Zucchini Coconut Bread

I know that zucchini season is pretty much over, but I still wanted to share this recipe. For awhile earlier this summer we had zucchini coming out of our ears, and I was trying to find recipes to use it all up. I came across this one, from Two Peas and Their Pod, on Pinterest and thought it looked yummy! It's on the healthy side, too, with whole wheat flour, coconut oil, Greek yogurt, and less white sugar. I knew Paul wouldn't eat it anyway, because he is not a fan of anything coconut, so I figured I could eat it for breakfast and have it all to myself! It was SO good! Definitely a keeper!

Zucchini Coconut Bread

3/4 cup all-purpose Gold Medal flour
3/4 cup whole wheat Gold Medal flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini (squeezed and drained)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 coconut oil, melted
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt, at room temp.
1 large egg, at room temp.
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup shredded sweetened coconut

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Set aside.

In a separate large bowl, combine shredded zucchini, sugars, coconut oil, yogurt, egg, and vanilla extract.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until moistened. Stir in the shredded coconut.

Pour the batter into prepared pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let zucchini bread cool in pan for 10 minutes. Carefully remove the bread from the pan and cool completely before slicing.

Enjoy!

Original recipe can be found here: Two Peas and Their Pod

16 months

One of these months I'll get this post up on time. Levi turned 16 months old 2 weeks ago now. He just keeps growing. And time keeps going faster. I have no idea where the past month went. And it's only going to get worse this fall with harvest coming soon....then it will be Thanksgiving....then we'll be getting ready for Christmas...then maybe it will slow down a little. Yeesh. Anyhoo, Levi wasn't real cooperative for pictures this month. Surprise! I thought it would be fun to take him somewhere other than our yard to take a few, so one Sunday afternoon Paul and I took him out to the farm to try. Well, it was a nice idea, but he was more interested in picking up the dirt chunks in the field. And he completely ignores me when I have my camera now. Doesn't even turn his head my direction. I knew it would happen eventually. I did luck out and got one when he glanced my direction! Gotta be fast! :)

At 16 months::

In mainly 18 month clothes, can wear 24 month shirts in some brands, and there are a couple 2T shirts that fit him too. Crazy how much different brands can vary.

Still in size 5 dipes.

Generally a size 5 in shoes, some 5.5's.

Had his third haircut this month.

By the time I am typing this, all four of his molars are through. Teething, you suck. The end.

Very much has a mind of his own. He knows what he wants. And he wants it NOW. Don't try to distract him, because he does NOT forget. STUBBORN. :)

Eating pretty good. His snacks of choice are cottage cheese, graham soft paws, Gerber cereal bars, grapes, fruit loops, goldfish crackers. And he loves eating whole apples now, at daycare they have a tree in their yard and the kids love picking them and eating them.

Saying more and more words. Some that I can think of are: pa-pa (grandpa), sort of says grandma sometimes (ma-ma), tuck (truck), tuck-ah (tractor), toot-toot (train), sh-ss (shoes), ock (sock), ss-t (shirt), woof (puppy), duck, kack (quack), ch-ss (cheese), ha (hot), mmmm, ahhh (after taking a drink), there might be a few more but I can't think of them. I really need to start writing them down!

He has done this for awhile, but not sure if I have put it on here. If something is hot, he blows. I blow on his food when it's hot, so that's where it came from. If I tell him something is hot, he'll blow at it.

Always walks on his tippy-toes! No idea why. He tripped and fell the other week because he does it, scratched his nose up.

Still attached to his binker (pacifier) and blankie. He is on cloud nine if he gets ahold of more than one binker at a time, he'll carry one around in each hand and one in his mouth, and just keep switching them around. He doesn't drag his blankie yet, but he will run to it if he sees it on the floor and cuddle with it.

For some reason he likes to drag things around, like my camera cords, the alarm clock in the spare room, the baby monitor... It's getting harder to keep things out of reach since he is getting so tall, and can climb on dang near anything.

I maaayyyy have started a bit of a bad habit that is now his favorite place to have breakfast. On top of the kitchen counter. He sits there pretty good for the most part, doesn't try to crawl around or get down or anything. I am always right there or within a couple feet grabbing something out of a cabinet. He likes to be up and see what's going on. When I am making supper or cooking something, I bring a chair in from the other room and let him stand there and watch. If I am chopping or doing something he shouldn't be anywhere near, I put him on the floor and then just have to deal with the screaming and pulling at my legs.... But as long as he is on the chair and can see what is going on, he's usually ok. Most of the time it ends up to be a mess, but I guess it's easier to clean up than have him screaming the whole time I make something.

Still working on transitioning to one afternoon nap. At home at least. Usually by 10:30-11 he is getting tired, so by then I try to get him through lunch. He's been doing 1.5-2 hour naps in the afternoon lately, so that has been nice.

That's all I can think of for this month! :)

High Five (or 6) for Friday (2 week version)

Paul and I both had last week off, so it was kind of an off week. In a good way! We were busy doing things and I just didn't have time to get my post up last week for High Five for Friday. So I decided to lump the past couple weeks in with this post. The fair was really the highlight of the week last week, and since I already posted a bunch of pictures of that, I am going to skip it this time. Here goes!

1. We celebrated Aaron's 2nd birthday last weekend. Could have been a couple weekends ago...they are all blurring together lately. Anyhoo, he got lots of nice gifts and it was fun to get together. My sister-in-law made a super cute barn/farm cake. Definitely keeping that in mind for future parties for Levi, might have to steal the idea! Jess's brother and his wife were there with their 2 year old and brand new 4 week old. It's a possibility that baby fever is creeping back in...just sayin'..

  

2. Edited a few pics of these cuties that I took a couple weeks ago::

 

3. Sleepy little man at lunch time. He's sort of transitioning from 2 naps a day to one. Some days he is fine, other days he still needs a morning nap. This day we tried skipping the morning nap, but he didn't quite make it through lunch.

4. Farmfest. Hot, hot, hot. Literally. But it was fun. We met another couple down there and spend most of the day with them. Levi did really good, but he was ready to go home by the time we left. I think it will be much more fun in the coming years when he is a little older though. I didn't take too many pictures. Whenever we took him out of the stroller, he was not real interested in going back into it.

 5. I french braided my own hair! Yay me! Ha. I have never really done this to my own hair (or anyone else's), I've tried, but it never works. It didn't last too long since I have a lot of layers, and my hair isn't super long, but it was nice while it lasted. Makes me miss living a block away from grandma, when we could just walk up and have her braid it quick. 

6. I signed up for a 5K! My friend Jill and I talked about it last night at our WW meeting, and we decided to just go for it! It is in a month, so it might be more of a walk/run than running the whole time, but we are looking forward to it. If anything, it is something to set our sights on to keep motivated. :)

Fair Fun

Last week was the county fair in our area. I always look forward to it! We always have a good time, and this year was no exception! We go in at least 3 of the 4 nights just to have supper. On Friday we took Levi for a few rides for the first time. He loved it! He went on the carousel with Paul, the cars, the motorcycles, and Paul took him down the big slide. Then on Saturday night we met up with Mark and Jess and the kids went on some rides together. Levi wasn't quite as into the rides on Sat. night as he was on Friday, but it was still fun!

Picture overload!

 There has been a petting zoo the last couple years, and Levi LOVED that, too! He would touch the animals and then squeal and giggle. He even fed the goats! He got a big kick out of that, I think he would have stood there all night and fed those silly things! It was cute! There were a few different breeds of goats, and all of them had babies. The baby goats could crawl in and out of the pens since they were so little, and they were always trying to hitch a ride in the strollers that people were bringing in. Pretty funny.

 Proud daddy! :)

And, this has nothing to do with the fair, but Levi got his first big owie at daycare the other day. His shoes were a little big for him and he likes to walk on his tippy toes, so he tripped outside and scuffed his nose on the cement. Poor thing! Michele said he didn't really cry much, just got back up and kept playing. It was lucky he missed his teeth and didn't get hurt worse!

Hoping to have a high five for Friday post up tonight since I missed last week, but we'll see what happens!! :)

High Five for Friday

Getting this up kind of late, but here it is!

1. Levi and I went to the lake for a couple days while my family was there. He loved it! He loves the water and isn't afraid of it at all. Good, but also a little scary at times. Like when he wanted to just jump right off the boat....seriously, he would have just walked right off the back. My sister ended up taking him in so he was happy with that.

2. We went to the park twice this week. Well, 2 different parks. First was the UMM Children's Garden. We went with Jess and Aaron. Then we stopped at the park on the other side of town while we went on a walk today.

3. Garden veggies! Refrigerator dill pickles and freezing sweet corn. Yum!

4. I joined Weight Watchers. I am excited about it and hope that it works for me. I needed a little extra push and someone other than myself to be accountable to. Just knowing that I am not the only one who will see my weight every week will hopefully be a motivator to keep it up.

5. Levi took his first ride in the semi with daddy! We finally got a second convertible car seat, so Paul hooked that up in there and took him when he took a load of wheat to town. It was pretty cute how excited Paul was to take him! He ended up sleeping most of the way though, which doesn't surprise me! :)

See him in there? :) He looks so tiny.