work the next day, so had to sleep that night) did for New Year’s Eve.  This way all you uber planners will have something up your sleeves for next year.  Or it could be adapted for Valentine’s Day (pink, red, and white balloons with heart confetti – wait, I think I like that idea…).  This year was the first time the three of us made it to midnight; well, the first year I let them try.  The Koala was begging to be allowed to sleep by 11pm.  Begging.  And promptly at 12:10am, they both raced up to bed without having been asked.  The good news is that they did sleep until 11am New Year’s Day…

Partying like it’s 2013

I’m sure you’ve all seen the ideas on pintetrest involving hourly activities in anticipation of midnight.  That’s pretty much what we did; and I have to say that the evening flies by when you have a new activity every hour.  I will keep that in mind for future birthday parties/sleepovers. 

 

I used three different sets of balloons (one for the Koala, one for the Firefly, and one for the adults), each with the same activity inside. I wrote the hour in permanent marker on the outside of the balloon; and every hour, the kids got to pop the balloon and do the activity described inside.  To make each pop more festive, I filled the balloons with glitter and small craft pom-poms.  I expected a shower of sparkly fun...it was more a deluge of glitter in which we had to search for our activity slip.  Ah, well.  I used packing tape and curling ribbons to hang these babies from the ceiling, which was pretty; but I had to take them down before the minis could actually pop them.  For your planning pleasure, I’ve included a list of our activities at the end of this post, as well as a supply list. Be warned – I inhaled copious amounts of glitter trying to blowup balloons, and as they popped. Luckily I can still breathe, so the damage must have been minor; but my lungs did feel off for a few days after.

Also, none of those awesome-mom sites ever tell you how stinkin' hard it is to get a small strip of paper, on which you've written that hour's activity, into a balloon. Trust me, this is exceptionally difficult. It took me a few tries to figure out how to get the glitter in there, too. Most of the early attempts ended with glitter all over the kitchen, me, and anything standing nearby [the poor dog]. 

Activity #1 -- because who doesn't love crazy hair?   

Activities:

4pm: Crazy Hair boutique for NYE2012  [Reality: Mom scrambles to finish decorating, kids help]

5pm: Dinner and Silly String Fight [the kids loved this one]

6pm: Light luminarias and prayer – though a Christmas tradition, we’ve adapted it as our NYE tradition to symbolize that we want our new year to be filled with the light of Christ.

7pm: Playdoh sculpture competition and make ice globes*

My Playdoh rose -- because it's my blog

8pm: Play Hide-and-Seek and Sardines in the dark; and do Fire-crackers [the Officer had to get to bed and I didn’t want to really tick off the neighbors]

9pm: Snack and board game marathon 

10pm: Continue snacking and play Wii as family

11pm: Make hobbit hole and read The Hobbit

12pm: Watch ball drop and throw glitter bags**

 

Supplies:

1.        Balloons

2.       Glitter

3.       Small sparkly pom-poms [in the craft section]

4.      Silly String

5.       Playdoh

6.      Fire-Crackers [or poppers]

7.       Paper bags [we used the white lunch kind]

8.      Tea lights

9.      SMALL balloons

10.    Food coloring

11.     Pin or tack [for popping the balloons]

12.    Board game

13.    Snacks [we had Jordan almonds, popcorn, hot chocolate, Christmas candy]

14.    Sandwich bags

15.    Curling Ribbon

16.    Tape

 Your floor will look like this afterward. 

Don't attempt the glitter portion if you're not big into cleaning glitter off every surface in your home, to include pets and family members and food, for weeks to come. 

Pom-poms would work just fine.

 

*To make ice globes, fill small balloons with water, then add food coloring.  Place the balloons outside (it will need to be below freezing for this to work), cover with snow, and let them sit overnight.  Ours froze, but they were lop-sided.  Also, I would suggest using small balloons and starting with this activity so the globes have time to freeze completely.

**Glitter bags are, quite literally, just smal sandwich bags I filled with glitter and pom-poms that we could throw into the air at midnight.  I tied them with curling ribbon and at the stroke of twelve, we hurled the last of our glitter at one another.  Again, if you aren't a big fan of messes that last for weeks, perhaps a celebratory cup of egg nog would be a good replacement activity.