Fudge-y Zucchini WADS (oatmeal cookies)

After much experimenting with recipes involving hiding veggies in kids' foods, I have come up with a new variation of our Secret Family WADS recipe, here it is....
   

 Fudgy Zucchini WADS Recipe

1-1/2 C brown sugar

1 C oil

1 tsp. vanilla 

2 eggs

1/2 C pureed zucchini (for directions on how to purée veggies, see this excellent book by Jessica Seinfeld entitled Deceptively Delicious....http://www.amazon.com/Deceptively-Delicious-Simple-Secrets-Eating/dp/006176793X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342549580&sr=8-1&keywords=Jessica+Seinfeld 

Mix the above wet ingredients together.  In a separate large bowl, sift together the following dry ingredients:

1 C flour (I use 1/2 all-purpose flour and 1/2 white whole wheat flour)

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 C baking cocoa

Combine wet and dry ingredients in large bowl, mixing well.  Gradually add:

5 C oats

1 C chocolate chips

Stir well.  Mixture will be lumpy.

Drop in teaspoon-size wads on ungreased baking sheet, slightly flatten.

Bake in 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes.  

Enjoy!!!!!!!

'

Happy Birthday, Mommy!! (that's me!)

My favorite birthday gift this year? Snow!! About 6 beautiful inches of it! Rare for NC. My second favorite gift? A lovely Parisian fabric apron with cute geese on it, a handmade potholder, a very old book of English poetry and a super ridiculously large but wonderfully convenient collapsible sun hat! (aka sombrero!) Turning 29 isn't so bad after all!!!

Merry Christmas 2010 from the Nelson family!

Sam and Daddy's Y-Indian Princess Weekend

How-how!! Welcome to Arapahoe Nation's spring gathering at the coast! Sam and her Daddy had a great time this past weekend at Camp Seafarer, located on the point where the Neuse River meets the Atlantic Ocean. This YMCA camp has a big sailing program, from little sunfish boats to larger sail boats, but they have all kinds of other activities too, as Sam and Byron found out on their 2-night camp-out with the rest of their Fire Dancer tribe. They participated in their tribal gatherings, swimming, canoing, archery, group games, and even a shark tooth hunt, where Sam won third prize for digging up a 1-1/2" shark's tooth! (The camp had dredged up a big pile of debris from the ocean floor for this activity, the pile was huge!) The two had a great time, and now I am hoping to sign up for one of the camp's Mother-Daughter or Family Camps. I wanna go to camp, too!

Visiting grandparents at 2840

Sam and Byron's Y-princess fall outing at Camp Kanata

hi, here's a photo of Sam and Byron's tribe at their Y-Princess camp outing on Sunday.. (oops, sorry, wasn't able to copy and paste from my email, just try to picture it in your heads... :) )
Sorry we don't have any other pictures, yet anyway, Byron had forgotten to bring his own camera.

anyway...
Some of the highlights of the day were, a 2-mile hike through the woods, soccer game, arts and crafts, a cook-out, and the big ceremony. There were several hundred to maybe a thousand dads and daughters in the amphitheater. The ceremony was led by the chief of all the tribes, nicknamed Moose. Whenever he hit his tom-tom (drum) all the talking in the whole place ceased. The ceremony started with a processional leading to a fire arrow being shot into the lake, an explosion of gun powder that started the huge campfire, and lots of drumming, of course. The leaders of the ceremony wore Indian headdresses. This is all secondhand news, of course, as I was back home with Colby, no moms allowed. :)
In the spring, dads and girls will all return to this camp for another huge gathering, this time they'll spend the whole weekend here, 2 nights away from mom!

love, jenner

oct. 19 2009

We're finally all healthy here, (knock-knock on wood). Sam and Colby both had a cold over the past couple weeks, Sam missed a couple days of school. fortunately Byron and I didn't catch it. I felt a little yucky Saturday, but I think it was from eating too much bean dip the other night, made me go and go and go...yuck.

Pretty day here, glad that el nino or whatever has left us, too.

love, jenner

Snow Day make-up Day

Well, Sam was still very upset about going to school Saturday morning. She fought every step of the way, even refusing to get out of the car when we got to the parking lot. Just she and I had come, and we'd parked so we could both go in to enjoy the nice little "moms and muffins" gathering before school that had been re-scheduled from tuesday (snow day) to Saturday. Even that wasn't motivating for her. (it was for moms and kids)

But afterwards, at noon, we picked her up and we all went to Carrabas, the Italian restaurant for lunch. It really was quite nice, nicer than Olive Garden. They had great service. Of course it was lunch time, but we didn't feel like they were trying to rush us out the door like some places. Great bread with seasoned olive oil, and they even gave each of the kids a lump of pizza dough to play with while we waited. Sam and Colby were fascinated by watching the chefs cook in the open area, and they had a bar up there where you could watch them flip pizza dough and fire up the flaming grills, and it was fairly empty, so I took them up there and we sat there and watched awhile. Colby would call out "fire!!!" every time the flames from the grill went shooting up. I had a very good dish of seafood linguine, the leftovers of which I will still be eating for lunch today!

This morning was another nightmare, as Sam did not want to go to school, and we were fifteen minutes late. too much drama for a monday morning. need some more coffee.

more later,

love, jenner